Observer Spells

The Observer is a custom class available to certain player characters. These spells are specific to the Observer class. Some are allowed to other classes as well.

You reach into the minimal awareness of a man-made object, and can attempt to learn one thing about it per round. An object has a very limited sense of its surroundings, but it can tell you something of its creation, its history, its use and its interactions with living things. This spell cannot be used on undead, constructs, or other objects with a measure of self-control. Since the object can describe ways in which it has been used, this spell can be used as a less reliable form of Identify.

In order to cast this spell, the caster must be in contact with the object for a full round. If the object is being controlled by another creature, the caster either must be grappling or grappled by the controller, or must make four consecutive successful touch attacks, each of which provokes an attack of opportunity. Once the casting time is complete, the caster must be within ten feet of the object at at least one point during each round, or the spell ends.

You reach into the minimal awareness of a man-made structure, and can attempt to learn one thing about it per round. A structure has a very limited sense of its surroundings, but it can tell you something of its creation, its history or important events that have happened inside it or very close to it.

You become one with a city, town, or any concentration of people with complex enough social and economic relations that not all the people in the city personally know each other. Smaller, and you would be communing with individuals, which would provide too much information in too jumbled a state to make any sense of it. You can try to learn one thing per round, on any level greater than that of the individual, about the city's politics, history, economy, layout, etc.

A city does not know everything about all its inhabitants, as it is comprised of the interactions between people, not of the people themselves. The larger and more complex the city, the greater and more predictable the interactions within it. In a sense, a larger city is more “aware.” Cities where large numbers of people are of like mind or behavior, such as what happens when a powerful and influential religious leadership appears, tend to give clearer but less detailed information. Where the transfer of information, both through time and space, is repressed, the city may know very little and appear very unintelligent. A city which is both very large and strongly repressed may seem insane to the caster, having a complex and powerful “mind” distorted by the controls on it.

You become one with a political or geographic region, such as a barony or a mountain range, and can learn one thing about it per minute. A region knows nothing about individuals, and even villages and towns are below the level of its awareness unless it is very small. A region knows about major historical events, political and economic changes through its history, trade routes, interactions with oter regions, troop movements during a war, river systems and other modes of travel, locations good for various crops, etc.

You become one with an entire world, and can learn one piece of information from it every ten minutes. A world knows nothing of cities, and political movements are usually too insignificant for it to notice them. Religions that increase exponentially in power and sweep across the land, influencing tens of millions of people, are noticed in passing. Worlds know the major trends of history, and can use these, to some extent, to predict the future. Worlds can see patterns that play out over thousands or millions of years. They know about their composition, geography on the level of major kingdoms and land masses, and geological history. They know about their nearest astronomical neighbors, the sun, moons, planets and comets.

During the first hour of casting, the caster slowly sinks into the ground. After that, he is part of the earth, as per Meld into Stone. He remains melded throughout the casting time and duration, but can leave at any point with a full-round action, ending the spell.

Casting this spell takes a long time and is quite draining. After the spell is cast, the caster becomes exhausted until he gets a full night's rest.

The caster describes an event, and learns the time and place when and where the event most recently occurred within the spell's range. If the event has never occurred, the caster is made aware of the fact. If the event is specific to a particular creature, that creature is entitled to a will save. Magic that blocks scrying blocks this spell.

This spell can work on a general type of event (an earthquake) or an important named event (The Battle of Araner). A less well-known event may be named, for example something only known in a small region, if the range is reduced to one mile.

For 24 hours, the target's past is hidden from view from anyone who can magically see into the past.

This spell is identical to Obscure the Past, except the target's future is hidden from magical view. This can block certain divinations, or reduce their effect.

This spell allows the Observer to observe a hypothetical version of the next 24 hours, guaranteed to be true so long as the Observer makes the same choices. Every person involved in the vision is entitled to a will save. Success means the Observer cannot see the actions of that person. This can make the vision confusing.

In game terms, the Observer is allowed to play out the next 24 hours. If he is not happy with the way things turned out, he may 'back up' to any point and act differently, thus to diverge his future from the vision and avoid his mistakes of the vision. This requires the other party members to be good about keeping OOC and IC information seperate, at least until the Observer has a chance to explain what he learned in his vision to them.

This spell consumes 5,000 XP and a tiny monocular cut from a single diamond, worth 10,000 GP, which has been enchanted by the caster. Enchanting the monocular requires one hour a day for ten days, and the caster cannot posess more than one monocular at a time.