Glimpse the Departed

An Impossible Vision

“I saw her. Do you understand me. Not a trick of light, not a memory called too sharply to mind. She stood there, as she was, as she cannot be, and she looked at me as though nothing had ended at all.”

— The Veil Unmourned, Act II, Scene VI

There is a curious thing about memory that most people never stop to consider. We treat it as something passive, something that sits quietly in the mind, waiting to be recalled when needed, softened by time, dulled by distance. But memory is not passive. It is selective. It reshapes, refines, and, perhaps most importantly, it preserves what mattered enough to remain.
Glimpse the Departed does not reach into the grave. It reaches into that preservation.
The spell does not concern itself with truth, nor does it seek permission from whatever lies beyond death. It does not summon, bind, or disturb. It simply asks a far more intimate question. Who is still with you, even when they should not be.
When the answer comes, it does so without hesitation.
A figure appears, placed precisely where it will matter most. Not as they were, but as they are remembered. The mind fills in the details without being asked. The way they stood. The way they looked. The things left unsaid. All of it arrives fully formed, because it was never truly gone.
For a moment, the world splits in a way that is difficult to reconcile.
What the eye sees and what the mind knows refuse to agree. The figure stands where it should not be, present in a way that demands acknowledgment. There is no time to question it properly, no space to process what it means. The moment is too brief for understanding, but long enough for doubt.
And doubt, in the right moment, is enough.
The hand falters. The step misjudged. The thought that should have been clear arrives just a fraction too late. Nothing is forced, nothing is taken. The spell does not command fear or grief. It introduces the possibility of them, and allows the mind to do the rest.
What makes this so effective is not the illusion itself, but the source from which it is drawn.
No two visions are ever the same, because no two memories are. What one person carries as comfort, another carries as regret. What one has buried, another has never let go. The spell does not choose what will appear. It simply opens the door and lets something familiar step through.
And when it is gone, it leaves something behind.
Not a lingering presence, not a voice, not a haunting in any traditional sense. It leaves a question. A quiet, persistent thought that settles in after the moment has passed. Why that face. Why now. Why did it feel, even for an instant, like it might have been real.
There is no answer to that question within the spell.
Because the spell was never about the dead. It was about the living, and what they carry with them whether they wish to or not.

“No, you did not see her. You cannot have. We buried her. We sealed the earth ourselves. And yet... you are not the first to say it. They all describe the same thing. The same face. The same place. As if something remembers her better than we do.”

— The Veil Unmourned, Act III, Scene I

Related Discipline

Illusion

Level

Level 2

Unknown Shores

Glimpse the Departed

2-level Illusion

Casting Time: 1 action

Range/Area: 60 feet

Components: Verbal, Somatic

Duration: Instantaneous

You draw forth a fleeting vision from a creature’s memories of the dead.
Choose one creature you can see within range. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or perceive a figure familiar to it, often one it believes to be dead, briefly appearing at a point of your choice within range. The figure appears as the creature remembers it.
On a failed save, the target has disadvantage on the next attack roll or ability check it makes before the end of its next turn.

Available for: Bard, Warlock, Wizard