TEXT: A System and Tables for What Happens When Magic-Users Actually Try to Prevent You from 
  Reading Their Magic
  by Logan Knight
  http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/cunning-linguists/ 
  Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
  Every Magic-User develops their own method of writing magical formulae, like some kind of 
  sorcerous cipher, preventing their knowledge from being read by the plebeian unworthy.
  Every other Magic-User knows the spell Read Magic, which they can cast and read anything 
  they want.
  Wait what? When did deciphering a madman's work become such a throwaway bit of bag of 
  tricks nonsense? If I was a wizard my spellbook would be overflowing with false passages and 
  curses and traps like some kind of nightmare word labyrinth of doom, not presenting itself on a 
  podium for the next first-day-of-magic-school Johnny that comes along. Read MY magic? I fucking
  think not.
  So sure, Read Magic allows you to read magical writings, but that doesn't mean you're going to 
  read it right.
  When Reading Magic, save vs. Magic. Your Referee will probably vary the required roll 
  depending on what you're trying to read, and you can apply bonuses by concentrating really hard 
  and using additional Cataclysm points before rolling. The number by which you succeed or fail is 
  applied as a bonus or penalty to the 3d6 roll your Referee now makes in seeecret.
  3d6
  Cunning Linguists
  14-18
  Success
  11-13
  Success/Librarian's Lament
  8-10
  Librarian's Lament
  5-7
  Chaos Reigns
  1-4
  Tome of Terror
  Librarian's Lament
  1d20
  (d10 if the writing isn't in a book)
  1
  You birth a wriggling pink rat with a young version of your own face out of your mouth. It
  scrambles away and out of sight. It will grow to about the size of a pug, it develops 
  translucent flaps of skin to glide on, it keeps showing up to foil your plans.
  2
  Tiny hideous mouths split open over the surface of the object and begin to scream.
  3
  Cold pink mist swells up from the object and wafts out in a 30' radius, save vs. Poison or 
  lie down to sleep in a blanket of fog.
  4
  You read the writing as something utterly different, you have no reason to believe that it 
  isn't right. If it is a spell, the first time you try to cast it a Chaos Reigns roll is triggered.
  5
  The object bearing the writing bursts into flame like a pile of magnesium.
  6
  Your eyes snap open wide and fill with churning pink clouds, black at the edges like a 
  storm, dim flashes of light perceivable in their midst.
  
  You find yourself blind, groping in lurid darkness, until your eyes settle back on the page. 
  Your eyes are permanently ensorcelled, unable to see anything but writing, but able to 
  decipher any written language or cipher without aid of any kind.
  You may find that there is a kind of poetry in the fibre of the world itself, but learning to 
  read that will take some time.
  7
  Get up from the table, go to the nearest bookshelf, close your eyes, pull down a book, flip 
  to a random page, scan down and read the first few lines that catch your eye. For the next 
  2d4 days save vs. Magic whenever you want to start a conversation or cast a spell, if you 
  fail the only words to come out are those lines over and over again.
  8
  Vow of Poverty. You just cursed yourself. Precious metals and gems rot within your 
  presence, visibly deteriorating every day, leaving nothing but discoloured muck after a 
  week of being within 15' of you.
  9
  Five trails of gently floating green lights appear, wafting into your lungs as they reach 
  you. The lights are leading demoniac hounds with the hands of men and voices of children
  to you from various directions.
  Every 8 hours roll a d4 per remaining hound, on a 4 they have come to collect you.
  10
  Your nearest companion compulsively stabs you with whatever blade is closest to hand. A 
  copper serpent slithers from the wound and into your hands, its blood-slicked scales are 
  carven with arcane knowledge.
  (Hand the player the Magic-User spell list, they gain any spells they can legibly write 
  down within 10 seconds. To cast the spell they must ingest a number of copper coins equal
  to spell level. The spells use Cataclysm as normal but do not need to be written in a 
  spellbook or memorised.)
  After 10 seconds the serpent will strike out at whoever is holding it, pumping black venom
  into their veins if its fangs find flesh.
  11
  Heat emanates from the page and you absent-mindedly place your hand against it to feel 
  the warmth.
  The ink burns into your skin like a tattoo.
  The first lie you tell will become true, and the writing on your hand will change to remind 
  you of that for all time.
  12
  The book's cover grows course and hairy, legs sprout from the spine and it leaps from your
  hands, running across the room and up the wall. It points a strange cloaca at you from the 
  base of its spine and expels clumps of bright green mildew at you that burns the skin, 
  flapping away to the other side of the room if you get too close.
