Markup View

Author: intastiel

Oct 4th 2017 at 9:09:56 PM

The magical equivalent of the TrackingDevice.  This often uses SympatheticMagic.  Related tropes might be CrystalBall and SurveillanceAsThePlotDemands.[softreturn]
[[AC:Literature]]
* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' has a "Finder", a weave of the One Power that can be laid on an object or person and broadcasts its location to the caster thereafter.  Elayne scares a paroled ex-con into going straight by telling him that she can ''always'' find him, neglecting to mention that she's actually tracking his metal belt buckles, since the weave wears off a living subject in a matter of days.
* In ''Literature/TheEmperorsSoul'', a [[BloodMagic Bloodsealer]] can unerringly pinpoint someone's location from a sample of fresh blood; more importantly, so can the Bloodsealer's deadly, PerpetualMotionMonster skeleton minions.  The latter is of much greater concern to Wan [=ShaiLu=] when she is [[RecruitingTheCriminal recruited for her illegal talents]] and given a Bloodsealer as a warden.
* In ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle'', the FunctionalMagic art of Sympathy can do this through a sample of someone's body.  Kvothe stymies one such spell by stashing hair clippings in various vehicles leaving a city, since his trackers can't tell which part of his body has the rest of him attached to it.
* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', this can be accomplished through SympatheticMagic and [[RitualMagic thaumaturgy]]:
** The most reliable method is to use a piece of the target's body, feeding a trickle of magic into its sympathetic link with the target and following where the magic goes.
** Harry is able to track [[spoiler:Molly Carpenter]] via a sample of her mother's blood, since the strength of a MamaBear's maternal bond is almost as symbolically powerful.
** In an impressive feat of thaumaturgy, Harry creates a sympathetic model of most of Chicago, allowing him to follow the movements of a target that he can't track directly.

[[AC:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has several tracking options, from the lowly short-range "Locate Object" up to the top-tier "Discern Location", the latter of which can track its target precisely and unerringly from anywhere in TheMultiverse, barring top-tier protective spells or divine intervention.
* ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' lets a mage use the Space arcanum to cast a tracking spell that exploits their sympathetic connection to the target.  With some care, they can also use the Fate arcanum to track someone through anything and anyone that is significant to them.

[[AC:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'s backstory, the BackgroundMagicField in Alderode is uniquely distorted, such that the government can use it to track any of its native-born citizens from magical hubs -- except, for reasons unknown, people of the [[PeopleOfHairColor Gold]] caste.