TEXT: Tomes and Times 
  Tomes and Times was designed to help Keepers give more consistent reading times to books in their scenarios, and 
  in passing ended up touching on the mechanics for successfully understanding the contents. It has three main 
  components: 
  • A system for working out reading times based on the book’s properties (or conversely, designing a book to fit a 
  reading time). 
  • A tweaked system for skill changes due to reading, making incremental changes during ongoing study, rather 
  than applying them all when the book is finished. 
  • A tweaked spell-learning mechanism, making it more predictable. 
  Reading Times 
  This system is fairly complex. First off, here are three clunky new terms: 
  Base reading time: the time needed to physically read through a specific copy of a book. 
  Study time: the time needed to read and comprehend a specific copy of a book. This incorporates the base reading 
  time. 
  Personal reading time: the time it will take a specific investigator to read a specific copy of a book. This incorporates 
  all attributes of the book, modified by the investigator’s abilities. 
  Tome Attributes 
  This system gives a book six attributes, three for the physical book, and three for the content. 
  The properties of the book determine the base reading time. 
  Length: How many words, symbols, pictures etc. are there to plough through? All copies of a particular book are the 
  same length, barring damage. However, concise or abridged editions, “introductions to” and so on will be shorter 
  (but often less informative). Editions “with notes and commentary” or expanded editions will be longer. 
  Condition: Is the book intact and unmarked; is it heavily underlined and annotated by an earlier reader; or is it dog-
  eared, crumpled, smudged, badly repaired with opaque materials, smoke-damaged, bloodstained and partly burned 
  with various pages missing? (a book with a lot of missing pages becomes significantly shorter as well!) Condition 
  varies between individual copies of a book. Problems caused by poor condition can be alleviated by getting copies of 
  missing or damaged pages, or checking other references to find out what pages said.  Of course, readers may also be 
  able to source alternative copies that are in better condition. 
  Legibility: Is the text clear, neat printing with labelled diagrams, or is it illegible, ink-spattered scrawl with many 
  unexplained abbreviations? Legibility varies between printings; in general, newer printings tend to be clearer and in 
  more familiar typefaces, while very old copies may be hand-written and hard to decipher.  On the other hand, cheap 
  knockoff reprints by enthusiasts or opportunists may be worse than the original.  Some books may begin as a high-
  quality limited-circulation work, be banned and destroyed by authorities, and be illicitly reprinted in dubious 
  workshops across the slums of the continent. 
   
   
   
  
  The properties of the content influence the study time.  They are intrinsic to the text of the book and do not vary 
  between copies or printings.  Only a substantial rewrite (such as a New Revised Edition or a new translation) will 
  alter these properties. 
  Madness: How much sense does the book make? Is the content lucid, clearly-expressed and comprehensible, or is it 
  the ravings of a lunatic? 
  A high POW helps readers to keep focused and to work out which elements are relevant. 
  Difficulty: How accessible is the book? Is the writing a well-organised development of ideas, or a dense academic fog 
  of cross-references, assumptions and jargon? Is it a compelling narrative with vivid scenes, memorable characters 
  and accessible metaphor, or is it a highly allegorical, stream-of-consciousness poem with impenetrable layers of 
  meaning?  
  A high EDU helps readers follow the thread of the text. 
  Complexity: How technical are the ideas contained in the book? Does the work discuss a few straightforward ideas 
  and accessible facts; is it a complex tangle of hypotheses of vast and sweeping importance to a whole field; or does it 
  present an entirely new angle on reality, meaning and the human condition?  
  A high INT helps readers grasp the ideas inside. 
  Explaining and Assigning Attributes 
  Length is the amount of content in the book, mostly determined by the word count. 
  • 10 minutes for a pamphlet, brief report, picture book or the text of most speeches. 
  • 1 hour for a children’s book or introductory work, as well as most plays and the classic slender volume of 
  poetry. 
  • 2 hours for a slim novel. 
  • About 4 hours for an average novel, school textbook or biography. 
  • About 8 hours for a heavy novel or average academic work. 
  • About 16 hours for your typical brick-like fantasy novel or large university textbook. 
  • About 32 hours for a concise encyclopaedia, comprehensive handbook of metaphysics, or the kind of novel that 
  you keep on the shelf but can’t quite be bothered to read. A Suitable Boy and War and Peace clock in over 
  500,000 words. 
  • About 64 hours for the longest individual books, including epic novels, massive scientific works, “complete 
  works of”, and certain holy books. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Bible and In Search of Lost Time are 
  around the million-word mark. 
  Large multi-volume sets like the Encyclopaedia Britannica are outside the scope of this project. 
  
  We’ll use two books as examples – the first is (naturally) The Necronomicon – using the commonest 17th-century 
  Spanish printing of the Latin version, as held by Miskatonic University.  The second is a new Mythos Tome, a 
  supposed children’s story book entitled Five Go Mad in Massachusetts. 
  The Necronomicon is described as an “immense 
  compendium” so must, really, go into the highest (64 
  hour reading time) category.  
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts is longer than most 
  children’s books so we’ll give it a length of 2 hours. 
   
  Condition and Legibility modify this time. That might be because the book needs delicate handling, or because 
  puzzling out the words gives you a headache. On the other hand, it might be a solid, cunningly-annotated copy that’s 
  a joy to read. Add these modifiers together, then adjust the reading time of the book accordingly. 
  Condition determines how much care is needed to handle the book safely, and whether damage or defacement has 
  made it hard to study. 
  • -20% for exceptional quality, and helpful underlining or marking-up 
  • +0% for works in normal condition 
  • +20% for damage affecting the text, distracting annotations, or works in generally bad condition 
  • +50% for a heavily damaged work where significant content is missing, for frail and delicate works that need 
  special handling, or those with pages uncut or stuck together 
  • +100% if the book is so damaged that most of the words have to be puzzled out 
  The Necronomicon is “fair to good” but “fragile”, 
  which I would expect from a 400-year-old work used 
  by mad wizards. That gives it at least a +20% for 
  Condition. 
   Five Go Mad in Massachusetts is a recent printing, 
  albeit without helpful underlining (unless your copy 
  came from a specialist second-hand outlet), so gets no 
  modifier for Condition. 
   
