Experimental Book Writing Hermetic (60) or Major Breakthrough (45)
You are capable of experimenting with your writing techniques to attempt to create better methods of conveying information in the written medium.
When you choose to experiment while writing a Tractatus or Summa, roll a simple die. If the result is higher than the total quality of your book, counting your communication and increased quality for lowering the level of a summa but not bonuses from virtues, then you increase the quality of your book by one.
Much like with standard experimentation, you may choose to take an additional risk modifier. This adds to the simple die to determine exceptional quality (above) and to the experimentation table roll (below). It also adds dice to any botch made as part of the experiment.
Additionally, you roll a stress die + any risk modifier. Compare the result to the Arcane Experimentation table (Corebook, pg 109). Then use the following tables to resolve the general effects of your experimentation. When writing a Summa, you may roll to experiment on each season you write in, potentially improving the book's quality and rolling on the experimentation table.
The No Extraordinary Effects, No Benefit, Complete Failure and Special or Story Event results for experimentation work in the same way for experimentation on books. Treat Modified Effect as Side Effect.
Disaster: Your book is tainted by your attempts in some terrible way. The character has no knowledge of the book’s flaws, but their player does. Roll a simple die + risk modifier - Perception, and compare to the following chart:
Die Result | Effect |
---|---|
0 or less | You avert the disaster by abandoning your book before it’s too late. This wastes your season but has no other effects. |
1-2 | Your book’s quality suffers dramatically- reduce the quality of a summa by the number of botches rolled for Arts, or three times that for Ability Summae. A tractatus has its quality reduced to your Communication and no longer benefits from any virtues you possess. |
3-4 | It’s not simply that your book is bad. Your book is so confusing that it misinforms the readers. After spending a season studying it, the reader rolls a stress die and loses that many experience points in the Art or Ability your book is about. |
5-6 | Your book exposes one of your personal secrets. Someone reading your book may make a (Language + Perception) check with an ease factor of 9 each season they read it. On a success, if you have the Dark Secret flaw or know a Mystery virtue, then the reader knows the Dark Secret or understands (but does not gain) the powers of the mystery virtue. |
7-8 | Your book is accidentally diabolical or of deep occult significance. The book may also count as a book of equivalent source quality in Infernal Lore or an Infernal supernatural ability. It may instead teach Corrupted Abilities (RoP:I). It’s possible that the book may instead be bound to other Realms, in which case anyone who reads it gains the Plagued by Supernatural Entity, Supernatural Nuisance or Visions flaw for at least a year after reading it. |
9 | Roll twice more on this chart. |
Side Effect: Roll a simple die and work out the specifics with the storyguide. Minor flaws or virtues granted by a side effect typically last between two seasons and a year.
Die Result | Effect |
---|---|
1 | Your unique style of writing is so overemphasized in this book as to be obvious to anyone even distantly familiar with you. You gain or increase a Hermetic reputation suitable for your style of writing, such as Excessive Purple Prose, Elegantly Illustrated or Spare and Spartan. Roll a simple die and add that many experience points to the relevant Reputation. Your books also benefit from this Reputation. |
2-3 | Your book is slightly flawed in some way, such as having a lower source quality for characters without a specific complementary ability at a certain level or for a specific type of reader. It may cover a more narrow ability or be written in such a baroque way as to be useless to someone who fails a (Ability + Perception) check. |
4-5 | Your book is slightly unusual. This typically makes the book more difficult to use or interact with without reducing its general quality. For example, the book may be filled with rambling commentary that allow it to act as a book of lesser quality for another, unrelated ability. The book could accidentally be rarefied (Covenants) or written in such an arcane way as to require a higher than average language skill to be readable. |
6 | Your book has been slightly improved. It may offer 1-3 points of additional source quality for characters with appropriate complementary abilities, benefit more from being arranged into Florilegia or be written in such a way as to be exceptionally easy to translate. Books on hermetic arts could also contain some levels of hermetic spells that are learned in addition to any experience offered by the text. |
