Crumbling Books and Parchment

[AaronCE]

With all the age old books and scrolls and whatnot out there, I've been pondering on ways to rejuvinate old reading materials. You know, the stuff that turns to dust just as you touch it. Thwarting your eternal quest for lost magicks.

Considered putting a silver rune on them. But then, how would you apply it without touching the unstable book/scroll with enough force to crumble it? So I thought about Mend the Broken, possibly Ironwood.. Both not really "fix paper" spells. I coulda sworn that there was a "Mend Wood" spell out there, but again, paper might be cotton, pulp, or even parchment (hide). Maybe a form of the "Rope of Steel" spell? All of these, as temporary fixes, to give yourself time to affix the silver runes. Maybe a time or hyperdensity spell, to "freeze" the book/scroll...

What do you think?

~A

[ZorValachan]

I think Mend the Broken would be fine. The list of suggestions given is quite diverse, and I don't see a book being so different than clothes/fabric.

If specifically for books, I'd create a spell between Cleanse (2nd level) and Mend the Broken (5th level).

[Thinyser]

Does mend the broken work on felt? If so it will work on paper as they are the same structure only with slightly finer wood pulp fibers instead of wool or cotton, and of course the fibers in paper are more compressed than in felt.

Does mend the broken work on leather? If so it will work on parchment as its just a differently cured animal hide.

You could invent a spell that is more specilized that only fixes things that store knowledge. Call it "Repair writings" Make it 6th level and have it work on aything that stores knowledge. From books and scrolls to scratched CDs to frazzled hard drives. Make it so that the spell perfectly restores all material that is still present and roll a percentile to see how much of any "lost" information is restored via the magic.

So if you have a scroll that is about 1/4 burnt and a significat portion of that which remains is unreadable due to age and soot you cast you "repair writings" spell and all of the scroll that is still there is now just like new and between 1-100% of the missing quarter of it is also magically restored. Even with a average 50% roll that would restore the document to 87.5% whole as it would magically restore 50% of the missing 25%.