The Book of Fangs and Talons

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This tome looks more like a trapper’s bundle than a book. It is large and untidy, a bulging rectangle that trails claws and strips of hide and smells of beast-musk and old death. On closer examination, it is a book of heavy vellum pages clasped between two slabs of sea-turtle shell and covered with an assort¬ment of furs and strips of scaled hide from all manner of mountain, forest, and sea creatures. The binding is adorned and clasped shut with a variety of fangs and talons, no doubt renewed and augmented from time to time by faithful Malarites in blood ceremonies. The interior of the book follows the classic format of one spell to a page, and there are 17 pages. The volume has no frontispiece or title page, but does boast a marking ribbon of cured and oiled red dragon tongue, stamped with the dripping claw device of Malar. The materials of which the tome is constructed would normally have perished entirely long since. Preservative magic (of unknown numbers and natures) must protect the volume against rot, worms, and mildew. The Book of Fangs and Talons first comes to the attention of the sages of Faerun when it was found atop Berun’s Hill in the Year of the Turning Wheel (937 DR) by the Slow Serpent band of adventurers, laid out flat and held that way by stones. Burnt candles adorned the stones and a circle of blood surrounded the book. Besides this, splashes of gore stood as mute witnesses to the various beasts that were sacrificed. Strangely, nothing was left of them but a single paw or claw from each, arranged around the outside of the circle and pointing inward, at the book. The most disquieting remnant was a human hand mixed in with the rest. Of worshipers, or the rest of the remains, there was no sign. The Slow Serpents took their find to a learned, local priest of Silvanus, who was baffled. Though he and his kind had no love for the followers of Malar, he was familiar with the general intent and form of their religious services, which involved hunts and beast wrestling with feasts upon the fallen. Nothing in his experience, however, was as bloodthirsty or wide- ranging in terms of numbers and types of beasts slain at a single observance as this. Notes in his daybook tell us that the priest considered the book at least 20 seasons old at this time (probably more) and that he entertained three possibilities about the ritual. The first, he said, was that it could be the work of a schism cult of Malar. His second theory was that it involved adherents of another deity (perhaps Bhaal, Lord of Murder) who were trying to use the Malarite holy book as part of their own observances. Finally, he said it may have been the work of orthodox Malarites experimenting or attempting a rare, grand ritual—such as constructing a new monster to the glory of Malar or as a body to serve Malar as an avatar. The truth is lost forever. Three nights after the Silvanite took possession of what he called the “Fang Tome,” over 40 Malarites wearing beast masks and with bone claws strapped to their hands descended on his hermitage and tore him and it apart, carrying off the book with them. The Malarites scattered across the North. It is known that the book was in Triboar not long afterwards, but it is thought that it was then taken south along the trade-roads. Rumors of it being worshiped locally as though it were divine itself, or at least could manifest Malar if bathed in smoke from the boiling blood of hunted and slain beasts, swept the Secomber area by about 960 DR. The secretive Malarite cult probably took the tome to the Daggerford area soon afterwards, for warrior-priests of Chauntea (in the brief time when such a form of worship was popular among the followers of the Earthmother) scoured the Secomber area, and the Delimbiyr valley upstream for many miles and found no trace of Malarite worship. A similar ring of blood and severed claws was found just south of Daggerford in 977 DR, but there was no tome in the ring this time. History records nothing of the book for three centuries after that. However, it surfaces again in Elturel in 1281 DR, when members of a Malarite beast-cult conducted a “Wild Hunt” through the streets of the city by night, chasing the monsters they had collected, caged, and then released together. The Malarites slew the monsters, passers by, and Officers of the Watch indiscriminately, and so were in turn hunted down in retribution on the following day. Magic was used on captured and slain cult members to learn the location of the hidden under-cellar Temple of the Beast—cleaning it out became a pitched battle that lasted several days. This struggle ended when authorities reached the holy altar, only to see the high priest whisked away from their justice by a blood teleport magic powered by the life-forces of his sacrificial victims. He was clutching the Book of Fangs and Talons at the time. The book was clearly seen and described in detail by the frustrated justiciaries of Elturel. Rumors began to circulate along the trade-routes about this odd book, proclaiming its ability to give forth the monsters whose hides, teeth, and claws adorned it, and to slay persons left alone with it. The tome itself remained hidden until 1296 DR, when adventurers stumbled upon a hidden temple in the settlement of Easting. They attempted to carry the book away with them, but were set upon by “a great horde incorporating of all manner of beasts” summoned by the furious priest who encountered them. The carrier of the book was dragged away and devoured in the battle. When the adventurers returned with hired mercenaries to avenge their comrade, the temple was empty and abandoned. Two years later, it appeared again in Elversult when Malarites held an open conclave to plan their dispositions in the lands north of Amn, east of Iriaebor, and west of Vaasa. The book was featured as a holy object in many rituals during the long tenday gathering. It is known to have been taken north by a certain Onglukh Neirim, who styled himself the “Holy Stalker of Malar.” Onglukh set about breeding great cats and other rare, large predators in secret near the Border Forest, feeding them on orcs, flinds, and ogres (whose decline in the area dates from this time). Reliable reports of the whereabouts of the Book of Fangs and Talons ceased after Onglukh took it, although there were rumors along the overland trade routes of it being borne through forests by chanting Malarites in 1346 DR, and again in 1359 DR. Its present whereabouts are unknown. The writings of the “Mad Malarite,” Thorogh Delskul of Priapurl, hint that some of the teeth and claws that adorn the book are tipped with poisons to kill noninitiates who try to open or handle the tome. Those who successfully open it will, according to his account, find 17 spells within: Animal transfer (a spell detailed in the Faiths & Avatars sourcebook), animal summoning III, beast claw (Faiths & Avatars), blood lust (detailed below), chant of fangs (detailed below), create food & water, creeping doom, hold animals, insect plague, locate animals or plants, part water, produce flame, rage (Faiths & Avatars), speak with animals, spectral manticore (detailed below), spectral stag (detailed below), and water walk.