7 | Your book is significantly worse than you expected. This usually reduces the book’s quality by two points and confers an additional side problem. The book could create an entirely new, significantly narrower, version of an ability or cause someone who reads it to temporarily gain a minor flaw of the author. It may negate the benefits of virtues such as Book Learner when studying it or require that it be presented in a particular way to be of any use at all- requiring additional volumes on the same subject to provide context it is missing. |
8 | The book is exceptionally strange. This could allow the book to include Tractatus or lesser Summa on completely unrelated abilities or arts, with somewhat lesser quality or level. It could also convey a temporary Minor flaw and Minor virtue related to the subject of the book, but which the author themselves may lack- such as Intuition and Weird Magic for a book on Faerie Lore. The book may be a minor magical being with Might that must be appeased in order to submit to being read. |
9 | Your book is exceptionally good. This generally improves the book’s quality by two points and confers an additional benefit. For example, Summae could act as Summae for multiple abilities or arts at once, allowing the reader to divide experience points gained between those various abilities. The book may allow the reader to exchange points of experience gained to temporarily gain a Minor virtue of the author, frequently for a year or a few seasons. Books on Hermetic Arts could act as Casting Tablets for one or more spells relevant to the author’s topic. |
10 | Your book is fatally flawed. This usually confers something similar to one of the Disaster effects (see above), except it is chosen by the player. |
Discovery: Roll a simple die and add your risk modifier.
Die Result | Effect |
---|---|
1-4 | You gain 15 experience points in Profession: Scribe. |
5-8 | You gain 15 experience points in the Ability, or 3 experience points in the Art, that is the subject of the book. |
9 | You gain 15 experience points in at least three related Abilities to the subject of the book. |
10+ | Roll twice, and reroll this result if it is generated again. |
Example Books
(This first example was provided to me by @Xefas)
The Fruit of Carnal Knowledge
Corpus Summa
Level 15 / Quality 12
Written in ink made from (ethically sourced) human blood, this controversial volume was written by Celestis ex Merinita primarily for use by the other degenerates of her covenant, though copies of it have become something of a secret collector's item among lustful wizards throughout the Stonehenge and Normandy tribunals.
Though the text expresses unmistakable wisdom about the intimate mechanics of the human body, it does so while simultaneously betraying the author's licentiousness with nearly every line, at times using examples involving elaborate sexual magic in scenarios too specific to be assumed fictional, in shameless detail. This, along with lavish illustrations, academically annotated and anatomically rigorous, that nevertheless depict erotically debauched acts, make the tome difficult to read for the faint of heart.
Readers of The Fruit of Carnal Knowledge may add one of their lust-related personality traits to its quality, to a maximum of 3. Readers without such a personality trait must subtract one of their prudishness-related personality traits (if any) from its quality, to a maximum of 3.
A Saffron Clad King
Magic Lore Summa
Level 5 / Quality 10
This book details the inner mechanics of daimonic spirits from the deep magic realm. It lingers particularly on a specific daimon, who the author never names, but describes as “imperial”. Written for Hermetic students, this book’s quality is increased by 3 for readers with a Magic Theory of at least 5. However, those who read it are plagued by strange visions of the Twilight Void for long after- gaining the Visions flaw for at least a year after spending a season studying it.
It also contains the True Names of several Daimons, allowing the reader to exchange experience points in order to learn them as per the rules in Realms of Power: Magic.
Unbreakable Constitution
Three Flawed Medicine Tractatus
Quality 6, Quality 5 and Quality 5
This series of books covers the subject of medical knowledge when applied to one’s personal diet and exercise. It grants the reader experience points in a new skill- Personal Regimen, which may only be used to create regimens (Arts and Academe, pg 59) for oneself. The knowledge offered is too specialized to allow it to be used for any other medical reasons. The final volume of the set guides the reader through a series of complex and season-long exercises, intended to be implemented alongside study. Should a character complete them with the book’s aid, they gain a +2 living conditions modifier to their next aging roll, cumulative with other bonuses to living conditions.
The book may be studied each year, renewing the exercises and gaining the bonus to living conditions for the year.