d100 Magic Books
d100 Books, Manuscripts and Leaflets.
0 and 101 were added just for giggles and in case of random roll effects. If a book isn't clear on how many times it lasts, just assume its single person use or only the first person can learn it. Generally system agnostic, no class, race or system referencing or anything (except french people,) mostly just for fun as I like bizarre items that aren't just a number buff. Get rollin'.
0. Inverse Understanding - The book is mutable in form and indescribable. Instead of reading the last page, The book reads you. You lose the knowledge of what you were thinking as you read it, and all that information goes into the book.
1. On Death - A small, tattered manuscript in a purple cover, written by a high-wizard. Discloses the intricacies of death as two parts: death of the body, and death of the mind. Halfway though the book, the pages change, as if torn out and replaced with new ones. A new voice takes over. criticizing the original writer's mundane understanding of death. The owner of this book can be magically revived as long as they are still remembered.
2. FIREBALL - A bright red book with a smiling lizard on the cover. Strangely enough, it's a cookbook, and not a very good one. Seemingly written as a joke or by someone with little cooking skill. Surprisingly, the food made with the recipes are good, even though they call for rocks, twigs, bugs and goo.
3. Black Spine - A pure, gray book with a jet black spine that seems to absorb all light. Reading it allows you to see a faint glow from pressure plates and tripwires.
4. Spite's Ally - A red and black book with a embossed spider on the cover art. Poisons you use deal an additional +1 damage. pushing the eyes of the spider cause a drop of poison to drip from the fangs, letting you coat a weapon.
5. Dine and Redeem - A paper leaflet with a cook and barmaid on the front. A slogan from a restaurant no one has ever heard of is under the picture. "Buy our food, dumb ass - Boartoll Brewery" The booklet magically reveals the location of the nearest bars and inns on a little map in the corner.
6. Swarm Alarm - A tiny book of leather and red gems with an explosion on the cover. Food sitting on the book will not attract insects and will not spoil.
7. The Warfare Jest - A heaving green tome with gold filigree. The following inscription heads it. "White heat and red meat, yellow tendon and wild abandon." You can can make people hit you.
8. Wild Offer - A pink and gold entwined cover encasing emerald green pages. Reading this book allows you to make "wild offers" to salesmen. Fortune or jail await your future. (Note from about 6 months after reading through this again as I'm finishing the list: I have no idea what this one means and I'm so dumbfounded I'm just gonna leave it as it.)
9. Shatter Uncertainty - A large, brown book with a stylish shadowed brain on the cover. When given several answers to a question, you can remove one of them from the pool.
10. Forbidden Knowledge - A discrete brown paper booklet with a snake in a chef hat on the cover. The book contains the entire menu of restaurants and bars and such, including the secret ones.
11. Hyperreality for Infants - A small, soft, colorful book with complex indescribable shapes on the cover. No one can fully understand this book. Everyone disregards it as hogwash.
12. The Page of Importance - An entirely unassuming green book, lightly worn, and with a scraped gold title that is unreadable. Whenever anyone is expecting a book, you can make them think this is the book.
13. Milk World - A cream-white book with bone white lettering, difficult to read. You know the location of the nearest milkable animal.
14. Unknown Expectation - An ugly, purple book with a hand-carved symbol on the front. While owning this book, things you give to people, are totally unexpected.
15. Fiends of Frenzy - A glossy red book with impossibly dark black lettering and bat imagery. While reading this book, pests and rodents gather and swarm around you in a circle.
16. House of Red - A red book with no other detail on the cover. Owning this book removes your ability to see you color red. Only someone willingly taking it moves the curse to them.
17. Smorgasbord Chaos - Unblemished, indecipherable, unforgiving. Everyone who can see you knows you have this book; and most of them want it.
18. The Life and Death and Times of Thargier Firth. - A heaving biography of thick, rough paper, 700 pages long. The contents contain the entire existence of Firth, and is the tale of the most uneventful life to have ever been lived.
