#RPGaDAY – August 5, 2025 (ANCIENT)

 

#RPGaDAY – August 5, 2025 (ANCIENT)

ANCIENT– This one stumped me for a while.  When I think of the word Ancient, dragons are the first thing that comes to mind of course. I did not want to go that route though, so I decided on old books from an ancient library.

Our adventurers have sought long and fought hard to reach their objective, the Forsaken Library of the Ancients. Here resides powerful relics, scrolls, and ancient manuscripts, all but forgotten to the annals of time. They have been on a quest, set for them by the mighty wizard, Xeris to uncover the Librum Arcanum Geographica: An Atlas of Ley Lines and Magically Significant Locations – Volume 3: The Feywild and Other lands beyond the Veil.

Among the many ancient books and mystical tomes, they found were these works:

1.   1•   Bang, Zap, and Whiz: An Adventurer’s Guide to Evocation. Written by Far-Ranger Eilare and Magus Favrir. It has an eye catching red and white cover. It is rather a dry, dull read, with complex discussions of evocation magics, including their creation and application throughout history.

 It does contain the following evocation spells: Lightning Lure, Chaos Bolt, Windwall, and Wall of Force. There is also the ritual spell: Leomund’s Tiny Hut. These spells are part of the text and are not castable scrolls.

 

2.   2 •  No visible title or author listed on the cover or anywhere in the book. It has an odd oily black leather cover, that stains the fingers and most surfaces it touches.  The interior of the book is an almost illegible mix of archaic common, infernal, abyssal, and various cryptic symbols.

 What little you can make out, seem to be incomplete dark rituals and blood rites intended to extend one’s life.  It appears from some of the notes and symbols in the margins, a prior owner was striving towards lichdom.

 

3.    3•  Knives in the Knight, written by Arthur Hyrum Highheart. It is black, with silver writing on the cover and is a gripping and amusing fictional tale of a man’s betrayal, love, redemption, sacrifice, and stabbing through heavy armor.

 

4.   4•   Small red book, with an eye stitched into the cover. There is no title or author information. It does radiate a low necromantic magic level.  Handling it brings a sense of not being alone, with someone watching them.  It does not feel hostile and there is no discomfort handling or being around the book.

 It appears to be a weird journal, three fourths filled with gibberish, poor quality drawings, and meaningless words and phrases. Every so often, it does appear as if new material is added, although the book never seems to fill up.

 The book contains the spirit of a deceased mage by the name of Waggle BigBottom.  He basically likes to watch everything in his immediate vicinity and take notes on his impressions of everything.

 

5.     5• Book with a pink cover, smeared with dried blood and tied closed with some sort of dried entrails. If cleaned off some, embroidered in rainbow stitching is the title: Bibbidi – Bobbidi – Boo: A Fairy Godmother’s Guide to Command Words and Magical Incantations.

 The book is not usable by anyone mortal who is not of good alignment, unless they have been under the watchful eye and protection of a fairy godmother.

The pages appear blank to anyone who cannot use it. Otherwise, it is written in Fey. The pages will flip to the title page, with writing in the reader’s native tongue for everyone and in pretty calligraphy writing that says – "Sorry this book is not for you. Thank you for freeing me and with your permission I will move along."

 If allowed, it will slowly disappear and leave behind a thick golden coin, with Please written on one side and Help written on the other. It radiates a high magic level.

 

6.    6•  Light tan colored book, with the title: Golems for Dummies – A Practical Wizard’s Guide to Creating and Enchanting a Clay Golem. It radiates a Medium + magic level.  Tucked into the pages is a scroll with the Fabricate Spell in it. There are ink stains and notes scribbled in the corner and close inspection will confirm that the final chapter appears to have several pages removed.

 

7.      7•Green knobby leather-bound book, with dark red lettering indicating the title, Which Witch is Which – a Hags Guide to Forming and Managing a Coven. The cover has what appears to be a hole from a knife stabbing into it. After simply handling the book, even without reading it, holder must make a DC12 Constitution save or be poisoned, losing D6 in HP, and earning 1 point of exhaustion. They are unable to heal their exhaustion through rest and each day gain 1 more point of exhaustion until cured or dead (requires remove curse, coupled with a dispel magic or restoration.) Making the save, unless immune to poison, holder still feels slightly sick and unwell.

 Anyone who is not a witch who attempts to read the book will find it illegible, with the ink on the pages swirling and changing. The attempted reader must make a DC 15 Willpower save, or be polymorphed into a toad.  It will suddenly be missing one day, no matter where it is kept, if not owned by a witch.  It radiates Medium + Magic Level and a slight evil aura if checked.

