Detect Heretic Spell — Detect Censure
This legacy divination detects formal sacred censure already placed by the caster’s own temple or divine order; it does not detect private belief, morality or rival worship.
Detect Heretic—better rendered in the setting as Detect Censure—is a third-party legacy divination from Crime and Punishment (Atlas Games, 2003). There is no direct official D&D 5e / 2014 or D&D 5.5e / 2024 version.
The spell detects a specific magical-legal state: whether a creature has already been formally marked by the caster’s own sacred authority through a ban, anathema, censure or equivalent judgement. It does not read thoughts, detect sin, reveal alignment, expose private doubt or identify followers of rival gods.
Quick Rules Reference
- 5.5e / 2024: no direct official Detect Heretic / Detect Censure spell.
- 5e / 2014: no direct official equivalent.
- Pathfinder 1e: not a core PF1e spell; use only as a third-party conversion.
- Original source: Crime and Punishment, Keith Baker, Atlas Games, 2003.
- Original level: Cleric 0, God’s Eye 1, Inquisitor 0, Paladin 1.
- Range: 60 feet.
- Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute/level.
- Detection: first round presence; second round number/location and severity; third round provenance and recorded accusation.
Rules
Detect Censure by Edition
5.5e / 2024 — No Direct Official Equivalent
The 2024 spell list has no official spell that detects whether a creature has been formally censured by the caster’s own divine institution.
Do not present the previous 60-foot-cone conversion as core 2024 rules. A campaign can convert the legacy spell, but the sacred mark, its provenance and what information it reveals must be defined explicitly by the setting.
5e / 2014 — No Direct Official Equivalent
The 2014 rules likewise have no direct Detect Heretic spell. Detect Evil and Good is not a substitute: it detects specified creature types and consecrated/desecrated places, not religious censure.
Pathfinder 1e — Third-Party Conversion Only
Detect Heretic is not a core Pathfinder 1e spell. Its legacy d20 mechanics are compatible enough to adapt, but that adaptation should be labelled as third-party material rather than core PF1e.
For campaign use, treat the spell as detecting a formal magical mark of censure recognised by the caster’s own temple, cult, mystery tradition or divine order.
Original d20 Rules
Divination
Level: Cleric 0, God’s Eye 1, Inquisitor 0, Paladin 1
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: Divine Focus
Range: 60 ft.
Area: Quarter-circle emanation from the caster to the limit of the range
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute/level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
The caster detects creatures who bear a formal mark of sacred censure placed by a member of the caster’s own faith or recognised religious authority.
- 1st round: presence or absence of marked individuals.
- 2nd round: number and location of marked individuals and the severity of each mark.
- 3rd round: where and when one mark was placed, who placed it, and a brief recorded description of the alleged offence.
The description is the accusation embedded in the mark, not guaranteed objective truth.
The effect is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or earth.
What Changed?
- The invented 5.5e / 2024 conversion has been removed.
- The spell is now clearly identified as third-party legacy material.
- Setting language uses sacred censure, temple, cult and divine order rather than importing Abrahamic institutional assumptions.
- The spell detects a pre-existing formal mark; it does not decide who is a heretic, sinner, traitor or unbeliever.
- The third-round information remains an embedded accusation and may be false, biased, forged or politically motivated.
Using Detect Censure in Play
This spell works best when sacred law is an institution rather than an alignment detector. A marked fugitive can be innocent of the accusation. A corrupt tribunal can create valid marks. An old censure can survive after the political faction that imposed it has fallen. A forged or stolen authority can turn the spell into evidence of conspiracy rather than guilt.
Source and Provenance
Source: Crime and Punishment
Author: Keith Baker
Publisher: Atlas Games
Published: 2003
This page preserves the original spell as legacy third-party material and does not present it as an official spell from later editions.
What Counts as Heresy?
For this spell, heresy is a sacred legal status, not a private thought.
A creature may count as marked if it has been:
banished from temple rites,
cut off from sacred protection,
named an enemy of the cult,
condemned by a divine court,
placed under anathema,
excommunicated from a church, temple, mystery-cult, druidic circle, ancestral order, or divine hierarchy,
or branded by a spell that records religious crime.
A creature does not count as marked merely because it:
privately doubts the god,
belongs to another religion,
committed a crime unknown to the temple,
broke a law without sacred judgement,
was falsely accused but never ritually marked,
or holds a different interpretation of doctrine.
This keeps the spell sharp without letting it become a lazy solution to every mystery involving religion.
Why This Spell Is Dangerous in the World
Detect Heretic turns religious judgement into something searchable.
That makes it useful to temple guards, paladins, inquisitors, shrine-judges, imperial cult officers, divine courts, witch-finders, and sacred border wardens. It also makes it frightening to refugees, reformers, political exiles, falsely condemned priests, and anyone whose name has been entered into a temple register by corrupt authority.
