Steadfast Sentinel
Activate ◆ envision
This catalyst is a bird's claw soaked in a mixture of blood and grave dirt. A Shadow Spy spell empowered by it creates an unusually long-lasting homunculus. Instead of the spell expiring when you next make your daily preparations, you can renew it by expending a spell slot for shadow spy again, maintaining the same homunculus so it can continue its observations. Steadfast sentinels are often used by powerful spellcasters of Geb to covertly monitor their rivals.
Traits
Items that have the catalyst trait are consumable material spell components that alter or magnify specific spells. Activating a catalyst is part of Casting the Spell. The catalyst might increase the number of actions required to Cast the Spell, as indicated in the catalyst's Activate entry. Additionally, the spell gains the manipulate trait if it didn't already. Because the catalyst becomes part of the spell, you can draw the catalyst as part of Casting the Spell.
An item with this trait can be used only once. Unless stated otherwise, it's destroyed after activation. Consumable items include alchemical items and magical consumables such as scrolls and talismans. When a character creates consumable items, they can make them in batches of four.
Something with the magical trait is imbued with magical energies not tied to a specific tradition of magic. Some items or effects are closely tied to a particular tradition of magic. In these cases, the item has the arcane, divine, occult, or primal trait instead of the magical trait. Any of these traits indicate that the item is magical.