Shelves	Scrolls	-	Books	Tomes
Dragon	Ruins: Libraries	-	Best of Dragon, Vol. V	Dragon 37

One of the most trying situations a DM can face is the overinquisitive party. Its members simply must poke their noses, swords, etc.
into everything, especially any libraries that they happen to come
across. And they want to know the contents of every book. The
popular DM’s excuses of “the paper crumbles as you touch it”, “it’s
in a language you can’t read”, and “the ink is too faded to read”
wear thin after a time. I find it more challenging (and interesting) to
tell the players just what they are finding.
Since bookbinding was a difficult art (especially without modern
staples) in medieval times, and printing machines are unknown in
most AD&D games, the majority of literary works were handwritten on
scrolls. Some few were actually bound into books, mostly the “important” things (but what a particular castleowner felt was important
and what your players feel is important may be two different things).
In any case, I have found the following system useful in developing libraries:

Shelves: There are generally 4-8 shelves in any 6-foot wide
section of wall, and a good-sized library may have 36-90 feet of
shelf-covered walls.
On any particular shelf (I suggest you number them for easy
reference), you will find:
 

Dice	Contents of Shelf
01-95	Scrolls (10-100 in #)
96-99	Books (1-10 in #)
00	Tomes (1-4 in #)

Scrolls: You may assume that all scrolls on a single shelf have
to do with one topic, as most librarians have a fairly efficient cataloguing system. Scroll topics may include (this is by no means a
complete list):
 

Dice	Subject
01-20	Elvish poetry (01-80, in elvish; 81-95, in common tongue; 96-99, another language the party has heard of; 00, in an unknown language)
21-40	Dwarvish armor making— (extremely technical, only truly understandable by armorers who speak dwarvish).
41-46	Diary page
47-56	Love letters (may be in common, elvish, orcish, etc.)
57-66	Accountant records (columns of numbers)
67-94	Indelible paper (These scrolls were generally favored scrolls of the owner, and were magically enchanted so as to never rot or suffer faded ink. They show up under a Detect Magic spell. Reroll for topic of scroll.)
97-00	Magic scroll (DM’s choice; reroll for topic of all other scrolls on a certain shelf, since magic scrolls are supposed to be rare and should never occur more than once per shelf. )

Books: Roll once for each book on a particular shelf. Again, this
is not a complete list.

 

Dice	Subject
01-09	Alchemist's notebook;  01-83, handwriting too difficult to read;  84-88, incomplete directions for experiments;  89-93, all experiments marked "failure";  94-99, written almost entirely in chemical symbols;  00, as 94-99, but with a page of translations from chemical symbols to common tongue incl.. Instructions may be usable if the materials are avail; alchemists were notorious for using such things as powdered dragon tooth, sliced gelatinous cube, and the horn of the blue unicorn in their formulas.
10-25	History of a land
26-42	History of a castle
43-59	Religious book (simple prayers)
60-65	Diary
66-75	Listing of local plants and their supposed properties
76-85	Descriptions of local creatures and monsters
86-89	Collection of elvish poetry
90-97	A humanitarian's (anthropologist's) report on the inferiority of orcs, kobolds, etc., to the races of man, elf, dwarf, etc. (or vice versa)
98-00	Magical book; roll on tables in DMG.

Tomes: Tomes are generally very large, thick books with tooled
leather covers and locks to keep them shut. Many are magical, and
all are extremely rare.
 

Die roll	Item
01-15	Magic-User’s tome of spells from first to ninth level (essentially, a very high-level Wizard’s spellbook)
16-30	Religious tome, including 5 Clerical spells from each level 1-7. May be of an alignment, but the spells should reflect that alignment.
31-61	Demonologist’s tome, including all Magic-User and Clerical spells for summoning, controlling, dispelling, and turning demons, as well as lore about the demons most likely to be encountered. Should be written in Chaotic Evil or Neutral Evil.
62-76	Tome of Burning. This includes all spells (MU, Cleric, Druid, Illusionist) involving fire, its control, and its creation.
77-00	Tome of Cold. This includes all spells involving the creation of control of cold

Most tomes were also guarded, many by locks, many by spells.
For any particular tome:
 

Die roll	Guarded by
01-40	1-4 locks only
41-80	1-4 spells only
81-00	1-4 locks plus 1-4 spells

 

Die roll	Lock type
01-20	Simple key lock
21-40	Hidden lock, needs a part of the design pressed to release to catch.
41-55	Combination (dial) lock
56-75	Hidden combination lock, requires design pressed in a certain combination to release catch.
76-95	Hidden combination lock, as above, but only reveals keyhole (does not release catch).
96-00	Word lock. To open it, the name of the tome must be pronounced. The name is generally inscribed on the cover of the tome in an obscure language.

If there are two locks or more, at least one is trapped in some
way, such as with poison.

Tome Guardian Spells are generally curses, but tend to be 50%
longer lasting, or 50% more effective and difficult to dispel. These
spells may be deactivated for 15 minutes by performing a Remove
Curse spell, a Bless spell, or a complicated passing of the hands over
the tome (DM’s discretion) for each guardian spell involved.