1

Malcolm's Maladies: An autobiography originally intended as a tongue-in-cheek but informative guide to clerics and healers on dealing with social diseases, halfway through the process of writing a massive plague broke out. The writer, Malcolm, had to go from tending to the needs of a half dozen brothels to being the last cleric still alive in a city in dire peril. While he did his best to maintain his sense of humor, the subject matter and the jokes grow increasingly dark, and if you manage to laugh during the chapter discussing proper mass grave preparation you should probably seek therapy.

2

A heavily annotated recipe book of foreign cuisine.

3

A Hundred-One Candles: A short book that according to its inner binding, was originally a police report compiled by an officer of the Fortenshire Watch gifted with unusually sharp literary skills. Permission was later given to the officer to publish her work under a pseudonym. It is a recording of the contents of and investigative proceedings surrounding a home in the ancient canal-quarter of Sorelle, one suspected of housing a so-called “warlock.” It begins with eyewitness reports of the strange comings and goings from that house’s door at midnight, the lights inside, the terrible cries from its attic. It ends with a recounting of the building’s interior following the obtainment of a raid warrant. Terrible sights were found inside. Most notably: A man’s body surrounded by a hundred and one red candles, its pores filled completely with the gestating chrysalises of strange moths.

4

A  blank spellbook, its cover being of a pearly, scaled hide bound in black iron and with both lock and key attached by linen threads.

5

Lairs and Back Again: A damaged paperback that appears to be the autobiography of an unknown halfling and his career working as a freelance thief for a company of dwarfs. The majority of the text is a rather dull list of complaints about the working conditions, the lack of food, and the shoddy pay he initially received, but there is some useful information regarding the opening of secret doors.

6

A guidebook written by Yug Emos called “How To Train Mimics And Animate Armor”, the starting phrase being “So you have found a tame mimic suitable for training…”. At no point did it tell you how to obtain a mimic and assumed that you already knew how to carve ancient runes using long lost techniques into armor.

7

A leather-bound book, filled with pages of rough parchment. Each page contains what seems to be an attempt at a love poem. Each and every single attempt by the author at crafted a romantic prose is horrendous, bordering on criminally awful.

8

Nock, Draw, Loose! An Archer’s Field Manual: A rustic book that depicts how to properly craft and fire a bow as well as fletch your own arrows. The manual assumes that the reader has access to nothing but a sharp blade and includes detailed instructions for every step of the process.

9

A medium-sized plain black leather-bound book, with the title “Party Jokes” pressed into the cover. The text is a weird mix of humorous anecdotal stories, one liners and the occasional funny illustration. None of the jokes are particularly new or funny but a PC fluent in Thieves Cant will be able to see that they are meant to disguise the actual content of the book which outlines numerous methods, tips and schemes for running illicit but nonviolent scams, frauds and confidence jobs.

10

A small booklet depicting the hand gestures employed in casting spells. It is a useful reference for those interesting in practicing magic themselves or those who work as guards, security or covert operatives who should be well-practiced at spotting mages. The preface says that copies of it can be ordered from the major printer of any large city.

11

Dark Trap: A book of madness that tells from a broken first-person narrative, of a lone gnome’s struggle to survive in an evil, subterranean land. He does eventually emerge from the depths, but he leaves his sanity behind.

12

Burden Distributed: A squarish brown book produced by the Teamsters Union. Extremely plain, unentertaining, but filled with unrivaled wisdom on the packing and tackling of beasts of burden. The book itself has lug-rings built into its spine, presumably for ease of carriage.

13

The Book of Screams: A normal looking leather-bound tome of about 50 sheets of vellum. A perceptive PC will become aware after a brief investigation that the leather binding is made of the skin of a human. Upon opening, the stretched leather face of the source of the leather is revealed on the inner cover. It immediately begins screaming in torment as though it were being stripped from the body it originated from. The screaming persists as long as the book is open. The vellum pages appear to be made from the same skin as the binding, although skived so thin as to be translucent. Closing the book muffles the screams. The screaming ceases one minute after the book is closed.

