Mommy and Daddy, where do ritual scrolls come from?

markusdark

markusdark

Virtuoso
I can't seem to locate this anywhere in the rulebook. SOMEONE or SOMETHING has to make them. They don't grow on trees (I've looked). Is there a general consensus as to where these things come from? I mean, we come across merchants and powerful entities who say they can find a certain ritual for us but who do they go to? Rits R Us?
 
This response is entirely hearsay, but I believe ritual scrolls are painstakingly crafted items that require lots of strange components.

Technically, a PC could spend years hunting through the wilderness or trading with wizened sages to get the exact combination of ingredients necessary to create a ritual scroll, but in practice it is easier to buy it from someone else who did the work (thus, the very high costs for these things).

Treasure policy basically dictates limitations on scroll appearance in game, but I can visualize a reasonable system of "alternate treasure" that allows PCs to create their own scrolls after months of gathering and trading. Obviously, the actual scroll would come from the treasure policy and sometimes the "moon will not align" to allow creation (ie. the scroll won't be available that week).

Hmmm... staring at that, I think I'll write up something more official and toss if over to plot/GM.

-MS
 
In SoMN, I mostly assume them to have been created by dragons over the eons, and scrolls that are used and consumed reconstitute over time to be used again, even as the energy from the components find a new host of the appropriate type. This is also why you might find scrolls anywhere, although high powered creatures will often be attracted to them, and thus are more likely to have them.
 
This is total heresay (which means it is probably part BS, part legend, part "who knows?" and part "who cares?"):

They come through a rift from another place no one on Fortannis we know knows. Some are created by various extremely powerful elementals, some by fey, some by dragon mages, some by ancient races who are no longer around - but no mortal creature alive today has the knowing of how to create them.

With all of these ritual scrolls that are in existence, why is it that you don't hear about Adventurers finding them on the ground (except after a battle) or buried in the earth, or simply falling from the sky? It seems that the monster races are much better at finding them than we are. Why is that, do you think? And why are the monster races seemingly always stupid enough to be carrying such a powerful and valuable thing around with them on their person instead of keeping it in a hidden place where they can get it when they need it?
 
Its a game people. At a certain point questions you ask will get that answer. Although it is fun to come up with some creative answers to this question. :) I don't worry about it too much though.
 
The reason that I am asking is for a plot idea...

Parts of the land that the game takes place on is separated by wide, bottomless chasms. The only way to be able to get from one place to the other is via Spirit Walking. However, this is something that would require a good number of the scrolls to complete (even with spell crafting). So I am asking this question so that I can figure out who or where the PC's could be sent in order to collect such a large number of a specific scroll. I was thinking it would be a better plot hook to have something that is able to create the scrolls so that the PC's could be beholded to the creature for it's work. So, knowing what creatures are able to produce them would help me to decide upon what types of quests to send them on, what type of dealings they may need to make and so on. Not to mention when a PC may want a specific scroll (such as a Ritual of Woe), they'd know where they could go to have the best chance of finding one.

But if the simple answer is "However local plot wants to explain them," then I can come up with my own ideas.
 
i just figured Dragon Mages wrote them with their alternate levels of Dragon Formal Magic Scroll Making. Dragons don't need to write Formal Rituals, they just cast the magic. so, it falls on mortals with Dragon Magic to scribe out the spells of dragons - like Scroll Makers write Battle Scrolls, Dragon Mages write Formal Scrolls. no big mystery. Dragon Mages gotta eat too

if it was terribly difficult, rare, or economically infeasible, there wouldn't be so many. if you look at the length and breadth of Fortannis, there are a LOT of Formal Scrolls. Assume two a game per chapter, that's 30 to 60 a month, ¡300-700 a year! even at half that, it's still a bloody huge number. and that's only the scrolls Adventurers have access to, add it in Merchants, explorers, Royalty, and we're talking thousands of Formal Scrolls appearing
 
markusdark said:
But if the simple answer is "However local plot wants to explain them," then I can come up with my own ideas.
Click to expand...

As far as I am aware, it is as you state.

There are two alternatives to single cast scrolls, though:

1) An item with Expanded Enchantment Ritual: Spirit Walk could be Spirit Locked to an NPC or Circle Locked or something.

