Revised: Magic Mark

Spell Name: Magic Mark

School: Enchantment

 

Casting Time: 1 Minute (Ritual)

 

Range: 60 feet

 

Duration: Until dispelled

 

Component: V, S

 

You gesture at a number of objects you can see within range that fit within a 15-foot radius sphere. This spell puts an invisible mark upon the objects that reveals itself when in the area of a detect magic spell.  You choose the design of the mark, and can mark up to 30 Tiny objects, 20 Small objects, 10 Medium objects, or 2 Large objects.

 

At Higher Levels: Whenever you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd-level or higher you can mark up to 15 additional Tiny objects, 10 additional Small objects, 5 additional Medium objects, or 1 additional Large object for every slot level above 1st.

An example of this spell happened in my D&D campaign.  The Mayor of a large seaport city was suspected of treasonous collaboration with a Lawful Evil Queen Goldstein Maul that ruled an oppressed land named “Iron Isle”, so named for the profitable iron mines on the island.  By deceit and treachery, she gained ownership of these iron mines; selling refined iron to evil aligned nations to create useful tools, armor, and weapons.  Queen Goldstein Maul would not sell iron to any good aligned nations.

Harper agents found out that the Lord Mayor was getting richer far faster than his income would normally allow him to be.  Harper agents already knew from the evidence they collected that the Mayor is a smooth-talking liar whose name is “Goodheart Truesdale”.

Thus, the Harpers sent my PCs disguised as tax collectors who sneaked into the Iron Isle.  With tax collector uniforms and believable appearing, yet faked documents; they found a caravan of wagons used by national Queen Maul’s tax collectors.  They were given permission by the caravan guards and low ranking tax collectors to inspect the tax money that they had collected.  In the wagons, my PCs marked many of the gold coins collected with the coin marking spell.

After a few months, in the PCs home nation, they asked to see the Mayor’s private home vault; with an excuse to find counterfeit coins.  When they cast detect magic on the coins, a few lit up with the now visible symbol.

The Mayor, without a logical excuse as to why he had the marked coins from the Iron Isle, confessed that he was working with thieves, along with the evil queen, to sell his city’s citizens into slavery to work the mines of the Iron Isle.  After the Mayor was sent to prison, the nearby good aligned nations invaded the Iron Isle.  The night before the invasion, my PCs burned six large catapults that guarded the island’s only harbor, Maritime City.  The invasion successfully liberated the island from Queen Goldstein Maul.

These successful adventures gave my player characters a great deal of fun, experience points and money, while gaining much positive fame (useful for charisma [persuasion] checks) from good people and their leaders; while gaining infamy with evil people and their rulers.