Coyns
Coyns are used in the Droyne casting ceremony, which is among the best known
and most important of all Droyne rituals. Researchers were long baffled
by the apparently random draw of coyns, under the direction of a leader and
several drones, which ended in the choice of a caste for an immature individual.
Recent research, though, has proven that the coyns that are drawn are
used as focusses for concentration. The leader and the drones use psionics
to open the young Droyne's mind and awaken the appropriate genetic programming
latent within its makeup. It has even been suggested that the draw is
not so random as it may appear to outsiders and that it may be selected by
clairvoyance or telekinesis to match the potential discovered while probing
the young candidate's mind.
Periodically, the coyns are also consulted in a ceremony which determines
whether an individual can continue to serve his commune. The coyns are
believed to reveal the future of an individual -- a task or voyage, a battle,
and so forth -- and they are hence ritually consulted on a variety of matters.
What has been frequently dismissed as "random fortune telling" has
proven to be surprisingly accurate in many instances. This has been
explained as everything from coincidence to luck to some form of precognitive
ability, but the truth remains unknown even to the Droyne. Certainly
they believe strongly in the validity of their rituals; the coyns dictate
not only like, but death as well, for in most circumstances the failure of
an individual to pass the favorable scrutiny of the coyns in a Ceremony of
Continuation leads to a self-willed voluntary death, using psionic self-awareness
to painlessly turn off both the body and the mind.
See also Ancients, Chirper, Droyne.
-IE ldr