2) A Permanent Scroll (one that can be cast from again and again). Useful because it still requires reagents where-as the item in (1) does not.

As long as PCs can't get them... Such items should never be in the hands of a PC or technically every time they are used a scroll is removed from Treasure Policy.
 
Ondreij said:
With all of these ritual scrolls that are in existence, why is it that you don't hear about Adventurers finding them on the ground (except after a battle) or buried in the earth, or simply falling from the sky?
Click to expand...

Actually there was at least one sitting out all alone in the woods last Caldaria event. Along with the components to cast it. I guess nobody wanted that cloak scroll for free.
Well I guess not for free, you would have had to you know, go for a hike on the trails. Which you know is unheard of.

We even sent in an NPC twice to say how they were randomly finding things in various places on their way to town.
 
Sunnfire said:
Ondreij said:
With all of these ritual scrolls that are in existence, why is it that you don't hear about Adventurers finding them on the ground (except after a battle) or buried in the earth, or simply falling from the sky?
Click to expand...

Actually there was at least one sitting out all alone in the woods last Caldaria event. Along with the components to cast it. I guess nobody wanted that cloak scroll for free.
Well I guess not for free, you would have had to you know, go for a hike on the trails. Which you know is unheard of.

We even sent in an NPC twice to say how they were randomly finding things in various places on their way to town.
Click to expand...

I swear, next weekend, I am sending in an NPC wearing a sign: "Free stuff in woods. Small chance of grue."

-MS
 
I shall design a Grue card forthwith. Dammit, I totally could have done a ZORK event had you said this a month ago Mike!
 
When I played way back in NERO Great Lakes (we're talking 1997-ish here), we found a Create Ritual Scroll Scroll. The scroll was ungodly expensive to cast, and from what I recall, essentially required the caster to have 15+ points of rare components of each type (time, void, power, destruction, creation, etc.). The caster would specify the type of scroll he or she wished to create. Depending on the difficulty of the scroll, after the 12 hours of casting time, varying numbers of the rare components could actually be consumed. To my knowledge, the scroll was never cast, and may have been sold back to an NPC.

Obviously this is incredibly out of date information, but I tend to like the idea that PCs could, with enough time and resources, actually create formal magic scrolls. Like others have mentioned, they have to come from somewhere!
 
a dragon pooped it out, didnt you read above?
 
Well, in the last couple years at HQ we've had a batch of ritual scrolls actually created by an NPC who told the PCs he had designed the ritual, distrubuted 5 scrolls with the ink still wet to the people he needed to cast the rituals and successfully had them cast said rituals with the only problem being that the end result destroyed everything but his toupee. The ritual casters were then forcibly rifted into this person's presence when he ressurrected the next day and NOBODY ASKED how he'd made the scrolls even though I had prepared a 20 minute speech telling them exactly how (based on the engineering required to make a self-sustaining pile substituting the word "thaumstone" for "uranium") he had done it. You all missed your chance. :P

Of course we also had a Dragon sneeze at our tourney event and when he was done wiping his nose the handkerchief turned into a rit scroll...

This is one of the questions that should really be left to the plot team, and it's also one of the things that I feel should never be concretely defined. There SHOULD be 100+ ways that scrolls can appear, though I like the eventually reconstituting themselves theory previosly put forth if we HAVE to have a set in stone explaination. Magic needs to be mysterious or it's just science, and science is SOOO OOG and boring.
 
Sunnfire said:
Ondreij said:
With all of these ritual scrolls that are in existence, why is it that you don't hear about Adventurers finding them on the ground (except after a battle) or buried in the earth, or simply falling from the sky?
Click to expand...

Actually there was at least one sitting out all alone in the woods last Caldaria event. Along with the components to cast it. I guess nobody wanted that cloak scroll for free.
Well I guess not for free, you would have had to you know, go for a hike on the trails. Which you know is unheard of.

We even sent in an NPC twice to say how they were randomly finding things in various places on their way to town.
Click to expand...

As you know, I wasn't there at the last Caldaria event (rats). Now we know where scrolls come from ... anywhere plot wants them to come from.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top