Source: Sorcerer's Companion, modified

With this Path, a magician uses ritually prepared but ultimately mundane items to answer simple questions, locate elemental sources, and find specific items. This Path is related to Divination in that both allow the magician to use external foci and interpretation to read facts from the world around them. Dowsing is much more results-oriented than Divination, as it is dedicated to specific, limited, practical matters rather than overarching possibilities and circumstances. It might be said that while Divination focuses on the universal, Dowsing attends to the specific.

When dowsing, the magician uses a specific item, or items, to find some sort of object, person, substance, or location, or to determine an immediate fact. The stereotype of the dowser is that of the peasant yokel with a forked stick looking for water, and indeed, that is a common use of the ability. True dowsers know there is much more to this magic, however. Facts may be learned through the judicious asking of questions. Specific items can be found, and at higher levels even hidden emotions (like malice, hatred, or even love) can be detected in those around you.

Any questions asked with Dowsing should be related to the present or immediate past, and only relating the immediate area/situation; predicting the future or finding information relating to far-reaching circumstances is the purview of Divination. The distance Aspect must cover anything being questioned, as well as the distance to anything being sought out more directly.

Attribute: Perception
Modifiers: -1 for well known object/location/etc. +1 to +3 for vaguely defined targets.
Cost: None with a ritually prepared tool, one Willpower without such an instrument.
Duration: Approximately an hour of searching

Usually the first ritual learned by any prospective Dowser, this allows the magical preparation of an ob- ject to allow it to be used for this Path. Different object types are often better for different types of Dowsing; a coin on a string might work well for yes/no questions, and a rod likely works best for seeking out specific objects. A point of Willpower must be spent to enact the ritual, with the exact preparations depending on the Sorcerer in question.

This ritual allows the Sorcerer to mark a possession of theirs, to make it easier to find in the future using this Path. This costs a point of Willpower, but there’s otherwise no limit on the number of objects that can be marked this way. Once an object has been marked, the Sorcerer may detect it anywhere without applying any successes to the Distance aspect, even if her rating in the Path would normally be too low to seek it out where it is.

This ritual allows the Dowser to seek out information about themselves or another that’s not defined in terms of yes/no answers, although this must still always relate to immediate circumstances and the present time, and should be limited to about a word or two in response. This costs a point of Willpower, and successes must be spent on Potency to cover the potential “target” of the information, and on the Distance aspect as normal, if needed.

This works as the lesser version, but the question asked can require up to a short sentence in response.

After performing this ritual, either on themselves or on another they wish to grant the insight to, the target becomes able to sense a given phenomena that Dowsing could seek out at the level of Potency applied to the ritual, although it’s always limited to just the “immediate vicinity”. This does not allow them to sense the phenomena behind veiling magics or other powers that would hide it, but anything that’s not supernaturally hidden, even if not immediately visible, can be detected with a reflexive Perception + Awareness roll (difficulty 7). This costs a point of Willpower to enact, and using it a second time on a target dispels the first instance of it; it otherwise lasts for about a week at a time.

A six dot version of this ritual exists that costs a permanent dot of Willpower but lasts indefinitely (or until actively dismissed by the Sorcerer).

The most obvious failure is simply an inability to discern what the Sorcerer desires, but botches can cause them deeper troubles. It might lead them into a dangerous situation, provide deliberately misleading and dangerous answers, or fool them into thinking what they’re seeking out doesn’t exist to begin with.