19. Flexible Solids - A work of genius or madness. The book is short but is entirely written with inlaid gold leaf and small crystals for punctuation. It is filled with mathematics that wont be seen for the next century.
20. Forgotten Words - A book of variable size. It is filled with all the words you've known, but forgotten. Reading it tells you a word you've forgotten. That's it. There's no secret downside. You're more than welcome to play it up and but like "Oh gee I wonder what will happen" All while clicking the "word of the day" link to see what they forgot. I'm just a list of (hopefully) 100 books as long as I didn't chicken out and post like two sets of 50 over a month or two (I'm a slow writer.) Anyway, back to the book... The first word you forget is "Penis." Sorry, I don't make the rules. Good luck.
21. Greedy Money - Silver and gold embossed cover with a bone color skull with coins in the eyes. Every corpse you find has an additional coin in their pocket, unrecoverable by anyone else.
22. Fallen Heroes - Black and white cover with an a color inverted circle in the middle. People you observe have up one generation revealed to you.
23. Time, Halved - A granite colored book with a bird on the cover. As you read it cover to cover, time does not move for you. Takes 6 hours to fully read.
24. Filth: A History - Green and pus yellow paint are scattered haphazardly on the cover. Contents discuss the origin of man-made waste and when they first appeared. You cannot get lost in a sewer or aqueduct.
25. Goblin Festival - A book clearly made by goblins. It's tattered and scrappy. Reading it gives you an appreciation for goblin-kind and the trials they experience. It's not magical or anything, it's just a really moving book.
26. Unfortunate Soul - A strangely tall, brown paper book, only an inch wide, and only five, thick pages. It's an uninteresting brown, and slightly bent down the middle. Tearing a page out turns it into a random magic scroll.
27. Grace in Name - A thick paper-bound book with brown and white floral patterns. The contents contain the story of Jas Evas, the man who met everyone. Everyone knows your name.
28. Tragedy of Friends - A coal-black comedy and tragedy mask adorn the rough grey cover. It tells the tale of two friends, who've long been apart. The names in the book are yours and someone you know closely.
29. The Hysterical Victory - A white and black cover stained with soot. It tells tales of victories and the consequences of them. It screams warcries at dawn, literally.
30. The Embarrassing Fool - A red and white stylish cover with an image of a clown on it. Makes honking noises in the night.
31. The Tolled Parish - Religious iconography adorns pink and gold paper. Has the history of half a dozen religions. Prayers can be heard coming from it at noon.
32. The Grim, Cold Dawn - Worn river pebbles and sapphires are glued to the book cover. The book is freezing to the touch.
33. Spotted Onslaught - Ruby and garnet studded leather encase pages of deep black and vibrant red lettering. It is burning to the touch.
34. Jail and Torment - The entire red book is wrapped in wire of various small gauges. It grumbles with hunger. Books and scripts touching it get the words sucked out of them.
35. Ravens, or Flight of the Dark - Dark black feathers are thickly glued to the book, totally obscuring the cover. The contents are just phonetically spelled out bird cries. Holding this book open and over your head let's you glide downward gently for 5 seconds.
36. Twilight Enigma - A granite gray book with deep black leaf patterns on the cover. It emits a 5 foot circle of magical shadow as you read it aloud.
37. Gradient House - The cover is a mix of red, blue and purple in the middle. Stark black lineart of bricks and walls adorn the front. For an hour after reading it. Your eyes are instantly used to dark and very bright lights at all times.
38. Sleeper Agent - A totally innocuous crumpled up leaflet. It contains the last thing written by whoever has last touched it.
39. To Err - A grungy mossy green and grey book with a tragedy mask on the cover. It contains a list of all of your mistakes in life. Reading it fills you with sadness.
40. Flop Yop - Swedhese agwsrign afrston sqreddginnish naakd otwish alsabfwn qefgribon
spwingis xzwsftin foresads.
41. Floating Center - A dirty empty hardcover of a small handbook. It contains the ledger of the nearest drug dealer.
42. Flippant Excess of Diet - An enormous book of 1d100 charcoal gray pages. You may eat one of the pages to cure an illness or to be a days worth of food.
