Buy me a coffeeRite of Remote Seeing Spell — Familiar Sight Ritual for Witches
You and your familiar sit within the circle together, and for a short while your sight leaves your own eyes and enters another creature’s world.
Rite of Remote Seeing is a familiar-bond spell of borrowed sight, not a perfect spying spell. It allows the caster to see through her own familiar’s eyes, but only as the familiar sees: from its height, through its instincts, with its fears, habits of attention, and limited understanding.
That limitation is the spell’s identity. A raven can perch above a courtyard. A cat can slip beneath a bench. A rat can pass through a kitchen wall. A toad can sit unnoticed beside a pool, shrine, or garden path. The caster gains access to places she could not safely enter, but she does not gain control, hearing, speech, or perfect interpretation.
Used well, the spell creates tense magical scouting rather than effortless surveillance. The familiar can show the caster what is happening, but not always what it means. The spell’s power lies in trust, animal viewpoint, and the risk of sending something beloved into danger.
Edition Tabs
Rite of Remote Seeing, 5.5e / 2024
Rite of Remote Seeing, Pathfinder 1e / 3.5e
Rite of Remote Seeing 3.0e
Rite of Remote Seeing, 5.5e / 2024
3rd-level Divination Ritual
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M; a piece of rose-coloured glass worth at least 25 gp, which is not consumed
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Available To: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Optional Class: Witch, if that class exists in your game
Alternative Spell Name: Familiar’s Far Eye
Effect
You and your familiar must remain together inside a magic circle, chalked ring, ritual boundary, or similar marked enclosure for the full casting. This spell can target only your own familiar.
Once the spell is cast, the familiar may leave the circle while you remain within it.
For the duration, you may see through your familiar’s eyes as if using your own sight. While seeing through the familiar, you are Blinded with regard to your own surroundings. You can end or resume this shared sight as a Bonus Action.
You do not hear through the familiar, speak through it, smell through it, read its thoughts, or directly control its body. You may mentally suggest where it should go, but it acts according to its own nature, intelligence, loyalty, and fear.
The spell cannot make the familiar read, reason, remember, or investigate beyond its own nature. It only lets you witness what the familiar sees.
The familiar will not willingly enter an area it recognises as immediately deadly or overwhelmingly dangerous. It may refuse fire, deep water, hounds, trained cats, hawks, hostile animals, battle, sacred wards, unnatural darkness, or places strongly associated with death.
When the familiar sees something complex, symbolic, fast-moving, disguised, or outside its ordinary understanding, the DM may call for a DC 15 Wisdom (Insight) check. On a success, you interpret the scene accurately. On a failure, you understand only the rough impression. On a failure by 5 or more, the DM may give you a mistaken but plausible interpretation.
The spell ends early if you dismiss it, if the familiar moves more than 1 mile from you, if you and the familiar are on different planes of existence, or if the familiar drops to 0 Hit Points.
If the familiar dies while this spell is active, the magical bond recoils. You cannot cast find familiar or gain a replacement familiar for 7 days. During that time, your own sight feels unreliable; you have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight and Intelligence (Arcana) checks involving familiars, scrying, or sympathetic magic. A greater restoration, remove curse, or comparable magic may end this restriction early at the DM’s discretion.
Rite of Remote Seeing, Pathfinder 1e / 3.5e
Divination
Level: Witch 3, Sorcerer/Wizard 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 full-round action
Range: Touch
Target: Your familiar
Duration: 1 minute/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes, harmless
Effect
This spell may be cast only on your own familiar. You and the familiar must both remain within a magic circle, ritual boundary, or similar marked enclosure while the spell is cast.
Once the spell is cast, the familiar may leave the circle. The caster does not need to leave the circle to maintain the connection.
For the duration, you can see through your familiar’s eyes. You see from the familiar’s position and perspective, using its ordinary visual capabilities and limitations. While seeing through the familiar, the caster is effectively blind to her own surroundings.
You do not hear through the familiar, speak through it, smell through it, or control its body.