14

The Magic Mirror: A book that describes a soul trapping mirror and its concepts in exquisite detail, making the claim that the reason a mirror is the best vehicle for trapping souls is because it is beheld by the eyes, which are the most direct route to the soul. The inner back cover is mirrored, and currently has an ancient wisp of a soul still trapped inside, the presence of which is barely detectable: whispers, or a strange wavering while looking in said mirror, perhaps a feeling of being watched.

15

A green-leather bound volume with gold inlaid symbols on the spine and cover. The book only opens when exposed to moonlight revealing it to be a druidic research journal. It contains detailed drawings and notes of various wild creatures and goes into lengthy detail of how it feels to be transformed into such a creature and the benefits of that form. Druids and other mages who are capable of polymorphing magics find the journal an excellent source in regards to making the best use out of an animal’s form.

16

The King in Yellow: A small hardback with a sickly yellow linen cover, the book is a play taking place in the lost city of Carcosa, revolving around three masked party-goers: Camilla, Cassilda, and The Stranger. Reading the first act has no effects, but the second act begins with the unmasking of The Stranger, and reveals truths so maddening that the reader takes some amount of mental stress and, after feverishly reading the entire play, feels compelled to pass it on to some unsuspecting person who hasn’t read it yet. If this is person happens to live in a large population center, the PC’s may notice a new cult spring up around the cosmic revelations the book grants, worshiping The King in Yellow and waiting for his return.

17

Famous Magical Battles and Duels, A Critical Analysis: A historical reference book that contains extensive and detailed descriptions of some of the most famous cases of magical warfare. These conflicts range from singular duels between two mages, legendary contests of skill and honor between rival wizard academies to brutal wars of domination where battle sorcerers augmented their own natural abilities through occult pacts and blood rituals to be able to decimate thousands of soldiers with nothing more than a snap of their fingers. Despite the engaging subject matter it is written in rather monotone and dull manner.

18

Illithid, Aboleth, and other Aberration Behaviors: A simple scroll describes behaviors of aberrant creatures, such as feeding habits and mating rituals. However almost immediately after reading it, the information seems to leave the reader’s mind and he can only remember the title of the scroll.

19

Immutable Principles, Defining “First Level” Spells: A thick tomb documenting the history of spell complexity for a series of spells. The anonymous author argues certain specific keys are shared among spells that define their complexity and power, which are noted as a number. Every chapter is structured by breaking down a single popular spell, identifying the keys shared among most wizards discoveries. These correlations are summarized in chapter conclusions and theorize that no matter how unique the study or writing of a spellbook is, a spell is actually the use of fixed set of principles created by Arcane Deities. The anonymous author is rumored to be a Lich, as comparison of different “Level” books shows influence of various cultures throughout the ages.

20

A chapbook of Roll on "Humanoid" poetry with a wooden cover.

21

Controlling the Battlefield With Magic: A thick tome going into great detail on the subject of supernatural combat theory. It covers everything from the direct combat spells, ranged bombardment and offensive curses to the protective spells that enhance, heal or shield your allies and combat multipliers such as creating temporary fortifications, summoning creature to fight in your stead, teleportation and using the terrain to your advantage.

22

A large tome with the rambling writings of a madman.

23

Lady Katerina; Love is War: An illustrated novel that is prime example of spell caster using charm to influence each other to make them do anything. In this case Lady Katerina and Lord Sherlock are using their magic to make other person confess their love to them and subject themselves as their vassal while Cella Fagellita realm’s famous merchant are clueless about this battle. It is praised that the illustration on the inside cover show the correct Vocal tone and Somatic movement that make the spell as effective as possible.

24

A rare religious holy text of a minor Goddess of Roll on "Random Godly Domains" containing a number of significant misprints.

25

A bootleg quarto of Vittoria Wolfsheart’s plays; The Thirteen Torments of Jacqueline Chandler, The Scarabs, The Miscreation, The Inquisition of Wolves, and The Gibbous Prince. The copies are poorly transcribed, riddled with errors and incomplete speeches.