43. How to Grow Gills - An opalescent book with a creek drawn on the cover. Reading it gives you the ability to breathe underwater for a minute at a time. (The Turok underwater music plays in your head, and when it runs out, you cant breathe the water any more.)
44. Hurried Root - A living root encloses the entire book making it unable to open. Reading the bits of cover you can lets you recognize all venomous plants at a glance. Yes, venomous.
45. The Word And The Answer - A pocket sided leather ledger with a bunch of cool trivia about stuff no one's ever heard of.
46. The Last Word - A large chain locks the plain black book closed. The Cult of the Word believes it to contain the final word to be spoken, and then Armageddon will fall.
47. Mi blook - A book written entirely in French. Present day, non-magical, probably un-diagetic french. (I know the title isn't real french. I also don't care.)
48. The Empty Full Glass - A terrible philosophy book solely discussing the "glass" philosophical ideas. A bunch of scribbled ideas list additional text such as: "Its not that the glass is half full. It's simply too big by a half." And "The glass is actually a metaphor for ice wizards, separate but similar to water. Bastards, the lot of them." The book sucks and all you get out of it is a 5g note used as a bookmark.
49. Leaf Litter - Old leaves and dried mold make up the cover of the old book. It holds the tale of a squirrel who collected leaves into his house instead of food and the other squirrels thought he was 'nuts' (hehehe.) As these old fables go, the crazy squirrel was of course, not crazy and then something so bad that I can't repeat happened. The end. Squirrels don't run from you.
50. In the Park of the Maroon Queen - Utterly sopping in wine, the book stays in a form-fitting glass case to avoid damage. Placing bottles on top of it ages them to a fine vintage.
51. Grief of Time - Slate grey and colder than a spring night. Contains the legend of Inius, the man who's aged lifetimes. The book goes through phases of appearing brand new and being a disheveled relic over a period of 24 hours.
52. Answer by Default - A yellow half sun of topaz decorated the cover. A mirrored half-moon of jade makes the back cover. Reading it makes you aware of Frizno, the 8th day of the week. You may tap into knowledge to add additional hours to your days, up to 24 additional hours a week.
53. Beer - A comprehensive history of beer. Every time you think you've learned it all. A new section opens and seems to spill forth into existence.
54. Fruitful Desert - Outlandish pink and cyan flowers are drawn onto a thick, black leather face. Reading this book once lets you survive in any environment based on foraging and knowledge.
55. Agony Floor - Chain and wire wrap the front cover, with an imp fighting a steed painted on haphazardly. Your first 4 damage taken in every combat is negated.
56. Titancraft for Toddlers - Steel and silk wind around the cover in an intricate geometric pattern. Contains highly unspecific instructions on building weapons of war. The book is written in a faux baby-voice that is extremely hard to follow.
57. Grimgruls Folly - Highly textured green and red paint smear the cover. Tells the fable of Grimgul, the Indecisive, the goblin who never decided anything. Eventually he died when he realized he had to decide between bread and fish to eat. He sat there for days as it rotted away in front of him and shortly after, he followed. First Edition. Worth more than you'd expect.
58. The Squids Looked South, and I Screamed - A comedic drawing of what someone probably finds scary adorns the cover. A small pale face with big eyes, small pupils, and pointed teeth. Like a chihuahua. It contains a list of 99 fears and phobias you are unfamiliar with. After reading the book you gain one of them.
59. The Good, Forgotten, and the Bereaved - A tale of a Widow, a Martyr and a Priest. "To the Widow: Good lady, look on, the sky is yet still blue, and night has not yet broke. To the Martyr: At your feet, dust, your hands, empty, and yet your heart beats red. To the Priest: Hollow man, stand in cover, duck from the sun. The rest of this book is two random books from this list, all in one tidy package.
60. Beefy Brawling for Brutes - A thick leather-bound book with only a few pages inside. The cover has a large, cartoon man holding dumbbells. For an hour after reading, you can lift 200 additional pounds.
