The Mount spell and saddle modification for spellbook storage

[Jervis]

This post comes mostly from some spell book preservation research I was doing. I was considering playing a Polyheria’s Adherant wizard/Archivist (dm allows 3.5 content)/ Mystic Theurge build. Dm gave the OK that I could trade dark knowledge for the same archetype on the archivist side of things and since I effectively payed for it twice, their levels would stack and mystic Theurge would advance it as well. A good deal on some houseruling but that’s only tangentially related to the reason for this post. The two classes would each have a spellbook to babysit, and while the archetype has a method of mitigating spellbook loss, you don’t play a set of classes like this without being well prepared to the point of paranoia.

Now to the actual point. I was looking for methods of either storing my spell books or keeping a backup to copy spells from in the event of book burning when I saw something interesting. This archetype gives you the ability to cast the mount spell with a duration of multiple hours spread out however you want. The mount spell specifies that said riding horse comes with a saddle and bridle. The pfsrd also has this to say about summoned creatures.

A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again.

So does this mean that you can effectively store a spellbook with a summoned creature, making said spellbook easily summonable with a class feature? Either by tattooing the spells on the summoned creature’s body or by simply using secret page or some other old trick to store your spells inside the saddle for easy retrieval later? Or heck, just stitching a spellbook, or a copy thereof, inside the saddle so you can summon the house, take it out, prepare spells, put it back, and send the horse on its way? Is this a decent idea in general or just a messy waste of time?

[YellowJohn]

Normally I would say no as a DM; since you summon a generic creature, not the same specific creature every time.
The one summoning broken up over several uses dodges that pitfall - it's the same creature. However you would run into the second pitfall: when a summoned creature goes away it leaves behind anything it picked up while it was summoned.
You could theoretically tattoo spells into its skin (there are rules for this somewhere), but this is a time consuming (1 spell/day) and expensive (25gp/page) process with limited uses (1 hour to prepare spells).
You might get some mileage out of it, but there must be an easier way...

[Jervis]

Normally I would say no as a DM; since you summon a generic creature, not the same specific creature every time.
The one summoning broken up over several uses dodges that pitfall - it's the same creature. However you would run into the second pitfall: when a summoned creature goes away it leaves behind anything it picked up while it was summoned.
You could theoretically tattoo spells into its skin (there are rules for this somewhere), but this is a time consuming (1 spell/day) and expensive (25gp/page) process with limited uses (1 hour to prepare spells).
You might get some mileage out of it, but there must be an easier way...

In theory if i had a sha'ir dip (or just used archivist as my divine half and Sha'ir on the arcane one) i could give my book to my familiar who can planeshift to the elemental plane of ranch dressing when i don't need him. When i play Sha'irs i always give my familiar a bag of holding and use that as my go to storage option for if i think i'm gonna get captured or go somewhere more dangerous than normal. That kinda defats the purpose though since id be using a different class.

Though that raises a question. Mount summons a saddle but doesn't say it disappears. The subschool the spell comes from says that items that are summoned remain unless otherwise stated. Does that mean when the horse goes away the saddle just drops on the ground? Is this infinite saddle generation?

That aside i might have to go back to the drawing board for book protection.

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can get the exact effect you want with Planar Binding or Planar Ally.
Call up an outsider of an alignment compatible with yours and make a deal to either protect your backup spellbook or let themselves get tattooed with your spells.

Then use Spell Mastery or tattoo yourself with Planar Binding/Ally so you can actually get your backup when you lose your main.

If the creature you're dealing with is a spellcaster themselves they may even give you a discount since they profit too.