A Cerilian Library.

[geeman]

One of the most overlooked forms of treasure in D&D (and consequentially in

BR) are books. Generally, only spellbooks are given much value, but in

societies that do not yet have the printing press a hand written, hand

bound book is a very valuable commodity indeed. Despite their scarcity,

they are also often considerable works of art and craftsmanship, compiled

using only the most valuable materials available and created by people with

considerable creative talent. Such books are valuable in and of

themselves, let alone for the information that they contain. In a world

where information is scarce, the research of scholars is exponentially more

valuable. Books may contain the knowledge of past geniuses doing work far

beyond their time. They can also represent a valuable research tool for

anyone seeking knowledge in the history and culture of a region because

books give us nearly as much information about their context as they relate

information about their text. For these reasons, non-magical books can be

highly sought after and costly items. In past campaigns, I`ve priced them

as high as artworks in the standard rules and sometimes higher.



"Thousands of tomes of history fill dusty shelves in the Imperial Library"

according to the Atlas of Cerilia (3). Not that many of those books are

actually named in the published materials, of course.

Here are the titles of books or other documents that I`ve found in the BR

materials, their authors, and the BR source in which they are

mentioned. Those in quotes are speculative titles for which no title is

given by the source material.



Aerele Scroll edited by Thesselonius of Bindier (BE 97)

Atlas of Cerilia by Caliedhe Dosiere (AoC)

Annals of the Divinely Disfigured by Anonymous (BE 7, 14)

Book of Days by Unknown (RoE 5)

Book of Laws by Haelyn (BoP 18)

"Book of Tales" by various (LotHK 37)

Daznig`s Libram on Those Enemies of the Blood by Daznig (BE 3)

Four Tomes of Laila the Wise by Laila the Wise (BoM 60)

"Untitled Book Describing Garradalaighs" by Unknown (BoM 119)

"Journal of Stone" by Oerean the Stone Mage (BoM 86)

"Journal of the Wolf" by Shaeron and Naple of Grabentob (BE 112-113)

"Letters" by Vhorduine Runemaster (BoM 21)

Occultic Phenomena by Unknown (BE 6)

Scrolls of the Tainted by Unknown (BE 15, 91)

"Strategies and Economic Trends" by Selma Efferson (LotHK 45)

Theocrats of Mystical Forces by Unknown (BE 107)

Theran`s Torment by Unknown (BE 97)

"Writings" by Audric the Seer (BoM 97)

"Writings" by Lauriel the Mist Maiden (BoM 24)



Two things in regards to the above list:



1. I`m sure there are a few I may have missed. If anyone comes across a

book in the published materials someplace please let me know. I haven`t

gone through the PSo texts either, and there`s probably some in

there.... I`d like to compile a definitive list, so if anyone comes across

any new ones, or finds references other than those noted, please let me know.



2. Are there books you guys think should be represented in the libraries of

Cerilia?



Gary

[Osprey]

Illuminated manuscripts definitely qualify as artwork! One of my favorite wizards had Profession: Scribe and Craft: Illumination (along with some knowledge skills) as his primary source of downtime income, from which he fueled his magical research. You better believe a well-illustrated manuscript is a valuable treasure! If you combine how much money a character can make at his profession on a monthly basis with the time involved in illustrating one book (years, generally, sometimes one or more lifestimes for something like a medieval Bible), you start to get an idea of just how valuable they are to a world that values art and scholarship.

I like your intro to your post, Geeman, and think it's a good addition to the concept of kinds of artwork besides paintings, sculptures/figurines, and jewelry. And I agree, books of any sort would be pricey just for the sheer labor that goes into writing one (after writing a 320-page novel by hand, I can vouch for just how time-consuming it really is, even when you can write fast! Multiply this time by the slowness of using quill pens, calligraphy, and parchment or vellum, and we're talking sloooowwww... :blink: ).

[Barrataria]

It's funny to see this post; I just registered here the other day because I have picked up some of the BR setting to use for an OD&D campaign I hope to set up (in anticipation of Castles and Crusades ;) ).

I am setting my game a couple of hundred years after the box setting depiction; the Empire has not been restored but in fact has regressed; the Gorgon and other armies spent themselves fighting another, so most of the human realms in Anuire have crumbled out to the coast, leaving a big unclaimed (and uncontrolled) wilderness inland, for the most part.

Anyway, I want a Dark Ages feel, and am deciding that much of Cerilia's history, and all of it during the last few years, has been lost. Much of what the campaign will revolve around will be discovering what happened, re-establishing lost institutions, etc.