61. Half Finished - The book is like green or something i dont really know. Its like a poem when you read it. Something like "Whoa be upon the travellers. Black sky burns nothing but soot." And the book like burns you or something if you touch it. *work in progress dont judge me :((((((*
62. Obligatory Foul - Green and shimmering brown scales cover a bumpy cover. "Mirrors of gold and wine can't shine." Is written in the foreword. For as long as you own this book, you permanently gain a stat point at random.
63. Bough Breath - Beautiful blues and blacks brunt the bleak back of the book. Both bindings bear bright bars of broken beams. Brown birds beckon brightly beneath baroque banquets. Bare bark of birch branches break brilliantly, but boards of beech buckle between. Looking at yellow flying insects kills them.
64. Tenth Circle - Ornate golden circular patterns orbit each other on the cover. The center is a rough circle of negative space. Contents describe an archaic prognosis of the coming of an empire so vile, not even the devil joins with them. Choose one of your numbers. Give it +1 or -1, your choice.
65. The White Wall - A plain leather-bound book of no description. Bears the following poem on every page, but it bears no repeating handwriting. "Soft, inert, muffled gleam. Freezing still and silent scream. Sinking feet, death at dusk. Heavy, solid, immobile husk." Snow and ice melt at your touch. Creatures of cold fear you innately.
66. From Where Flames Touch - Shifting warm hues coat the booklet, ever changing. Contains a simple, single word that starts a fire. The fire created is of a deep amber and crimson, and highly resists attempts to put it out.
67. Opaque Heart - Tarnished glassy material makes up the cover and strangely thin pages. Words are less written, and more tattooed into the paper. You can read through papers and seals.
68. Damn My Eyes That Which See - A bone-carved face takes of most of the cover. One of the eyes has been scraped out, leaving a large crevasse. As you will it, physical obstructions dont keep you from seeing. Including your own eyelids.
69. Under the Impression of a Dire Sun - The stylishly painted green star warps the cover in the light. The "paint," loosely called, never dries. Touching it leaves a greasy, stinging mark on your skin. While marked, you cannot fall victim to sunstroke, heat stroke, or hell shock.
70. Lively Lovely Laughter - The gilded book is decorated in granite and copper. Opening it reveals it not to be a book, but a very small house. Inside sleeps the little man, Inrathus. The only way to wake him is to shake the book. Then he gets pissed and throws little knives and forks at you. He trades gold ingots for ender pearls if you ask nicely.
71. Incurable Time - The cover is a simple drawing of an hourglass, decorated with fragments of opalescent shells. The thick, dark pages merely have a single number on each page. One to sixty written in a small font on one way and one to sixty written in a large font on the other side. Flipping over the cover has the book count all the way up to sixty and then ring loudly. Depending on the way you open it, its either 60 seconds or 60 minutes.
72. The Soul of All Has Been Removed - The wispy, blue material shifts and moves with gravity. The pages are thick any grainy to the touch, like sandpaper. Contained inside is the logbook of a Miraclist surgeon. He discusses the reality of everyone he knew being cut open and having both of their soul kidneys removed. Instead of eating, you can live off the souls of sapient creatures you kill, one soul is the equivalent of ten days of food.
73. Fourth Equity - A golden coin is divided in 4 pieces on the cover. Each piece is in a slightly different style and shape. The coin is roughly glued on with a rough hide glue. While the book is in your possession, you gain an additional portion of treasure when split up. This portion materializes in whatever object is containing the original.
74. The Gaze of the Full Moon - A chiseled, blue painted rock is set into the black cover, protruding about a half inch. A small riddle is written on the foreword: "Greedy and grey, old and white, here and gone. Who am I?" After reading the riddle, the world appears phantomly lit by a moon for the night.
75. Flecked Stone and Ripped Bone - A grotesque effigy made of deer teeth and two jawbones adorn the dirty grey cover. You deal an additional 1 ??? damage to all attacks.
