Sift Memory
7th-level enchantment (Bard,Wizard)
- Casting Time: 1 minute
- Range: Touch
- Components: V, S, M (a blank journal or long scroll)
- Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
You touch one incapacitated creature and attempt to enter its mind to view its memories. The target must make a Charisma saving throw, with advantage if it is conscious. On a failed saving throw, the target becomes unconscious until the spell ends. On a successful saving throw, the spell ends immediately and the target wakes if already unconscious.
Until the spell ends, entries and images fill the journal or scroll you used as a material component, allowing you to peruse the target's mind like a library. So long as you are within 5 feet of the target and the target is still unconscious, you can touch an image or entry on the material component to experience the memory it represents.
Choose two of the following three options to determine what memories appear in the pages or parchment: * Life Story. You perceive the most important, pivotal and personal memories of the target's entire life, ordered chronologically. Long periods of time are seen as blurred stretches of similar memories stitched together like a montage, but singular events are experienced with all the detail and vividness that the target can recall. * The Past Day. You perceive all the target's memories from the past 24 hours, even to the most minute details, ordered chronologically. This includes any dreams or hallucinations the target experienced during that time. * Worldly Knowledge. You perceive all of the worldly information that the target remembers strongly. This typically includes things such as the capital name, and history of its homeland, the routes and landmarks it has often recalled and remembers welL and the general information about people it knows and remembers from the world, like its family and friends or a favorite celebrity. However, this may also reveal more specific knowledge. For example, if the target is a well-studied wizard, this might reveal details of the books they often reference for their magical studies.
In addition, you can search for the answers to up to three simple questions of your choice. Each question should be in the form of either a "yes/no" question or a simple question asking one of "who/what/when/where/how," such as "Who does the target view as the worst enemy she's ever faced," or "How did the target break into the duke's enchanted bedroom?" For each question, if the answer exists in the target's memory, you find a memory within the results that shows you the answer. For example if you asked "Did the target really intend to betray his allies?", you might find among the memories the target's strong recollection of watching his allies turn their back on him, and how he made the bitter decision to betray them in that moment.
This spell may reveal memories to you that the target has repressed. Repressed memories are not obscured in any way, so long as the target truly remembers them on some mental level. Knowledge of things (including time) that you gain from this spell is subjective. For example, if the target thought it fought until midnight but actually stopped fighting one hour earlier, you would perceive the memory the way the target does: with the fighting lasting until midnight. You can also choose to ignore any memories you find unimportant without wasting time on them.
The process of sifting through the target's memory leaves the target drained and addled. The target gains one level of exhaustion, and it will take at least 1 hour after casting to regain consciousness, regardless of its hit points or other conditions. In addition, the target's head carries a faint magical aura for the next 24 hours which can be perceived with detect magic or other similar effects, and whenever the target fails a saving throw against detect thoughts or a similar effect before the aura vanishes, the mind-reader becomes aware that someone else has sifted through the target's memory in the past 24 hours.
Finally, if the spell ends and the target is still unconscious, you may choose to have the target forget the last 1 minute of time before it became unconscious.