Help with book that actively modifies the past

[Regrets_Only]

I'm planning a campaign that revolves around a book chronicling the history of an evil empire, that advances its history if the book is opened in the presence of inks or other writing materials. That is, if the empire's last recorded act in this artifact of doom dates 3000 years ago, and someone opens the book in the presence of ink, new writing appears in the book, new archeological sites and ruins are found, and these date closer to the present day (such as 2900 years ago). For the widely read, this is essentially cribbed off of SCP-140.

I'm having trouble thinking through some of the mechanics for this campaign, and wanted to ask the forums for help. In particular, I require the following:

The PCs are continually incentivized to to read this book (I can think of temporary stat bonuses and magic items, what else is there?).
The PCs are disincentivized from attempting to destroy the book
The PCs are disincentivized from handing the book off to a Big Good or Reasonable Authority Figure (which they probably will encounter in campaign)


I also strongly prefer the following to be in play, and want advice on how to implement the below:

Reading this book leads the PCs to dungeons and archeological sites that contain magic items
I have a large number of ways to show the past is changing as the book is read in cities, the countryside, dungeons, and at sea, instead of merely telling my players

[Unoriginal]

I'm planning a campaign that revolves around a book chronicling the history of an evil empire, that advances its history if the book is opened in the presence of inks or other writing materials. That is, if the empire's last recorded act in this artifact of doom dates 3000 years ago, and someone opens the book in the presence of ink, new writing appears in the book, new archeological sites and ruins are found, and these date closer to the present day (such as 2900 years ago). For the widely read, this is essentially cribbed off of SCP-140.

I'm having trouble thinking through some of the mechanics for this campaign, and wanted to ask the forums for help. In particular, I require the following:

The PCs are continually incentivized to to read this book (I can think of temporary stat bonuses and magic items, what else is there?).
The PCs are disincentivized from attempting to destroy the book
The PCs are disincentivized from handing the book off to a Big Good or Reasonable Authority Figure (which they probably will encounter in campaign)


I also strongly prefer the following to be in play, and want advice on how to implement the below:

Reading this book leads the PCs to dungeons and archeological sites that contain magic items
I have a large number of ways to show the past is changing as the book is read in cities, the countryside, dungeons, and at sea, instead of merely telling my players


Two questions:

- Is the book sapient or controlled by someone who is sapient?
- Is there a purpose or goal to the book adding history to an evil empire, and if yes what is this purpose/goal?

The incentives for the PCs to keep reading the book and not give it up, to me, shouldn't be mechanical. "PCs find a mysterious book that contains informations on old dungeons and ruins" is a plot hook most adventurers will want to follow.

Have the PCs get the book, read about several dungeons spread across the world, including one that is nearby and ripe for the taking, and let them profit from the adventure. Once it's done, it's likely the PCs will want to check the other dungeons. If the PCs do not check X dungeon in Y time, have them learn about another group of adventurers who found the dungeon after a while and got riches and glory from it.

It should take them a while to discover/notice the book is actually adding more evil empire ruins to the world. Even if they notice new infos appear in the book, they could think the book is just revealing new things rather than creating them, especially if other people do unearth the dungeons or discover them in a way that makes it look like the dungeons were just hidden away.

The most important thing for that kind of campaign is to let PCs and players come up with their own conclusions, and to let them follow said conclusions. Some may think the book is evil and should be destroyed... and you shouldn't say "no, you can't do that". Let them try, but the book and the people who want to use the situation to their advantage won't make it easy for them. Some may think the book is warning them of the evil dungeons that are appearing through the world and they need to keep following the instructions to keep the upper hand. Let them pursue that path for as long as they can/want, even if once again the people who want to use the situation to their advantage won't make it easy for them, and neither would those who want to deal with those mysterious dungeons.

[solidork]

Does the civilization have to be evil? If its more neutral they would feel less conflicted about messing around with it. New stuff appearing is one thing, but changing the past is such a radioactively dangerous concept that I'm not sure anyone would be willing to do it - you find out that the empire destroyed the village of your ancestor and immediately cease to exist, or change significantly against your will.

