I'm starting work on a merchant mod. He will sell some very curious items, and much of the fun (and exasperation) lies in the effects of spells. Those need to be a surprise to the player, however, with an idea of what each does communicated to the PC only via the merchant NPC's words. Is there a way I can hide the spell effects on an item, however? Once the player has it in their inventory, it's pretty obvious what each does, and that spoils the surprise.

You can use a scripted effect and name it whatever you want so that it won't spoil the surprise. If you want a target to sustain Fire Damage 10 points for 10 seconds, create an Ability spell with those settings and script the weapon to add it to whatever it hits. You can specify the script effect's name (what it will display in the inventory screen) to something less obvious, like Slow Torment or Divine Punishment or something.

So only the script name will show, then? Great. Thanks.