Books, Libraries, and Magical Schools

A regular request on Facebook is book titles to populate the shelves of bookstores, libraries, and wizard towers. So this post is for everyone wanting such a list; it is incomplete, but still wildly useful.

Enjoy or ignore, as you see fit.

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Libraries are built of books, and with a bit of diligence, a searcher can find several lists of book titles online.   Or you can jump to these links:

Call of Cthulhu is perhaps the game for arcane books; here are the 'official' ones from various fiction.  Then there are the homemade collections.

Ars Magica and DnD are wildly different rulesets, but both involve wizards with libraries.  Here is a discussion and listing for an Ars Magica library, and here is another - I like how both Ars Magica and CoC make knowing specific languages important. EDIT: get a copy of Covenants, if only for the 20ish pages on books and libraries.  

Continuing the Ars Magica love is this list of 'official' books found in the various books.

Coins and Scrolls wrote about Wizard Libraries, which ends with a listing of additional book title sources - almost a dozen of them; most not listed here.

d4 Caltrops has One Hundred Grimoires and One Hundred Alternate Spellbooks; this latter is good for societies that don't use traditional books as we know them.  The blog also has What Works Are On That Bookshelf.

Wizard Thief Fighter has Demiwarlocks d100 Magical Tomes 

The DnD Wiki has this nifty table for generating Arcane Book Titles

Adventure-A-Week has d100 Book Titles

Dungeoneering: RPG Tools has its own d100 Book Titles

DnDSpeak has 100 Library Books - each with a brief synopsis.

Wampus Country has a downloadable table for generating d100 Arcane Books.

DM Dev has a collection of tables for when I Search the Bookcase!

Elfmaids & Octopi has several posts about books, my favorite being: d100 Worst Books in the World.

While not exactly books, Necropraxis has this to say about Sigils, Sages, and Libraries.

The Book of Six Circles can be found at Mazirian's Garden.

MORE books at Throne of Salt.  

SCP-1230 exists.

EDIT: the GM Binder has the Lich's Library - many of these books have mechanical effects beyond the clever titles. - 7/16/24

EDIT: Coins and Scrolls has a list of books from the film Prospero's Library. - 7/30/24

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My favorite game-based library is the Stygian Library.  That said, WotC has its own in Candlekeep Mysteries.  There are others, as this search on Adventure Lookup shows. 

A procedural dungeon, so no two visits are ever the same.  Go buy it.

Dyson has made a few library maps available on his site for private use: Athenaeum of the Lost upper level, Athenaeum of the Lost lower level, The Grand Library of Coruvan, The Great Library, and Beneath the Great Library.  It's still on you to fill the rooms and shelves, but these maps are a great start.

In the middle of this free 'zine by YumDM is a quick way to generate libraries.  The undead stuff in the issue is a bonus.

Over at the Things We Do for XP, this post on Labs, Libraries, and Shrines includes several book title listings, as well.  

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Books and Libraries are commonly found at Wizard Schools, so here are some for you.  My home campaign of Ironguard has one such University, found in the Italy analogue.  It happens to be run by vampire mages, but the lesser mages don't know this and are still mostly human.

Mostly.

Anyhow, some links for those wanting them:

Strixhaven is a WotC setting set at a wizard's school

Brewkessel is a better variant on the magical school, slowly growing with each Kickstarter.

Against the Wicked City features this lovely post regarding magical grad students; prowling through the backlog of posts may find more. 

The Loxdon University stuff from Coins and Scrolls is just awesome (particularly this post - honestly, just pick up a copy of Magical Industrial Revolution and be done with it).

Just buy it.  You won't be sorry.

Goodberry Monthly has Wizard City, which is more than just a school, but overlaps in so many places, I am mentioning it here, particularly the University Cults.

The 2e Wizard's Handbook features a variety of things necessary for a Wizard School, but it simpler to afford as a PDF.  2e also brought us the College of Wizardry, and the awesome Necromancer School in the box set Return to the Tomb of Horrors.

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Something of my own, mentioned in one of the Ironguard Keep Session Logs - the session 4 and 5 post.

The Black Library is a dark chamber with cryptically labeled niches in the walls, with a humanoid skull in each niche. 

In the center of the chamber is a stone table, upon which lies a headless skeleton made of some dark metal - inspection reveals a variety of arcane runes inscribed on every inch of this skeleton.  Placing a skull on the skeleton calls up the spirit of whomever the skull belonged too, who is compelled to answer three questions truthfully (though some may demand a service or provide incomplete truths; what happens if someone agrees to a service and doesn't follow through is as yet unknown).

Some spirits within the skulls are still capable of magic and may use their arcane knowledge to do far more than just ask questions.  Are those ancient bloodstains on the fingers of the metal skeleton?

So beware what you call up.  Perhaps making use of the Library's Index - a tome listing each skull, what it (may) know about, and in which niche it lies - is the safest plan.

A jerk might mix up skulls or replace them utterly.

The inspiration for the Black Library comes from this post at Goblin Punch, so thank you, Arnold K.

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EDIT: 3/12/23

EDIT: 8/20/23

EDIT: 8/26/23

EDIT: 9/4/23