A history for a place that never existed, or was destroyed so completely that it retroactively never existed, or from an alternate timeline, might be less daunting.

A way to get them to keep using it is to have it mention something they want very badly early in the book but have it mention that it was lost. If they want to get the thing, they need to advance the history until the point it was rediscovered. Hmm... I guess they could just leave it open with ink until the thing gets rediscovered causing a huge amount of chaos. Maybe there's a cooldown on how often you can use the book.

You can also design the civilization in ways that might entice players. For example, if one character has a particular interest in a certain kind of knowledge (magic, medicine,

[Keravath]

Another possibility to consider is that the players exist in a multitude of parallel universes and the books are a way for the creator of the books to gather power, magic and powerful servants or slaves for them.

Each time the book is read or an item found from the information the tome, additional text is written more closely to the present day, reflecting that the characters have moved to a time line closer to the origin of the book (you are changing the world the characters are in rather than the history of the world they are from). The timeline which is still ruled by the evil emperor with an iron fist and no mercy, who crushes or enslaves the characters drawn into his trap taking into his possession powerful magic from across the shards of the prime material plane.

This avoids paradoxes and issues when the character's home town disappears or is noted in the history as destroyed (which should happen at some point). The players/characters may have no idea what is going on but by a certain point they may realize that their only way home is to read the book to the end and then confront and defeat the evil emperor on his own timeline.

If they destroy the book, they will find themselves stuck on the time line they are on which is not where they came from - if you make sure they have decent backstories including families then the odds are good that at least some of them will want to get back to their own world. This could then initiate a quest in search of the copy of the book that was seeded in this particular time line - when they find it they can continue their journey towards the final showdown.

Since it is a history book, the book may contain hints or clues about how the empire was defeated, especially the ones found farther away from the "center". If the characters/players are paying attention then this could be useful information to be used in quests to find the tools to defeat the evil emperor where they are strongest and managed to overcome all of these other threats. It could even be interpreted as a list of things that failed to work and the book modifies itself to give some clue as to what the emperor did to defeat or protect themselves from each of the threats encountered in the alternate histories. The players then have to discover other options to either bypass the defenses the emperor developed or new approaches to defeating them.

Anyway, that might be another way you could run it ...

[XmonkTad]

If they destroy the book, they will find themselves stuck on the time line they are on which is not where they came from - if you make sure they have decent backstories including families then the odds are good that at least some of them will want to get back to their own world. This could then initiate a quest in search of the copy of the book that was seeded in this particular time line - when they find it they can continue their journey towards the final showdown.

A separate timeline is interesting. How possible would this to be made into a "Domain of Dread" instead? Once they start using the book things not written start becoming foggy, and the book's history and the resulting events become the only real thing out there. Evil emperor is the dreadlord of course.

[Phhase]

Ah yes, Schrodinger Pages from the Annals of Qud, always a useful resource. Literal historical revisionism.

You could have war memorials that didn't appear before appear in addition to ruins. Incentives to read it? Loot. Disincentive to destroy it: it's like the One Ring, destroying it is a whole campaign. Heck, it could be the campaign. For extra sauce, if one attempts to destroy it, it appears to have been destroyed, but reappears in the possession of someone else in the local vicinity. Wouldn't want someone with bad intentions to lay hands on it, eh? Disincentive to handing it off to authority figures: agents of the long lost empire hunt the book, potentially some sort of mindless creatures. They scale in power based on who possesses the book. If the book is warded in a great citadel by a mighty wizard, they'll be attacked by a kaiju eventually. Better for a mobile, mid-powered force to hold onto it to stay one step ahead of pursuit, rather than risk massive civilian casualties.

