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Tome of Eldritch Lore: Difference between revisions
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== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Madlax]]'' -- The ''Firstari'', the ''Secondari'' and the ''Thirstari'' are capable of driving cities of men into their darkest emotions, creating [[Evil Twin|doppelgangers]], and bringing down airplanes.
* Common item in the ''[[Read or Die]]'' TV series done different ways. One, in which a god-like man named "The Gentleman" had his essence written into a number of such books. In the [[OVA]] series, there's a partial subversion: handwritten notes in the margins of an otherwise-harmless book held the secret to {{spoiler|driving the entire human race to suicide}}. The manga used it straight; ''The Dark Abyss'', a book bound in human flesh, that the publisher required 5 different people to print, a page at a time. Reading it or listening to someone read it instantly resulted in insanity.
* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' has a videotape, Chapter Black, which serves essentially the same purpose. It's a recording of every evil deed ever done by humans, which human-hating [[Big Bad]] Sensui makes a point of showing to his followers to drive them insane with disgust at people.
** Notably, its part of a two-tape set. The other tape, Chapter White, records every ''good'' deed ever done by humans, and you're not supposed to watch one without the other. [[What an Idiot!|Guess what Sensui did]].
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* Possibly the ultimate form of this trope is [[The Sandman|Destiny of The Endless's Book]]. In it is written the entirety of existence, past , present and future. Every person, every bit of knowledge, every event, every possibility. It's a good thing the Book is chained to Destiny and he's the only one who can read it, cause anyone else reading it would either grow omnipotent or have his/her mind irrevocably shattered.
* In an episode of ''Badger'' dealing with Lovecraftian beasties, Mavis whipped out her "Pocket Necronomicon".
* In the ''[[Marvel Universe]]'', a Tome called the ''Darkhold'' contains a variety of spells, including the Montessi Formula, which unmakes vampirism (and vampires).
** Worth mentioning, that using any spell from this tome equals sealing your soul to evil god Chthon, and most of them works in really twisted and sick ways.
*** One of the weird things about it is that in the MU, vampirism started when a group of Atlantean sorcerers slew their enemies, but weren't satisfied with simply winning the fight and killing their foes. They wanted to make them suffer after death, so they used a spell from the Darkhold to raise them as the first vampires. Predictably things after that did not go 'quite' as the sorcerers intended.
* There is also the ''Book of the Vishanti'' which is said to contain every counterspell and defensive magic ever known or will be known, including a spell to free one from the Darkhold's control (odd that it doesn't seem to contain the spell to cure vampirism, which is in the Darkhold). It also contains a lot of useful lore penned by previous holders of the tome and it seems to explicitly add new pages for current owners to add their own information into its pages.
* [[Doctor Strange]], the Sorcerer Supreme, has an entire library of these.
* [[Kurt Busiek]]'s ''The Wizard's Tale'' revolves around a [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]] which the [[Inept Mage|inept]] and not particularly evil wizard must locate and cast spells from. {{spoiler|Fortunately, he learns that the good guys hid it rather than destroyed it because it contains a spell to banish evil. He [[Heel Face Turn|casts it instead]].}}
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== Film ==
* ''The [[Evil Dead]]'' featured a book called Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, which, when read, resurrected a bunch of evil Kandarian spirits. By the time of [[Army of Darkness]], it was just called the ''Necronomicon''.
** In the first movie and the beginning of the second, it was called the ''Naturyan Demonta''.
* ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy]]'' had the Book of the Dead, which unleashed the title monster upon the world, as well as its good cousin, which {{spoiler|stripped him of his undead immortality and made him mortal}}.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' has had countless numbers of these over the years and editions. If one is of a magical turn of thought, caution should be taken when putting pen to paper. The most notable and persistent of these tomes is the ''Book of Vile Darkness'', which is so evil that reading it can damage a good person's mind. (The publishers of the game actually produced a sourcebook on evil by this name later on.) The original edition of D&D actually had separate versions of this text for priests and wizards, with the ''Book of Vile Darkness'' being the priestly version and the ''Libram of Ineffable Damnation'' the wizardly version. A few subversions also exist: the ''Book of Exalted Deeds'', a book of pure ''goodness'' (and the ''Libram of Silver Magic'', its wizardly cousin), and the ''Libram of Gainful Conjuration'', which can only be read if you don't side with either good or evil.
** All of which are mere cheap knockoffs of the REAL badass book of AD&D, The Codex of the Infinite Planes. How bad is it? For starters, it's the size of a small room. ''Just opening it can reduce you to a small pile of ashes.'' If you aren't killed, you can use the book to achieve near-perfect power over reality... but if you ever stooge one of the spells within, they'll never find your corpse (assuming you leave one).