  13
  The edges of the book slice your fingers open before it drops to the floor, leaving tiny 
  rows of perfect bloodless papercuts.
  They will never heal, and from this moment forth you will bleed prose.
  It is not for me to know what secrets may be found in your blood.
  14
  The book decomposes into hundreds of tiny paper mite crabs, they swarm over your arms,
  digging into your flesh, searching for orifices.
  If more than 50% of them find their way inside you, gain a spell of a random level, but 
  you can no longer eat anything other than paper, mumbling incoherent script when you are
  hungry.
  15
  The page splits horizontally and unfolds, then vertically and unfolds, then horizontally.. 
  again and again until the page is 15' wide. In the centre is a sketched doorway, the handle 
  is so realistic you feel that you could reach out and grab it. If you open the door roll 1d6. 
  The door leads you..
  1. Into the chambers of a disrobed person of note who does not take kindly to the 
  
  intrusion.
  2. Into a room piled high with glittering treasures. Anything you take will immediately 
  adhere into your skin, and it will take part of you with it if torn away. Opening the door 
  will lead you back into the room where the book lay.
  3. Into the lair of a great black serpent, slumbering after feeding. Shapes like hands push 
  out the skin of its distended belly and you hear far-off whimpering. If it wakes, its yellow 
  cut-glass eyes flash with hate and it will regurgitate its meal before attacking, bathing 
  them in a hot flush of digestive juices that melt their limbs and prevent escape. Otherwise, 
  it intends to digest them slow, they may yet survive, you have but to release them.. (Within
  the snake's belly is: 1-2. The person who originally wrote the words. 3. A buxom lass 
  sacrificed to the serpent, sacrificed for consorting with devils. 4. A foolhardy adventurer 
  brought here in search of a sacrificial hoard, collected over centuries. 5-6. A mewling litter
  of children, they imprint on the first person they see as their mother with animal 
  intelligence, they are stronger and more agile than they look)
  4. Into a dimly lit subterranean room, connected by secret stair to the lavish home above. 
  Yellow wax drips from walls and altars, icy fingers caress your spine as the light flickers 
  over strange stains, a hand-written tome rests on a dais, dedicated to the glory of the 
  Yellow Queen.
  5. Back where you just came from. You watch yourself move towards the book, 
  attempting to read its secrets, watching it unfurl into a doorway, stepping inside.. The 
  more you allow things to progress as they were the more of you there are, watching 
  yourself watching yourself in neverending sequence until you stop yourself from reading 
  the book, at which point every you that stepped through the doorway is un-happened, 
  sucked back out of reality in pockets of agony.
  6. Into your chrysalis deep below the earth. There you will sleep for years to come, until 
  the changes are complete, until your terrible maniacal glory can be loosed upon the world.
  16
  The book shrieks and tears itself in half, blood falls to the floor instead of paper 
  fragments, the missing half regrows, the books tear themselves in half, blood falls to the 
  floor...
  The books continue to replicate in this way until there are several hundred, shrieking in a 
  pool of blood.
  The blood tastes like learning.
  17
  Tendrils snap out from the crease of the book, penetrating your chest and belly, churning 
  as some drain and others pump.
  Your organs liquefy and drain out with your blood, and in its place your body fills with 
  fluid like liquid golden light.
  You glow like a pinkish-gold beacon, and take a -5 penalty to saves vs. Magic, but cannot 
  be poisoned and gain a d4 bonus to Cast the Bones and Conduit of the Cosmos rolls.
  18
  You read the words aloud and all who hear them age d20 years. Save vs. Magic, if you fail
  you continue to read. Repeat.
  Anyone who reaches the age of 90 during this time falls apart like disintegrating paper.
  19
  Violet light flashes from the pages, in your temporary blindness you can hear the 
  resonance of your own thoughts. When you look back at the book you are staring at your 
  own placid face, when you cry out it is the face in the book that opens its mouth and 
  screams, not the featureless mess of words plastered around your swollen eyes.
  20
  The pages of the book begin to flip back, growing faster, pulling at the air around you, the 
  flurry of paper flipping between the covers of the book consists of more pages than the 
  book could possibly have contained.
  The pull at the air around you grows stronger, small objects begin to lift from the floor and
  disappear between the pages, your feet begin to shift..
  
  Tome of Terror
  1d20
  (d10 if the writing isn't in a book)
  1
  Bronze threads burst from the walls, roof, even the object, and sew into your flesh. If you 
  move more than a few inches parts of your body start to tear away. If anyone touches you 
  or the threads, even more threads appear to knit them in place.
