The Tome of the Morning

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This holy book is a large, heavy rectangular tome, with covers of polished, sparkling white quartz, and edges bound in gilded steel. A frame of the same gilded steel holds the preserved eye of a blue dragon hatchling in the center of the front cover. This milk-white orb with its sapphire pupils is lidless and about a foot and a half long. The eye continuously looks about (whether or not the book is “awake”), always regarding moving things within a dozen feet or so and may therefore seem to be intelligently watching crea¬tures who approach it. Fissures run diagonally across both covers of the book, and in these irregular scars grow small colonies of lush green moss. Priests of Lathander carefully harvest tiny amounts of this “sacred” moss, mix it with holy water, and distill it to create the “Quaff of Vision” drink used in certain rituals to bring them guiding visions from the Morninglord. The book is protected by several layers of enchantments that keep its metals untar¬nished, the dragon eye preserved, and all of its component parts from shattering or decaying, whatever situation or exposure the Tome of the Morning may suffer. The book measures two feet in width by three feet in height, and is six inches thick. Its covers protect 65 vellum pages, apparently blank if simply examined without awakening the book, but in reality each bearing a single spell. (Normal writing can be placed on each page without affecting or obscuring these “hidden” magical inscriptions. All such writings, however applied, vanish one month after being applied to the Tome.) The book has neither clasp nor lock. For the book to awaken, the light of dawn or sunset (or a rosy or red-toned faerie fire) must pass through the eye. The eye blinks and then focuses the incoming light into a beam of rose-colored radiance that it will project onto any fairly flat and featureless surface nearby (such as a warrior’s shield, a stone wall, or even a cobbled courtyard). If the surface moves or is no longer available, the eye redirects the beam onto an alternative surface, using a tree trunk or even turf if no better option presents itself. On this display surface, the beam is projected into a ruddy glowing partial ring, that is, a circle with a small gap in it where part of its arc is missing. This display continues as long as the light source lasts, or until someone makes use of it to “awaken” the book. If anyone “closes the ring,” completing the figure (by drawing, scraping, arranging pebbles or other markers, or even just by making a motion with a staff or some part of his own body), the Tome awakens. The projected ring vanishes, and the book pulses once with a vivid pale crimson light. Then it seems quiescent once more. If it is opened, however, observers discover that the spells it contains are now clearly displayed on its pages. They will remain so for exactly 24 hours and then fade from view once more. The book will have to be reawakened to see them again. (A true seeing spell allows the user to see the hidden spells.) It is rumored that certain spells in the book (notably the quest spells) must be touched with a holy symbol of Lathander, held by a being who devoutly worships the Morninglord, for the spell inscriptions to entirely and correctly appear. Priests of other faiths who attempt to use the incomplete spells (which appear whole and proper when examined) end up with magics that appear normal and usable—but do nothing when cast. Whenever a spell of any sort is cast at the book or in such a manner that its area of effect comes into contact with the Tome of the Morning, the book absorbs the magic instantly and wholly into itself, without taking harm and without allowing anyone carrying or touching it to be affected by the magic. Spells that specifically affect only one creature are not intercepted by the book if cast at the bearer of the Tome of the Morning. The book also generates a protective field around itself that prevents it from being soiled or damaged by natural fires, lightning, oils, and earth, so that it cannot be dissolved, crushed by burial, or consumed. Physical blows sent against the book are sent back to their sources with double damage. (Thus, the swing of a sword that hacks the Tome for 4 points of damage would leave it unmarked—but be converted into an unerring “solid air” ram force attack akin to that produced by a ring of the ram, instantly dealing the sword-swinger 8 points of damage.) The Tome of the Morning has at least two additional powers that can be awakened by bearers