Thaak Taalomar
A large folio-sized spellbook, its cover twin sheets of hammered mithril now covered with a thin tarnished patina from age, the Thaak Taalomar as it exists now isn't even the original tome. The original was a great book of shining mithril, each page wrought carefully in ancient times. The cover bears no writing, but it is acid-etched with a symbol of a great gemstone in which is trapped the dwarven sigil for gaunn, or "power."
Contents
Though the spellbook is currently translated in Shanatan dwarven, it was originally written in the Elder Tongue, a now-dead dwarven ur-language. It is an incredibly thick book, some 400 pages in length, each filled with tiny, cramped Dethek scrawl. It is considered an Arcane Tome (120gp) and adds +3% to Formula/Schema researches for the subject of dwarven magic.
The book, once read thoroughly, contains ancient dwarven lore that seems to suggest that wizardry was once more common (although still not terribly so) among the dwarvenfolk. But due to some event referred to as the Soul Storm, the dwarven god Dumathoin took up the strands of that power from dwarven souls, and hid them beneath the earth along with many of his other secrets. It's difficult to tell whether this is supposed to be literal or metaphorical, but the power was hidden away within the Great Diamond, and forgotten.
In the aftermath of its hiding, the dwarven wizards of High Shanatar and Oghrann came together in the Shanataran city of Ultoksamrin, the kingdom beloved of Dumathoin, to record their lore before there were none left to learn it. The book contains a wealth of spells, references to ancient magic items wrought by the ancient olsmiddi ("magic-smiths," as their wizards were called), and hints of a secretive culture of dwarven sorcerers of old High Shanatar.
Spells
- Cantrips: dancing lights, mending
- First Level: Dunragarr's steelstone, feather fall, find familiar (including treatise on underdark animals as familiars), mage armor, rune of power (with descriptions of the Basic, Velurndyn and Faerindyl runes)
- Second Level: darkness, magic weapon, maskstone, rockburst, sound burst, spider climb
- Third Level: dispel magic, gembolt, remove curse
- Fourth Level: arcane eye, stoneskin
- Fifth Level: passwall, wall of stone
