D&D 5E Heretical books

[TBeholder]

If you're playing in the Multiverse (with Toril), you can have old Netherese works there.
A few unsubtle, but powerful spells (up to some 11 level scary stuff, like Mavin's Worldweave or Seal/Breach Crystal Sphere) and ramblings about how the gods are just very sneaky wizards, and if you avoid things like healing by divine magic they won't be able to undermine your chance of breaking to the same "godhood" level.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

There's a big list of heretical books here, with detailed descriptions.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

The Monsterous Manual.

I'm looking at you, Captain Memorize-stat-blocks.

[sblock](Doubly heretical if it's in .pdf form. They haven't bought a copy. And they're reading through the thing on their tablet/phone at the table. During my Big Bad guy's epic twenty-minute-long exposition.)[/sblock]

 

[Sunseeker]

I had a really nice one that I used to mess with my players. The book was unnamed and it was pitch black. You could see the general shape of the book but it had no discerning elements to it. The pages were all equally pitch black, because they weren't actually pages. The entire book was the prison for an ancient demon lord. The book kept him prisoner by basically stripping his mind from his body and scattering pieces of his knowledge across its pages. The player could make a will check to attempt to read the book and would get random ancient hellish knowledge (a rather entertaining list of 1/day powers I made up), which of course, affected them mentally and physically. The goal of the book of course is to turn the reader into the new vessel for the demon lord's mind since the knowledge is all coalescing in a single vessel (the reader's brain) not separated on book pages.

I also had "the mad diary", which, provided one could survive reading it, would provide instruction on how to become a lich. But the writing in the book and the instructions changed every time you read it, even while you were reading it, and without successful checks, your mental stats would all go down by 1 point for each failure.

 

[Caliban]

The illustrated Gnoma-Sutra. Things man was never meant to know.

 

[Knight_Marshal]

The Key of Soloman aka The Grand Grimoire.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The illustrated Gnoma-Sutra. Things man was never meant to know.

"OMIGAWD...their noses..."

 

[aco175]

I was thinking something about their own religion kept hidden, sort of like the Bible has books of the Apostles left out and few know of them and what is in them. You can have some major part of the characters faith become questioned and point to church elders as having been behind it. Reviling this may change the world, but most likely brand the party as heretics. throw in some Tom Hanks symbology and you have a great adventure.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was thinking something about their own religion kept hidden, sort of like the Bible has books of the Apostles left out and few know of them and what is in them. You can have some major part of the characters faith become questioned and point to church elders as having been behind it. Reviling this may change the world, but most likely brand the party as heretics. throw in some Tom Hanks symbology and you have a great adventure.

"Y'ever notice those guys with white balls walking around?"
[sblock] [/sblock]