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Wenin
Senior Scribe
585 Posts |
 Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 16:29:44
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I'm wondering if there is a name of a locked container that holds a tome. The box is the size of the tome, but is a seperate object. A tome is placed within the box, and the box can be locked.
Just wondering, or I may have made the idea up myself, and it has never existed.
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Session Reports posted at RPG Geek.
Stem the Tide Takes place in Mistledale.
Dark Curtains - Takes place in the Savage North, starting in Nesmé. I wrapped my campaign into the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but it takes place in 1372 DR. |
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Christopher_Rowe
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
879 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 16:32:42
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Hmmm. Interesting. Is the book placed in the book end on like in a slipcase, or with the back nesting against the back of the box. I suppose a third option exists where it's slid in along the shortest axis, sort of like a knife into a sheathe.
I say all this because I don't know of any such term but more information about what you have in mind might help us out in helping you coin one.
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Bladewind
Master of Realmslore
Netherlands
1280 Posts |
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Christopher_Rowe
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
879 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 17:15:35
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| Booksafe? |
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Christopher_Rowe
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
879 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 17:16:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Bladewind
I can imagine they are called bookcases.
Or since that already has a near-universal received meaning maybe tomecase? |
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Tamsar
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
141 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 17:23:39
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| Tome Tomb ! |
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light |
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Portella
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
247 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 17:47:18
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| Dont think there a specific name for such a thing... It a case or strongbox since it has a lock. Strong box would be my choice. |
Purple you say?!
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The Red Walker
Great Reader
USA
3563 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 18:16:49
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| I think in the RW they are simply book boxes....but I would guess Ed, with his love of books, has a realmsian term if y |
A little nonsense now and then, relished by the wisest men - Willy Wonka
"We need men who can dream of things that never were." -
John F. Kennedy, speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963
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chamber101
Seeker
57 Posts |
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Bakra
Senior Scribe
628 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 19:03:08
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quote:
Originally posted by The Red Walker
I think in the RW they are simply book boxes....but I would guess Ed, with his love of books, has a realmsian term if y
We place our rare & fragile books in a 'clam shell'
I guess someone could add a lock.
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I hope Candlekeep continues to be the friendly forum of fellow Realms-lovers that it has always been, as we all go through this together. If you don’t want to move to the “new” Realms, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with either you or the “old” Realms. Goodness knows Candlekeep, and the hearts of its scribes, are both big enough to accommodate both. If we want them to be.
(Strikes dramatic pose, raises sword to gleam in the sunset, and hopes breeches won’t fall down.)
Enough for now. The Realms lives! I have spoken! Ale and light wines half price, served by a smiling Storm Silverhand fetchingly clad in thigh-high boots and naught else! Ahem . .
So saith Ed. <snip>
love to all,
THO
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7974 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 19:53:37
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quote:
Wenin
... a locked container that holds a tome. The box is the size of the tome, but is a seperate object. A tome is placed within the box, and the box can be locked.
What you describe is basically what the PHB (in 2E at least) calls a "map or scroll case"; essentially a small box (usually made of wood or leather, sometimes metal) which can hold a single tome or a bunch of written and blank sheets, plus sometimes a few quills, inkjars, and other writing implements. Most players don't buy such things, instead preferring scroll tubes.
An alternative is a strongbox (safe), or even a tome-sized false or secret compartment within one.
Another alternative would be building the protective case onto the tome itself; sort of like a modern zipper binder (whatever these things are called) ... these can even have attached straps or handles to allow carrying or wearing as a shoulderbag or backpack; I've seen laptop cases, briefcases, and schoolbooks like this. Note that many wizards use special materials and bookbinding materials in their "travelling" spellbooks (such as dragonhide or metal plates) to make them resistant to damage; they often cover all the exposed parts of the pages to protect them from exposure to water, flame, impact, and other common adventuring hazards.
Mechanical locks are a bit costly, prone to lockpicking rogues, and can be easily circumvented with the knock spell; combination locks are exceedingly rare, so keeping a spare key might be advisable. Wizards often use wizard lock instead since it costs nothing and is virtually immune to nonmagical opening attempts; it is unfortunately bypassed rather easily by higher-level wizards. A wizard could always use multiple locking systems, of course.
Mechanical traps can also be used. The classic is some kind of spring-loaded poisoned/drugged needle which is disarmed through a hidden button/lever. It's not unheard of for tomes to be booby-trapped with self-destruct mechanisms which spill acid or sparks and flaming oil across their pages.
