Discern the Marked Allegiance

Rules

Performing the ritual

Performing this ritual takes at least 2 minutes of roleplaying. This ritual targets a character, who must be present throughout.

Effects

This divination reveals how many magical marks the target possesses. This includes those created by the rituals Arcane Mark, Mark of Fellowship, Mark of Agramant, or any similar effect. It does not provide any information about the nature or type of those marks, only the number.

It specifically detects the kind of mark created by ritual magic that indicates someone is part of a Conclave order, an Imperial sodality, or a secret society. It doesn't detect the more ephemeral marks sometimes left by eternal boons, or that sometimes adhere to ritual enchantments created with such boons, nor does it detect the marks left by testimony.

Magical shrouds that conceal information can cause difficulties with this ritual. If the target is protected by a shroud of higher magnitude than that of the divination, the ritual only reveals that their marks are shrouded, even if the target actually has no magical marks. Likewise, if the target has any magical marks that are individually obfuscated, the ritual again reveals only that the marks on this person are shrouded. In either case the casters learn the realm and magnitude of the most powerful shroud they need to overcome to discern how many marks the person has. Only if the divination is cast at a sufficient magnitude to pierce all relevant shrouds is the number of arcane marks uncovered.

The target is aware that they have been the subject of a divination, although they need not be willing participants.

Additional Magnitude

You may increase the magnitude of the ritual in order to pierce more powerful rituals of concealment.

Description

This ritual was codified at the Loom of Spells, while it was still under the care of the church of the Little Mother in Tassato. The original arcane projection that this ritual was codified from was the work of Tiberius Stormspire Cascade of Urizen. Tiberius was also responsible for securing use of the Loom to fomulate the ritual. Work took place between the Autumn Equinox 387YE and the Winter Solstice of that year. It became part of Imperial lore in Summer 388YE, following a declaration raised by Dean of the Lyceum Syl, and supported by the Conclave.

The ritual text itself, codified as it was by young folk from across the League and beyond, has a certain tone to it. In summary, though, the ritual is able to identify the number of magical marks a target bears provided neither they nor any of their marks are concealed by magical shrouds. It does not seem to be possible to use ritual magic to identify the nature of a magical mark - only the traditional method of someone with the same mark deploying detect magic seems to work. As such the information revealed by this ritual may be of limited use - except that it would be very uncommon for any Imperial citizen to have more than two such marks. Beyond membership of a Conclave order (represented by Arcane Mark), or of an Imperial Sodlity (with a Mark of Fellowship), further marks may be signs of associated with a secret society of some kind.

Mind you, this alone is hardly sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, and too much reliance on the ritual risks malefactors being exonerated if they have less than three marks. After all, as some diviners point out, not everyone is a member of a conclave order or a sodality! Having only a single mark, or two marks, is not an indicator of innocence.

Performing the Ritual

This ritual is about finding out information, so practices familiar with divinations such as studying the target with a lens or glass, reflecting their image in a mirror (items notoriously effective at reavealing truth), are all resonant. This is especially true when the perfomance takes place in an area of bright light, such as outside during a sunny day.

The ritual works well with the runes of Revelation or Discovery, although both Conspiracy and Secrets also resonate with the magic employed. Likewise symbols of Vigilance and Loyalty might be employed, especially by practitioners of Theurgy.

With astronomancy, the Phoenix is strongly associated with this ritual, as is the Web. A dramaturgist meanwhile is likely to see good results employing the Doctor, with the Lantern, in the Library.

Original Text

The original text is duplicated here, primarily for completeness sake. Obviously, as a work of young folk, the language is a little at odds with the more academic tone magicians are more familiar with.

Where it came from
The original arcane projection that this ritual is made out of was written by Tiberius Stormspire Cascade who is from Urizen. They are also the person who paid us to turn the magic into a ritual text.

The work was finished just in time for the Winter Solstice in the three-hundredth and eighty-seventh year since the First Empress made our Prosperous Empire with her Ambition and virtue but it was not actually sent on until the Spring Equinox of the next year.

What it does
This ritual is a bit like the Ties that Bind, or maybe like the Bright Lantern of Ophis, but really, really specific. It looks at the magic that marks someone as being part of a group. This kind of mark is usually invisible but people who have the same mark can use a cantrip to tell if someone is part of the same group as them. This ritual doesn't tell you which marks someone has, but does tell you how many they have got.

I guess someone would want to know this because there are only two proper magical marks you can get in the Empire. The first one tells people what Conclave order you belong to. It is called Arcane Mark. It uses Autumn magic to put an invisible stamp on someone to show they are part of your order. You can only have one of them at a tie and you have to be a magician to get it.

The other proper mark is made by the Mark of Fellowship which is also a ritual of Autumn magic. That one marks you as a member of an Imperial Sodality, like the Imperial Apothecaries Guild or the Sun Chamber. You can only have one of these as well, because you can't be a proper member of more than one Imperial Sodality.

So maybe anyone who has three marks definitely belongs to a secret society or cult? Although that doesn't mean that someone with only two magical marks doesn't belong to a secret society or a cult. But if you know they are in a Conclave order and belong to an Imperial sodality that probably means they are part of a secret society or cult if they have three. Or even one or two if you know they aren't. Mother Katerin says it isn't worth worrying about what the Urizen wants to use this ritual for. We should assume they know what they are doing and that they are going to use it in a Vigilant way to track down bad people. I don't know why someone who knows they are a bad person because they are in a secret society or cult would let you cast this kind of spell on them. But maybe that would just show up that they are hiding something without anyone having to actually spend any crystal mana?

Hiding Things Away
Day magic always has problems when Night magic is involved. Night magic can make it hard to divine information by shrouding people, places, and things. Normally if there is a shroud on something it tells you how many shrouds and how powerful they are. Here though the ritual is about counting things, and so shrouds interfere with it in a different way.

If a person has a shroud that is straightforward – you just have to pierce it to find out how many magical marks someone has. But if some of those marks are hidden, you have to overcome those shrouds as well to learn how many magical marks the person has. But at least if you overcome the strongest you also overcome all the weaker ones. Ilina says she thinks this is because Night magic doesn't hide itself, but this is a ritual about counting things, so the Night magic would be revealing the thing the Day magic is looking for if it was obvious enough to count. I don't understand this, but I guess it is some mystical thing that people from Wintermark understand.

Making the ritual work
This ritual is about finding out information using Day magic. Day magic is good at finding out information that is made of facts, rather than feelings. You could cast it by marking runes on the people casting it or on the target. Some people might say the obvious rune to use is Ophis or Sular, but actually the best rune is Queros which is about conspiracies. Because its Day magic, its also good to use plenty of light, and maybe examine the subject with lenses and other tools to discover the magic that surrounds them.

Symbols of Vigilance and maybe Loyablty might also be used, but you have to be careful. Its important to only use virtuous symbols to draw out the Vigilance, or encourage the Loyalty, already inside the people casting the ritual or their target. Cesaré said that it could be very helpful to do an anointing as part of the ritual, but he always says that. Maybe one day when he is Archbishop of Capodomus, and not a powerful magician, he'll be able to pay people to do all these anointings he wants to do in rituals.

The Phoenix is probably the best star to call on with this ritual, but you need to be careful not to distract folk too much into thinking about why and how they are learning rather than what they are learning. You could also use the Web, because it is all about connections, and a magical mark is about connecting people.

You could also ask the paragons and exemplars who are Wise and Vigilant to help you but Sister Julia says thats just as bad as idolatry.