76. Free to Your Consequence - The entire book is a oily green and blue, as if it'll stick to your fingers and never wash off. As you open the book, the pages ripple and weave as if in the wind. The only words in the entire book are: "Come and tear, only in destruction, the path to creation made." The words are on half of the pages, the other half is entirely blank, bar perforations for tearing. After tearing the page, everyone in initiative takes 1d6 fire damage.
77. Orgall: the Keeper, or the Vile. - The life story of Orgall, either a great librarian or a miserly old mage, intent on hoarding all knowledge for himself, depending on accounts. Multiple points of view are examined and discussed, with no real conclusions made. Watermarks say this book was registered 30 years from the present day, to the day. Bit weird innit? End of book.
78. True, Unerring Aberration - The old book is scorched and marred beyond repair, only the center page remains intact, and bears the following line. "One for the mountain, single in peak. Two for the valley, aft and 'cross. Three for the ponds, cold, clear, and soft. Four for the shores, grout and grit, gnome and gnat. Five for the shells, and nothing more." Choose a damage type, you take -1 damage from all sources of that type.
79. Full For Time. Half For Effort - A beautiful ornate cover and gold trimmed pages are absolutely ruined by a thick coat of black paint. In white chalk lettering, the following is written on the foreword: *Angry Growly voice* "History needs a villain, and you insist on playing the part." S.H. Note: Darlene add a picture of a funny guy with a backwards baseball cap rail-grinding on someone's face with a skateboard, thanks."
80. The Curse Of Music and Performance - A thin fold of handwritten sheet music is contained in an elegant bronze box. The right song is always on the third page.
81. How Long Till All Is Undone - A functional, wooden clock makes up the cover of the book. The clock ticks down to the moment of your death. Anyone else observing it just sees the time.
82. May The Giant Walk With You - A stellar tome of crystal and steel wrap around a small number of bone-white pages. After reading the book, you learn of the power phrase to summon a mote of astral assistance. "Let the light stumble your path, blind your eyes, and burn your resolve." After saying the words, a 12 feet tall column of light follows directly behind you and acts in combat. It mirrors you, causing you to roll for your attack twice, and keep the higher roll. It lasts until you get downed, or 24 hours.
83. ??? - The title: obscured. The writer: long dead. Coded and obscure, the meaning and text are long since incomprehensible. Bar the following passage, scribbled over a few pages, you can glean nothing from the book. "My death for thee, my death shall be." Upon reading the passage, a semi-transparent duplicate of yourself will mirror you for half an hour but delayed by 5 seconds.
84. Completely Fucking Boned - An ugly green book with a little copper number on the front. It ticks up when you are struck with misfortune. You can cash ten in for a pizza and 3 dollars.
85. The Finality of the Broken - Large metal plated woven together make up the majority of the front cover. With a sacrifice of 1HP, you can have a target suffer 1d8 Accident damage after a period of 3 hours.
86. Encyclopedia Of Everything Vol. 242 - A pretty basic book, old leather, clean white pages, and a dull cover, except for the fact that when you open it, it's hollow and reveals a fully loaded six shooter. After returning the gun in place, it reloads rounds at a rate of one every four hours.
87. Brutal Archeology - Bone and dried skin decorate the otherwise basic cover. Small ear bones make up the cover lettering, and a suspicious sinew makes up the binding wrap. All bones you find will not reanimate, all animal bones you find will make a great stew stock. All human bones you find have an adornment on at least one limb or finger.
88. Seeping Tide - A deep blue book with a whirlpool painted on the front. Opening it reveals that the pages have been carved out and contains a slot. The slot refills with water over a period of 24 hours.
89. Basic Alchemy for Babies - Large block letters carved out of a red, light wood are the main pieces of the simple, childish cover. A simply worded lesson is spelled out in the pages. "A is for Alchemy, safe and cool. B is for Bezoar, fun to obtain! C is for Cobalt, cheap but easy to change. D is for Dig, a good alchemist sources their own metals. E is for Energy, all processes take energy. F is for FUN. G is for Great, be the best! H is for Hide, the best secrets are your own. I is for Iron, the basis of all alchemy. J is for Jealousy, protect your work! K is for Know, the more you know!...." You learned how to turn iron into gold. Only problem is it takes 1.1 gold coins of gear per gold coin worth of what you create.