26

A child’s diary that talks about “Things under her bed”.

27

A book of poems, Six-Sided Satire, ruthlessly skewering Hexian culture and politics in perfect dactylic hexameter, the traditional meter of heroic Hexian epic. The text portrays Hex as a city of pompous intellectual parasites and thieves, feasting vulture-like on the ruins of older cultures, appropriating their knowledge as their own, and then condescendingly lecturing other states and peoples about the virtues of Hexian “free-thought” and “innovation.” The text is anonymously authored.

28

The Forge: A book about the Infernal Forge and the magical weapons that have been forged there such as The Xan-Axe. Whilst the book was published legally, the government insists that the exact location of the Forge remains a secret, to prevent people trying to create unauthorized magical weapons and hurting themselves and others, and to stop the secret services of other nations attempting to use, destroy or steal it. The Forge is the only known source for magical weapons in the entire country where it is located.

29

Katriona’s Time Among the Felines: A cloth bound book that tells a tale of a young adult who chooses to consort with a clowder of felines, and terrifying and fantastical things happen; but the anonymous author of the text makes no discernment if the tale is true or not. It warns of a Great Danger That May Be Avoided, but does not tell how such catastrophe may come about. Stuffed inside one of the leaves of the work is a small press-board square with several holes cut in it that align with some of the words on the page, as if used in some sort of code or cipher.

30

The Chronicles of Wayfinder: A journal from the late seldarine drow bard Vuhrak Wayvinder. Detailing his exploits and adventures with various parties as they journeyed through the overworld as well as the underdark. The book goes into great detail of various paths and puzzles through various dungeons and areas of the underdark written in vuhraks own hand. It also details various songs rhymes and drawings detailing his adventures. It is also rumored to detail through rhyming puzzle the locations of hidden stashes of various treasures Vuhrak was unable to carry with him.

31

The First Men: A historical reference book about the ancient culture and society of the long vanished First Men, but the last chapter is called Barrows of The First Men and says where the tombs of the Kings and nobles of the First Men are to be found and the right rituals and times to use to dig into them and reach the Dreaming Worlds inside them, and as such as a useful item for adventurers to have. Whilst the actual barrows have long since been looted and contain just old bones and pieces of pottery, the Dreaming Worlds still have much to offer if they can be successfully entered.

32

Rings and Things: A book about magical jeweler, it contains the details of 30 Rings and such rare artifacts as The Crown of the Storm. It also has a helpful chapter about Gemstone Magic and how to cast it, and another chapter about the dangers of the Gems of the Underworld as not all jewels and gemstones are safe for humanoids and the living to use. A must have for everybody interested in jeweler.

33

Codex of Leaves: A strange book made from bound wood and leaves details countless varieties of flora. It is written in Druidic.

34

Dwelling of the Ancients: A tome written in Dwarven that provides in depth but hyper-specific information on ancient ruins and inscriptions. Considered a definitive treatise on the subject of ancient civilizations and ruins, this book documents how several ancient cultures constructed their buildings and offers translations of several famous inscriptions found therein. The book, written by acclaimed antiquarian Naniel ibn-Nurth, also provides a short section on ancient scripts and languages, which can be quite helpful when attempting to decipher similar writings.

35

Necronomicon: A thick tome, heavy and cold, bound in dark, stained leather. Wherever the material came from, it feels too thin and elastic to make for effective binding. The grimoire is a repository of occult summoning rituals written in a prose that seems purposely obtuse, perhaps to weed out lesser practitioners of the dark arts. An excerpt of the tome reads as follows “…then say the words of Sealing - "Shem serep pftoss mavo igerso! Baiaf! Igerso!” - and kneel before the circles. Bow to them and pray thusly: The One All-Uniting who dwells in the dark, In the center of all Things you sleep, And may this darkness be dense forever, So no one see the glare of your Eye! And lo, the Thing will rouse and answer you…“

