One bibliomancer’s account of the Occult Underground.

This is a nondescript book, rather large and heavy. (It measures 10″ by 14″ and is at least 5″ thick… although the thickness changes…) It is bound in well oiled leather stretched over teak wood. Carefully cut in the cover, and tacked to the wood by small braids, is the title “Tobin’s Spirit Guide.” Underneath, in gold embossing, is the name “Dr. Adolph Tobin, PhD, MMR, DID, MotE” The pages are in surprisingly good condition, and the entire book is written in a tight, neat hand. The entire book is hand written in what appears to be (and will test as) India Ink. The title page indicates that it was written in 1712, and revised in the current year. Upon entering a new year, the ‘revised’ date will change.

Inside, the guide contains accurate and up-to-date information on any dealings in the Occult Underground. That is EVERY occurange in the Occult Underground. You gain a charge this morning? It’s in there. You stub your toe before opening the book? It’s in there. However, there is a catch.

The book always codes it’s information according to the reader’s Obsession skill. A conspiricy theorist will find that everything refers to ‘secret masters.’ A pornomancer will find a list of how these events relate to the Naked Goddess. And so forth.

Also, the layout is counter-intuitive. In order to find anything, the reader will have to rol a Mind check, just to see if they can find anything useful.

Dr. Adolph Tobin was a bibliomancer who was tired of the secrecy that has arisen around the Occult underground, and tried to expand the conciousness of the uninitiated. Whatever happened to him, noone knows, as he seems to be ‘erased’ from history. There are no known records of anyone named Adolph Tobin ever existing.

There is another form of this reference available — an online version. However, to use it requires the computer to be totally dedicated to the Guide. It will absorb any other application running on it (including the operating system… the Guide provides it’s own) and will completly fill any size hard drive it’s on. That’s not to say that running it on an old computer will give you the same benefits. The level of detail in the Guide’s information is directly corolated with the size of the hard drive; the bigger the drive, the more detailed the information. Also, adding more memory to the computer allows easier and faster access to the information. Finally, the speed of the processor indicates how ‘up to date’ the information is. (Only the original book has up-to-the-second information. The online version is delayed slightly.) Finally, the computer in question must have internet access in order to function.

Currently, the last known location of the physical book is in an old fire station in New York. The cabal stationed there will not let the book out of it’s sight, but it will provide the petitioner, for a nominal fee, with a CD to install the online version on the computer of their choice. (There’s a special copy protection on the disk. Once it’s installed, the disk melts into plastic goo and evaporates as soon as it leaves the drive.)