Personal reading

Personal reading was a simple divination spell that allowed a cleric to use the mystical powers of numerology to determine facts about an individual. The spell could also be provided in scroll form by the holy relic known as the Balance of Belaros.

Effects
By means of a booklet containing numerological figures and notes, the spell would mathematically guide the caster toward understanding simple facts about a target from that person's full birth name or both the date and place of birth. These were general and often vague facts. Only the name or date and place of birth were needed—the target did not have to have even met the caster—but they must be the actual name or date and place of birth, not false information. (If a false name or date and place of birth were used, the spell would still lead the caster to information, but that information would not be correct.) Examples of facts gained by the power of this spell included career, skill level, community-standing, mannerisms, etc.

The entire process took about ten minutes of study.

The spell was intended to work on humans or demihumans but might also have limited success on other humanoids or more bizarre creatures, but it was certain to fail if used for creatures whose culture did not include the concept of a personal name.

Components
The spell required verbal and somatic components.