You may suggest where the familiar should go, but it acts according to its nature, intelligence, training, loyalty, and fear. It will not willingly enter a place it considers too dangerous.
The spell cannot make the familiar read, reason, remember, or investigate beyond its own nature. It only lets the caster witness what the familiar sees.
Whenever the familiar sees something complex, unfamiliar, symbolic, disguised, fast-moving, or outside its ordinary understanding, you must succeed on a Sense Motive check with a DC equal to 20 minus your caster level to interpret the scene correctly. This DC cannot be reduced below 5.
On a failed check, you gain only a vague or incomplete impression. If you fail by 10 or more, the GM may provide misinformation based on the familiar’s viewpoint.
The spell ends if the familiar dies, if it moves to another plane, or if the duration expires. The connection is otherwise limited by the distance the familiar can physically travel during the spell.
If the familiar dies while this spell is active, the caster cannot obtain another familiar for a number of years equal to her caster level, unless the GM allows rare restorative magic, divine intervention, or a specific quest to repair the broken bond.
Material Component: A piece of rose-coloured glass.
Rite of Remote Seeing 3.0e
This spell may only used on your own familiar. You and your familiar sit inside a magic circle while the spell is cast. The caster can now see through her familiar’s eyes.
Liber Mysterium
The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks
By Timothy S. Brannan and The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks Team
Transmutation
Level: Witch 3, Sorcerer/Wizard 3
Components: V S M
Casting Time: 1 full round action
Range: Touch
Target, Effect, Area: Familiar
Duration: 1 minute per level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
The scene is exactly how the familiar will see it so you must succeed a Sense Motive check DC 20 – your caster level to understand what the familiar is seeing. Failing the check by more than 10 results in misinformation.
You cannot hear what the familiar hears. The connection is limited to the maximum distance that the familiar can travel. You do not control the familiar, but only suggest where it goes. The familiar will never enter an area it considers too dangerous.
If the familiar dies during the spell the caster will be unable to secure another one for a number of years equal to her own level.
The material component for this spell is a piece of rose coloured glass.
Why This Spell Is Dangerous in the World
Rite of Remote Seeing Spell threatens privacy, law, command, and secrecy because it allows a caster to place her sight inside an ordinary animal.
A noble may never notice the raven above the courtyard. A jailer may ignore the rat near the straw. A priest may tolerate the cat in the hall. A commander may see birds over the battlefield and think nothing of them.
The danger is not perfect surveillance. The danger is deniable presence. Even if the familiar is seen, proving that it is a magical witness is difficult.
The spell also carries a serious cost. A familiar is not a disposable scout. If it dies while the rite is active, the caster loses part of her magical bond, not merely a useful animal.
Best Uses
Use Rite of Remote Seeing for tense, limited scouting. It works especially well when the party needs to observe a place that is guarded, politically sensitive, physically inaccessible, or too dangerous for a person to enter openly.
Good targets include courtyards, rooftops, campfires, feast halls, prison yards, shrines, docks, siege camps, garden walls, stable doors, upper windows, and forest paths.
The spell is weaker when sound matters, when reading is required, when the familiar cannot safely approach, or when the area is protected by animals, wards, hunters, servants, or people who know how witches spy.
Tactics
Before casting, give the familiar a simple task: watch the red door, follow the guard with the blue cloak, perch above the council fire, look through the upper window, or return if you see dogs, blood, smoke, or silver bells.
The spell should not become a perfect map-making tool. Familiars notice movement, food, threats, warmth, light, predators, familiar people, and obvious obstacles. They may ignore written documents, heraldry, hidden legal meaning, coded gestures, or objects that matter only to human culture.
A raven might recognise a face, a banner, or a troop movement. It probably cannot understand a written battle order. A cat might notice a concealed servant or a dying man behind a curtain. It probably cannot interpret a secret treaty.
DM Notes
The central ruling is interpretation. The caster sees through the familiar, but she does not automatically understand everything the familiar sees.