90. Excellence of Action; Foreworded by Thog - Thousands of small, mirrored insect wings have been glued into place on the green, roughly textured front. Contains the tale of the Mantis King, true be his strike, long be his reign. You may take an additional action on any turn, you just must skip one on the following turn.
92. Focused on the Wrong Part - The book has a light chartreuse and silver cover, waxy smooth. A large eye is painted in the center with a needle going through the iris. After reading the book, you can see behind you for 12 hours.
93. For All Desires Quenched - A gold key is inlaid in a hastily carved out notch on the inside of the front cover. Underneath, a sigil of a local bank is written in flowery letters. The back contains a slot that can allow small objects to be inserted. Visiting the bank reveals the key to open a safe-box, and the book the proof of ownership. Contained in the box is everything put into it through the slot on the book.
95. Crimson or Bloodless - A crusty brown and crimson tome of heavy leather and musty pages. The following excerpt catches your eye: "As long as I've lived, I've never seen anything like it. Metallic, shining pools soft to the touch, but still firm as if the tension would never let it be another shape. I've attempted to use it as paint, as ink and as a dipping sauce. All of them fail, as it is intent on sticking together." Finishing the book allows you once per day, as an action, cast a 2 damage bolt of blood that never misses and the damage cannot be prevented or be decreased.
96. God Machine of Destruction - A large ebony black book with blued steel edges. The following paragraph stands out to you when reading, but the entire contents are a bit heavy handed and gaudy. "Be the superhuman for me, ask me not to bend. Grow still the mind, but ripple for me. Gift but do not receive. Turn both palms over themselves. Act in name, depart from feeling and from desire. Be free from thought." As an action, you may declare a simple, single word command to a sapient creature, they follow through the command. The command cannot cause direct harm to be caused to any creature, lest they break the command.
97. The Curse of Boartoll - A tanned hide with a boar's head looking right pyrographied onto the cover. The back cover has a bell carved in, lightly dusted with gold powder. Written as a firsthand account of the events at Boartoll Manor. A mad mage kept people locked in the manor and dwindled them down, turning them into abominations. Your mind is cracked open to the horror, you refuse to turn into something like that. After reading the book you gain a pyschic scream attack. It deals 1d4 psychic damage within 10 feet, and gives any Horrors and Abominations hit -1 to armor and to hit until your next turn.
98. The Default Language - Mundane reality reeks off the pages, single words and rigid definition bleed off every line. "To write is to defy god. Painting is a crime. Song and dance lead only to ruin." Repeating the words fill the air with a cloud of thick dust. You project a 15 foot cone of choking mist for a minute. Speech is impossible in it and vision is heavily obstructed.
99. The Bible - The Bible. (The NWT version.) Pouring water over it turns it into holy water. (I think that's how that works.) Don't do it too much or you'll ruin the book.
100. This Page Left Intentionally Blank - A scrap of clean, thick paper. A small gold monogram is on the back in thick block letters that could be several combinations. Writing an object or creature's name on it will have a projected illusion of the written name show up where you choose, no further than 50ft from where you are.
101. 35 Easy Violences - Several weapons are drawn on the stone-gray cover, mid clash. Inside contains the most vile depictions of violence and how to produce it. Whenever you damage an enemy, if they are at less than 25% hp, you may roll 1d4, on 4 they errupt in a cloud of gore and violence, torn limb from limb.
In summary and hindsight, I should have done way less items, and I definitely should've cut down on the specificity. Doing only books, and then writing like one line about it kinda sucks. A bunch of these really wanted to be other items. Books have the expected context of being read to 'activate' so they feel odd to me. Next post will be less specific and probably back to work on my severely neglected setting.
Whatever, I'm glad it's done, see you in hell. Feel free to comment typos and doubled ideas, I'm sure there's at least one or two. Thanks for reading.
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