** The Tome of the Stilled Tongue, sacred to Vecna, deserves its own mention. This is the kind of book which a) can only be safely used by those worshipping an evil lich-god of scheming and dark magic and b) comes with a free ''human tongue'' nailed to the front as an example of why you shouldn't blab the secrets of the Maimed God.
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** [[Shout-Out|Note that it was actually called Necronomicon in Japanese.]]
* The various magical tomes from ''[[Grim Grimoire]]''. With every new [[Groundhog Day Loop]] cycle Lillet goes through, they become even more powerful, until she's capable of summoning dragons, golems, and arch-demons.
* ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' has the Emigre Manuscript, a book so evil that it even has skull-shaped pages. Its main selling point is that it contains instructions on how to bring someone [[Back From the Dead]], something attempted in all four games of the series. Unfortunately, most attempts end up as grotesque [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]].
** The Pulse Tract and R'lyeh Text count even more so. The Pulse Tract incarnates a god form the soul of the earth, one which very nearly destroyed all of Shanghai and subjected the our hero to [[Mind Rape|The Mother of All Mind Rapes]]. The [[Shout-Out|R'lyeh]] [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|Text]] however, besides being named after a certain undead city, 'summons a god form beyond the stars' which was described as being as far above humanity as humanity is above insects. Eldritch indeed.
* ''[[Super Paper Mario]]'' has the Dark Prognosticus, which was featured in the header picture. The game's intro states that "The book held frightful secrets not meant for people's eyes." Later in the game, it's discovered that {{spoiler|Lord Blumiere was reborn as [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] Count Bleck}} upon first opening the book.
** There's a reason nobody was supposed to look at it: opening the book sets in motion [[The End of the World as We Know It|The End Of The Multiverse As We Know It]], and makes you continue flipping pages until all worlds end.
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* In the [[Call of Cthulhu]] RPG, all the books are present, from The Book of Eibon to The Necronomicon. Books will give you knowledge of the occult, but also cause permanent Sanity loss.
* In the Lovecraftian-style [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''Anchorhead'', there are (appropriately) several evil artifacts, including a [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]]. Tip for players: ''don't read it.''
* In ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'', the summoner Claus main weapons are books, including the Necronomicon, Liber Ivonis, Requiem (for Shaggai), The King in Yellow, Celaeno fragments, and pretty much any other fictional grimoire from the [[Cthulhu Mythos]]. The GBA version has alternative spellings (or poor translations) of said books. Also, these books apparently weigh a ton, since Claus can use them to smack around monsters.
* In [[SaGa|Final Fantasy Legend III]] the wizard Shar can use the Tablet to free the people of Pureland from the Masters power. Since the whole game is a [[Shout-Out]] to the Cthulu mythos its most likely the Necronomicon. In the original Japanese it's a "Goblin corpse".
* In a nod to the D&D examples listed above, [[Planescape: Torment]] has a book called the ''Grimoire of Pestilential Thought''. Not only will it offer to teach spells in exchange for the main character doing increasingly awful deeds, it can also offer 'advice' which has a very good chance of making the main character more evil just from hearing it.
* The ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' series has a few of these-- in fact there's an entire school of magic that is dedicated to using the magic in these kind of tomes, the aptly named "Dark" magic (Although, because [[Dark Is Not Evil]], but many think it is, some good dark-wielders call it "Elder magic".) Effects from delving deep into the dark arts often includes insanity and corruption-- whereas the spells themselves are known for having interesting effects such as; Stealing one's life force (Nosferatu), Summoning a horde of voracious insects (Swarm), Exposing someone's soul to the torment of hell ([[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Hell]]), making someone [[Pink Mist|explode in a shower of blood]] (Balberith)... but the most true to the form of this trope would be the tome of Loputous in FE 4-- a book containing the power of a [[Child Eater|Child-Eating]] Dark God. Upon reading it, [[Final Boss|Prince Yurius]] went completely insane, murdered his mother (he tried to kill his [[The Cutie|adorable]] [[Mysterious Waif|sister]] too, but she was warped away before he could)... it's effect: Halving the stats of anyone who challenges the wielder, unless said opponent is wielding the tome's opposite number, [[Game Breaker|Naga]])
* ''[[Jets N Guns]]'' features the Necrofilicon, a book with such horrible grammar, that reading any part of it out loud will wake the dead in the immediate area.
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* [[User Friendly]] mentions a Necronomicon in one strip, but it turns out it's just <s>Cthulhu's resume</s> a speaking engagement contract for Cthulhu.
