These plain-looking brass-rimmed monacles are standard issue for Red Plume patrols in Hillsfar, courtesy of the “Magic and Curios Shop of Hillsfar” (Laris, proprietor). They are used for determining whether a person has, or may, violate one of Hillsfar’s many byzantine laws against the use of magic or the public practice of religion.

Anyone gazing through the monacle is able to see whether someone is a spellcaster and whether that person is a priest or a wizard (and what type of specialist, if any). Although a spellcaster’s level cannot be discerned, the viewer can see the intensity of a spellcaster’s aura and guess at the individual’s magical power (dim, faint, moderate, strong, overwhelming). This can be extremely ambiguous even when a wizard has some method of comparison; the DM might announce that a subject’s intensity is roughly equivalent to that of a companion, or he might announce that a subject’s aura is the strongest the viewer has ever encountered.

The monacle does not reveal magical auras around items, or ongoing spell effects, or the auras of creatures that possess inherent magical abilities. Only those characters able to use wizardly or priestly magic by virtue of their class are revealed through use of the monacle.