So, to me one of the most valuable things will be books and scrolls, magical and otherwise. I intend it to be a low-magic world with wizards rare, and this should make the quest for knowledge even more important.

I too have always underestimated the value of books, and not done much with them in the way of detailing when they are found.

BB

[geeman]

At 11:25 PM 11/12/2003 +0100, Barrataria wrote:



> I am setting my game a couple of hundred years after the box setting

> depiction; the Empire has not been restored but in fact has regressed;

> the Gorgon and other armies spent themselves fighting another, so most of

> the human realms in Anuire have crumbled out to the coast, leaving a big

> unclaimed (and uncontrolled) wilderness inland, for the most part.

>

> Anyway, I want a Dark Ages feel, and am deciding that much of Cerilia`s

> history, and all of it during the last few years, has been lost. Much of

> what the campaign will revolve around will be discovering what happened,

> re-establishing lost institutions, etc.



You might consider putting your campaign a couple of centuries before the

time presented in the boxed set rather than later. When the Anuirean

Empire fell due to MR`s death the decline could be seen as analogous to the

"dark ages" that resulted from the fall of Rome, and the fact that the

Gorgon never really followed that victory up with the kind of expansion

your talking about isn`t really addressed in the setting`s materials... so

it might make for a good "alternative reality" BR campaign.



Gary

[Mr.Froggatt]

When I was running my BR campaign, I always tried to stress the value of non-magical items and other rewards. Books, as you've descussed are valuable even when they're not magical, but other similar rewards can be equaly, or even more valuable due to the low-magic nature of the world.
Maps, titles, land and non-magical items made of unuasual materials are all things that i've used in my adventures to help stress the value of real magic.... only problem is that the adventurers tend to get a little annoyed when you award them a fine steel suit of chainmail, when they were expecting chainmail +5!
Thanks for the list of published material though!

[Barrataria]

I think the problem of how adventurers will take it is lessened if you run the campaign that way from the outset. If you still need a gp-type standard for treasure you could have some kind of library or sage's guild to re-acquire the books from them. I am not one to roleplay much the sale of gems and jewelry but I think the book sale part could be a bit more interesting in roleplay terms and certainly make it very easy to insert other hooks for adventures (

I haven't quite figured out how to implement that part yet; I think I would like the knowledge to somehow be intrinsically important to the characters. The obvious way is for magic-users to find spellbooks, which will contain spells their advisors don't have access to, and I am making wizards even scarcer than they are in the boxed set.

And as to the campaign I was discussing above, I didn't envision a huge victory by the Gorgon over the remnants of the empire. I envisioned the gorgon's defeat, leading to something along the lines of Twilight 2000, if you are familiar with that setting. The armies of both sides enjoy many tactical and no strategic victories, and the land and people are drained over the years (think hundred years' war) until the fragmented empire fragments further... baronys withdraw from counties, manors withdraw from baronies until it's this bunch of farmers against that other bunch of farmers.

Another hundred years of that, and you are left with some Brecht and Khinasi dominated coastal states, and lots of nice dangerous wilderness between Ilien and BarukAzhik and the Sielwode...

Another reason to set the campaign later is to do some rejiggering of the pantheon... I have added a couple of deities (notably a goddess of knowledge, art and culture whose followers are most into this cultural recovery thing) and renamed a couple of others. Plus, then I can give players access to the info from the box sets and players secrets books, which is so well-done I don't really want to re-draw maps for the players etc. In that way it will all be dated but still useful. In fact, these will probably form the basis of the books and scrolls they find.

BB

[Beruin]

My players love books as treasures. Unfortunately, they always question me about the contents of any books I include. Usually, I have to improvise, as there are few sources - at least that I know of - detailing mundane books. Most published adventures featuring a library do not even list the title. Therefore a compilation of titles/descriptions would be highly useful. There are a few web-based resources available (a netbook of books exist somewhere) but I would appreciate any tips.



I often base my books on real books or on Dragon articles. That latter works surprisingly well esspecially with regard to ecology or miscellaneous articles dealing with warfare, economics or whatever.

A question I often ponder is: Should books have a real effect on the game besides adding colour?

I can think of a number of possibilites here:



A book might grant an extra rank in a certain skill (knowledge skills would be appropriate, but one could also think of craft skills - I would certainly be a worse miniatures painter without several painting guides)

I believe that this is plausible, but I shied away from this for fear of disrupting game balance if I`m not careful enough. Opinions?



A book might grant a circumstance bonus to a skill check in certain situations. This narrows the use of a specific book but it also raises the need to define when the bonus can be applied.