* The [[Web Comic]] ''[[A Miracle of Science]]'' has ''Crank Theories Of Robotics'', one of a number of books which can infect susceptible persons with [[Science-Related Memetic Disorder]], essentially an idea-disease that turns you into a [[Mad Scientist]].
* The plot of the webcomic [http://zebragirl.keenspot.com/ Zebra Girl] starts with one of these.
* Parodied in [http://cookingschoolnews.com/archive_b/PBF130-Book_World.gif this] ''[[Perry Bible Fellowship]]'' strip.
* The Book of E-Ville in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', which is hinted to have power and backstory far more significant than its cutesy title suggests.
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* All [[wikipedia:Grimoire|grimoires]] [[wikipedia:Category:Grimoires|categorically]] are this by definition.
* [[Ancient Egypt]] had the Book Of Going Forth By Day -- popularly known as The Book Of The Dead.
** The book was a collection of various spells for different Pharaohs, printed on the walls of their tombs. It was essentially a collection of "prayers," or spells, but due to this, the spells were almost entirely unique to the individual. Some spells were very similar to each other, and some Pharaohs even had the exact same spells as others, but the spells were not intended to be used by anyone except the Pharaohs themselves. The spells were usually various forms of magical protection against demons in the underworld, or incantations to help one reach paradise.
* The ''Thousand And One Nights'' aka ''[[Arabian Nights]]'' is said to drive to madness anyone who reads the entire work. It's online at Project Gutenberg for anyone who's curious enough to try it. [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3435\]
* The ''[[Malleus Maleficarum]]'' definitely qualifies. It's a book written by fifteenth-century witch-hunters to record the depraved practices allegedly practiced by the diabolical witches, and the equally cruel tortures that were visited on those who were suspected of being witches.
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* Two particularly famous examples, the ''[[wikipedia:Voynich manuscript|Voynich Manuscript]]'' and the ''[[wikipedia:Codex Seraphinianus|Codex Seraphinianus]]'', are often confused with each other because they're superficially very similar: Both are encyclopedias written in an unknown language, peppered with bizarre illustrations of otherworldly biology. The ''Codex'' is a [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|"work of art"]] made in the 70s, but the Voynich Manuscript dates from sometime in the 14th century, is written in what appears to be a real (but unknown) language, and is filled with illustrations that just make it more confusing.
* [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|TV Tropes]]. [[Archive Binge|We're all trapped! TRAPPED!]]
* ''[[wikipedia:The Book of Abramelin|The Book of Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage]]'', the 14th century grimoire, has stories like this attatched to it. Of course, none are verifiable and S.L MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley probably made most of them up.
* The US Army field manual TM 31-210, "Improvised Munitions Handbook", is probably the best mundane equivalent. Won't summon demons, but almost any use will summon FBI agents. Unlike the other books in this list, Army field manuals are available on Amazon.
* [[Adolf Hitler]]'s ''Mein Kampf'' has started to become somthething like this. It isn't actually banned in Germany, but the copyright is owned by the government of the state Bavaria which never allowed any prints since the end of [[World War II]]. Supposedly it's a book so dangerous that it can turn normal people, or at least easily influential teens into fascist racists, so it must never be allowed to get back into circulation again. There are some attempts now to publish the content with annotations by historians to remove the myth from the book and showcase that it's really just incoherent rambling, which seems preferable to letting curious people just dig up the text on the internet on sites with doubious character.
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* [[wikipedia:The Grimoire of Pope Honorius|The Grimoire of Honorius]] was supposedly written by Pope Honorius III; he was evidently so holy that he got bored fighting off the temptation of the mundane world and took to summoning demons solely to turn down their offers.
* Arguably, the Football (a briefcase containing nuclear missile launch codes, always within easy reach of the President of the United States), which in the wrong hands probably ''is'' capable of bringing about [[The End of the World as We Know It]].
* ''[[House of Leaves]]''. [[Metafictional Title|May]][[Mind Screw|be.]]
* ''The Mystery of the Cathedrals''. Written by an alchemist in the 1920's using the pen name Fulcanelli, the work makes the case that the Cathedrals of Europe, as built by freemasons, are in fact stone manuals outlining the "Great Work" of alchemy. The work was followed by a sequel, ''The Dwellings of the Philosphers''. A third manuscript was intended for publication, however, it was recalled by the author at the last minute due to its secrets being too dangerous for public consumption. Interestingly, the CIA had an extensive file on Fulcanelli and conducted a massive search for him in the years following [[WW 2]].
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[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:Tome of Eldritch Lore]]
[[Category:Magic Items Index]]
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