Detect Lead Concentration

-Spymaster Ralnor

The spell "Detect Poison" is very good at detecting fast acting poisons that are very fast acting. It is difficult if not impossible to detect very slow acting poisons with this simple spell.   The effects of lead poison certainly qualify as slow-acting as you don't normally don't see symptoms until you see people with chronic long-term exposure.

 

Lead poisoning wasn't widely understood in the the Third Age, so lots of people unknowingly poisoned themselves, until Tapukeah Nicola's proselytizing crusade spread knowledge of the dangers of lead poisoning.   Priestess Nicola was not a spell-caster, but at some point, a mage ally of Nicola created a spell to detect lead contamination in water or food. Well more than one spell, technically.

by me with Midjourney

  In the realm of magic, it's fairly common for different paths to lead to the same thing. The most well-known example is the "Fly" spell. Enchantment's version of the Fly spell repels gravity and Transmutation's version of the Fly spell grows magical wings, but they both allow flight at roughly the same speed and agility.   There are actually three different version of the Detect Lead Contamination spell. The Necromancy version is a modification of "Detect Poison" locking on to the poisonous aspect of lead. The Transmutation version of the spell is a modification of "Analyze Substance" locking on to the metalic properies of lead. The Abjuration version of the spell is a modfication of "Detect Magic" locking on to the unusual metaphysical properties of lead.   Over the centuries, most sources of lead poisoning were identified and either cleaned up or clearly marked and the spell "Detect Lead Contamination" got swept into the dust bin of history kept alive in a few old tomes such as "Medicinal Applications of the Arcane".   The spell "Detect Lead Contamination" detects suble lead concentrations at close range. The rumor is that a mage developed a variant that detects unsubtle concentrations of lead across vast distances, so named "Detect Lead Concentration" though the real spell probably has a code-name if it's named at all.   The creators of the "Detect Lead Contamination" spells were interested in medicine and wanted to spread their lore far and wide so fewer people would sicken and die but any man or woman who created a spell to detect larger concentrations of lead was interested in espionage and therefore he or she would not want this lore to spread beyond anyone under his or her thumb.   We don't know if "Detect Lead Concentration" was created as an Abjuration spell, a Transmutation spell, or a Necromancy spell. My guess is that it is an Abjuration spell but that is only a guess based on the stereotype that Abjurers are the mages most deeply embroiled in espionage. The spell could have been independently created and researched by separate unaffiliated mages for all we know.   But it's a reasonable supposition that since Swynfaredia controls the Tapukeah Nicola Memorial Temple and Swynfaredians have a fondess for magical espionage that if the spell exists, it is probably Swynfaredian hands. though as to which faction or factions has it is anyone's guess."