Re: Priest Scrolls

From: "Paul Westermeyer" <westermeyer@????????.net>

> Does it strike anyone else as odd that a priest of Thor could scribe a 
> Cure Light Wounds or Bless or Augury spell on a scroll, somehow lose said 
> scroll before casting the spell from it, have the scroll discovered by a 
> priest of Loki, and then had that priest of Loki cast the Bless spell, for 
> example, perhaps even on a group of giants about to attack one of Thor's 
> Temples?

I've always thought of a magical scroll as being a storage device like a 
battery. Something that is charged up by a cleric (priest of specific mythoi 
in 2e) and then discharged later by someone who can cast spells (not 
necessarily the same person). A battery is not *normally* locked. You could 
carry a battery around in a locked box, but this is not something that most 
people do.

As for scrolls "somehow" becoming lost, lets have a think about how they are 
created and used to see how this might happen. When scrolls are created, 
spells material components (and other materials) are used in the creation 
process. Creating scrolls is more expensive than casting spells, so 
clerics/priests would not do it without good reason. So lets have a quick 
look at the advantages:

1) Scrolls can be created when a cleric is not adventuring (using up spell 
slots that would not normally be used during this period). So a spacefaring 
cleric who was spending a year establishing a stronghold (temple) in a new 
crystal sphere could cast "Contact Home Power" on a weekly basis and use the 
"Scribe Scroll" feat (or the 2e equivalent, which I can't currently find in 
my old PHB) to build up a supply of defensive and offensive scrolls that 
could be used if the new temple is attacked.

2) As you already said, once created scrolls provide bonus spells. So a 
Spelljamming cleric who is planning on travelling into the Phlogiston may 
know that they will be unable to regain spells of 3rd level and above. As 
they may be required to man the ships helm they will not be able to rely on 
memorising these spells and rationing them out over time. It makes sense for 
the Spelljamming community to have a market in useful clerical spells.

3) Churches often send lower level clerics on important errands for higher 
level clerics. It makes sense for all churches, especially spacefaring ones 
to provide scrolls that may save the lives of messengers carrying important 
messages.

4) Scrolls are an item that people will want to buy from churches. Churches 
need worshipers and spacefaring churches have two things that the 
spacefaring community needs. Spells and helmsmen. Assuming all magical items 
have some sort of mark up placed on them, churches could use the sale of 
things like magic scrolls to generate income. And if worshipers were given a 
discount on magical scrolls it would encourage spacefarers to attend church 
services on a regular basis.

So for these reasons, and probably others I can't think of, scrolls would be 
at least as common in wildspace as on groundling worlds.

And because people know that churches and clerics have scrolls, anyone who 
wants to steal scrolls would know where to go looking for them. Churches 
would also know that they were likely to be targeted by thieves.

As you said, scrolls could, in certain circumstances, be used against their 
creators. But couldn't the same be said about a sword or a bow and arrow? I 
would have thought that churches would examine spells and decide on a policy 
of which spells were and were not allowed to be sold on scrolls. (A church 
might, for example, only sell healing scrolls of spells of 3rd level and 
above to non worshipers.)

> I'm strongly contemplating specifying deity for priest scrolls when they 
> are discovered in treasure hoards, basically treating such scrolls as not 
> just magic items, but holy items of their specific religion.

That is one option, but you do have other options. Scrolls could be secured 
in some way or they could be protected by magical or non magical traps. 
There might also be ways to make it harder for other people to find or read 
scrolls.

Scrolls are normally stored in scroll cases. These scroll cases are normally 
inscribed with runes and could be magically trapped with any of the 
following magical symbols: Death, Fear, Insanity, Pain, Persuasion, Sleep, 
Stunning or Weakness. Here are links to the spell descriptions on the 
Hypertext d20 SRD:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfDeath.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfFear.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfInsanity.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfPain.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfPersuasion.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfSleep.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfStunning.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolOfWeakness.htm

It is possible that these traps could be disarmed but a church also use 
decoy scroll cases that have the same symbols on the inside of the lid, or 
written on scroll parchment to look like a normal magical scroll. These 
sorts of traps would be more likely to hit an enemy spellcaster than a hired 
thief.