who know how to use them. By touching the Tome to any dragon relic (a scale, a tooth, or even an unhatched egg) and uttering the correct word of activation (a secret believed to be forgotten by present-day users), the user is instantly made aware of whether the relic is genuine (really from a dragon if it has previously borne an enchantment, has been altered by magic, or bears a current enchantment; what age and species of dragon it came from; and (in the case of eggs) if it is fertile. This power can be used apparently without limits. Once every three days (that is, two sunrises must occur between each use of this power), anyone can call on the greatest ability of the Tome: to enact the rite of renewal. Despite its grand name, no prayers are really necessary beyond touching the book while calling aloud upon Lathander, uttering his name three times. The being to be affected must remain in direct flesh-to-Tome contact for 12 continuous hours from the utterance of the first call upon the god. The renewal, if it occurs at all, falls instantly at the end of this period—but does not occur at all if contact is broken. Although any being, of any faith and alignment, may be aided by the book through the grace of Lathander, it sometimes fails to completely purge an individual of all ills and disabilities. Apparently, this occurs at random (or, if you prefer, at the whim of Lathander). At its highest level, however, the Tome can simultaneously enact all of the following effects on a given being: Remove curse, cure blindness, cure disease, purge the curse of lycanthropy, madness, and all charms and compulsions (such as geas spells), neutralize poison, heal, and act as a restoration and regeneration spell on missing limbs, even renewing withered and crippled body parts that have been made that way by powerful magic or which have never known full health and use. A full year must pass after a rite of renewal before it will “work” again for the same individual. The Tome first appeared in the now-vanished Lathanderian monastery of Sunrise Spire (which stood on the north bank of the River Chionthar several days’ travel upstream from Baldur’s Gate and was destroyed in 1177 DR in a territorial war between petty self-proclaimed princelings, because of the strategic impor¬tance of its crossriver ferry). Although Lathanderian lore has always contended (rather vaguely) that the Tome is the work of a team of eight, ten, or twelve mighty high priests of the faith, inspired to create a holy book by the Morninglord himself, the various tales disagree sharply on just who those esteemed clerics were, and where they did their crafting. All sources unearthed to date, however, are unanimous in saying that it was not at Sunrise Spire. It seems the book was brought to the Spire in secret, and revealed only by Brother Quitherus Ardabad, an elderly priest of low rank, when Lathanderian lay adventurers came to the Spire requesting aid in the spring of 1146 DR. The First Prior of the monastery reacted with shock and fury to this revelation. He was aghast that such a treasure should have been within the walls of the Spire without his knowledge and adamant that it not pass into the hands of “rude adven¬turers” when “worthy brothers of the faith stand in need of its divine light.” This stance was reportedly refuted by no less an authority than the god himself. Lathander apparently mani¬fested in direct support of the elderly priest’s contention that the Tome was intended to travel “the wilder places of Faerun, passing from hand to hand, in and out of the faith, and that Lathander’s support of new ventures is manifest to all beings of Faerun, not merely to those who choose to venerate him.” The adventurers, known as the Rose-Red Shield, hurriedly left the Spire, taking Quitherus with them. The First Prior was found dead soon thereafter, blasted to ashes before his own altar. The four surviving Holy Priors of the monastery concluded (after much prayer and many drinks of Quaff of Vision) that the First had turned so far from the faith as to challenge Lathander, trying to compel the Morninglord to bring the Tome back to the monastery—only to pay the ultimate price for his temerity. Brother Quitherus soon succumbed to the rigors of travel and battle, dying at Velen in 1152 DR. In that time, however, his judicious use of the Tome had not only saved the lives of several warriors of the Shield, but attracted no fewer than four novice priests of Lathander to adventure with the Shield. They engaged in a bitter struggle for supremacy after the death of their teacher, and one of them