Most of the bookworms I know aren’t dignified aficionados of first editions, they’re omnivorous packrats.

Bibliomancers of this type don’t care about the quality of the books they own, and still less about the attractiveness of their collection to the uninitiate. They don’t ever get rid of books, even if they get new and better copies.

The number of books per charge remains the same. A adept does need to have books physically with him to hold his charges, but it doesn’t make any difference how valuable the books are: any book can hold a minor or significant charge.

Generate a Minor Charge: Spend four hours working with your collection, which may mean researching a question or doing physical upkeep work. You have to touch at least a dozen books every hour, so just reading a book straight through isn’t going to give you any benefit. Shopping for additions to your collection will also generate charges if you do if for four hours at a stretch.

Generate a Significant Charge: Rearrange your entire library along some new scheme. You must have added at least 100 new books to your library since the last time you generated a significant charge. You’ll have to work with the GM to determine how much time and effort the rearrangement takes. The time spent toward getting a significant charge doesn’t generate any minor charge(s).

The new method of organization can’t be one you’ve used at any time during the previous seven years. If you balk at the bookkeeping involved, this probably isn’t the school of magick for you. (Your taboo is also going to involve some significant record-keeping.)

You’re allowed to have only a small portion of your library (one book in 24, or just over 4%) in the “unshelved” part of your collection, outside your current scheme of organization.

Generate a Major Charge: Acquire a unique and valuable book, and restructure your library around it one last time. A major charge is too big to fit in a single volume, so you’re only going to be able to use it when you’re within your library.

Once you spend that major charge, you’re done. Your collection is mystically complete and will never generate another charge: you can seal it up and leave it undisturbed, donate it to a library somewhere, or even burn it to the ground – as far as the magick is concerned, it’s now a complete null.

To continue to pursue Bibliomancy, you may start a new library, which must never contain any volumes from your former library collection. (This is why you don’t want to sell off the old collection piecemeal: if one of your old books makes it way back to you and gets incorporated into your new collection, you taboo. A hardcore Bibliomancer munchkin would take this as a good reason to destroy the collection they used for a major charge, but most bookworms can’t bring themselves to do it.)

Taboo: Your personal library is sacrosanct: you may never sell, trash, give away, or even lend any volume. If someone steals a book from you, however, that doesn’t break taboo.

Your collection is a living thing and must continue to expand. Each week, you must acquire at least one of (1) a book older than any other in your collection, or (2) a book longer than any you own (it can be in multiple volumes), or (3) a number of books at least one greater than the largest number you’ve ever acquired in a particular week. If a week goes by and you fail to meet one of these requirements, all your charges drain away. None of these counters “reset” if you taboo, but if you start over after getting a major charge, they all do.

In addition, you must never read anything except a book from your library. Reading more than a page of text from anything except the books in your library breaks taboo. In addition to books you don’t own, this includes newspapers and other printed media as well as all forms of electronic screens: online book shopping not only doesn’t charge up the bookworm, it breaks taboo. Breaking this taboo will only drain away the charges you’re carrying with you — but if you don’t have any, it hits your complete Library.

Starting Charges: Starting Bibliomancers have four minor charges.

Roll two dice and take the higher number. Then do it again. Multiply the two numbers together, and multiply the product by ten: that’s the number of books in the starting adept’s Library.