Greetings, Adventurer! Welcome to the Haunted Library. These books are the result of a failed experiment by Dai’Lekh the Soul Forger. Buyer Beware! All sales are final.
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Haunted Library
50 Shades of Grey
1984
The Art of War
The Dictionary
Dracula
Frankenstein
Gone with the Wind
Inferno
Moby Dick
The Mummy
The Odyssey
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Saurus (a Thesaurus monster book)
Not for Children Section
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
The Cat in the Hat
Charlotte’s Web
Goodnight Moon
The Hungry Caterpillar
The Ice Queen
Where the Wild Things Are
A Wrinkle in Time
An Actual Helpful Book
The Little Engine that Could
Dai’Lekh the Soul Forger: The Libram Cataclysm
Event Title: The Binding of Souls
Location: The Cursed Library of Nhar-Kesh
Classification: Arcane Disaster (Necromantic-Cognitive Infusion)
Background
When Dai’Lekh, the Soul Forger, sought to achieve immortality beyond mere flesh and metal, he began experimenting with “soul metallurgy” — the forging of spirit into matter.
Failing to bind souls into his Warforged constructs permanently, he turned to an unexpected vessel: literature.
Each tome in the library became a crucible — the ink a conduit, the parchment a membrane. Dai’Lekh believed he could “teach the soul to remember itself” through the written word. Instead, his process awakened the books’ imaginations.
Thus began the Libram Cataclysm — the night the stories woke up.
Arcane Theory:
“The written word is a cage for thought. When one bends the bars, thought escapes.”
— Dai’Lekh, from On the Forging of Memory
The Soul Forger’s experimental ritual, Scriptura Vitae, combined necromancy, artificery, and divination. Using the captured essence of slain scholars, he attempted to “temper” their souls across volumes of history and fiction, fusing mind and narrative.
But the result was not control — it was chaos. Every book developed a warped form of personality, reflecting its text.
- Heroic tales became zealous defenders.
- Horror stories became predators.
- Children’s books grew deranged smiles.
Game Hooks / Lair Actions
When adventurers enter the Cursed Library:
- Living Ink Swarm: At initiative 20, ink flows from nearby pages, forming words of pain that strike like psychic tendrils.
- Echo of the Author: Once per round, a random book emits a quote so potent it manifests as a spell effect (e.g., “It was a dark and stormy night” = Call Lightning).
- Whispering Margins: If a creature reads aloud from any tome, roll a d6. On a 6, the book’s soul awakens and knows your name.
Lore Sidebar: “The Soul Forge Equation”
Theory: All consciousness is text; all text is potential consciousness.
When the soul is translated into words, those words seek to be read.
To unread them is to erase a life.
To burn them is to commit murder.
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