36

The Book of Dagon: An old damp book that contains information regarding a being known as Dagon, who will be familiar to knowledgeable PC’s as a Great Old One, an aberrant deity who lives below the waves of the deep sea. The book is a translation, and a rough draft at that, littered with footnotes and corrections. Detailed inside are the rituals of Dagon’s servants, including summoning and sacrifice, are intermixed with other advice. One dictates the proper breeding with humans so as to grow the Deep One’s numbers. An excerpt from that section reads as follows; "Bring the slaves on the shore in the hour of high moon. Cut the skin in the lines of unholy names of Neshiartnam and Nsarag Amalkhassit, and mix their blood with sand in a pit. Place the dolphin’s eye within and say thrice: "Ya Uztumem Krhash Ahaog Raa, Kev, Kev!” Let the slaves fall and crawl in the waters and direct your prayers to the watching eye of out Master.“

37

Boatinomics 101: A well-bound book with water-stained pages inside, yet the ink on those pages appear unaffected. This simple guide provides straightforward advice to novice sailors on how to pilot and perform light maintenance on small sea vessels. It has an entire chapter on what to look for when inspecting a ship before booking passage on it or purchasing her. A reader who commits the instructions to memory may have a leg up during negotiations the price of a waterborne passage or an entire vessel.

38

Criminal Minds; Waterdeep: A soft-cover novel that contains a fictional mystery story based within Waterdeep. The protagonist is a brilliant but troubled investigator who is accompanied by a rotating cast of eccentric assistants.

39

Dr. Flatmantle’s Guide to Combat Medicine: A blood-stained pamphlet that describes the location of key blood vessels in various creatures and methods of temporarily mending wounds without the use of magic. The techniques have a heavy focus on quickly stabilizing the patient so that they can be moved to a location where long term medical care can be administered.

40

From Urchin to Merchin’: A small, black hard-bound book that can easily fit in a hidden pocket. This tome contains detailed notes on methods of upselling and negotiation.

41

History of the Realms; The North: An encyclopedia of sorts that seems to be part of larger series of books; it has detailed accounts of the northern kingdoms, landscapes, and people of import.

42

Maelsturth’s Manual of Mammalian Beasts: A thick tome with a metal-wrought clasp to keep it shut, this book’s pages contain forbidden occult instructions on the temporary conversion of one’s form into that of a mammalian beast.

43

So You Want a Revolution?: A palm sized book bound in bright red cloth. The contents are famously outlawed in three different kingdoms, as the text details the ins and outs of seeding dissent, inciting riots and overthrowing political regimes.

44

The Archmage’s Almanac, 11th Edition: A hard-cover book, many of whose pages are tattered and stained, this almanac details magical curiosities discovered and arcane experiments performed over a century ago.

45

The Key Master; A Life of Locks: A medium tome with a ribbon book mark attached to its spine. The book contains detailed sketches of a number of locks, their accompanying mechanisms and how to create, repair and unlock them.

46

Time Tested Tricks of Tongue Fighting: A tome familiar to many bards, this small hardcover book contains various quips and insults one can use in arguments.

47

About the Art of Fighting: A heavy tome bound in thick leather, its corners reinforced with heavy steel fittings. The pages are relatively rough parchment, to better withstand time and use, written in the clear handwriting of a dwarf. The book is lavishly illustrated with diagrams of stances and guards, bearing the images of differently armed warriors of great renown on their first pages. The manual contains the necessary exercises and teachings to learn to fight in any combat style from style from Archery to Zui Quan.

48

Awakening Your Inner Empath: A small, soft-cover book with insights into interpreting body language and facial expressions to better understand the emotions of common type of humanoids.

49

Abyssal Bestiary: Reams of paper held together by string and browned by the passage of time. Inside are drawings of and details on a number of eldritch “creatures”. The details mainly relate to how you may kill, injure or otherwise protect yourself from the beasts. The information contained within these pages may well come to save your live, if you are so unlucky as to encounter some of these beasts for yourself.