The spell’s danger is not that it lies. The danger is that it tells a limited truth with institutional force.
A detected mark may belong to a murderer, oath-breaker, demon-servant, temple robber, plague-cultist, or desecrator. It may also belong to a scapegoat, rival heir, inconvenient prophet, dissident priest, or survivor of a temple coup.
The mark is real. The justice behind it may not be.
Best Uses in Play
Temple Gate Screening: Guards use the spell before allowing pilgrims into a sanctuary, oracle house, holy spring, relic chamber, or divine court.
Courtroom Pressure: A priest casts the spell during a trial to reveal that the accused was condemned elsewhere years ago.
Schism and Recognition: Two branches of the same faith disagree over whether the other’s censures are valid. The spell’s answer depends on which altar, god, hierarchy, or sacred law the caster serves.
DM Notes
Use this spell to create consequences, not shortcuts.
The strongest ruling is this: Detect Heretic detects status, not truth. It confirms that a recognised mark exists and reveals what the mark claims. It does not prove that the accused deserves the mark.
The third-round information should be brief but useful. A good result might look like this:
“Marked at the Temple of the Nine Lamps, Venice, in late winter 1451 CE, by Hierophant Cassian. Recorded offence: theft of votive gold, corruption of temple witnesses, and flight from lawful purification.”
That gives the party leads: a place, a time, a name, and an accusation. It does not end the investigation.
Strong DM Boundaries
Do not let the spell detect ordinary unbelief.
Do not let it expose every secret cultist unless they have already been marked by the caster’s faith.
Do not let it replace testimony, investigation, records, witnesses, or political judgement.
Do not treat a detected mark as proof of moral guilt.
Do let the spell create legal, sacred, and social pressure.
Best Companion Spells
- Zone of Truth: Use after the mark is found, not before. The mark proves a judgement exists; questioning tests the story around it.
- Augury: Best when the party must decide whether surrendering a marked fugitive will bring justice, disaster, or divine offence.
- Speak with Dead: Strong when the priest, judge, witness, or victim connected to the mark is dead and the living records cannot be trusted.
- Remove Curse / Greater Restoration-style magic: Useful only if the mark is magical, corrupted, or imposed by false authority. It should not erase temple law, public memory, or written records by itself.
Adventure and Worldbuilding Hooks
The Marked Healer: A village physician is detected as excommunicated, but everyone nearby insists she saved them during the Red Death. The temple record names her as a plague-heretic; the villagers call her a saint.
The False Anathema: A corrupt hierophant has learned how to place legitimate marks for illegitimate reasons. Nobles, priests, merchants, and rivals are being branded as heretics before they can defend themselves.
The Condemned Saint: A dead reformer was marked as a heretic in life. Miracles now occur at her grave, and Detect Heretic still confirms the old condemnation. The party must decide whether the mark, the miracles, or the temple history is lying.
Rules Clarifications
Can the spell detect someone from another religion?
Only if that person was formally marked by the caster’s own faith or by an authority the caster’s faith recognises as valid.
Can it detect evil?
No.
Can it detect secret blasphemy?
No. The person must already bear a magical or sacred mark of censure.
Can it detect a forged censure?
It can detect a magically valid mark. Whether the authority behind the mark was legitimate is a matter for investigation.
Can the mark be hidden?
Yes. Lead, sufficient barriers, divine concealment, false identity magic, nondetection, or stronger warding may block, mask, or confuse the spell.
Does the target know they are being detected?
Normally no, unless the campaign treats sacred marks as painful, sentient, or reactive.
Does removing the mark prove innocence?
No. Removing, suppressing, or breaking a mark changes its magical or sacred condition. It does not automatically rewrite law, memory, testimony, or temple records.
Source and Literary Context
Detect Heretic is adapted from Crime & Punishment by Keith Baker, published by Atlas Games in 2003 as part of the Penumbra d20 line. The book focuses on law, crime, punishment, prisons, investigation, and justice systems as active forces in fantasy campaigns. A product reference is available at Atlas Games: Crime & Punishment.
The spell’s core idea is not mind-reading or moral judgement, but formal religious censure. It detects someone who has already been placed outside the protection, rites, or recognised community of a faith. For a broad reference on the historical idea of heresy, see Encyclopaedia Britannica: Heresy. For a related reference on formal exclusion from a religious community, see Encyclopaedia Britannica: Excommunication.
In play, the spell works best when treated as a tool of sacred law rather than a simple villain detector. It reveals that an institution has judged someone, but it does not prove that the institution was just. That tension gives the spell its strongest literary use: the conflict between divine command, public law, personal conscience, and political power. For a classical dramatic example of sacred duty set against mortal authority, see Sophocles’ Antigone.