In an upcoming session, the PCs in my game will most likely enter the former lair of a Red Wizard. In part of this lair will be a "personal library" of sorts. I'm curious as to how others handle lots of books for the PCs to read/learn from.
Do you simply make a few narratively interesting and then have the others be unreadable? Would wizards generally write in some form of shorthand? How do you attach value to some of them -- ie perhaps a sage somewhere would be interested in an extra copy of one of them.
My plan was to have a few that are readable (though it will take some study), some others that have been written in shorthand, and others that are generic books (ie history of the area) etc.
Thanks!
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
First, if it's a big library, it probably contains most, if not all spells from the Wizard spell list in the Player's Handbook. Any wizard in the party will probably be overjoyed to hear that.
Second, try to find out what the party would be interested in knowing, either ask them or just assume, then consider wether that would be something they could find there.
Your plan was great if you want the party to slowly reveal the information, instead of revealing all at once.
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"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
It's a library. It would contain books of interest to the wizard. Perhaps there would be travel books to their favorite destinations which might give some insight to where they might likely have teleportation circles. There might be history books, nature books, compendiums of plants and animals, journals of monsters, a treatise on dragons, tomes on magical theory. Keep in mind that wizards are often working on developing new spells and understanding magic in new ways. There are probably tomes on basic magic research. Perhaps books on research in general, perhaps books on other trades of interest, alchemy, tanning, brewing potions, smithing, crafting magic items, different metals and where to find them. Also don't forget geography, maps, politics ...
Most of it will be of little interest to the characters perhaps and it might take an extremely long time to go through and inventory the contents of any reasonably sized library, but I would typically have a lot of knowledge in a library of this sort though perhaps not well organized.
Finally, there may or may not be spellbooks. Spellbooks are particularly valuable to a wizard and they might keep these in a much more secure location than just their library. If there are spellbooks present they might be ones from defeated foes or perhaps the ones the wizard doesn't need often. Even high level wizards may only know a fraction of the available spells, although PCs are almost invariably spell collectors, the same may not hold true for NPCs.
What you seem to be struggling with is not wanting to give the Players a huge information treasure trove beyond reason - but still have it be really enticing, useful, and rewarding. And stuffed full of future adventure hooks, of course ;)
Magic - especially comprehend languages - really makes encoded books relatively useless. Someone will crack the code eventually.
If this is a "former lair", in the sense that they just defeated the previous owner, then the Library will be largely intact. In which case, I'd wrap parts of the Library in all sorts of security: traps, secret caches, bound spirit guardians, etc. Red Wizards are notoriously paranoid. That's one level of access control. You can essentially control when ( at what level ) the Party can access areas, but you can't control if they'll access it. They are strong enough to bypass this security and access these tomes, but not these others ... yet.
Alternatively, if the Library is a "former lair" in the sense that it has been abandoned for years, decades, or centuries - then I would physically damage the lair; flood, cave in of part of the lair, etc. This permanently destroys some of the information, and allows you to control exactly what's available and what's destroyed.
Alternatively, you can limit the Party access by time. There is an unguarded wealth of knowledge here! They can freely copy it down! They have 3 days until the Red Wizards descend to reclaim the facility, so copy fast! Oh, and any tome removed from the lair is wiped clean. Sure you can try and undo that enchantment - it will take you time to research and study, and you can't copy down books while you're doing that. Do you really want to risk all or nothing?
As for contents of the "personal library" of a Red Wizard? That's harder to answer, without knowing something of the character, abilities, and history of the Red Wizard in question. It might be easier if you did some fleshing out of them as an NPC ( if you have not already done so ).
However, in general, I'd expect there to be reference material arcane, natural, religious, geographical, and historical/political ( for Red Wizards ) - treat this as a spell research library, and a sage library, for purposes of researching magic and knowledge.
As for spell books? That would depend on the ability/level of the Wizard. I would say there would be spell tomes here, ( if they weren't mostly destroyed by a flood/cave in ), but I would wrap these in the hardest security wrappings of the lair. You want to give a Wizard Character some treasure - but you really don't want them to suddenly have the entire common repertoire of spells at their command.
I'd also include personal journals - the Wizard's diary, so-to-speak. This is really just a big bag of DM plot hooks, of course ;)
As for value of tomes - I'd roll this up as an appropriately sized treasure hoard as per the DMG Treasure tables - calculating it all out as gold piece value, not items. Then decided - roughly - how many books there are. Divide one by the other, and - presto - you have the average value of each tome. If you like, and want to be more realistic, adjust the value of specific tomes up and down ( just using percentile dice [50+d100]% of base value ). Also, to give the books some flavor, I'd come up with a list of interesting sounding names for them: a half-dozen or so should suffice.
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The most important books in the wizard's library are the books that contain plot information you wish to subtly share with the players. Use this opportunity wisely.
I want to give some plot information, some historical information and perhaps a few things for the tome-warlock to inscribe. The trick (as always) is in balancing so that the party doesn't dramatically change power levels.
I'm thinking 15-20 books, the wizard is former but still present in an altered form. The party can choose if/how to engage them at that time.
This wizard would have some books on summoning and necromancy, while I'm not sure how useful those would be to the party, I'm sure they could find someone amongst their travels to either sell them to or use them for barter/information/favors.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
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Howdy all,
In an upcoming session, the PCs in my game will most likely enter the former lair of a Red Wizard. In part of this lair will be a "personal library" of sorts. I'm curious as to how others handle lots of books for the PCs to read/learn from.