perished, while a second was cast out. The remaining two priests, of whom history records only their names, Lithconter and Voraux, came to an uneasy truce that slowly deepened into friendship and finally, they wielded the Tome jointly as the Rose-Red Shield traveled up and down the Sword Coast, supporting new ventures largely through smashing trade cabals, thieves’ guilds, smugglers, and official corruption. This work made them folk heroes among the lowly, but marked men and women for those of wealth and power—band after band of mercenary slayers was hired to rid Faerun of the Shield. And band after band was slaughtered, but more than a few of them hit home, until the sparse number of survivors of the original adventuring company was sick of constant perils and knowing neither rest nor sanctuary anywhere in the Realms. Matters came to a head in 1168 DR, when the stalwart leader of the group, the warrior Daranthas Pelodir, the “Sword of Lathander,” was lured into a trap by brigands and slain by their leader—a beholder. The surviving Shield hurled themselves recklessly into a hunt for revenge and by the time the beholder was hacked into ruin, only Lithconter, Voraux, and a half-elf mageling by the name of Verendra Tathtar were still alive. Then and there, they decided that the Shield should vanish into legend, kept alive only in name by carefully spreading rumors of its subsequent deeds . . . while the three would retreat to some remote village somewhere and dwell in quiet retire¬ment together. Somewhere turned out to be the village of Broken Blade, a now-vanished foresters’ hamlet west of Elversult, where the three successfully lived out their lives in anonymity, with Verendra sometimes posing as the wife of Lithconter, and sometimes as the bride of Voraux. In the end she buried them both and became a lonely figure, haunted by her grief and spending her time wandering the woods and village lanes like a sneak-thief at night and sleeping by day. Many were the wolves and worse were the monsters of the woods found by local folk in the mornings, blasted and burned. “They met with Verendra,” the grim saying went, and folk avoided the old house in the trees where the lady mage dwelt alone. Or rather, most folk did. It seems both Harpers and some elf and half-elf rangers visited her from time to time, slipping into her home by night. One bold thief, knowing Verendra was far away, strode into her front hall—only to lock eyes with three tall elves in magnificent armor. He quickly decided that he had urgent business elsewhere. One of those visitors was with Verendra when at last she died, or at least who came upon her soon after. A later thieving band found a grave cairn (which, when they started to dismantle it in hopes of finding valuables in her tomb, proved to be guarded by the deadly little things called flying daggers) in the front garden—and the house itself stripped to the bare walls. On the front door someone had scratched the words: “Lathanderians, seek your book where the Morninglord walked twice.” Only senior clergy in the faith of Lathander know the old lore that tells of a place “where the Morninglord walked twice,” a certain mountaintop in the Orsraun Mountains north of Turmish. One of them acted on that message without delay, finding the Tome of the Morning and bringing it in triumph to a Lathanderian temple in Arrabar in the fall of 1221 DR. There an ambitious young priest by the name of Tethtor Kandrath reminded the priests that the god wanted this holy book to be out in the hands of the people, and volunteered to take it there. After some debate, the assembled clergy reluctantly agreed, and Tethtor set forth up and down the Vilhon Reach to spread word of the power of Lathander, made manifest in this holy book. Folk listened, and after some demonstrations of the power in the book and some “miracle cures” brought about by use of the rite of renewal power, worship of the Morninglord increased. Some folk, however, listened too well, and one morning in the winter of early 1222 DR, Tethtor’s headless body was found amid the trampled ruins of his campsite near Samra, and the Tome was gone. Lathanderian priests hunted for it as the century passed, until word of it came to a light from an unexpected quarter, early in the summer of 1304 DR. Maeran Faerlin, a rising merchant of Westgate, had a warehouse in an isolated compound near Teziir torn open by a large black dragon—he openly declared war on the wyrm. Learning that this dragon, Aglistralarraghautha, was the mother of a brood of destructive hatchlings who were laying waste to many farms in the