  2
  The object bearing the writing slops to the floor in grotesque strands of vibrant colour, like
  spilling paint left in the open air.
  Its touch leaves a stain and tears knowledge from your bones.
  Save vs. Magic when touched, if successful you momentarily forget who you are and what
  you're doing and spend the next round in an existential crisis. If you fail roll d6.
  1. You permanently lose a random spell. If you can't cast spells one fills your mind, but 
  you can only use it once and take a d6 penalty to your Cast the Bones roll.
  2. You lose all memory of a random companion apart from a lingering feeling of loathing 
  towards them, and considering the hideous thing in front of you they must have been 
  conjured by it.
  3. Your body forgets how to control the release of excrement. That's going to be fun.
  4. You forget language. No more reading or speaking.
  5. You forget your bravery in the dark, it encroaches on you like a beast and leaves you 
  shrieking.
  6. You forget your perception of your own evolution and crawl in the dust like a 
  protoplasmic beast.
  3
  If inside; the walls seem to grow coarse and hairy, closing in and wheezing like labouring 
  overweight beasts of burden.
  If outside; the ground around you curls up into a bowl, plant roots protruding like spikes, 
  flowers laughing at you as it curls in ever tighter over your head.
  The object bearing the writing grinds and spirals until its matter has been sucked in unto 
  itself, leaving a yawning opening into non-space.
  The world inside is brighter and more terrifying than it seems, a playground death maze of
  absurdity at the centre of which dwells the Maleficar who set the trap, caught within his 
  own creation, self-appointed lord over the maze's more malleable denizens, grown quite 
  mad during his imprisonment.
  4
  The words seem to drive themselves through your pupils, expanding from within and 
  showering your companions with optic fluid, in place of your eyes remain two rolling 
  black orbs, words and phrases wafting from them like smoke.
  Somehow you remain able to see, and much hidden knowledge can be learnt by anyone 
  studying your eyes. However, if you spend time looking at your own reflection you must 
  save vs. Magic every 10 minutes after the first 20 or gain a random Insanity. If you fail 
  you must roll under your Wisdom to avoid staring back into your swirling orbs for another
  10 minutes.
  Even if you never glimpse your reflection, there is a 5% chance every week that the words
  of the orb will waft back into your brain, subtly changing who you are. Roll on a 
  personality or character quirk table.
  5
  The floor begins to move, slowly but surely twisting into thousands of blood-red worms 
  that sucker to your skin like leeches, injecting whatever it is that waits inside them into 
  your body before the spent skins fall away back to the floor.
  Anyone that spends more than 2 Rounds on the floor will be exposed to enough worms to 
  be overtaken, running away screaming to find a dark place to gestate.
  (The dark bulges that mar your body swell and churn, your eyes adapt to the dark, your 
  
  bones contract and crumble, your jaw rots away and searching pink tubes like lampreys 
  squirm out of the folds of flesh that used to be your neck and head, you excrete the 
  substance that darkens your skin and causes crippling burning pain to anything that 
  touches you, your lanky arms and legs deform to something in-between both, you are 
  ready to hunt by the 6th night)
  6
  Vines emerge from the surface of the object, growing lush and dense as leaves and fleshy 
  flowers sprout from them. There are enough vines to fill a 30' room, and the flowers 
  bloom to reveal a glistening red interior filled with shivering barbs. Anyone shot by the 
  barbs immediately begins screaming Feeblemind at the nearest living thing.
  7
  Shadows thicken behind you, whispering as they gain density, reaching out, grasping at 
  your heels.
  The room swells with vicious shadow, breathing limbs reach into your body and twist your
  veins, the door is shut and covered in a thick layer of quiet loathing.
  8
  Fragrant mud pools within the letters and begins to spill down the object, crabs with 
  voices like angels emerge from the pooled muck and beseech to be allowed within you.
  They're actually quite persuading.
  Save vs. Magic or allow the angelcrabs inside your mouth, and eyes, and various other 
  orifices. They eat their fill and excrete muddy gold in their wake to excavate a home, 
  causing d12 damage directly to Flesh.
  If you survive the experience the angelcrabs will live in symbiotic harmony within your 
  body, imparting alien wisdom when they deem it appropriate.
  9
  As you mutter the incantations, fingers creep up from your throat and curl around your 
  lips, gripping your face as they struggle to wrench the bile-covered body of a lithe young 
  woman and of your expanded jaw.
