Bearer of the Black Book

The Black Book holds dark wisdom within its pages, for any who dare open it and read the ever-changing ink scrawl within. The Black Book is an artifact, and it’s your duty—or curse—to carry it with you and add to its eldritch lore.

You were chosen at an early age by a mentor to bear the Black Book with you throughout your life and add your experience to its pages. The last owner of the Black Book was maddeningly vague about what to write in the book—“when the time comes, you’ll know what the book expects you to write down.”

Previous bearers of the Black Book have led lives as monster hunters, court alchemists, learned sages, and royal wizards, just to name a few. From time to time, you page through the Black Book and read some of the hundreds of pages already filled. Bookmarks seem to fall out of the Black Book, however, and you swear the pages may be magically rearranging themselves. Technically, the Black Book is an artifact. It can’t be destroyed through ordinary means, and a simple detect magic spell will reveal its overwhelming power. But the book doesn’t directly make the bearer a more powerful spellcaster, or aid the bearer in combat … at least so far as you know. Wizards can use the Black Book as a spellbook if they like (those pages don’t rearrange themselves and can easily be found), and any bearer can use the Black Book as a alchemical workbook, a reference for ritual magic, or a notebook for the strange and wondrous things they encounter as they travel across Thule. Beyond its indestructibility, the book’s only obvious magical feature is how the pages rearrange themselves from time to time.

With their predilection for spellbooks, wizards are natural bearers of the Black Book, but they aren’t the only ones. Any character interested in ancient lore or powerful magic could be interested in the Black Book. More to the point, adventurers are interesting to the Black Book itself, assuming that there’s some sort of sentience that controls or influences it. Each bearer is supposed to carry the Black Book with them at all times and record key events—some of which may aid subsequent bearers of the Black Book centuries in the future.

Key Identity: Wizard, bard, cleric, other spellcasting classes. Among races, humans and Atlanteans are most likely.

Bearer Benefits

The biggest benefit of the Black Book is the lore contained within, every page painstakingly curated by previous bearers. It’s not reliable, however; you never know when paging through the Black Book will reveal a new spell, a ritual to close a portal, the recipe for a rare poison, or some other information. You swear sometimes the Black Book knows what you want to know, and consulting its pages can give you the insight you need.

Another “benefit” of bearing the Black Book is the attention it attracts from arcanists and power-brokers across Thule. Many sages and wizards have heard of the Black Book, mostly because previous bearers were powerful and/or notorious. Bearing the Black Book will grant you entrance to many a cabal of wizards or college of sages.

Not all attention is welcome, however…

Bearer in the World

At any given time, there are dozens of cults, conspiracies, and power-mad tyrants who would love to get their hands on the Black Book. From time to time you’ll have to fend off unwanted attention—sometimes violently—or go incognito to avoid shadowy figures lurking in the dark.

You have a key ally in your efforts to thwart wouldbe book thieves, though: the Black Book itself. You were chosen to be the bearer of the Black Book for a reason. In the future, you’re going to witness or learn something important to future bearers, and the Black Book wants to help you survive long enough to write in its pages. From time to time, you may open the book to find a warning scrawled in its pages.

As written, it’s a lonely task being the bearer of the Black Book, but it’s possible to envision an organization devoted to keeping the Black Book safe and learning all they can from its contents. If that organization doesn’t exist when you become the bearer of the Black Book, perhaps you’re destined to build that organization to aid future bearers. And Thule is a big place … who’s to say that there isn’t more than one Black Book out there?

Personalising the Bearer

Bearer of the Black Book is a more individual, unique narrative than most; you may never meet or hear of another bearer during your time with the book. You were chosen as the bearer of the Black Book for a reason, however. Perhaps you’re a bearer because of your connection (through ancestry, mentorship, or admiration) with one or more of the following previous bearers of the Black Book.

Rubiak the Hunchback

Royal Wizard to Katagia’s Solon III “The Mad,” Rubiak was obsessed with countering the Atlantean bastion’s territorial losses on Thule by reaching and eventually conquering other worlds and dimensions. It didn’t matter how close to Katagia’s walls the barbarians got, he reasoned, if his monarch could rule lands beyond the portals he constructed. His writings in the Black Book often concern portal magic … and what awaits adventurers in the dimensions beyond those portals.

Lord Venath

An advisor to notorious king Zafid Onther of Quodeth, much of Venath’s writings in the Black Book involve the secrets of the city-state’s noble families. Most of those families would pay dearly (or alternatively, kill without remorse) for those 80-year-old secrets to remain buried. A bearer of the Black Book is thus poised to sow chaos—or a new order—in present-day Quodeth.

Zar Kuhnel

Moreso than most bearers of the Black Book, the great sage Zar Kuhnel tried to learn the ultimate purpose of the Black Book and wrote his hypotheses within the book itself. Kuhnel found multiple connections, individually tenuous but collectively convincing, between the Black Book and the Old One Hastur. Whether the Black Book was a tool or an obstacle to Hastur was a question that vexed Kuhnel until his death. You can continue Kuhnel’s research, if you dare…

Role Benefits

You possess an artifact that provides divinatory wisdom to you from time to time, though you wonder what its ultimate purpose is. Some would kill to get their hands on the Black Book, but you know you are fated to carry it through your Thulean journeys.

D&D 5th Edition

Skill Training (1st level): You are trained in Arcana and History, topics discussed at length within the book.

Eldritch Power (1st level): You gain a bonus sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell slot of the highest level you can normally cast. If you cannot cast spells as a sorcerer, warlock, or wizard, you instead learn chill touch and true strike; you can use these spells at will. The Black Book holds many arcane secrets.

Hidden Insight (6th level): e Black Book can act as a focus and material component for any divination spell. e book is not consumed when used as a mate- rial component in this way.

Secret Lore (10th level): Once per day, you can cast legend lore by simply consulting the book. You need not know the spell or otherwise be able to cast it.

Pathfinder

Skill Bonuses (1st level): You gain a +2 bonus to skill checks in Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (planes), and Knowledge (religion), all of which are categories often discussed within the book.

Remembrance (1st level): You can use a hero point and a full-round action consulting the Black Book to regain the use of a spell you cast in the previous round. The spell must be at least one level lower than the highest-level spell you can cast.

Hero points you spend to perform remembrance are not permanently expended, and are regained at the end of the day.

Ritual Insight (6th level): The Black Book can act as a focus and material component for any divination spell. The book is not consumed when used as a material component in this way.

Secret Lore (10th level): Up to once per day, you can cast legend lore for free (no component or focus cost) by simply consulting the book.