An example: One of my players owns a book titled "How to win friends and influence people" (The title was directly taken from a Dragon article I read just before the session). I made this book up on the spot when my players asked me about the books in a library they encountered. The player was delighted (He plays a courtier from AEG`s Swashbuckling Adventures so his reaction was only naturally I guess) and he told me that his character would study the book thoroughly and take it with him. Beforehand, I had pictured the book in my mind as a kind of "How to get rich quick and lose weight" kind of manual, i.e. useless, but seeing his delight, I decided to make the book at least somewhat useful.



I told him that if he consulted the book before he wants to influence someone (use bluff or diplomacy) he had to make a wisdom check against DC 15 as a kind of luck/idea or insight check. If he succeds he can apply a +2 circumstance bonus to the appropriate skill check. I`m guess that`s a fair and balanced solution but opinions welcome.

[Kyrion]

I`m surprised someone hasn`t created a simple program that generates book

names for this exact reason. It would be easily customizable, too, so we

could make it Cerilia-based.

.

Hmmm.... Excel could do this easily.



At 03:58 PM 12/1/2003 +0100, Christoph Tiemann wrote:

>My players love books as treasures. Unfortunately, they always question me

>about the contents of any books I include. Usually, I have to improvise,

>as there are few sources - at least that I know of - detailing mundane

>books. Most published adventures featuring a library do not even list the

>title. Therefore a compilation of titles/descriptions would be highly

>useful. There are a few web-based resources available (a netbook of books

>exist somewhere) but I would appreciate any tips.

>

>I often base my books on real books or on Dragon articles. That latter

>works surprisingly well esspecially with regard to ecology or

>miscellaneous articles dealing with warfare, economics or whatever.

>A question I often ponder is: Should books have a real effect on the game

>besides adding colour?

>I can think of a number of possibilites here:

>

>A book might grant an extra rank in a certain skill (knowledge skills

>would be appropriate, but one could also think of craft skills - I would

>certainly be a worse miniatures painter without several painting guides)

>I believe that this is plausible, but I shied away from this for fear of

>disrupting game balance if I`m not careful enough. Opinions?

>

>A book might grant a circumstance bonus to a skill check in certain

>situations. This narrows the use of a specific book but it also raises the

>need to define when the bonus can be applied.

>

>An example: One of my players owns a book titled "How to win friends and

>influence people" (The title was directly taken from a Dragon article I

>read just before the session). I made this book up on the spot when my

>players asked me about the books in a library they encountered. The

>player was delighted (He plays a courtier from AEG`s Swashbuckling

>Adventures so his reaction was only naturally I guess) and he told me

>that his character would study the book thoroughly and take it with him.

>Beforehand, I had pictured the book in my mind as a kind of "How to get

>rich quick and lose weight" kind of manual, i.e. useless, but seeing his

>delight, I decided to make the book at least somewhat useful.

>

>I told him that if he consulted the book before he wants to influence

>someone (use bluff or diplomacy) he had to make a wisdom check against DC

>15 as a kind of luck/idea or insight check. If he succeds he can apply a

>+2 circumstance bonus to the appropriate skill check. I`m guess that`s a

>fair and balanced solution but opinions welcome.

>

>

>

>

>

>

>---

>[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus Scanner]

[kgauck]

I have been known to use a skill group called Lore (x) in which "x" refers

to the body of knowledge in question. Characters cannot buy Lore skills

with skill points, and Lore skills are not limited by level limits. I give

Lore skills as rewards.



In the case of a book called "How to win friends and influence people" I

would probabaly grant one or two skill ranks in Lore (First Impressions).

The first time the PC encounters a character he can add his Lore ranks to

whatever social skill he uses on the character he is meeting (Bluff,

Diplomacy, Bargain, Intimidation, what have you). Lore skills tend to be

pretty narrow in scope.



However, I do like the idea that if he consulted the book, he could get a

bonus. That is also a nice solution.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[A_dark]

Some more books.... (in quotes are the actual titles, the rest are assumed)

