In the year 2010 I wrote about the Devouring Tome in the forum for DH1st.

Six years later, I want to provide you with a PDF of the revised version for DH2nd.

You can find it here , at the rollforheresy.net website. If you don´t want to have it as a PDF, here is the content as a forum post.

Nobody shall claim that I would not serve my duties...

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Some people devour books. Some books devour people.

A Devouring Tome is a hand written folio or manuscript whose topic centers on the occult and arcane and often is a witch´s grimoire. For a Devouring Tome is a book that has become possessed by an evil entity that spreads forbidden knowledge but claims the minds that seek it. Reading in it can reveal practices of the forbidden arts, the names of demons and their ilk, formula for elixirs and potions, powerful spells or wisdom regarding creatures, lands and artifacts of myth. But to study such a treatise is to invite doom.

Whenever a character studies a Devouring Tome for a longer period of time (half an hour or more) the malign presence that inhabits its pages and fills it with content begins to influence the character. The reader must now pass a difficult (-10) Perception or Awareness test . If the test is successful the character notes what is happening and stops reading at once. In case of a failure the character reads unless forced to stop by somebody or something. Most mundane events will be completely ignored, so, and anybody who attacks the character in this state of mind automatically gains surprise. If the character is not interrupted by outside forces she needs to pass an extended difficult(-10) Willpower test . Each roll is equal to 15 minutes of “reading” and Resistance (Psychic Powers) does apply. If the reader scores 5 success within 2 hours or is interrupted by outside forces he stops reading (as above) but will suffer 1d5 IP plus another one per 30 minutes of reading and 1d5 CP. If the reader does not score the needed success in time, she is turned into an Empty Scribe.

[The Empty Scribe:]

An Empty Scribe will become unresponsive to what goes on in her surrounding as her mind has been emptied by the Tome. The character will act like a sleepwalker and start to search for something to write with. As soon as something is found the character will start to put down obscure knowledge in an incoherent way. None of this knowledge is her own, all of it comes from the entity possessing her now. The speed at which the character is writing is supernatural, her hand blurring as it moves faster than the human eyes is able to comprehend. If a folio or manuscript is available, the Empty Scribe will begin to create another Devouring Tome and the evil thereby multiplies. One way or the other, the character will simply write and write and write and write till she eventually dies from dehydration after about three days. Eerily, this is always the moment the new Tome is finished. If anybody tries to stop it from doing it work, an Empty Scribe will emit a Psychic Shriek (see DH2nd cr; p. 213) with PR:1.

The spell of the Devouring Tome can be broken by destroying it, but all of it needs to be destroyed. The easiest way is to do this is to throw it into a fire or set it aflame with promethium so that is burns to ashes. At this point the Empty Scribe will regain her self and turn back into who she were before, but suffers 1d5+5 IP and 1d10+4 CP. The character has memories about the time under the control of the Tome, but remembers it like a bad dream and has no detailed access to the knowledge she had put down while her self was subdued.

A Devouring Tome can be identified for what it is with a hard(-20) Psyniscience test .