50

Old Diary: A dusty, but ornate red journal, bound in gold. A cursory glance through the pages reveals it to be the diary of a summoner. The diary is filled with information on the various creatures of the abyss and details on how to summon them. Minor creatures may be easier to summon, greater creatures may require specific conditions, grander summoning circles, or greater sacrifices. How the reader may come to actually controlling the beasts, the old book neglects to tell.

51

The Scripture of Law: A book bound in black leather with the rising sun symbol embossed in gold. It contains a religious text written by early disciples of the god Darlen.

52

The Barber‐Surgeon’s Manual of Trimming, Bloodletting and Teeth Pulling, with Illustrations: A well-read instructional manual bound in patchwork leather written by Mustafa Al‐Murai.

53

A handwritten journal containing detailed accounts of Tarrin Longstrider’s wanderings in the Tangled Wood. The book is bound in weather-stained brown leather and has seen much use.

54

A small handbook bound in white silk with gold tooling, purple ribbon, entitled “Countess Ludmilla’s Guide to Proper Behavior at Court for Ladies and Gentlemen”

55

A travel handbook bound in green goblin-hide and decorated with spidersilk entitled “Oglander Trell’s Guide to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts”. Perusing the guide provides the reader with knowledge about the intricacies of the fey courts and the basics on how not to disastrously embarrass oneself or cause great offence to the fair folk.

56

The Enlightened Wisdom of the Imans of the Crescent Moon: A sandalwood box marked with moon symbol and containing four fragile scrolls. The parchments contain handwritten religious texts from the southern city of Sabtah.

57

A magnificent painted papyrus scroll covered in hieroglyphics, illustrating the life of Queen Meritamon of Khemet.

58

Pirates of the Wine Dark Seas: A bound collection of far‐fetched pirate tales, wrapped in sea serpent‐skin and studded with pearls.

59

The Philosopher’s Stone: A book whose leather cover is marked with multicolored stains. Its pages contain extensive handwritten alchemical notes written Thadeous Glimfinger.

60

A beautifully illuminated psalter containing the teachings of Saint Barteas of Darlen. The book contains instructions on how a faithful layperson might break curses and cleanse desecrated ground.

61

Flora and Fauna of the Coral Sea: A bestiary and naturalist’s guide covering the monsters, animals and plants above and below the waves. The text is bound with wooden covers and decorated with bits of coral.

62

A dark green board-bound book with black Gnomish lettering entitled “On Envenomations”. The text focuses entirely on poisons, toxins and venoms and how to apply them to various traps and weapons.

63

A book entitled “Illustrated Sports” with a burgundy cover, illustrated with images of members of various races exercising. Every time you look back at the book, their poses shift.

64

A dark green, almost black book whose spine is decorated with a detailed depiction of a hideous tentacle. Entitled “Outsiders: An Illustrated Bestiary” The book falls open at a page discussing an entity known as Miraxia, and the pages then refuse to be turned.

65

A narrow volume with a puce cover and dark red lettering on the spine spelling out “Eternity”. The book vanishes instantly when a new reader opens it. 3d4 hours later it reappears among the reader’s possessions, filled with florid poetry dedicated to their first love.

66

A bloodstained folio that details accounts of favors owed, debts paid and deals made. A character who speaks the secretive cant of rogue’s or has a background of criminal connections a written contract from an organized thieves guild.

67

A small pocket book filled with names each written with different handwriting. The names don’t seem to have any theme to them and very in gender, racial and cultural background. Traditional dwarven names tend to be written in dwarvish runes, female names with slightly more delicate handwriting, etc. If heat or a mild acid is applied to the pages, a series of various criminal activities (Such as burglar, enforcer, fence, forger, killer smuggler, ect) and vague addresses (Such as “The long alley between Sal’s general store and Sylvia’s Scissors) where they could be found. A knowledgeable PC can determine that all of the addresses can be found in the nearest large city.

68

A small leather notebook which contains extensive firsthand notes relating to celestial beings, their culture and their language.