"Victories of el-Arassi" by Boran el-Dussein (COTS p2)
"Travels of a Pilgrim" by Shamal ibn Nari (COTS p26)
Journal of Abbadein el-Metoure (COTS p48)
"An account of the voyages of Sidar el-Bandiya" by Unknown (COTS p.81)
Writtings of Kariya bint Beydu, Scholar of Ariya (COTS p.12)
An account of the travels of Alaric ibn Batoudha by Alaric ibn Batoudha(COTS p.36)
"Prelude to Empire" by Karlbrecht the Bard (HOTGB p. 3)
Ancient Histories of Danigau as laid down by its first count by First Count of Danigau (HOTGB p.17)
History of Brechtur by Lady Melirma of Muden (HOTGB p. 31)
Philosophical Debates by Merchant Master Kellorgan (HOTGB p. 48)
Memoires of a warrior, by Boeric Sellsword (HOTGB p 62)
Kinoche: Sera's Game (just an idea.... )
How Bjarn Saved the raven by Unknown (RH p.6)
Foolish Vjalli by Unkown (RH p 14)
The Faithful Skald by Aethelstan (RH p 7) (this and the 2 above could be merged in an anthology.... Rjurik Tales or something...)
An account of the battle of Dankmaar by Unknown (RH p.12)
The Concordia Digitalis, by unknown (Sword of Roele,p 41) (forbidden book...)
Eaters of the Dead, by Unknown (SoR p. 41) (again... forbidden book)
The Logic of Glyphs: A primer on Warding Magics and their Application by Unknown Avani priest (SoR p.44)


I am pretty sure that the Warlock of the Stonecrowns has some books, but I couldn't find my copy of it.... Sword and Crown has no books and neither does Vosgaard (what a surprise!)

All religions should have some holy books as well....

[ConjurerDragon]

A_dark schrieb:

> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=2082

>

> A_dark wrote:

> Some more books.... (in quotes are the actual titles, the rest are assumed)

...

> How Bjarn Saved the raven by Unknown (RH p.6)

> Foolish Vjalli by Unkown (RH p 14)

> The Faithful Skald by Aethelstan (RH p 7) (this and the 2 above could be merged in an anthology.... Rjurik Tales or something...)

> An account of the battle of Dankmaar by Unknown (RH p.12)

> The Concordia Digitalis, by unknown (Sword of Roele,p 41) (forbidden book...)

> Eaters of the Dead, by Unknown (SoR p. 41) (again... forbidden book)

> The Logic of Glyphs: A primer on Warding Magics and their Application by Unknown Avani priest (SoR p.44)



I would assume that the rjuven stories are not books and rather

will be distributed by skalds...

bye

Michael

[A_dark]

I considered the possibility as well, but then I thought that some skalds in lands under the Oaken Grove... some settled people that is, might have put word on paper... Rare books if you will, but there should be some IMHO...

And btw... not all of these books should be available in all libraries and especially not Daznig's book.... The BE, I believe, mentions clearly who has copies of it... Avan is one I think...

[geeman]

Michael Romes writes:



> I would assume that the rjuven stories are not books and rather

> will be distributed by skalds...



That`s a pretty good point. There should be fewer texts amongst certain BR

races/cultures. Someone may very well have written down the Rjurik stories

in work(s) that might equate to something like the Eddas, but there probably

are not a lot of copies of such texts--which might might them all the more

valuable to scholars.



It should probably be noted, however, that in the real world one reason such

texts are scarce is because of the tendancy of Christians (amongst others)

to burn pagan texts. We don`t have the same amount of religious antipathy

amongst the BR faiths. There are, of course, rivalries and zealotries, but

not the same systematic destruction of the works of other faiths.



Gary

[geeman]

At 12:28 AM 12/4/2003 +0100, A_dark wrote:



> Some more books.... (in quotes are the actual titles, the rest are assumed)



Excellent work. Thanks much.



Gary

[ConjurerDragon]

Gary Foss schrieb:

> Michael Romes writes:

>> I would assume that the rjuven stories are not books and rather

>> will be distributed by skalds...

>

> That`s a pretty good point. There should be fewer texts amongst certain BR

> races/cultures. Someone may very well have written down the Rjurik stories

> in work(s) that might equate to something like the Eddas, but there

> probably

> are not a lot of copies of such texts--which might might them all the more

> valuable to scholars.



And even less books among the Vos... And learned people like the

Khir-aften-al-Arrasi certainly would have a very high number of books

around. It depends even more on the decision if the printing press has

been already invented or not in the campaign played...



> It should probably be noted, however, that in the real world one reason

> such

> texts are scarce is because of the tendancy of Christians (amongst others)

> to burn pagan texts. We don`t have the same amount of religious antipathy

> amongst the BR faiths. There are, of course, rivalries and zealotries, but

> not the same systematic destruction of the works of other faiths.



