User:Wildmage/Area 51

Books & Libraries in your Game Setting
As a preliminary, it should be obvious that the books described in this gaming supplement can (and often should) be tailored to your specific campaign world. This is the reason why most of the time names of religions and geographic locations remain vague or even not mentioned at all. This is up to the individual GM to adapt them to his own.

One thing which should be remembered about books in the medieval ages, is that they were certainly not mass produced. In fact, until Gutenberg invented the printing press during the 15th century, all books were handwritten, and copied manually (usually by monks). Then, the first printing presses also weren't like those of our modern world able to quickly print thousands copies of a book. In those early times, we can assume than printing one hundred copies of the same book was important, and a thousand was enormous and exceptional. For instance, the first book to have been printed (the Gutenberg bible) was printed at 180 copies. Furthermore, not all copies of a printed book were identical. Each copy was customized to the wishes of the customer (binding, paper, illustrations, etc.). Note by the way that in those times there weren't bookshops. As such, in the game setting a bookshop and a publishing house should be the same thing; and when one wants a specific (printed) book, he should order it, and then come back take it once it has been printed. As such, most books should look as if they were unique, and many indeed are unique. As a GM, you should always decide the approximate number of copies of a printed book, to know if per chance the PCs could meet the same book again in later adventures.

How to Read a Book
Manuscripts Descriptions

Title of the work also sometimes the edition.

AUTHOR: Who wrote the work.

PUBLISHER: Who if any published the work and how many copies printet.

TYPE/ASPECT:

CONDITION:

LANGUAGE:

SUBJECT:

ORIGINALITY:

CLARITY:

LENGTH OF STUDY:

BENEFIT FROM STUDY:

BOOK'S MONETARY VALUE:

NOTES:

How to Make a Book
Useful words of "flavour": Book, Codex, Letter, Libram, Manuscript. / Apology, Biography, Chronicle, Compendium, Fable, Legend, Tale, Treatise, Tragedy, Saga. / Antiphonary (liturgical book), Breviary, Epistle, Homily, Missal, Passional (life of the saints), Psalter (prayerbook), Sermon.

Book of Books
Summary::Is about all books how you can read them, find them and what bonuses the give you It about how long to studie them before you get a bonus, what the bonus is for is for, how you can find your way around libiries and all the books you can seed your campaign with.

This supplement for the D&D game presents Book of Books more Tomes, Codexs, Librams and Manuscripts then you will ever need.

Contents
Introduction
 * Authors Note
 * What is BoB
 * Why use BoB

Chapter 1: How Books Work
 * Why to Read a Book
 * How to Read a Book
 * Types of Books
 * How to Make a Book

Chapter 2: Books, Tomes and more Books'
 * The Complete List
 * Mundane Books
 * Lexikons
 * Tomes
 * Manuals
 * Grimoirs

Chapter 3: How Libraries Work'
 * Libiraries in Rules
 * Libiraries in the campaign
 * Example one "The small town library of a sage"
 * Example 2 "The Temple Library"
 * Example 3 "The grandest library in all the Realms"

Chapter 4: Feats, Spells, Classes and other addons'