Language and Literacy in Skara Brae

Despite Skara Brae being a proper city, and a port city at that, it lacks several things that are regularly seen in today's cities.  Not fast food (Pompeii had it) or public transportation (taxi equivalents exist), but education.  Specifically public education.  

This means that while most folks in Skara Brae (and its environs) might speak several languages fluently, they cannot read or write them.  

The same goes for PCs.  

Most PCs start off unable to read, with exceptions being Wizards, Clerics, Paladins, characters with Noble backgrounds, Elves, and Dwarves.  Note that this doesn't mean such characters are literate in all languages they speak, just at least one.

from the Voynich Manuscript 

PCs can learn how to read various languages, with an investment of time and money - presuming a willing instructor can be found.  This can be an excellent downtime activity for the brutal winter months.

In addition, people can be hired to read and write for PCs - sages, scribes, some bards - but then you have the issue best illustrated in Romeo and Juliet, where the wrong people learn things by the reading of an item.

Books themselves are handwritten, laboriously copied, and beautifully illuminated, including spellbooks.  Especially spellbooks. 

After all, knowledge is power.

from the Codex Seraphinianus

This design choice means that having someone in the party that can read a specific language (or cop out with the spell Comprehend Languages) is going to either be utterly ignorable in an adventure or of the utmost importance.  It's my job as DM to make literacy a worthwhile choice for players to make.

For the greater population, pictures and spoken words are just fine.  Signs throughout Skara Brae might have the name of a place printed on it, but will assuredly have a picture indicating what they do or the name of the location.  

If nothing else, this will give me a chance to flex my ability to draw.

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

Rings of Power

Magic Rings - always fun, always claimed, always tested by PCs donning them.  

Here are three for your games.

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From some online shop.  If you want a prop, buy it!

Ring of the Necromancer

This ring is made of bone and is carved into a skull shape.  It is cold to the touch. 

Attunement - 1 permanent Constitution loss; removing the ring results in immediate unattunement.

The wearer of the ring can control twice the number of undead that their level allows, and wearer-created undead are at maximum hit points when created.

In addition, the wearer's necromancy spells are always at maximum dice rolls.

This ring also has several quirks. The first being that the wearer is vulnerable to cold-based damage, suffering one additional damage die from such attacks, AND cold-based damage always does at least 2 points of damage per die rolled. The second is that all Death Saves are rolled at Disadvantage.  The third is that the wearer cannot be restored to life, regardless of magic, instead rising as a spell-casting wraith, it's spells being whatever was still memorized when the Necromancer wearing it died, the spells replenishing themselves every 24 hours.   Lesser quirks include that normal animals fear the wearer, trying to bolt and pissing everywhere in the wearer's presence, and that the wearer leaves footprints of dead grass and plantlife behind them as they walk - they literally stain the world as they move. 

DM Note: in my world, creating undead rips the spirit or soul from its afterlife, forcing it back into its physical body to animate it.  This is why Necromancy is considered evil, and also why undead hate the living.

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A real ring costing more than I can afford.

Ring of the Lich-King

A platinum band with diamond studs.  

Decades back, heroes (of a sort) battled the Lich-King and removed his hand.  The Wizard among the group placed the hand - with its ring still on a finger - within a protective glass display case.  This case prevents scrying and detection, which means that in the ensuing decades, the Lich-King has yet to find his missing ring.  It goes without saying that some enterprising fool adventurer will discover and remove it from the glass and don it.

Attunement - 1 permanent Constitution loss; the ring won't come off unless the finger is removed.  Doing so leaves a stump that will not grow back, even with a Wish.

The Ring of the Lich-King functions as a ring of spell turning, a (limited) ring of mind shielding, and a ring of wizardry that doubles both first and second level spell capacity for its wearer.  So a third-level wizard (foolishly) donning this ring would be able to memorize 8 first and 4 second level spells, rather than the RAW 4 first and 2 second (damn, 5e hands out spells like candy).

Living wearers are at Disadvantage for all saves.  In addition, nightmares come and go; with each attempt at a long rest, the PC must make a Wisdom save DC 15 or suffer a restless sleep, so gaining none of the benefits of a long rest.  If asked, these nightmares feature a crowned skeletal being actively pursuing the PC in question.

Once donned by a living being, the Lich-King knows and sends undead minions of increasing power to take it back.  This is the limitation of the ring of mind shielding - the Lich-King can (and will) get around it.  Undead target the Ring-wearer above all others, trying to reclaim the Ring for their master.