Reddansyr area, Maeran called on the farmers of that land for donations to his “dragon hunt.” He hired a trio of mages forthwith, and they called themselves the Hunting Hands, a band of archers, and a minor priest of Lathander, one Alion Narithryn. Alion was astonished when Maeran thrust the long lost Tome of the Morning into his hands, and bade him use its dragonbane spell to protect the Hunting Hands and the archers. Maeran seemed to think that the spell would keep out the dragon’s acid spit and spells, but Alion had no time to convince him otherwise. The band set off to the valley where the dragons made their lairs, without delay. They found its mouth choked with a ramshackle wall made of the many ships that Aglistralarraghautha had plucked up bodily from the waters and then let fall in a heap, one atop the others, to close off the valley so that the shiploads of cattle she purloined for food would not be able to escape. The dragon hunters climbed the steep sides of the valley to win past the obstacle and were promptly seen by one of the hatchling dragons, who swooped to the attack. The wizards all let fly with spells at once, wounding the hatchling enough that the archers could bring it down. Its death brought Aglistralarraghautha herself howling down the valley. The priest Alion hastily cast a dragonbane spell in front of the hunters, where they perched exposed on the hillside. It worked. Though one of the wizards died screaming and strug¬gling in the heart of a stream of acid, the dragon was forced to turn aside sharply when she had been intending to rake and pounce her away along the slope, and in so doing she turned her underbelly to the waiting archers. The volley of shafts maddened and slowed her. Seizing their chance, the two surviving Hands brought her down with their best spells. She fell to the feet of Maeran, who was arriving triumphantly late with some Reddansyr farmers and a large band of warriors. The jubilant merchant led everyone in swarming over the dragon and cutting her apart while she yet lived. They were interrupted in their bloody work by the sudden, swooping attacks of the surviving hatchlings, who slaugh¬tered the ambitious merchant and most of his hirelings. Alion fled in headlong panic, clutching the Tome like a shield. He managed to find a cave, a shelter from the furious young dragons. They dug at its rocks until their talons were worn blunt and then gave up, snarling in frustration. Guessing that one of the dragons would perch above the cave entrance and wait for him to emerge, Alion prepared his spells carefully, and sent forth a false, conjured image of himself first, building it around the Tome, made to float along by his magic. When the hatchling he had been expecting swooped down to attack, the book’s protective enchantments turned its own harm against it, and the priest’s spells struck at it from behind. Maddened, the hatchling spun away and flapped down the valley, right past the last wounded and waiting Hunting Hand. A blast from his wand sent the agonized dragon wheeling to flee again, and the reflected damage of its own renewed attack on the Tome killed it. Alion used the book’s rite of renewal on the wizard, in return for his promise to help slay the remaining dragons. The two men agreed on a battle plan, prepared their spells, and kept hidden while the dragons devoured the dead humans on the valley floor. Later, when the hatchlings had retired, the two men moved cautiously down the valley and reached the cave mouth where the brood’s lair was hidden without mishap. Alion cast a dragonbane spell across the cavern mouth and the two men laughed and shouted, to lure the dragons out. It worked. Two furious hatchlings stormed out of the depths of the cavern, and the wizard blasted them with his spells; Alion added some of his own, and the dragons died. Doubting they would survive long if Aglistralarraghautha’s mate (who was long dead, though neither man knew that) put in an appearance, or even if another hatchling caught them unawares and in the open, the two men fled the valley. They had not trudged far beyond it, keeping to woodlands as much as possible, when a hatchling came hunting them. The two men fled into the trees and began a desperate battle against the persistent dragon. In the end, its acid slew the wizard, but when it swooped at Alion to bite and kill, the Tome served him as a shield once more. Its own attacks slew it. Word of the dragonslaying war spread across the Inner Sea lands, but Alion kept silent and hidden . . . and showed the Tome to no man. Someone, however, learned that he