Scan Environment is the spell every Navigator, scout, and survival specialist carries in their back pocket. It's the magical equivalent of running a full planetary survey from orbit—except you're standing on the ground with your eyes closed, feeling the atmosphere, gravity, biomes, and hazards ripple through your consciousness in ten minutes flat.
Chronologist field teams cast it before deploying to unstable Metronome sites, checking for temporal distortions, radiation zones, or Rift-bleed that might compromise their equipment. Azure Archivists use it to catalog newly discovered worlds, while Viridian Ascent terraformers rely on it to assess ecosystems before introducing bioengineered flora.
The spell manifests as a brief, trance-like connection to the natural world: the caster's senses expand outward in a 1-mile radius, sampling air pressure, temperature gradients, gravity fluctuations, and the underlying "texture" of the terrain.
Divine casters experience it as communion with planetary spirits, while Primal casters describe it as "listening" to the land's heartbeat.
Scan Environment is standard-issue for exploration crews operating in unmapped systems or zones where sensor equipment fails due to Rift interference.
Guild protocol mandates casting it before establishing a forward operating base, and many captains won't authorize planetfall until a mystic has cleared the landing zone.
The spell can detect:
Atmospheric composition and pressure (breathable, toxic, vacuum, etc.)
Gravity (standard, low, high, zero, weird temporal variations)
Biome type (desert, jungle, tundra, urban ruin, Rift-tainted wasteland)
Major environmental hazards within range (radiation, unstable ground, extreme temperatures)
Devotion and themes
Blue Devotion: treats Scan Environment as data acquisition, cataloging environmental variables for tactical advantage.
Green Devotion (primary): frames it as attunement to nature, understanding the land as a living system.
White Devotion: uses it to ensure the safety of communities, identifying hazards before settlers arrive.
Scan Environment Cantrip
Source Player Core pg. 356
Traditions Divine, Primal
Mystic Connection Akashic
You analyze the natural environment in the area within 1 mile, learning general information about the atmosphere, biomes, and gravity. You forecast the weather for the next hour, including the direction it will come from; learn which atmospheres, biomes, and gravity are in the area, as well as the direction and distance to those elements; and learn if anything in the area presents an environmental hazard, including cold or heat dangers (at what temperature range), radiation (at what severity), smoke effects, and underwater conditions. This is enough to detect large effects that span spaces over 30 feet in diameter only. You gain a general sense of where and how far away these dangers are.
Heightened (+1) The scanned area increases in radius by 1 mile.
Scan Environment is the difference between "we're landing in a safe zone" and "we're landing in a radiation crater filled with methane geysers." Cast it early, cast it often, and remember: just because a planet looks habitable from orbit doesn't mean it won't kill you the moment you step outside.
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