Should a living being be slain while wearing the Ring of the Lich-King, the being rises as a Wight the next round, completely under the thrall of the Lich-King, making haste to return the ring to its rightful owner.

The world will suffer if this happens.

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A ring from Amazon, so you know its quality!

Viper's Kiss

A silver ring featuring twin viper heads with carnelians in their mouths.  It feels incredibly dry to the touch.

When donned, the ring constricts around the finger and the fangs extend, piercing the skin.  This begins the attuning.  The ring injects a poison into the wearer, and if they make the DC14 Constitution save, the ring-wearer's eyes turn into snake-eyes, their tongue begins forking, and over time, their entire body begins to grow scales, starting at the finger.  This scaling is complete after a year.

Failing the save results in a particularly virulent poison coursing through the wearer's system, and the ring dropping off the finger.  This poison causes the wearer's skin to turn scaly and start dropping off, reducing Charisma (its gross watching someone's skin fall off in bits) and Dexterity (its painful to have skin chafing off) by 2d4 each.

Viper's Kiss provides its wearer with several benefits: immunity to reptile-based poisons; Advantage on saves versus other poisons; can speak with reptiles; reptiles are not immediately hostile to the wearer; the wearer can spit poison as a Guardian Naga.

Along with its benefits, Viper's Kiss also has drawbacks.  Chief among them is that cold and cold weather drop the wearer into a torpor, leaving the wearer effectively stunned in colder temperatures and paralyzed in temperatures below 0.  In addition, every time the PC wearing the ring levels up, they MUST molt, shedding their skin and becoming extremely vulnerable (also cannot wear anything but loose robes due to massive skin irritation).  What becomes of the PC-shaped skins is anyone's guess! 

I am confident a good DM will make sure the PC in question thinks about it....

D&D Starter Set

Proximity, whim, and the frozen margarita I had with brunch led me to Target, where I purchased the latest - and currently exclusive to Target until October - Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set.  It was concealed behind a wall of Essential Kits, making it a bit like buried treasure, so my apologies to whomever had hidden it away - I scored your Starter Set!

As the cover hints, the starter adventure is on an island and features DRAGONS, so is automatically a win for me.  And for $20 USD, it isn't a bad deal: 6 dice, 5 pregen PCs on sturdy PC sheets, a rulebook, and the titular adventure, all in a nifty box that could easily hold more, yet doesn't.

The cover, as well as the interior art throughout, also hints at the inclusion of the kids from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon of yesteryear.  But hints are all we get - not even the 5 pregens represent the kids.

Instead we get a High Elf Wizard, a Dwarf Cleric, a Human Paladin, a Wood Elf Fighter, and a Halfling Thief.  Check them out here.

If I want more on the cartoon kids, I need to buy the Icons of the Realms: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle.

From Wizkids, and admittedly cool.

Except that Sheila and Bobby (and Uni) are missing, and a Cleric (Aleena?) has been added.  All of which now exist in the Forgotten Realms.  

Imagine that.

The adventure itself is usable, with sidebar notes for upgrading the main encounter areas if the PCs are higher than recommended levels.  I'm incapable of running something as is, but the maps and encounter areas are certainly a solid start point for the adventure-strip-miners out there.  Even the main adventure arc of preventing the Blue on the cover art from ascending is a usable idea, to include the background on WHY this island is where it needs to take place (spoiler: because 5 other dragons' remains are scattered around the island - ripe for enterprising PCs to harvest the bones from for profit).

It's a Starter Set in a box, so it sits well on my bookshelf next to the initial Starter Set and Essentials Kit boxes.  It could use a seventh die, notably a 10-sided with 10s on it, as well as better production values for the rules - they are useable, but feel like comic books.  Give me the three-hole punched booklets of the Moldvay box!

If you've $20 and a nearby Target, there are worse things you could buy.

Writing a Rumor Table

I am an advocate of Rumor Tables in the various DnD-related FB groups I am a member of, often linking back to this post I wrote last year.   While I think it does a good job of explaining Rumor Tables and how to make them work, it doesn't really explain how to generate the rumors on them.

Hence this post.

Markets are a fine place to hear rumors - Watermarket, by Simon Dominic, Wizards of the Coast

First I start with lists.  A list of individuals locals would know about, a list of locations locals would know about, a list of monsters in the area that locals would know about, and a list (or pile, if printed) of published adventures I think would be fun for my players.  

Second, I keep the area map (starting town, hex, hexes, whatever) available to help with placement, mostly for those published adventures.