69

Black Lotus Manual: An oblong tome covered in tan hide. Burnt into the cover are black lotus flowers and red Khitani characters. The volume contains descriptions of and lore about deadly plants and venomous creatures as well as the effects and symptoms of their toxins. Penned by the Sifu of the Khitani Black Lotus cabal, this tome is both reviled for its dark knowledge and illegal in most areas of the Known Lands, including the Khitani Empire.

70

The Cold Harbor Diary: A small, bloodstained, leather-bound book, filled with notes written by a northern soldier during the last civil war. Despite being made over a hundred years ago, it looks almost new. The pages are a uniform cream, the blood on the cover barely dry. The entries begin cheerfully, but become increasingly nihilistic and distraught as the diary goes on. The final entry is uncharacteristically short and to the point: “June 3. Cold Harbor. I was killed.”

71

A picture book with seemingly no story, only vivid illustrations of children running in the woods. Flipping back and forth reveals that the children seem to move when not watched, and there’s something they’re running from…

72

Architecture Fantastic: A well worn leather tome describing the fantastic structures built by mages. Within its pages are numerous interesting chapters such as; It’s Bigger On The Inside! How To Get Your Floating Castle Off The Ground, How Not To Sink The 8-Ball In Your Pocket Dimension, Animated Structures; Cruising Saloons Not Moving Cartoons, Teleportation And You; How Not To Land In A Volcano, And Building On Enormous Creatures; Living On The Back Of A Giant Turtle.

73

A pocketbook of the local laws and regulations of the nearest large city. It is well dogeared and according to an inscription on the inside of the first page was owned by a member of the city guard known as “Corporal Bruno Miron”

74

A large sketchbook which is packed with detailed illustrations of various monsters, of which only some are from the region you find the book it.

75

A book bound in blue cloth containing myths and stories used to memorize the locations and constellations of important stars.

76

A cookbook written in Goblin titled “Cooking With Garbage”. Several pages have been torn from the chapter on desserts.

77

An old book which details a ritual called “Mending the Broken heart”.

78

A wanderer’s waybook written by Jerval Sekara entitled “From Interesting Places and Tedious People”. The book contains a surprisingly large amount of good strategies for lone travelers and small parties to follow in order to see wonderful sights without being caught up in local politics, irrelevant gossip and small time questing.

79

The Chain: A small travel book of Hell Knight philosophy that encourages discipline through trial, whether such tests involve memorizing and meditating upon the Measure or exposing oneself to stress and pain that threaten to break the weak. At its more philosophical level, the Chain concerns itself with three virtues: order, discipline, and mercilessness.

80

Nuldy’s Compendium of Insect Inquiries: A strange book containing hundreds of pages of unique insects that any capable reader would believe do not actually exist. The text is written with such a knowledgeable factual prose along with detail anatomical sketches that it is hard to completely disregard the book as total garbage. An excerpt from a random page reads as follows: “In many regions of the civilized-yet-recluse world, communities are well acquainted with the infamous folklore of the Dung Beetle. These timid insects incite fear in commoners—they are a deadly infestation—and adventurers. Amassing large hoards of refuse, these beetles possess the innate magic to set dung on fire and fling it with amazing accuracy. Small explosions immediately follow something being hit by one of these flaming dung balls. A single Dung Beetle is manageable, but where there is one, there are said to be many more, and a swarm is a curse. Best to give this beetle plenty of space and keep your latrine clean.”

81

A chapbook entitled: “Whip It Good: A Life In Service to Lovitar”. The introduction written by Abdirak, a worshiper of Goddess of Agony reads as follows; “The Maiden of Pain, Loviatar, teaches us that pain is a most powerful and sacred sensation. And should our pain delight her (Should we embrace such a gift) she will grant her most sacred of blessings.”

82

Magisterium Magicka: A thick, dry tome concerning the rights of wizards to pass on their knowledge and to choose which students they should accept for tutelage. The writing is highly defensive, as if the wizard in question had spent quite a lot of time being told that he should either never teach or that he should teach anyone who shows interest.

83

A musty encyclopedia that was originally penned in a legendary and long burned library.

