Curious Item Club: Liquid Spellbooks
Added 2015-06-18 21:52:41 +0000 UTCOver the multitude of millennia, masters of the arcane have found a seemingly limitless variety of methods for recording the secrets of their art. Perhaps the most interesting of these were the liquid spellbooks perfected by the katai – the Imperial sorcerers of the Karlasian Dynasty.
Using complex alchemical arts, the katai found a way to suspend the complex energy patterns of a spell in specially prepared liquids using self-restoring crystalline matrices. Instead of poring over musty tomes each morning, the katai can simply quaff each spell in turn, allowing the crystalline matrix to permeate their mind.
Creating a liquid spellbook requires the Brew Potion feat. Each spell costs 125 gp x the level of the spell x the caster level to create. The creator can drink a portion of the liquid spellbook to learn the spell for the day (in which case the liquid will regenerate over the course of the day and can be used again the next day). Alternatively, the creator can drink the entire liquid spellbook, in which case it functions like a potion (essentially resulting in the drinker immediately casting the spell). If used as a potion, however, the liquid spellbook is completely consumed and will not regenerate.
If cut off from the ethereal plane, a liquid spellbook cannot refresh itself. In such a case, the liquid spellbook can be used to prepare a spell 1d12+1 times before becoming exhausted.
A spellcaster preparing all of their spells from a liquid spellbook for the day reduces the time required to prepare their spells to one-quarter the normal value.
The energy patterns within a liquid spellbook are customized to the mind of the arcanist who created it. Using a liquid spellbook prepared by another arcanist is dangerous: The user must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level, +2 circumstance bonus if specialized in the spell’s school). On a failure, they fail to prepare the spell and also suffer 1 point of damage from the ability score they use for casting spells.
(This material is covered by the OGL. See attached PDF.)