Before I put pen to paper, I recall this definition on the purpose of rumors from the blog Alone in the Labyrinth (emphasis mine):

In an OSR/OS-adjacent sandbox rumours provide PCs with leads or hooks which are then investigated at their discretion. The purpose of this is two-fold:

To drive investigation and/or exploration of the sandbox

To present a simulacrum of a living world

(Note that this is distinct from the purpose of rumours in a "trad" campaign, where rumours are used to steer the party onto the railway tracks set down by the module or the GM's story "arc")

That in mind, I turn the map and lists into 20 or 30 actionable rumors.  If I get stumped before reaching 20, I just write out whatever crosses my mind, knowing I can use it as a false rumor or let it inspire me if the players pursue it.  That is key - accepting that the players won't go after every rumor, or perhaps any of them.  

Tools in hand, I write up my rumors.  Then I go back through and change bits of some (or all) of them to make them false or partially false.  Just like real world rumors - there is often a grain of truth behind them.  

Once I have my 20 or 30 rumors, all I need is players and the game is on. I strongly recommend that at the end of each session, the DM survey the players to determine their plans for the next session.  Don't be afraid to remind them of (some of) the rumors they have heard if the players don't know what to do. 

Good rumor tables are dynamic so need regular updating.  To do so, I remove things the PCs have investigated and add new bits using the same methods I started with, but adding two lists: PC activities and NPC activities.  

EDIT: a solid source of rumors comes from Courtney Campbell's book Bestial Ecosystems Created by Monster Inhabitation.  While the chapter headings are familiar (basilisk, djinn, ixitxachitl, and many others - 49 total if my math is correct), each entry provides a few known facts about the critter in question, followed by rumors about them.  Sometimes pages of rumors.  

Now that I own it, I can start making use of what's within for my rumor tables.  Give it a look.

With a cover like this, why haven't you gotten it in print already?

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That's my method of writing up rumors.

Or so I've heard. ;)

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EDIT 10/17/22: here are a few other methods to keep the rumor-mongers busy in your gameworlds:

Eldritch Fields

Alea Iacta Est

Delta's D&D Hotspot

A Sword Called Clarity

Clarity is a human-forged longsword, but close examination reveals it uses elven techniques to entwine two blades into one.  

This well-made long sword has the words FIAT LUX along one side of the entwined blade and the word VERITAS on the other.  These are the command words for two related, yet distinct powers.

Sword of Hearth and Home by Chris Rahn, Magic the Gathering

By uttering FIAT LUX, the sword becomes the center of a double-strength Daylight spell, extending out 120' in each direction, and moving with the swordbearer.

Speaking the word VERITAS causes the wielder's eyes to glow a solid blue.  These glowing eyes function as Truesight, True Seeing, Arcane Sight, detect alignments by the auras of varying colors around each being, and can see into the Ethereal and Astral planes; basically, the wielder gets Wizard Vision.  

Depending on what they see, however, can drive the viewer temporarily mad, stunning them into inaction as they see everything as it truly is.  Mechanically, this is a Wisdom save at DC 15 (or higher depending on what the DM knows is actually there).  Failure to save means the viewer is stunned for a round.  This save is made each round until it is made, then the glow in the eyes fades away, returning the eyes to normal, but the PC changed.

While stunned, the PC just stands there, defenseless.  Successful strikes against the stunned viewer allow an additional saving throw.  

This experience leaves the viewer far more knowledgeable, but with a level of exhaustion.  At the DM's discretion, there may be a small chance for a permanent increase (or loss) of Wisdom for the PC.

A Sword Called Spellbreaker

Spellbreaker is an ancient bronze short sword, forged for use by Magekillers during the Mage Wars.  Its crafters did their job too well, however, as once attuned to Spellbreaker, its wielder is immune to ALL spells that target them - for good or ill.  Attuning requires a permanent loss of 1 point of Charisma and lasts until someone else attunes to the blade.

Potions still work, but spells cast from beings, scrolls, wands, and some spell traps do not.  Area effect spells fail if wielder is the targeted point, but splash damage from such spells works normally, requiring saves as per the spell.  For example, a Fireball thrown at Spellbreaker's wielder fails to go off, but a Fireball targeting the ground next to the wielder goes off as normal.

Spellbreaker is a +2 short sword that can Dispel Magic on the target on a successful strike (useful for piercing magical defenses).  1/day (or 1/long rest), the wielder can create an Anti-Magic Field, centered on themself.  If the wielder holds their action, they can attempt to use Spell Cleaving - effectively cutting a spell off in midair; spells have an effective AC of 10+their level.  On a critical hit, the Spell Cleaving instead sends the spell back at its caster.

From the Magic card Bronze Sword, artist Kev Walker