84

The Mechanus Operations Manual: An incredibly heavy tome bound in steel with pages made of solid metal. It is presumed to be an artifact stolen from the Lawful plane of Mechanus and contains the ultimate instructions to control and maintain the entire realm, including its inhabitants. Unfortunately, the manual is written in a form of highly technical slang unknown to most non-inhabitants of Mechanus. Its precise attention to detail makes the text so large and uninteresting that none so far have managed to complete a reading of the text.

85

Dark Heart; The Lore of Life: A comprehensive tome designed to teach budding necromancers their first incantations to bring the dead back to life. The book starts off small, such as bringing small rodents back to life, and ultimately works up to bringing back dead family members.

86

Call of the Void: A strange tome written in an unknown language. Attempting to read it causes headaches and dizziness. If magically translated, it describes an elder god that lives in the void between stars, and methods to worship and communicate with it.

87

The Ballad of the Laughing King: A nihilistic tome detailing the personal account of an eccentric former adventurer calling themselves the Ebon Jester. Other than this book, there is no record of him existing. The book claims that the world and all those within it are simply constructs formed from the thought of a single all-powerful individual: the Laughing King. In the final chapters it alludes to the possibility of several creatures who may be free of the King’s direct influence, and the descriptions given eerily match the descriptions of the party’s PCs. While the Laughing King is not physically described, their personality and mannerisms are hinted at enough that insightful PC’s will understand that they are the DM.

88

GLORIOUS OOZE: A leather-bound book that is covered in a green, sticky ooze. If you can get the pages unstuck, they describe the teachings and tenants of Uur'glaz-lop, the Sinister God of Slime.

89

Spreading Joy: A religious tome made by a God of disease and plagues. The volume contains various rituals and spells for inflicting diseases of various levels of lethality and infectiousness.

90

The Ilyea'n Grimoire: A strange compendium of lore, poetry and incantations. The pages, most of which are of a parchment that is rough and unsettling to the touch and appear to its reader to be entirely blank. It is only when the reader cuts themselves and drips blood on the pages that the words are revealed; and much blood is required to read the whole thing. Knowledgeable PC’s are aware that according to occult lore, many are the foolish who have expired from self exsanguination or cumulative trauma in order to ‘read just one more page’ …

91

Codex of the Anointed: A bound manuscript that’s not so much written as tattooed on a thin, fine parchment of undetermined origin. Written in an (As-yet) undecipherable language by an unknown author, it is decorated with images that sometimes squiggle between the lines and sometimes stretch over a two-page spread. The images depict vile scenes of mutilation, murder, and ritual sacrifice. Examining it for more than an hour at a time provokes severe headaches with strange sensory effects, including coronas of burning light, flittering shadows of many-limbed creatures, and the pervasive smell of burning flesh.

92

Dreams: An ornate golden case containing a long single page scroll, made of papyrus that if examined, introduces the reader to the concept of ascension through meditation and study. The author believed that all of existence is a dream and that the gods are simply individuals that, like lucid dreamers, can manipulate the dream. Some say this scroll was written by an evil god to lure people in their grasp. Others believe these teachings were banned by the church because the gods want no further competition.

93

The Underworld Bartender: A recipe book of dangerous, distasteful, and downright disgusting cocktails. From the Beholder Blood Bellini to a hot rum toddy served in a human skull, this has it all. Recipes are interspersed with edgy, and questionably plausible, tales of high crime.

94

The Chronicler’s Book: A faded green book, thick, and of a skewed geometry: five unequal sides, bound in a spiral along one short edge. The cover appears to be made of a rough leather. Touching the book (While trying not to think about its eerie geometry or the nature of the leather in which it is bound), one senses the presence of a powerful, alien intelligence.

95

A severely dog-eared arcane volume entitled “When the Dawning Light Strips the Fat From Beneath My Arms, the Gate That is Not a Gate is Eroded Open for One-Who-Is-Now-None to Seep Through Eyes Within Eyes”. The text is nothing but a rambling, incoherent string of word salad that is nonetheless a practical guide to interplanar travel. By strictly following the bizarre sequences of meaningless actions and chanting the meandering chapters-long verses, the reader will find themselves on another plane. The technique fails to transport the book itself, stranding the reader unless they’ve committed the entire text to memory.