Both external and internal symbols would be very effective as they could be 
tied to alignment and therefore could trigger against anyone not of an 
alignment held by worshipers of a specific church. The symbol spell 
description doesn't include religion in its list of intangible conditions, 
but I would think that it would be reasonable to say that they could be 
targeted against anyone who doesn't worship a particular deity.

The only thing going against symbol spells is the shear cost. The SRD 
mentions "cursed scrolls", but I can't actually find a description of how to 
create one. Perhaps someone else on this list knows where to find a 
description of them.

A cheaper alternative to spells would be to use non-magical traps. Decoy 
scroll cases could feature traps that cut off the thumbs of anyone trying to 
open them. This would stop hostile spellcasters from being able to cast 
spells with somatic components (unless/until they could have their thumbs 
regenerated). A decoy scroll could be coated with some sort of contact 
poison. Fear of these sorts of traps would make stolen scrolls a lot less 
attractive to people.

Even genuine scrolls could be put into spells with some sort of protection. 
According to the description of scrolls in the SRD they only have 1 hit 
point. So they are fragile enough to be destroyed by a scroll case with some 
sort of self-destruct mechanism. The self-destruct mechanism could be 
disarmed by opening the scroll case a special way (perhaps by pushing your 
thumbs into a hole while opening it - a mechanism that looks identical to 
the boobytrapped cases that cut off thumbs). This would be a good way to 
stop scrolls carried by travelling clerics falling into enemy hands. Anyone 
who killed the cleric would be unlikely to understand how to open the scroll 
case without destroying its contents. (And if the secret got out eventually 
the thief would steal a booby trapped scroll case and loose his thumbs.)

People looking for scrolls are usually going to be looking for scroll cases, 
but scrolls could possibly be hidden in other places. For example a number 
of valuable scrolls could be sewn into the insides of book covers. Thieves 
looking for scrolls might overlook a few books that appear to have little 
value. Hollow furniture could also feature hidden compartments designed to 
hold scrolls.

I'm not sure that a spacehand with a peg-leg would have enough room for a 
secret compartment in the false leg, but it is a possibility someone might 
want to consider. Perhaps someone could make a mythril cylinder and give it 
a thin wood veneer.

The description of scrolls does not specify a language. I believe this means 
that scrolls can be written in any language that a character understands. 
And if a cleric can use several languages then they could deliberately write 
scrolls that are not widely known by their enemies. Celestial and Abyssal 
would possibly be good languages to write scrolls in, but racial languages 
would also be fairly good.

It is also possible that scrolls could be written in invisible ink which 
could be made visible by application of another substance (or proximity to 
fire). If alchemists working for a church mixed up several varieties of 
invisible chemicals, each with their own reversing substance a thief would 
need to obtain these chemicals in order to be able to use scrolls.

> Since priesthoods vary so much in most AD&D/HM games, with large 
> polytheistic pantheons, perhaps priests could use the scrolls that come 
> from allied deities, deities from the same pantheon, or deities of the 
> same alignment.

Again, I wouldn't make this automatic. If you used any sorts of protection, 
you could make exemptions for clerics from any churches you wanted to. Even 
trapped scroll cases could be made that can be disarmed by clerics of 
several churches.

> Thoughts?

Another possiblity (if you are using 3e or 3.5e) is the use of some sort of 
feat to make it harder for a non-worshiper to use a scroll. According to the 
scroll rules in the SRD there is a possibility of a mishap when using a 
scroll written by someone of a higher caster level. A roll must be made 
(using a d20 as usual) to avoid a scroll mishap. Here is a link to the rule:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/scrolls.htm#ScrollMishaps

Normally scrolls are created at the minimum level needed to cast a spell, 
but the Heighten Spell metamagic feat could be used to bump up the effective 
level of the spell to the creators maximum spell level. This would force any 
spellcaster that couldn't cast spells of that level to roll for a spell 
mishap.

If you want to restrict scrolls to specific religions then a new metamagic 
feat could automatically cause a spell to have a mishap if cast by an 
spellcaster of another religion. I would try to design one for you, but I 
believe you are a 2e fan (so I suggest you design a non-weapon proficiency 
instead).

Clerics could also try to learn some sort of feat that allows them to 
somehow encode spells (and other writing) so when they create scrolls they 
can only be read by people with the same feat.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/