Dweomer Divination

This divination reveals things about a touched item in an unfolding process that continues until all information about the item has been gained or the spell duration expires. If the same caster employs another dweomer divination on an item already examined by use of this spell, the magic reveals new information. A dweomer divination ends immediately if the caster neglects to touch or handle the item for an entire round or if the item is found to bear no dweomer.

In the first round of a dweomer divination, all dweomers present on the item or linked to it are revealed; on the second round, any alignment or class restrictions or special benefits associated with the item are identified; in the third round, the primary function or most powerful dweomer on the item is fully revealed – in other words, how it works – to the dweomer divination caster; during the fourth round any word of activation or command process associated with that primary power is revealed; and on the fifth round, anything wrong with, or missing from, the functioning of that power is clearly and fully identified. These successive rounds of inquiry occur even if there are no words or magical problems associated with the power, and at the end of each round, the caster is made positively aware of such absences.

On subsequent rounds, this process is repeated for any additional item powers or properties after the primary or most powerful one in descending order of intensity of their dweomer or importance of their effect until all item powers have been explored. (In other words, the cycle of rounds three through five repeats as necessary.) The spell then turns to revealing any additional control words or operating restrictions on the item for a round (such as special purposes or personal linkages), recharging methods or the confirmed absence of same on the next round, and some images of how the item was made on subsequent rounds.

Information gained after the first round occurs only for items that have been enchanted, not normal tools, furniture, or garments. Upon normal items, dweomer divination essentially performs as a very sophisticated, but ultimately little more informative, detect magic.

Note that a powerful spell that touches an item – a fireball blast that flings a weapon down a hall, for example – leaves a trace dweomer on the item for 1 day per level of the spell, so that non-enchanted items can still bear trace dweomers. Magics meant to be permanent or long-lasting and spells that wait quiescent indefinitely for specific trigger conditions to occur leave dweomers of much longer duration – months or years per spell level – on items in contact with them. The spell reveals the approximate nature of such associate dweomers, but not what their precise damage, extent, or trigger conditions were or are.

A dweomer divination provides no protection against curses or magical traps placed on items other than to identify them in its unfolding process. It does not delay or prevent such traps' or curses' normal functioning in anyway. Dweomer divination might not reveal side effects that the item's enchanter did not intend or foresee.