Do not require checks for simple visible facts. “Three guards stand at the gate” does not need a roll. “One guard is pretending to be drunk while secretly watching the north road” may require one.
Failure should change the quality of the information, not simply erase it. A failed check should produce partial truth, wrong emphasis, animal misunderstanding, or delayed recognition.
| Familiar Sees | Accurate Interpretation | Failed Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| A noble removes a signet ring | The noble is hiding identity or authority | The noble is merely changing dress |
| A guard leaves a door unbarred | The door is being left open deliberately | The guard forgot to secure it |
| A priest marks a threshold with ash | A ward, warning, or ritual boundary | Dirt, soot, or cleaning residue |
| A corpse lies beside spilled ink | The victim died while writing or recording something | The room was searched or vandalised |
| A dog begins tracking the familiar | The familiar is in immediate danger | Something nearby is moving |
Good Combinations
- Find Familiar: The necessary foundation for the spell and the best reason to make the familiar’s personality matter.
- Invisibility: Useful if cast on the familiar before the mission, though scent, tracks, sound, and animal behaviour may still reveal it.
- Pass without Trace: Helpful when the party later follows the familiar’s route.
- Speak with Animals: Useful before or after the rite if the caster wants to compare what she saw with what the familiar remembers.
- Animal Messenger: A strong follow-up if the familiar discovers something urgent and another creature must carry a simple warning.
Using This Spell in Your Game
This spell should provide useful intelligence without replacing investigation, risk, or player judgement.
The best use is not “the familiar sees everything.” The best use is “the familiar sees enough to force a decision.” The party may learn that a guard changed posts, a window is open, a prisoner is alive, a ritual has already begun, or a suspicious guest entered the wrong room.
Then they must decide what that means.
Enemies can respond without simply negating the spell. Hounds, temple cats, trained hawks, old witches, warding bells, suspicious servants, and familiar-killing charms all make the rite more dangerous while preserving its usefulness.
Spellcasting Culture and Worldbuilding Hooks
Witches often treat Rite of Remote Seeing as a test of the familiar bond. A caster who treats the familiar as a tool learns little. A caster who understands its fear, hunger, curiosity, and instincts sees more clearly.
The rose-coloured glass is the spell’s sympathetic lens. It represents sight softened, altered, and filtered through the familiar bond. Some covens insist that the glass be held between caster and familiar during the final words of the rite, so that both eyes meet through the same coloured shard before the familiar departs.
In cities, accusations of familiar-spying are hard to prove. A raven on a roof, a cat under a table, or a rat in a cellar may be natural — or may be the eye of a witch.
Adventure and Worldbuilding Hooks
The Cat at the Council Door: A noble house orders every stray cat in the district killed after secret negotiations are exposed. The true spy is a witch’s familiar, but the slaughter has angered household spirits, plague-rats, and a cat-loving goddess.
Rose Glass in the Ashes: Investigators find a shard of rose-coloured glass inside a burned ritual circle. The familiar survived, but the caster misunderstood what it saw during the fire.
The Familiar Refuses: A witch hires the party because her familiar will not enter an abandoned shrine. The animal saw something through the doorway, and every attempt to force the bond makes it sick.
Source and Literary Context
Rite of Remote Seeing is adapted from Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks, by Timothy S. Brannan and The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks Team. The spell’s defining feature is its familiar-only limitation: it is not general clairvoyance, but sight mediated through a personal witch-familiar bond.
The familiar belongs to a long magical tradition in which a witch, magician, or cunning worker is attended by an animal, spirit, or small supernatural helper. In early modern European witchcraft material, familiars were often imagined in animal form and associated with magical service, divination, accusation, and danger. For a concise reference, see Encyclopaedia Britannica: Familiar.
For game use, the spell works best when the familiar is treated as a living magical companion rather than a disposable scouting device. Its animal viewpoint, lack of hearing, instinctive caution, and vulnerability are what separate this rite from ordinary scrying, clairvoyance, or an invisible magical sensor.