Purpose of the book: the more the book is read, the more clues the players can extract that the evil empire was losing its war, and becoming increasingly desperate. Eventually, in a desperate gambit, they accessed the deepest layer of the Weave, the Destiny and Probability layer, and plucked out the quantum thread that represented their entire empire, turning it into the book, effectively unmaking the empire and throwing it into stasis. The purpose of the book is to reinsert them back into reality at a later time, in order to give them a better chance to recover. However, in order to get all of this information, as well as the procedures used to create (and thus destroy) the book, the players will either have to do a lot of temporal archeology, and detective work, or allow the book to advance quite far, so a balance must be struck so that the empire's agents and the empire itself is not released on the world. In order to destroy the book permanently, one must annihilate the quantum thread at its heart, which represents the empire itself. This can only be accomplished using a weapon forged from a shard of Mystra's Needle, a divine artifact Mystra used to create the Weave, and then destroyed in order to prevent its misuse. The evil empire used such an implement to execute their plan in the first place, a legendary sword that still exists to this day called Thread Ripper.

You can also seed clues into histories that aren't The Book itself, references to deaths in a year where no war was fought and no other phenomena like famine can explain them, huge fortresses guarding passes seemingly without purpose, you get the idea. Gaps that suggest something is missing. Heck you could have people suddenly become sleeper agents as you read more of the book, since they "remember" they've always been a part of a secret society dedicated to the empire.

Bonus: perhaps the creatures that hunt the book are some sort of Ink Golem which tries to make the book advance by providing ink and attempting to seize the book.

[Regrets_Only]

Wow, so many great ideas. Thank you all!


Two questions:

- Is the book sapient or controlled by someone who is sapient?
- Is there a purpose or goal to the book adding history to an evil empire, and if yes what is this purpose/goal?

No to the first question, yes to the second. I'm leaning towards having this purpose be to reincarnate the evil empire in the present day.


Does the civilization have to be evil? If its more neutral they would feel less conflicted about messing around with it. New stuff appearing is one thing, but changing the past is such a radioactively dangerous concept that I'm not sure anyone would be willing to do it - you find out that the empire destroyed the village of your ancestor and immediately cease to exist, or change significantly against your will.

I am strongly leaning towards yes for this. I want the PCs to feel tension: "Do we open this book up and benefit massively from it at risk of brining this empire into the present day, or do we avoid messing with this at all costs?" And I want to incorporate changes into the present, rather than retroactively erasing PCs. Erasing characters or locations should be very late-game, if it happens at all.


Eventually, in a desperate gambit, they accessed the deepest layer of the Weave, the Destiny and Probability layer, and plucked out the quantum thread that represented their entire empire, turning it into the book, effectively unmaking the empire and throwing it into stasis. The purpose of the book is to reinsert them back into reality at a later time, in order to give them a better chance to recover.
I like this a lot. :smallamused:

[Vodahim]

In addition to Phhase's idea :

What if all memories of this empire vanished as they plucked themselves out, but now that the book write them back into reality, people begin to remember things about them ?
Obviously, nobody born after their disappearence can't remember anything, because reality itself was reshaped without them. But what if some powerful beings, who existed during their time, still exist today and start to remember past events/experiences.

First this reminiscence are fade, just dreamshaped fragments of memories. But, little by little, dots start to connect and events became more clear.

EDIT : I imagine a king who perished in battle when defending is realm from the evil empire.
Then he was ressurected as a Lich to continu his battle against evil BUT plucking happened and all memories were lost.

Problem : the king now can't remember why his own people transform him into an undead, nor why he died in the first place !
Confusion and disbelief led him to turn against them and he decided to transform them into undead too, so he could continu to rule over them without the risk of being betrayed again. (Those people don't remember anything too. And being attacked by the undead body of their lost king can lead to all sort of confusion, making communication impossible).

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

I would have the ruins populated by whatever creatures composed the evil empire, so if the empire was ruled by an evil dragon, kolbolds, DragonBorns, wyverns, and so forth are all common enemies found while exploring the ruins.

This way as history progresses you have them become more organized, better equipped and more closely tied to the evil empire.

Also this is an evil book, if the PC's don't want to give it ink, I'm sure it's totally fine using blood instead