Bottled Memories

I swear I have read about these on another blog or forum post, but cannot for the life of me determine which one.  Maybe I bottled that memory.

 Jeff Haynie

(I found the image HERE at Goblin Punch).

Bottled Memories are just one more odd item that can be found, either in abandoned wizard towers or a fey market.  Sometimes they are traded elsewhere for varying prices, depending on which memory is said to be within.

The bottles themselves are reminiscent of potion bottles, crystal or ceramic vials that pulse a bit with power, and depending on the memory within in, might be warm or cold to the touch.  Memories trapped in bottles utterly leave the mind of those the memories come from, and the process of bottling memories is lost to modern societies, although certain ancient texts, fey, dragons, extraplanar creatures, and liches may still know how to go about it.

This means that most bottled memories are old.  Terribly old, and perhaps not even from remotely human minds.  This also means that the memories within may be groundshaking revelations.

To use the bottled memory, one merely opens it and inhales the scintillating fumes that waft out of it.  Then the memory is in their mind, to do with as they please.  Sometimes, the memory is such that the new owner of it rightfully fears knowing the information.

Known memories that have been bottled include (according to opened memories and labels on unopened bottles):

Lost spells.

Maps to now-sunken cities, lost temples, hidden troves.

Answers to puzzles or riddles.

How to bypass and navigate trap-filled labyrinths.

Where certain beings are buried, dead or otherwise.

True names of extraplanar beings.

Secret formulae and processes.

National secrets.

Truth behind legends.

Now-dead languages.

Forgotten faiths.

The ability to manipulate magic.

Entire skillsets (a gnome became a master shipwright overnight after one particular bottled memory).

Living spells.

Personalities that dominate and replace the new possessor (the lich Joseph Curwen returned this way).

Recipes.

Personally traumatic events.

Personally satisfying events.

Family faces and names.

Seasons in the sun.

Country roads.

As can be seen, a bottled memory ranges from a precise single memory to a complex connected series of memories.  Yet there is no way to know what it actually is until the bottle or flask is uncorked and the memory inhaled.

For what it is worth, the process of bottling a memory involves a specially-prepared bottle or flask and an (un)willing memory donor.  Research suggests the spells Feeblemind, Modify Memory, Detect Thoughts, and Legend Lore are involved, and from ancient descriptions, the donor tends to end up suffering the effects of Feeblemind for some time after the memory is bottled.  Once bottled, the memory no longer can be recalled, nor can anything short of a Wish determine what it might have been.  Other requirements, such as how to prepare the bottle or flask, are unknown.