You must maintain physical contact with the target for the entire duration. You may move together, but breaking contact ends the spell. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or be subjected to a horrifying illusion that you actively direct and control.

While you maintain contact and concentration, you can create and control vivid, personalized visions inside the target's mind. You can show them any scenes you wish, for example: their home being burned, their loved ones suffering, their darkest secrets exposed before a tribunal of Selûne, their own execution under moonlight, or any other nightmare you design.

These illusions are highly realistic in sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, and you yourself can see and perceive the illusion you are creating, allowing you to guide and adjust the experience in real time. The target is fully aware that the visions are illusory, yet they are still deeply disturbing. The spell creates no damage of any kind.

Shared Witness. Other willing creatures may join the illusion by making and maintaining physical contact with you or with another participant in an unbroken chain leading back to you. Joining creatures perceive the illusion as you create it, just as you do, but cannot direct or alter it. A joining creature may break contact and leave at any time without ending the spell, but having witnessed what they witnessed, they are still subject to the Echoes of Judgment effect at the spell's conclusion. If your contact with the target is broken, the spell ends for everyone regardless of whether other participants are still linked.

Lingering Dread. When the spell ends, the target remains badly shaken. For the next 1d12 + 10 minutes, you and your allies have advantage on Charisma checks (Intimidation, Persuasion, Deception, Performance, etc.) made against the target, but only when those checks relate to the interrogation, judgment, confession, or coercion of the target. Casual social interaction unrelated to the matter at hand (idle conversation, entertainment, unrelated negotiation) does not benefit from this advantage. The DM is the final arbiter of what qualifies.

The duration of Lingering Dread is rolled secretly by the DM and is not known to the caster or any participants. Dread is not a measurable thing; you cannot tell when a person's resolve has rebuilt itself, only when you press them and discover that the fear has faded. You will know the effect has ended only when an attempt to leverage it no longer benefits from advantage.

Repeated Exposure. Once a creature has been successfully affected by Torment of the Guilty, it becomes resistant to the spell. It has advantage on Wisdom saving throws against any future castings of this spell, and the Lingering Dread duration is reduced to 1d8 minutes (instead of 1d12 + 10).

Echoes of Judgment. When the spell ends, you and every creature who joined the illusion through Shared Witness must each succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is briefly haunted by echoes of the horrors they witnessed. They suffer disadvantage on all Wisdom and Charisma checks for the next 1 hour. They are not Frightened and suffer no other penalties. Each creature rolls separately.