 

8.   8•   Large shiny silver metallic cover, with the words, “The BOOK: Inside are ALL the Answers” embossed into it in common. The book appears to be full of ~400 blank pages, however as holder is flipping through it, they think they saw some writing on a page that they just passed, but are never able to find it. If they spend more than a minute going through it, they must make a DC16 Charisma save or else be charmed by the book. If charmed, the book is filled with the writings of the Cult of the Silver Word and they understand they are to help spread the faith to EVERYONE else. If checked for magic, it appears to radiate High magic level for a moment and then no magic.

 

9.      9•A plain brown book titled in common, Comrade Carl’s Chthonic Cookbook, which is filled with recipes and instructions for the butchering and preparation of various intelligent species.  The cover and pages are splattered and stained with what can only be various bodily fluids and bits, giving it a sour rotten smell. The back cover does have picture of a large very hairy unkept human male, whom you assume is Carl, who is obviously a cannibal as he has a bone through his nose and ears and multiple recipes feature human meat as the main protein. It advertises another pending release book by the author, entitled Proper care, handling, feeding and eating of magical creatures: A How To Guide, which indicates including recipes for dragons, unicorns, manticore, and others. It does radiate a Low - magic level, which makes it fire proof.

 

10.  10•Under the Hunter’s Moon is a non-descript grey colored book, written by Remus Redwolf. It is a tragic fictional love story between a bard and a werewolf. 

  

11  11• A small black colored book, with gold letters in common indicating the title, Thieves Can’t… or Can They? written by Fagin Dickins.  It is an odd book filled with bad poetry and poor-quality line drawings, which hardly seems worth the paper it is printed on. Anyone who understands thieves “cant” though will be able to glean information concerning a secret buried treasure in the town of Candlesburg.

 

12.  12• Ten Little Orcs is a crudely drawn children’s book, with a wooden cover and hand bound paper sheets. It is written in Orcish and Common and appears to be a child’s counting book. The pictures are cartoonish, but graphically violent.

 

13.  13• A small thin book, with a black cover and silver lettering with the title, Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder and a subtle embossed drawing of a beholder.  There is no author credited with creating the book, which appears to be a detailed magical study of beholders. 

 

14.  14• A large thin green colored book with a picture of a huge flytrap plant with a leg clearly sticking out of its mouth, entitled Proper Care and Feeding of your Garden – a Layman's Guide to Carnivorous Plants. It includes detailed information and good quality color drawings of various seeds, juvenile, and full-grown plants.

 

15.  15• How Green is my Goblin?is a small green leather covered book, which takes a detailed look at the various goblinoid races.  Although it appears to be intended to be a serious educational book, it quickly becomes clear the writer obviously HATES Goblins and a lot of his information seems likely to be contradictory and incorrect, all presented with a negative slant.  It does contain a small section on speaking Goblin, mostly giving common words and phrases, but would be enough to get someone started learning the language (albeit with a crude racist base.)

 

16.  16• 50 Common Uses for Corpses: An Undertaker and Grave Robbers Guide, is a dusty slate grey book that smells vaguely of both earth and rot.  It does not have an author listed, but is an easy step by step guide to common crafts and uses for dead body parts, including things like how to make a lantern out of a skull and using rendered body far to make soaps and candles. The illustrations are appropriately morbid and disturbing, but it does not radiate alignment or magic.

 

17.  17• The (in)famous bard, Aldus RayRaye is the writer of a fancy yellow covered book, entitled Potent Poems and Scandalous Songs. It is well written and witty, detailing stories of his romantic conquests, exciting travels, and grand adventures. It is entertaining, but obviously mostly fictitious exploits, with possibly a small grain of truth in there somewhere. 

 

18.  18• Blood in the Water is a dark blue covered book, with the cover depicting a woman swimming on top of the water and a large shark swimming upward towards her.  It indicates it is another great Finn Mako Mystery, a fiction written by author, Brody Quint.

 

19.  19• Eye Sea You is a small wire bound book, which indicates it is a bunch of short adventure stories of a Cyclops pirate captain and his crew. The author is Homer O’Grattin and a quick perusal of the stories has most ending with enemy sailors either walking the plank or being eaten whole by the captain. It has an oddly salty odor, as if the reader can smell the sea while the book is open.  It does not radiate any magic.

 

20.  20• This is a small and understated book, with the title on a brown cover being, Of Dice and Pen – A Beginners How-To Guide to Cheating at Gambling.  There is no author listed.