According to Prophesy

[Cybermancer]

I'm running a D&D 3.5 game that started out with two players and has since expanded.

While it was still the original two, I had an encounter where they noticed a Raven watching and following them. They confronted it and to their suprise, it spoke.

"Two of you are there now but eventually only one."
"One to betray and one to rule a kingdom."

Then it flew away.

They've assumed it's a prophesy of some sort.

What they don't know is that the Raven was a wizards familar that was just messing with them.

It has created an interesting dynamic within the party and it has been pointed out that the "Betrayer" might also be the "King". I just sit back and smile.

In any case, I was wondering how others dealt with prophesy in their games?

[Neorealist]

That is a very clever idea!
Unfortunately the majority of my players would have taken pot-shots at the raven 'and' flew after it just to 'make sure'

As for prophesy in general? i quite often just make up random bits of lore if the characters roll particularly well on a lore check or for flavour purposes; but for stuff that is important to my campaign direction and progress? I have it mostly all written down beforehand.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm running a D&D 3.5 game that started out with two players and has since expanded.

While it was still the original two, I had an encounter where they noticed a Raven watching and following them. They confronted it and to their suprise, it spoke.

"Two of you are there now but eventually only one."
"One to betray and one to rule a kingdom."

Then it flew away.

They've assumed it's a prophesy of some sort.

What they don't know is that the Raven was a wizards familar that was just messing with them.

It has created an interesting dynamic within the party and it has been pointed out that the "Betrayer" might also be the "King". I just sit back and smile.

Nice one!

In any case, I was wondering how others dealt with prophesy in their games?

I never really have.