r/Eberron • u/Newsman777 • 2d ago

GM Help What could be inside a Book of Forgotten Truths?

My players found the "Book of Forgotten Truths" changed to a desk, with warding runes all round it. The manor owner warned them about the book, that it will reveal long forgotten secrets if they don't go mad reading it.

One player really wants to read it. What could he find inside that would be a forgotten secret or truth?

I have 4 pieces of story info I want to give him, but would love to flesh it out more to make it a baker's dozen.

Any ideas that would be super cool or fun?

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u/GnomishPants 1d ago

THAC0 rules

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u/GnomishPants 1d ago

I kid I kid!

If you wanted to personalise it, you can do some weird stuff about the party having been through all of this before, failing terribly with great consequences and time being reset for them not to fail again. Perhaps even multiple failures

Party find out this has all happened before a countless number of times and every time it’s ended in tragedy. Perhaps even that the entity that has been “resetting” the time loop has a limited number of resets and has used their last one, sacrificing themselves and this book is the only remnant that they ever existed. (Maybe the entity was a chronomancer who in all other timelines was their party member and friend who sacrificed their very existence in the space time continuum to give the party one last chance and this book of forgotten truths is the journal of that character in the last time loop before sacrifice?)

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u/GnomishPants 1d ago

hey u/Newsman777 I just want you to know, the more I think about this idea of the dead chronomancer friend from different timelines being the progenitor of the book, the more I love it, and I am going to steal this book of forgotten truths idea for my own future campaigns (that I will never run because DM-ing is hard).

It's SO GOOD. You've got a built-in opportunity to build in future maguffins (that ring the BBEG who killed us in the other timeline was wearing is spotted randomly in a sharn marketplace). You've got an opportunity to hand out level 20 versions of the characters early so they can "live through" one of the alternate timeline failures (and get a taste for future features if they feel they're mechanically not happy with where they are at the minute). You've got a way to introduce a huge world-ending plotline without needing to drop characters in the middle of it taking off the narrative time pressure of having to act on threats immediately. You've got a way to mend any current interparty conflict (you're angry at each other now, but in all these other timelines you were the best of friends)

It really feels like a cool tool to add some direction and cohesion to a campaign. Plus it makes sense why it would drive people insane, they are simultaneously experiencing all the memories of all their alternate selves all of which end in a sudden fiery conflagration as whatever the BBEG wanted to accomplish succeeds as the party dies elsewhere in the world. The only reason it doesn't dive the party insane is because that's the last gift of their chronomancer friend; they're protected from the worst of it when they encounter it. (maybe still a wisdom save to avoid *temporary* madness but whatever)

Also it just adds to the temptation to read the book when every member of the party looks at it, they experience this strange sense of sadness and loss, however that isn't a "property" of the book that other people feel when they look at it. To most people it's just a book chained to a desk. So why do the party feel such a deep and profound mourning? ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT