Libro de San Cipriano (Bookhounds, RPG All)

Whatever a man prefers to God, that he makes a god to himself. 

Attributed to St. Cyprian of Antioch

1.     Jonas Sulfurino [Sulphury Jonas].
2.     Libro de San Cipriano [Book of St. Cyprian of Antioch]: Great and True Sorcerer's Treasure.
3.     c. 1828 [Spanish, translation from the Latin]
4.     Private press; mezzotint
5.     Quarto, grangerized, rebacked c 1890, marginalia 
6.     Embroidered binding
7.     Private collection, Grandes de España Abrantes
8.     Good condition 
9.     No references
10.     Includes text from the Petit Albert, Grand Grimoire and Key of Solomon, purports to contain healing magic and means of finding hidden treasure.

Any Hound who gets an opportunity to look at this piece immediately notices something odd. The book is said to be rebacked; that means its spine was damaged beyond repair and it had to be completely made new. If so, the repair was remarkable in its fidelity to the original. The embroidered binding, which resembles tiny eyes woven into the design, is without flaw. It is impossible to see the repair at all. 

The book is fairly typical for its type. Allegedly the wisdom of St. Cyprian, a pagan, passed down by Sulphury Jonas - clearly a devilish pseudonym - this is the usual mishmash of occult 'wisdom' seen in any of a dozen similar texts. Its claims to fame are the binding and those grangerized mezzotints, depicting occult ceremonies and demon summonings, which lend it flair. It looks more valuable than it ought to be, and is definitely eye-catching.

The Grandes de España Abrantes, if anyone thinks to check, is not the Duke of Abrantes. Pity, as the Dukedom has the blood of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II in its lineage, which would lend the book a certain gravitas. This Grandes is in fact a much more obscure line of nobility.

If anyone really digs, and spends points digging, they discover that the Grandes is one Harry Wicklow, a notorious scam artist whose specialty is obscure foreign nobility. If the Hounds track him down and make him talk, he says he picked the Book of St. Cyprian up at a French auction house, which claimed to have bought it from a Spanish owner. It was rebacked when he bought it, and the embroidered binding was, when he had it, extensively damaged. He doesn't know when it was repaired. He knows he didn't do it, and neither did the French.

Those who skim it pick up two dedicated points towards divination magic and talisman making. Those who study it, and who make a point of cracking the obscure alchemical code in the marginalia, pick up 1 point Mythos. 

Students who go that far claim to discover references to hidden treasure somewhere in Abrantes and dream nightly of an obscure tumbledown monastery in Bemposta where this treasure is supposedly buried. The monastery is featured in the mezzotints grangerized into the book. According to the alchemical marginalia there is a means of directly transporting a scholar to the monastery from anywhere in the world; they brew a potion according to the book's direction, drink it, and are flown to the monastery by demons. 

Anyone with Mythos who makes a point of investigating this claim realizes that the potion is in fact Create Dream Gate, a one-time-only transportation of the person who consumes the potion to a location in the Dreamlands, actual destination unknown. 

If anyone does complete this ritual they are never seen again. However, when this happens the book's condition improves. The embroidered binding is already near-perfect and the rebacking almost impossible to spot. If someone completes the ritual again then the book improves from Good to Very Good condition, increasing its value. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!