Other popular methods of protecting spellbooks include Nystul's magical aura or other false or inconsequential dweomers (to confound magical analysis), illusions (to make the book or page contents appear as something else), curses, confuse languages, Leomund's trap, obscure object, misdirection, explosive runes, illusionary script, nondetection, secret page, sepia snake sigil, encrypt, fire trap, avoidance, secure, Xult's magical doom, and magical symbols or written power words.
A wizard might also use spells such as alarm, magic mouth ("I'm being stolen by an elf!"), and watchware to alert him when his spellbook is disturbed or threatened. Wizard mark is a nearly foolproof method of identifying ownership, and along with bloodglow and various tracer magics can be used to make recovery of the spellbook through scrying/location magics much easier.
Plus there are of course all sorts of guardian magics and "spelltraps" which can conjure dangerous creatures (or release one somehow imprisoned within the writings). Or which can trigger any sort of "suspended" spells ranging from suggestion ("put the book down, walk away, and forget about it") to magical imprisonment/banishing, to spectacular, gruesome, and very lethal necromancies. One of my players has a wraith imprisoned within his most precious spellbook, it will attack (level drain) anyone who touches any of the pages unless they first speak its name. Another player has managed to magically embed selected (nasty) plaques from a deck of many things throughout his spellbooks. The general idea is that people who steal or tamper with a wizard's spellbook will meet some kind of bad news. The corollary of this idea is that adventurers need to be extremely cautious with the spellbook they've taken from a defeated evil bastard wizard. For all you know, that book (or some obscure symbol written somewhere on one of its pages) will cast polymorph, cloudkill, magic jar, teleport, trap the soul - or worse.
Spells such as reduce and item can make a tome/spellbook more portable (for a while), and incidentally also able to fit inside smaller (or layered) protective containers or even within a secret belt buckle compartment. Mending can be used to repair wear and damage, or to reconstruct a map/writing "hidden" as unreadably torn scraps. One of my players uses magically phosphorescent ink formulae so that anything she writes has a soft greenish glow and she can read/study her maps and spellbooks comfortably in dark conditions. Another player has simply cast a dim continual light on both of the inner covers, yet another has cast it upon a handheld magnifying lens (also useful for read magic). Past characters have enchanted their spellbooks with all manner of useful spells, such as constant telekinesis (on the book), silence, 10' radius (when opened), and rope trick (once/day). Players are inclined to prefer permanent spells and ignore those which need to be cast every few hours or days - but remember that a spellbook is ridiculously expensive/valuable and a wizard knows he's utterly impotent without it, so investing a few spells each day into securing it (and punishing thieves) is a prudent strategy. Paranoid wizards pack multiple protections onto each of their important tomes.
Some excellent examples of magical spellbooks (and their protections) can be found in FR0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Set and FR4 The Magister; written for 1E but still full of Ed's wonderfully sadistic descriptions and ideas, applicable for any edition of D&D. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 15 Mar 2011 21:35:59 |
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Knight of the Gate
Senior Scribe
USA
624 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 21:47:31
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| There are reliquaries IRL that hold sacred tomes which match your description; I would be surprised if they didn't have a specific moniker. |
How can life be so bountiful, providing such sublime rewards for mediocrity? -Umberto Ecco |
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Eltheron
Senior Scribe
740 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 22:22:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Wenin
I'm wondering if there is a name of a locked container that holds a tome. The box is the size of the tome, but is a seperate object. A tome is placed within the box, and the box can be locked.
Just wondering, or I may have made the idea up myself, and it has never existed.
Strongbox or reliquary would be closest, if you're looking for a metal box that locks. Most often, loose paper documents and other valuables were stored in those. Typically though, you wouldn't store expensive books in small locked containers, because of mold and decay issues.
For something transportable, leather book satchels were common. They "locked" in the sense that they could have clasps with locks, when necessary. An example of a book satchel from the 16th century is here: http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2011/01/sixteenth-century-book-satchel.html and could be sized to a particular book. |
"The very best possible post-fourteenth-century Realms lets down those who love the specific, detailed social, political and magical situation, with its thousands of characters, developed over forty years, and want to learn more about it; and those who'd be open to a new one with equal depth, which there just isn't time to re-produce; and those repelled, some past the point of no return, by the bad-taste-and-plausibility gap of things done to the world when its guardianship was less careful."
--Faraer |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7974 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2011 : 23:15:49
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| A question is whether a phonebook-sized spellbook worn as a "backpack" provides any sort of AC bonus vs backstab attacks. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Dennis
Great Reader
9933 Posts |
Posted - 16 Mar 2011 : 02:17:23
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Book cache? |
Every beginning has an end. |
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Is there a name for this?