possessed it. Less than a month after Alion Narithryn returned to his quiet devotions in a poor street in Westgate, a high-ranking Lathanderian priestess appeared on his doorstep and commanded him to take a ship and hasten to Reth, where some irresponsible noble merchant had let his pet escape—a blue dragon hatchling of savage temper. As “Alion, the noted dragon slayer,” he was duty bound to end this threat to the safety of the Vilhon. Because the dragon was swooping down from the peaks above Reth to devour farmers and merchants at will, and growing speedily, he must destroy it. Alion did as he was bid. He, the Tome, and the blue dragon all vanished from the notice of historians. Presumably the priest succeeded in his task, because when the holy book was seen again, it bore a lone preserved blue dragon eye on one of its covers. Wreathed in flames that did not consume it, the Tome was borne in triumph down the streets of Waterdeep one hot summer night in 1346 DR by a young man “of unearthly, golden-haired beauty.” When a Lathanderian priest recognized it and gave chase, the book faded from view. The clergyman hastened to the local temple of the faith to report what he had seen, accompanied by several excited citizens who had also witnessed the blazing Tome. They found a message seared into the gates of the Spires of the Morning temple: “To all who love Lathander, seek the book that burned bright this night and yet was not consumed. Far from here, where men and caravans pass by the frozen Warrior King, however hard he rides.” An adventurer visiting Waterdeep took all of two eye blinks to figure out that this missive referred to the statue of King Dhalmass in Arabel, in his native Cormyr, and hastened thence. The Tome was found strapped to the shoulders of the king, but the adventurer who found it, one Abrith Greilslake, was forced into hiding in the Stonelands to keep his prize. Local war wizards proclaimed the holy book as the property of the crown because it had been found on a royal statue. Cormyrean hunting parties who sought the missing man and the book were set upon by Zhentarim bands seeking the same prizes, and from that day to this, both Abrith and the Tome of the Morning have been hidden from the eyes of civilized Faerun. Some Lathanderians believe the “Book of the Blinking Dragon” still lies somewhere in the Stonelands, probably accompanied by the adventurer’s corpse. Others say the Zhentarim got it, and a few whisper that it fell into Cormyrean hands, and now molders in a treasure vault somewhere under the palace in Suzail. Whatever its present fate, we know that the spells contained in the Tome of the Morning are as follows: Accelerate healing (a spell detailed in the Tome of Magic sourcebook), age dragon (Tome of Magic), animate object, aura of comfort (Tome of Magic), awakening (a spell detailed below), blessed abun¬dance (Tome of Magic), blessed warmth (Tome of Magic), body clock (Tome of Magic), boon of Lathander (a spell detailed in the Faiths & Avatars sourcebook), call upon faith (Tome of Magic), chain creation (detailed below), chariot of Sustarre, circle of privacy (Tome of Magic), circle of sunmotes (Tome of Magic), cloud of purification (Tome of Magic), create campsite (Tome of Magic), create food & water, create holy symbol (Tome of Magic), dragonbane (Tome of Magic), efficacious monster ward (Tome of Magic), elemental forbiddance (Tome of Magic), faerie fire, false dawn (Faiths & Avatars), focus (Tome of Magic), fortify (Tome of Magic), greater shield of Lathander (Faiths & Avatars), heal, helping hand (Tome of Magic), heroes' feast, idea (Tome of Magic), land of stability (Tome of Magic), memory read (Tome of Magic), mind read (Tome of Magic), mindnet (Tome of Magic), mirror vestments (detailed below), moment (Tome of Magic), moment reading (Tome of Magic), morale (Tome of Magic), mystic transfer (Tome of Magic), nap (Tome of Magic), neutralize poison, physical mirror (Tome of Magic), probability control (Tome of Magic), purify food & drink, reincarnation, restoration, revelation (Tome of Magic), reverse time (Tome of Magic), robe of healing (Tome of Magic), rosemantle (Faiths & Avatars), rosetouch (Faiths & Avatars), rosewater (detailed below), seclusion (Tome of Magic), shield of Lathander (Faiths & Avatars), slow rot (Tome of Magic), Sol's searing orb (Tome of Magic), solipsism (Tome of Magic), sphere of security (Tome of Magic), sunray, sunrise (Faiths & Avatars), telepathy (Tome of Magic), thought capture (Tome of Magic), uplift (Tome of Magic), ward of light (detailed below), and zone of sweet air (Tome of Magic).