96

A heft manual filled with banned alchemical formulas and heretical arcane fleshwarping techniques, entitled “Chimaeramancy”. The author (Damo Krail) was a vile mage obsessed with creating the ultimate beast. The text describes how to create chimeras via a clearly outlined and easy to master system of magic and genetics. It describes how to combine any two animals, up to five animals, and which animals combine best, culminating in her masterpiece: the fabled Eldritch Chimaeras, a beast powerful enough to take down parties of heroes, armies, dragons, krakens, and even lesser gods. With this book, the available resources, and the will, could make (potentially) unlimited monsters of all sorts of power.

97

The Dark Secrets of Tarokka: A lengthy treaty written by a very hands-on researcher about the occult origins and uses of tarokka decks. It details the many cults and sects the author infiltrated over time in order to learn about unholy rituals they enacted, and how they used the cards in order to commune with dark forces and gain their favor. As the book goes on, the author slowly begins to piece together bits of information that apparently lead to something truly horrific, and right as he’s about to detail the last piece of the puzzle that he had just found, his writing turns into unintelligible ramblings. The afterword found right after that is a dire warning to all those who dare to try and follow in the author’s footsteps, and is allegedly signed by an archdemon, ancient one or some other kind of sufficiently powerful embodiment of evil and/or chaos.

98

The Trials of the Forsaken, by Bertram Wondles: A unique, ornate and gilded tome bound in some sort of tanned and scraped hide begins as a treatise on the depredations of the criminals known as the Forsaken. As the author writes the heavily researched stories, it becomes clear that with each new revelation described within, the author’s madness and envy of the Forsaken grows. Quickly, the documentary writing shifts into more of a manual of praise and worship, detailing the dark rites of the path that the Forsaken walked. At the conclusion of the book, it is revealed that the binding of the book is none other than the flayed skin of Bertram Wondles himself. This book radiates a subtle but insidious evil that corrupts readers and holders alike.

99

Tome of Higher Constellations: A huge book created by an anonymous scholar in Prague, for the library of Rudolf II. The first half of the book consists of astronomical tables: meticulously compiled and corrected, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, the second half introduces more charts, graphs, from a wide range of sciences natural and occult. Through complex calculations these are cross-referenced with the heavenly constellations. Uncanny patterns, otherwise hidden, emerge… making it possible to trace and predict the finest shifts of the celestial spheres that command the fate of the whole universe. The final result is a single date in the future, when all factors align, and major, cosmic changes are possible. Actions undertaken on that day will bear major consequences: warlords bent on world domination crave to know this date, alchemists and mages seek it as the date of their opus magnum or most complex ritual…

100

The Voynich Manuscript: An illustrated codex, hand-written in an otherwise unknown writing system, that can only be described as 'Voynichese’. The vellum on which it is written is over 500 years old and stylistically appears to have been composed during the renaissance of that time period. The manuscript currently consists of around 240 pages, but there is evidence that additional pages are missing. Some pages are foldable sheets of varying size. Most of the pages have fantastical illustrations or diagrams, some crudely colored, with sections of the manuscript showing people, fictitious plants, astrological symbols, occult formula, mystic equations and arcane schematics. The text is written from left to right. The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a book dealer who was the first person recorded to have purchased it nearly half a millennia ago. Since that time it has believed to have been held in Beinecke University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Knowledgeable PC’s are aware that the origins, authorship, and purpose of the manuscript are debated. Various hypotheses have been suggested, including that it is an otherwise unrecorded script for a natural language or constructed language; an unread code, cipher, or other form of cryptography; or simply a meaningless hoax. The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including military codebreakers. The manuscript has never been demonstrably deciphered, and none of the many hypotheses proposed over the last few hundred years have been independently verified. The mystery of its meaning and origin has excited the popular imagination, making it the subject of study and speculation.