Sensitivity is regarded as the youngest of the categories of magic. It has been known since the rotes when the skies danced, but was the last type of magic to be formally codified. Early sensers were said to be born with the “second sight” and their ability to detect danger, find water, or give prophetic warnings were all poorly understood. A single powerful senser, believed to have been an erudus, wrote several seminal works that inspired the inclusion of sensitivity amongst the established specialties. Despite hundreds of attempts with anamancy to learn the details of this ancient magus, she or he remains a mystery and is known only as the Progenitor. Scholars debate to this rote if the failure to sense the Progenitor indicates this early senser was an obfuscator.
The magic of detection is respected for its surprising intimidation. Prophecies of dire events in the near future, magical hunters who unerringly track their quarry, and the ability to root out lies all lend a deep gravitas to sensitivity, but with undertones of fear. An all-knowing magus is nearly as terrifying as a mind-reading cerebremancer.
Cerebremancers once worked with the courts of many realms as truthseekers, and after the Schism highly-trained sensers replaced them as the new truthseekers. Some insensati do not see the difference between the two magics. Cerebremancers learn the truth through mind-reading whereas sensers detect physiological tells to arrive at the same result, but this truthsense dredges up memories of the banished telepaths even for some magi.
The most common specialties within sensitivity are presented here. Anamancers, one of the two temporal sensers, specialize in sensing into the past. The other temporal sensers, augurs, specialize in sensing the future. Locators are adept at finding people, places, and things in the present and often serve as bounty hunters, guides, and trackers. Sentinels specialize in detection through atypical senses such as sniffing out poisons or “seeing” nonvisual energies like magical energy itself. Truthseekers can detect deception and contradiction through a fine-tuned truthsense, and are often employed by courts and guilds. Finally, obfuscators ensure things stay unfound through masking and a poorly understood type of reverse sensitivity. They are often hired by those with damaging secrets.
Kristofor Loren Carlson 