Spell: Echo of the Fallen

Echo of the Fallen

Divination

Level: Bard 2, Cleric 2
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: One object once personally owned by a deceased creature
Duration: 1 minute/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

The caster gently touches an object that once belonged to a deceased creature and speaks a few quiet words of remembrance. The spell does not contact the spirit of the deceased, nor does it communicate with the afterlife. Instead, it awakens the emotional impressions left upon the object by years of companionship and use.

For the duration of the spell, the caster experiences fleeting impressions of the object's former owner. These impressions consist of emotions, habits and defining memories rather than precise historical events. The caster may learn details such as the individual's personality, greatest joy, deepest regret, strongest conviction or the ideals by which they lived.

As these memories unfold, the caster draws strength from the individual's example. At the beginning of the spell, the DM selects one quality that best reflects the remembered individual. For the spell's duration, the caster gains one of the following benefits.

• Courage: +2 morale bonus on attack rolls.

• Resolve: +2 morale bonus on Will saving throws.

• Skill: +2 competence bonus on one skill appropriate to the remembered individual's life or calling.

• Endurance: Damage Reduction 2/-.

• Fortitude: 5 temporary hit points.

The spell never reveals passwords, secret locations, hidden treasures, spell formulas or other information intended to bypass adventures or mysteries. Likewise, it cannot expose crimes committed by or against the deceased unless those events fundamentally shaped who they became.

The impressions are always truthful but incomplete, resembling memories shared by a close friend rather than a complete account of a life.

The spell automatically fails if cast upon an object whose owner still lives or upon an object that held no meaningful significance to its former owner.

Material Component: A single white flower petal, which crumbles into dust as the spell is completed.