Do you simply make a few narratively interesting and then have the others be unreadable? Would wizards generally write in some form of shorthand? How do you attach value to some of them -- ie perhaps a sage somewhere would be interested in an extra copy of one of them.
My plan was to have a few that are readable (though it will take some study), some others that have been written in shorthand, and others that are generic books (ie history of the area) etc.
Thanks!
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
First, if it's a big library, it probably contains most, if not all spells from the Wizard spell list in the Player's Handbook. Any wizard in the party will probably be overjoyed to hear that.
Second, try to find out what the party would be interested in knowing, either ask them or just assume, then consider wether that would be something they could find there.
Your plan was great if you want the party to slowly reveal the information, instead of revealing all at once.
"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
-Actual conversation in a game.
It's a library. It would contain books of interest to the wizard. Perhaps there would be travel books to their favorite destinations which might give some insight to where they might likely have teleportation circles. There might be history books, nature books, compendiums of plants and animals, journals of monsters, a treatise on dragons, tomes on magical theory. Keep in mind that wizards are often working on developing new spells and understanding magic in new ways. There are probably tomes on basic magic research. Perhaps books on research in general, perhaps books on other trades of interest, alchemy, tanning, brewing potions, smithing, crafting magic items, different metals and where to find them. Also don't forget geography, maps, politics ...
Most of it will be of little interest to the characters perhaps and it might take an extremely long time to go through and inventory the contents of any reasonably sized library, but I would typically have a lot of knowledge in a library of this sort though perhaps not well organized.
Finally, there may or may not be spellbooks. Spellbooks are particularly valuable to a wizard and they might keep these in a much more secure location than just their library. If there are spellbooks present they might be ones from defeated foes or perhaps the ones the wizard doesn't need often. Even high level wizards may only know a fraction of the available spells, although PCs are almost invariably spell collectors, the same may not hold true for NPCs.
How former, and how large?
What you seem to be struggling with is not wanting to give the Players a huge information treasure trove beyond reason - but still have it be really enticing, useful, and rewarding. And stuffed full of future adventure hooks, of course ;)
Magic - especially comprehend languages - really makes encoded books relatively useless. Someone will crack the code eventually.
If this is a "former lair", in the sense that they just defeated the previous owner, then the Library will be largely intact. In which case, I'd wrap parts of the Library in all sorts of security: traps, secret caches, bound spirit guardians, etc. Red Wizards are notoriously paranoid. That's one level of access control. You can essentially control when ( at what level ) the Party can access areas, but you can't control if they'll access it. They are strong enough to bypass this security and access these tomes, but not these others ... yet.
Alternatively, if the Library is a "former lair" in the sense that it has been abandoned for years, decades, or centuries - then I would physically damage the lair; flood, cave in of part of the lair, etc. This permanently destroys some of the information, and allows you to control exactly what's available and what's destroyed.
Alternatively, you can limit the Party access by time. There is an unguarded wealth of knowledge here! They can freely copy it down! They have 3 days until the Red Wizards descend to reclaim the facility, so copy fast! Oh, and any tome removed from the lair is wiped clean. Sure you can try and undo that enchantment - it will take you time to research and study, and you can't copy down books while you're doing that. Do you really want to risk all or nothing?
As for contents of the "personal library" of a Red Wizard? That's harder to answer, without knowing something of the character, abilities, and history of the Red Wizard in question. It might be easier if you did some fleshing out of them as an NPC ( if you have not already done so ).
However, in general, I'd expect there to be reference material arcane, natural, religious, geographical, and historical/political ( for Red Wizards ) - treat this as a spell research library, and a sage library, for purposes of researching magic and knowledge.
As for spell books? That would depend on the ability/level of the Wizard. I would say there would be spell tomes here, ( if they weren't mostly destroyed by a flood/cave in ), but I would wrap these in the hardest security wrappings of the lair. You want to give a Wizard Character some treasure - but you really don't want them to suddenly have the entire common repertoire of spells at their command.
I'd also include personal journals - the Wizard's diary, so-to-speak. This is really just a big bag of DM plot hooks, of course ;)
As for value of tomes - I'd roll this up as an appropriately sized treasure hoard as per the DMG Treasure tables - calculating it all out as gold piece value, not items. Then decided - roughly - how many books there are. Divide one by the other, and - presto - you have the average value of each tome. If you like, and want to be more realistic, adjust the value of specific tomes up and down ( just using percentile dice [50+d100]% of base value ). Also, to give the books some flavor, I'd come up with a list of interesting sounding names for them: a half-dozen or so should suffice.
Have fun! :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
The most important books in the wizard's library are the books that contain plot information you wish to subtly share with the players. Use this opportunity wisely.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Thanks all, you found the crux of my issue.
I want to give some plot information, some historical information and perhaps a few things for the tome-warlock to inscribe. The trick (as always) is in balancing so that the party doesn't dramatically change power levels.
I'm thinking 15-20 books, the wizard is former but still present in an altered form. The party can choose if/how to engage them at that time.
This wizard would have some books on summoning and necromancy, while I'm not sure how useful those would be to the party, I'm sure they could find someone amongst their travels to either sell them to or use them for barter/information/favors.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"