Scrolls
Spell scrolls are really boring. Automatically getting new spells at each new level is also boring. Like you'd find time to work on new spells when your stomach is empty, your campfire is not big enough, or your tent is leaky.
New spells should not be automatically granted at each new level (in my opinion) but actively developed by the character, or even better: found as a reward.
Keeping new spells to scrolls found in dungeons is stale, boring, and kills the magic. Academic magic, reproducible, tamed, and cleaned is the death of the sense of bewildering that should accompany Magic and its manifestations. Without sense of wonder / danger, you just have a technology alternative.
So if you, like me, would like to reward your party wizard with a new spell, but think yet another scroll would be boring, here is a table of where a scroll might be found...
Table
| D20 | Where is the spell ? |
|---|---|
1
|
Carved onto a yellowing gnome skull |
2
|
Naturally spelled out on the spots of a mushroom |
3
|
Written onto a cloth doll of a marsh crone |
4
|
Scratched onto an ogre's glass eye. He's unhappy of having lost it |
5
|
Secretly written onto a portrait, seen when illuminated by green flame |
6
|
Stained onto a small leather throwing ball |
7
|
Signed by an illusionary fairy springing out of a music box |
8
|
Tattooed onto a stuffed white ape paw |
9
|
Dripped from the bleeding eyes and nose onto the ground, as the small idol is gripped in shaking hands; the blood forming the hellish, arcane symbols needed to cast the forbidden spell |
10
|
Seen only by the half-crazed mage as flickering runes once they dare to open their mind to the alien presence that lives in the glowing orb of energy |
11
|
Carved in goblinish language inside the shell of a giant turtle |
12
|
Words were eaten up by insects on giant leaves collected in an herbarium |
13
|
Embroidered into the hem of a gaudy cloak that unravels when the spell is read off of it. |
14
|
Tattooed in minuscule script within the sorcerer’s eye sockets. They need to turn their eyes inside to read the spell |
15
|
Spell is readable on the surface of the moon when observing with a very precious kaleidoscope |
16
|
Hidden as an alchemical rebus on the most holy wand-tapestry in the private quarters of the archbishop |
17
|
Encoded as the missing twines of the net of a poor fisher who never knew why he didn't repair that net - maybe because it belonged his grand-father, an archmage that retired as a fisher? |
18
|
Written as a music partition / sheet, each note corresponding to a letter. If played as music, it sounds discordant and gloomy |
19
|
Camouflaged and carved on the top bough of a tree in a forest accessible only by consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms. Beware of overdosing... |
20
|
Carved as runes on the cylinders of a steam engine. Only readable if the steam engine rotates in unison with the heartbeat of the reader |
