This book will change your life. Read on, my friend, read on.

There’s a book out there. Fascinating. Gripping, might say, heh.

What it looks like? Can’t say. Y’see, everyone as sees it sees something different. Me, I might see it all leather-bound and clasped tight and think it’s The Cask of Amontillado, y’know, the real one. You, you’d probably see Seven Highly Effective Habits of Kicking Someone’s Ass or something. Punk. Either way, it’s mighty interesting to whoever’s doing the lookin’.

The catch? You pick it up, you start reading … and you can’t ever stop. Can’t put it down, get it? A real page-turner. Can’t stop to drink, sleep, nothing.

Only way to get rid of the thing, get this. You gotta make someone else start reading it, and then you’re free. But they’re caught. Hope you didn’t like ’em too much.

So yeah, it’ll teach you things you couldn’t learn nowhere else. Just hope you can stay alive to — what’s that? How the hell would I know what happens when you get to the end? Go get me another drink. And stay away from my bookshelf.

Game Terms:

The book has no title, and thus no name. Anyone who looks at its cover or spine will see a fascinating title, complete with blurbs and summary if the book is modern, closely related to their obsession skill. Each time he touches it, he has to make a contested Soul roll (the book has Soul 75, “You’d Love Me”) to not open it and start reading. Once he is touching the book with both hands and has read even a word, he can’t stop reading.

His eyes and hands are always on the book. If he tries to put something between his eyes and the page, he sees through the obstruction.

He can eat and drink if spoon-fed, but never sleep. He cannot even pass out from hunger or thirst – he will keep reading until he dies if he can’t get rid of it. He’s at -30% to Walk or Notice rolls due to keeping his eyes on the book. He can talk, but only distractedly – conveying complex information is out of the question.

The only way for him to rid himself of the book is to convince someone else to start reading it. Once the other is touching it with both hands and reading (and thus ensnared), the reader can let go freely. The book is so fascinating, though, that this requires a rank 4 Self check. If he fails, the second person loses interest in the book. Time to find a new patsy.

Anyone who’s reading it without touching it (or who’s hearing it dictated by the reader) sees or hears what he reads. However, unless their obsession skill is the same as his, they find it so unbearably dull that they can’t pay attention for more than a few seconds at a time. If they have the same interests? Could be fascinating….

Bibliomancers gain a major charge while the book is in their possession (read: hands.) Good luck summoning the concentration to use it.

The book is not just a trap – for each full day (sunrise to sunrise) one spends reading it, he can make a Mind check to increase his Obsession skill by 1%. Remember, he’s doing this without sleep, and without food or water unless he has compatriots. Sleep deprivation has its full effect on the Mind checks.

The book, too, hungers for knowledge. For each full day it’s read, it will leech from the reader one Mind point and one point in each non-obsession Mind skill he has. Additionally, each day there’s a cumulative 5% chance that anytime the reader is unobserved, even for an eyeblink, he will disappear entirely, the book falling to the ground (open, of course) with a soft thump. Rumors that the text then shown is the final stanza of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark are impossible to corroborate.

What does happen if you reach the end? No one ever has….