  She slops to the ground, unconscious, unaware of what happened when she recovers. She 
  has no name, she is fearful but trusting, she will gain your confidence and compassion and
  devour everything you hold dear before smearing you from the face of existence.
  10
  Beads of amber sweat begin to swell and glisten over the object's surface, it begins to look
  more pliant, more organic, its bulk starts to heave in laboured breaths, sections split away 
  in mockery of limbs, pools of flesh swirl inwards forming gaping circular mouths, their 
  inner surface full of quivering jelly-like teeth. The hunt begins.
  11
  The ink swells into the centre of the book, leaving the page and forming a black bulbous 
  idol. Tendrils of negative-space waves curl lazily at its edges, from any angle it looks like 
  a flat image, it is an absence given form.
  Any organic material that touches it disappears, painless, sucking in further than you 
  expect before you realise that your hand is gone.
  12
  Blood seeps from your veins and into the page, etching your image in despair, gilding its 
  edges with floral borders, signing your death at the bottom.
  The book contains many such illustrations, but you may find a page whose borders are 
  empty, bearing the name of the blood witch Neptharia Jans. Whether she will help you is 
  another matter.
  13
  Silvery strands curl out from the bottom of the book's spine and penetrate into your wrists.
  The knowledge of the book floods into your mind, as does its will.
  You will dance like a puppet, you will assault your allies with dark magics, if you are 
  freed you will retain all of the book's knowledge.
  Among other things the book contains the spells Feeblemind, Gaseous Form, and Shadow
  Monsters.
  14
  The ink drains off the page into a pool at your feet, the pool forms a hole, the hole leads 
  
  down a winding tunnel, you tumble and fall down its depths into the yawning chasm at the
  end.
  The bulbous thing hunched over the lecturn with quill in hand in the centre of the dripping
  cavern defies mention, it looks up at you and asks from something not a mouth, 
  "Knowledge or your life? My quill will be fed."
  Anything told will be recorded and forgotten, you will be released after you have provided
  information with power roughly equivalent to a 6th level spell or something cripplingly 
  embarrassing.
  Until that time the creatures makes a sound like a dozen churning stomachs as it inches 
  toward you if you are silent for more than 30 seconds.
  15
  The words on the page begin to quiver, the ink contracts and swells and forms drops of 
  dark rain which fall up from the book. Soon the paper itself is raining away, while the 
  book's cover becomes ever more heavy in your hands. After the rain the inner cover clears 
  to reveal a glimmering night sky, full of constellations you've never known. They swirl 
  and dance and you step into the vastness of their glory, held by their cosmic light in an 
  eternity of tormenting discovery.
  The rain falls back down in a torrent, replacing pages and letters and phrases until the 
  book slams shut.
  If the book is opened you will return, but you will not return the same as you once were. 
  Save vs. Magic or gain insanities equal to your failure, save vs. Poison or gain mutations 
  equal to your failure. Regardless of your saves, you do not return alone, the star spawn's 
  seed rests in your belly and in your mind, waiting.
  16
  The words snake off of the page and across your skin, circling around your limbs and 
  across your chest until your entire body bears the contents of the book. You fall to the 
  floor in agony as the tiny circlets of writing brand into your flesh.
  The deathless librarians of the Mausoleum de Lettres cannot help but seek and catalogue 
  the Living Word, and they always know when a new one has been created.
  17
  The book was a prison, and you just turned the key. Result as Summon.
  18
  The ink begins to take on a greenish hue, eventually raising from the page until the mould 
  breaks out of its lettered boundaries and spreads across the page, falling to the floor in 
  clumps, colonising everything it touches, spreading across 30' every minute, covering a 
  300' area if left unhindered.
  The mould shivers and whispers, it deflates as you step on it, releasing spores that swirl in 
  a thousand colours, dancing before your eyes as they lead you back deeper into the fold, 
  back to the book grown strange and hungry.
  19
  Curse of Life. You cannot die. You cannot be healed. Your flesh does not regrow. You 
  cannot die.
  20
  After you shut the book, the cover creaks back open and oily dripping creatures begin to 
  pull themselves from a portal within. Their form is myriad and shifting, they merge and 
  split and far-off tittering fills the air.
  To close the portal you have only to shut the book again, but the floor is crawling with 
  flesh like oil.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/_GM Books/World Building & Game Design/ Misc U, V, W, X, Y, Z/What Happens When Magic-Users Actually Try to Prevent You from Reading Their Magic (random tables).pdf