thief of information

You touch a piece of written text, a book, or a document which you had no hand in creating, and you must read the written words aloud continuously for the duration of the casting time. If your recitation is interrupted, the spell fails.

Upon completion, you rip the conceptual truth of those words out of the minds of the living. For the next 4 hours, a wave of absolute forgetfulness blankets a 400-foot radius. You choose whether this radius is fixed, remaining centered on the targeted writing, or mobile, remaining centered on you as you move.

Every humanoid within the radius completely forgets the information contained in that specific text. They cannot recall it, and if they look directly at the physical writing, the text appears as blank parchment or meaningless scribbles.

 

• The Spark of Magic: You cannot erase the general knowledge that magic exists, nor can you strip a spellcaster of the knowledge of how to cast spells. However, you can erase the memory or formula of a specific, named spell if it was explicitly detailed in the touched text.
• Core Identity and Anchor Memories:
   
   
  You cannot erase memories that are vital to a creature's sense of self or core identity. If the text contains information that directly anchors a creature’s alignment (such as their unyielding knowledge that they are a good or evil person) or details a deeply foundational life event (such as the tragic death of a loved one that significantly altered their life), that specific creature is completely unaffected by the spell.

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