An Example of True Dweomer Creation Pharjis, the 25th-level diviner from the previous examples in this section, is concerned about a horde of marauding orcs that has been ravaging the countryside. He decides to take a look at the orcs from the safety of his tower.

The type of magic is reveal (base difficulty 20). Pharjis only wants to look, so there is no modifier to the base difficulty. Pharjis is extending his sight so he can see the horde as though he were standing in a five-foot square area somewhere within it. This doesn’t suit Pharjis particularly well, so he decides to expand the default area of effect to a 100-mile square area immediately to the west of his tower—if the orcs are farther away than that, he isn’t worried about them. The range is effectively zero, so there is no difficulty modifier. The modifier for a region-sized area (100 miles square) is 80. Pharjis wants to keep watch for half a day, adding 10 to the difficulty. The spell’s difficulty from its combined elements is 110 (20+80+10). Pharjis subtracts 25 for his level, 5 because he is a diviner, and 10 because he has done this before for an adjusted difficulty of 70.

The basic preparation time is two months—the orcs would be gone by then, so Pharjis must do something to decrease the preparation time. He throws in a golden spyglass, a pair of spectacles, a detailed map of the area to be observed, and a feather given freely by a giant eagle. The spyglass, spectacles, and map are rare material components, and the eagle feather is an exotic—giant eagles don’t usually go around giving feathers away. The exotic component reduces the difficulty by half to 35. The three rare components reduce the difficulty to 5, which requires a turn’s preparation.

At this point, Pharjis doubles the final difficulty to 10, which reduces the preparation time to a round (the spell still requires a turn to cast). After one round of preparation, Pharjis rolls the dice and gets 02%, a failure. He must spend another round in preparation. At the end of the second round, Pharjis rolls 81%, a success. The next round, Pharjis casts the spell—no further die rolls are required.

Pharjis searches the entire area of effect for 12 hours, moving his point of view around at will. The orcs are in the area, and Pharjis quickly locates them. He carefully notes their numbers and equipment and then sends a message to an old adventuring buddy of his—a high-level ranger with a special interest in orcs.

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