Introducing Secrets of the Tome
Later this year, we’ll be introducing our new hardcover book, Secrets of the Tome. Here’s a look at the book’s introduction.
Introduction: Lost Secrets
In the best role-playing sessions—the ones that become gaming group legends—what you remember best is the story. Who betrayed whom? What villain stood on the threshold of victory before that last, desperate gamble?
That story wouldn’t be half so effective without the game’s mechanics—the rules that bring the story to life. The rules act as a scaffolding that lets the story climb higher and higher. After all, that last-minute twist wouldn’t have been possible if someone hadn’t rolled that natural 20!
Secrets of the Tome (SotT) is a sourcebook for Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition. We hope that this book follows in the footsteps of those great sessions. We’ve got a lot of new mechanics for your A5E game—subclasses, spells, and magic items—but it all starts with the story.
Old Worlds to Explore
This is a book about forgotten secrets: spells, magic treasures, and ancient magical traditions all lost to time. Some of these secrets were the keystones of a past golden age. And some of them… well, some things are better off staying lost.
When something has vanished from our world, where does it go? In Chapter 1 of Secrets of the Tome, we explore a land of unrecoverable ruins; forgotten gods and heroes; lost works of literature; and left socks that unaccountably went missing in the wash. All of these find their way to the Wasteland, a cosmic garbage dump between the planes. And there these forgotten relics remain, becoming less and less real as memories fade, until they tumble into the Gyre, time’s hungry maw from which nothing can return.
But where there is lost treasure, there are treasure hunters. A few mortal adventurers visit the Wasteland, braving annihilation in the hope of retrieving powerful secrets. In Chapters 2 and 3, we meet some of these iconic heroes: a scholarly lich, a druid of the Old Ways, a sorcerer from beyond the stars, and more. Each of these heroes (or antiheroes) represents a different magical tradition, and each is an NPC that your heroes may meet, make deals with, or even fight. They may carry secrets (rare spells from chapter 4? Magic traditions from chapter 2 and 3? Lost tomes from chapter 5?) that tempt your characters to visit the Wasteland. But beware: finding your way into the Wasteland may be simple, but it’s not such an easy place to leave.
The secrets found in the Wasteland may be world-shattering. In Chapter 5: Magic Items, we introduce a new class of magic item: the tome. (In a book called Secrets of the Tome, we’d better have a few of those!) Tomes are repositories in which are written secret, world-altering rites. More powerful than rituals, these are the kinds of spell-like formulae that require collecting exotic ingredients, hordes of chanting cultists, and the like. In terms of power, they’re a step above most spells: a single rite can permanently alter your world’s story, either for good (you might introduce universal literacy across an entire kingdom) or ill (you might fail to stop the evil cultists as they create a permanent gate to Hell). In some ways, a tome is similar to an artifact: although it’s a magic item, more than that it’s a part of the campaign’s story. And like artifacts, tomes are unique magic items that can’t be made or bought: their entry into the campaign is entirely in the Narrator’s hands.
New Toys to Play With
This book is built for A5E’s primary spellcasting classes: the artificer, bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard (and one new class: more on that later!). Chapter 2 of Secrets of the Tome introduces a new subclass for each of these pre-existing classes. Each subclass is tied to the book’s theme of lost lore. These are the vanished magical traditions: forgotten, kept secret, or even forcefully suppressed. Few know of these magical orders, and as for joining one? That may require research in lost libraries, bargains with spirits, or a dangerous quest beyond the bounds of reality.
While we’re talking about bargains with spirits: Chapter 3 introduces a new Advanced 5E class, the pactweaver! One of our most rich and complex classes ever, the pactweaver merits a chapter all to itself.
The pactweaver gains magical power by negotiating with mysterious powers. Unlike a warlock or a cleric, a pactweaver can make or break bargains with multiple entities, drastically transforming their own magical abilities as they do so. As the pactweaver gains levels, they can treat with godlike entities known as arch spirits - but such deals always come with a price. In chapter 3, you’ll find well over 100 spirits ready to bind and bargain with, each with different gifts to offer.
Chapter 4, Spells, is by far the longest chapter in the book. After all, what are spellcasters without spells to cast? Chapter 4 contains a plethora of new spells. All these spells let us support our new classes and subclasses with thematic spells, plus introduce a variety of new spells so that you can dream up your own spellcaster themes. (“I want to be an acid damage specialist” has never been more possible!) On top of that, we threw in a lot of off-the-wall spells just to see what you’d do with them. If you’ve never imagined conjuring a giant toadstool, turning your spellbook into a magic carpet, or making the furniture dance to your music—well, now you have.
Besides brand-new spells, Chapter 4 has got a ridiculous number of rare spells: over 500 of them, in fact. In Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, rare spells let you ”level up” your favorite spell, giving them permanent new capabilities. For instance, your draconic sorcerer might cast Eridna’s burning breath instead of burning hands, breathing on enemies with a blue dragon’s lightning breath, a green dragon’s poison breath, and so on. Rare spells are more powerful than their common counterparts, and that increase in power must be earned. You don’t just pick out a rare spell when you level up: they’re treasures to be found in musty prayerbooks, learned from mentors, or researched during downtime.
Speaking of treasures, Chapter 5 is a treasure trove of magic items! With tons of new magic items, there’s plenty of goodies for Narrators to give away (and for ambitious characters to construct).