The fire of the bibliothek of Alexandria would be another fine example

how a large number of books could be destroyed - perhaps a very large

selection was destroyed in the destruction of the Imperial College of

Wizardry´s tower. Or as an example in the opposite direction: The

arabians preserved the knowledge/books of the old greek authors during

the time in which the christians burned every of these copies - and

after the arabians were defeated in spain for example those books were

re-discovered. Perhaps the Khinasi have some books in their storage of

the old Vos before Azrai? ;-)



Why do we not have similar problems of book-burning in Cerilia? The

Orthodox Imperial Temple would in my opinion be ready to burn every book

in which the Book of Laws would be "interpreted in the context of the

current times" ;-)



And the description of the Northern Imperial Temple is one of the few

temples who might start a holy war - and certainly in such a war not

only people but also books will burn...

bye

Michael

[Ariadne]

Originally posted by ConjurerDragon@Dec 5 2003, 03:08 PM
The fire of the bibliothek of Alexandria would be another fine example how a large number of books could be destroyed - perhaps a very large selection was destroyed in the destruction of the Imperial College of
Wizardry´s tower. Or as an example in the opposite direction: The arabians preserved the knowledge/books of the old greek authors during the time in which the christians burned every of these copies - and after the arabians were defeated in spain for example those books were re-discovered. Perhaps the Khinasi have some books in their storage of the old Vos before Azrai? ;-)
That's a really great idea. I'm completely same opinion that some exceptional things like destroying or recovering book can be created for different cultures. This would make the history of cerilia a bit more colorful...

[geeman]

At 02:37 PM 12/5/2003 +0100, Michael Romes wrote:



>Why do we not have similar problems of book-burning in Cerilia? The

>Orthodox Imperial Temple would in my opinion be ready to burn every book

>in which the Book of Laws would be "interpreted in the context of the

>current times" ;-)



They certainly could. In general, however, I`d suggest that there`s a

couple of problems with both the scale and the scope of the issue in BR in

comparison to the real world. In the real world, of course, the Church was

much larger than any of the BR temples. It`s temple "holdings" (if we can

use that term to describe real life) spanned a much larger area than

Cerilia itself, and though there were certainly regional and cultural

changes across the continent it was still, relatively speaking, a pretty

homogenous organization. In BR, no one temple or even any one faith

compares in size and influence, even in BR`s historical periods. There

might be more aggressive temples in BR that burn the books of other

religions--and the faithful would destroy the articles of worship for

opposed faiths--but they aren`t going to have the size and influence of the

historical Church, or some of the other real world faiths that went about

destroying such things as a matter of course.



As far as scope goes, I don`t know that it makes as much sense for the

temples of BR to be as exclusive as other, monotheistic religions might

be. The BR pantheon is really it`s own faith. It`s broken up into various

groups, of course, but in general they are part of the same general belief

system. Worshippers of Haelyn aren`t going to burn the works of their

patron`s son, nor of his wife. They might destroy those of Azrai certainly

and those of Belenik or Kreisha, but since each of the regions of Cerilia

have their own patron deity and look at the other gods as less important

and sometimes superfluous it seems unlikely that many temples would endorse

and exclusive, monotheistic system. There are a couple temples that do

just that, of course, but what I`m saying is that those are the

exceptions. In general, the believers of Cerilia are more polytheistic

than monotheistic, and less likely to go on a sort of literary pogrom as

part of their worship.



Of course a certain amount of book burning would go on. What I`m driving

at is that it would probably not be considered quite the act of faith to

burn the works of all other religions in Cerilia, and that most of the

temples aren`t of a size that would make such an effort as devastating to

the literature of other religions as in the real world.



>And the description of the Northern Imperial Temple is one of the few

>temples who might start a holy war - and certainly in such a war not

>only people but also books will burn...



The one that strikes me as the most likely is the Holy Temple of Nasri in

Ghamoura. They have all the trappings of book burners; inquisitors,

control of the population, intolerance, a highly insular population....



Gary

[geeman]

This is slightly out there, but could be related to the topic at hand....



The site below has some descriptions and additional links to sites about

unsolved codes, languages and encrypted texts ranging as far back as

thousands of years. Some of these could be very interesting inspiration

for mysterious text, which could in turn be used as the basis for another

adventure or even a campaign. The clay tablets of Linear-A, or the

Etruscan inscriptions could be used as a basis for Masetian texts, or some

ancient Cerilian race (when giants and dragons were common) for a campaign

that delved back when the gods walked upon Aebrynis--and maybe left a few

artifacts lying around....



Personally, I find this kind of thing fascinating.... It`s nerd factor 10.



http://www.elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html



Gary

[CypherPax]

I sometimes add real life texts to a library, mainly books that fit the flavor.

Examples would include:
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
The Kosmographia
The Prince
The Doomsday Book
The Metamorphis by Ovid
The Art of War (as a text of Kirche)
The Timeasus by Plato
The Decline and Fall of the (Anuriean) Empire, 6 volumes

If some of the names resonate, it seems to add to the reality.

-Cypher Pax