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Writing Books

A character must have a score of at least five in an Art, or at least two in an Ability, before she can write a useful book. She must also have a score of at least five in the language she wants to write the book in. Books may be written about any Ability, including the Mastery Ability of an individual spell. Learning from books about practical Abilities requires the reader to practice as well as read.

SUMMA SOURCE QUALITY

Author’s Communication + 6 + bonus

SUMMA GAIN LIMIT

Level of summa

TRACTATUS SOURCE QUALITY

Author’s Communication + 6

SUMMAE

Each summa is described by two factors: its level, which represents how much knowledge is contained in it, and its quality, representing how well it is written. When a summa is started, the level of the finished book is determined. The level may be chosen freely by the author, up to half of her score in the appropriate Art or Ability. The quality of the summa is equal to the author’s Communication + 6.

If the author chooses to set the level of the summa below half her score, there is a bonus to the quality. For an Art, the bonus is one point for every level by which the summa is dropped. For an Ability, the bonus is three points for every level. This bonus cannot exceed the base quality of the summa, so the final quality cannot be more than twice the author’s Communication + bonuses from Virtues + 6.

Once the level is determined, writing commences. For every season spent writing, the character accumulates a number of points equal to his Communication + Language. When the total of points equals or exceeds the level of the summa, for Arts, or five times the level of the summa, for Abilities, the summa is complete. The level of the book may not be changed midway through the writing (if the character improves the Art or Ability, for example).

Once begun, the book must be finished at the initial level or not finished at all. For example, Quintus, who has a score of 24 in Ignem, a Communication of –1 and a Language of 5, wants to write an Ignem summa. He decides that the level of the summa will be twelve, the maximum that he can select. During the first season of writing he accumulates four points (his Communication + Language). He accumulates another four in the second season, taking him to eight, and four more in the third, for a total of twelve. This equals the level, so the book is completed at the end of the third season. The quality of the summa is 5. If he had chosen to write a summa at level six, it would have taken him two seasons, and the quality of the summa would have been 10, because the bonus from dropping the level by six points is capped at 5 by the base quality of the book.

TRACTATUS

It takes one season to write a tractatus. The quality of a tractatus is equal to the author’s Communication + 6. A character may only write a total number of tractatus equal to half her score in an Ability or one fifth of her score in an Art, rounded up in both cases.

COPYING BOOKS

A character may copy books carefully or quickly. Copying a tractatus carefully takes one season. Every season that a character spends copying a summa carefully, she accumulates points equal to 6 + her Profession: Scribe score. When she has accumulated points equal to the level of the summa, it has been copied. A careful copy has the same quality as the original book. A character may copy books quickly at three times the rate. That is, she may make three copies of a tractatus (or one copy of each of three tractatus, and so on) in a season, or she gains 18 + 3 times her Profession: Scribe score points towards copying a summa. Books copied quickly have a quality one lower than the book copied.

COPYING CAREFULLY

1 tractatus per season, or 6 + Profession (Scribe) points towards a summa.

COPYING QUICKLY

Three times as fast as careful copying, copy Source Quality is 1 lower than copied book.

CORRUPTED COPIES

Books copied by people lacking particular skills become corrupted. In the simplest case, the scribe omits small marks that are a vital part of the meaning because he thinks they are merely ink blots. In more complex cases, he “corrects” parts of the text, creating gibberish. A corrupted text is useless. A character must be able to read and write the language in which the book is written to copy it without corrupting it. However, a score of 3 in the language is sufficient to allow accurate copying. A character must have a score of at least 1 in the relevant Realm Lore, or the appropriate Ability, to copy a text about a Supernatural Ability without corrupting it. A character must have a score of at least 1 in Magic Theory in order to copy a book about the Hermetic Arts or Parma Magica without corrupting it. Scores in the Ability in question are no substitute in this case.