Scribd
Upload
117 views2 pages

Mordenkainen's Library

The document describes a side quest that players can undertake to gain access to a magical item. It involves finding a tiny chest buried in a significant location. The chest acts as a portal to an ethereal library containing a variety of useful information such as spells, bestiaries, schematics, and more. To unlock the full potential of the library, players must first solve a riddle posed by three magical faces in an illusion book that speaks different languages and answers questions with varying degrees of honesty or deception.

Uploaded by

Joni Domínguez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
117 views2 pages

Mordenkainen's Library

The document describes a side quest that players can undertake to gain access to a magical item. It involves finding a tiny chest buried in a significant location. The chest acts as a portal to an ethereal library containing a variety of useful information such as spells, bestiaries, schematics, and more. To unlock the full potential of the library, players must first solve a riddle posed by three magical faces in an illusion book that speaks different languages and answers questions with varying degrees of honesty or deception.

Uploaded by

Joni Domínguez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

A while back, I was looking for a good way to give Wizard spells and other bits of miscellaneous useful

in-game information to my players without making the players really work for it, so I came up with a
side-quest, the end of which puts a very useful item in the possession of the players. I figured others
here might get some use out of some version of this, so I figured I'd write it up in broad strokes.

HOOK
A player finds a tiny but realistic-looking chest somewhere. My wizard found it buried beneath the
Gulthias Tree. It should be a place of some significance—somewhere a very intelligent and powerful
wizard might think to hide a few important possessions before he attempts to kill an incredibly powerful
vampire like Strahd.

THE CHEST
Attuning to the chest allows a person to summon an otherworldly chest, (a la Leomund's Tiny Chest, but
this is a somewhat more permanent version) from the Ethereal plane. But there's a catch: it's been
magically locked by a permanent version of the Arcane Lock spell. A knock spell or similar magic can
disable the lock for 10 minutes, but there is no getting past the lock without magic of some kind. Only a
wish spell can permanently unlock the chest while allowing it to remain ethereal, since casting dispel
magic at a high enough level to disable the arcane lock makes it so the chest can no longer be stored in
the ethereal plane.

INSIDE THE CHEST


You find a book, very obviously magical, with runes and celestial bodies embossed on the front in a way
that seems to move ever so slightly. The pages of the book are pressed together very firmly by a strap
with a lock on it. To close inspection, it looks almost like it's not a book at all---just a solid piece of wood
covered in leather, carved to look like a book. But attempting to undo the latch causes the runes on the
front of the book to shift, and three faces to appear across the top of the book.

Below the faces, in words readable by anyone who speaks at least one language, are the following
words: "These three faces have names: the Fiend, the Fickle, and the Friend. The Fiend speaks only
falsehoods, the Fickle and may either lie or tell the truth, and the Friend speaks only the truth. You may
ask three questions, each directed at only one of these, then tap, in order, the Fiend, the Fickle, and the
Friend. But they come from a world beyond ours, and will thus answer in a language familiar to them,
speaking either Ra or Ar ."
THE RIDDLE
This is the main bit of work they'll have to do. The book will allow them one guess per game-day. This is
an exceptionally difficult riddle. They will not solve it the first time they hear it. The words the faces use
to represent YES and NO change every time the riddle is asked, as do the locations of the faces (so if the
party confirms that the one in the middle is Friend, the next time they try, the middle might be Fiend
instead).

MORDENKAINEN'S LIBRARY
Once they open the book, they discover that it's actually a book of books. Here's the item I gave them:

The table of contents for this book is organized by some strange combination of page number,
the phases of moons on several different worlds, time of day, and a column simply titled
"Alignment"

The items in the table of contents include spells of every kind, an exhaustive bestiary, what
appears to be a personal journal or travelogue of some sort, a long list of schematics for objects
both magical and non-magical, and the titles of dozens of books, none of which are recognizable
to you.

Finding a written spell


To flip to a particular spell, you must succeed on an Arcana check with a DC of 15 + the spell's
level. If you succeed by 5 or more, you will always be able to open the book to that page.

Finding a particular beast


The bestiary is organized both by name of beast and by taxonomy. You may find a beast by
name by succeeding on a DC 15 intelligence check, or by taxonomy if you or someone who saw
the beast succeeds on a DC 15 nature check to recognize and describe the relevant
characteristics, and then you succeed on a DC 15 intelligence check to find the appropriate
entry.

Finding anything else


Schematics, potions, and recipes are organized by function and by name, and may be found by
adapting adapting the method described in finding a beast with the relevant skills, as can any of
the long list of books and journals.

You might also like