  Legibility is simply a matter of how easy it is to make out the words and images. 
  • -20% for exceptionally good layout and printing, good text size and clear illustrations 
  • +0% for normal quality 
  • +20% for small, dense printing or good handwriting 
  • +50% for poor quality printing, bad or antiquated handwriting 
  • +100% for very poor printing or illegible fonts, confusing illustrations, or archaic handwriting that needs 
  palaeography to decipher. 
  The Necronomicon has “poorer cut” type, and printing 
  of the 17th century wasn't up to modern standards. I'll 
  interpret that as +50%.  
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts has exceptionally good 
  layout and text size, with helpful illustrations, and 
  deserves a -20% modifier. 
   
  
  The base reading time is the length, adjusted by the condition and legibility modifiers.  This gives the time needed to 
  just read through the words, regardless of understanding. 
  The Necronomicon’s length of 64 hours, and modifiers 
  totalling 70%, give us a base reading time of 108.8 
  hours. 
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts’s length of 2 hours, and 
  a single -20% modifier, gives a base reading time of 
  1.6 hours. 
   
  Madness, Difficulty and Complexity determine how long it takes to understand what you’re reading. They are 
  themselves subject to the reader’s capabilities, as explained later. 
  Madness is a matter of how rational and reasonable the content appears. 
  • -2 for works with unusually clear arguments or plots that come together seamlessly and intuitively. 
  • 0 for normal works. 
  • 3 for questionable arguments, implausible plots, or incoherent imagery, which distract the reader and make it 
  hard to focus. 
  • 6 for incoherent arguments, nonsensical plots or incomprehensible examples; and for work peppered with 
  bizarre, unrelated and disturbing elements, as if written by someone half-mad. 
  • 12 for works of the truly insane, with confounding descriptions and more baffling proclamations than 
  meaningful content. 
  “The Necronomicon is encyclopaedic, bafflingly so. 
  Allusions are definitions, inflections are explanations, 
  wishes are proofs, and decoration and design are 
  indistinguishable. The vocabulary is as interior of that 
  of a dream.” I think that indisputably counts as 'truly 
  insane' on my list. Madness=12. 
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts has an implausible plot 
  and incoherent imagery (as you might expect in a tale 
  involving lashings of ginger beer and Dagon). 
  Madness=3. 
   
  Difficulty measures the structure of the content, and how accessible it is to the reader. 
  • 0 for works that are particularly well-structured, with natural and captivating narratives, scintillating poetic 
  imagery, or arguments that fall perfectly into place. 
  • 3 for normal works. 
  • 5 for works that assume considerable background knowledge, require a lot of cross-referencing, use specialised 
  language, or lean towards symbolism. 
  • 10 for works designed for professionals, those with many footnotes and references to check, and highly 
  symbolic or metaphorical works. 
  • 15 for works written for a very limited audience, the densest academic texts and manuals, and cryptic 
  allegorical works whose true messages are deeply buried. 
  The Necronomicon is undoubtedly one of the most 
  difficult books ever written, so Difficulty=15. 
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts, when being studied for 
  its hidden Mythos content, requires some background 
  knowledge and tends towards symbolism. Difficulty=5
  
  Complexity measures the technicality of the ideas in the text, and how far they depart from general knowledge. 
  • 0 for introductory works, straightforward poetry and very familiar narratives. 
  • 3 for normal works. 
  • 6 for basic academic works, or stories with points to make. 
  • 9 for advanced academic works, detailed technical manuals, poetry portraying complex ideas about the world, 
  or stories with very complex plots. 
  • 12 for the most specialised textbooks, comprehensive new philosophies, or narratives with radical points to 
  make about reality and the universe. 
  I think unveiling large sections of the Mythos probably 
  falls squarely under “radical points about reality and 
  the Universe”. The Necronomicon’s complexity=12. 
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts is definitely a story with 
  a point to make (don’t play in the sea). Complexity=6. 
   
  To get the study time, add together the Madness, Complexity and Difficulty, add 1, and multiply by the base reading 
  time.  The +1 avoids having any zero-hour reading times.  In other words: 
  study time = base reading time x (madness + complexity + difficulty +1) 
  The Necronomicon has multipliers of 12, 15 and 12 
  which means the base reading time is multiplied by 40 
  to give a Study Time of 4,352 hours – just under 26 
  weeks of non-stop studying. At 8 hours study per day, 
  it’ll take 544 days to study this immense and insane 
  tome. 
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts scores 3, 5 and 6, 
  multiplying  1.6 by 15 to give a Study Time of 24 hours. 
  Even the dimmest investigator can finish this book in a 
  weekend if they put their mind to it. 
  Ability adjustments 
  The modifiers should be adjusted by the reader’s characteristics. The most focused can pick out meaning amidst 
  insanity; the scholar is accustomed to academic texts or complex metaphor; and the sharpest intellect can follow 
  even the most challenging ideas. 
  Reader 
  How well do you understand the language it's written in? How good are you at grasping complex or allegorical ideas? 
  How much experience do you have of reading similar works? How good are you at concentrating, and picking out 
  meaningful elements from gibberish? For 7th edition divide POW, EDU and INT by five in the following section: 
  • Each point of POW above 10 cancels a point of Madness, to a minimum of 0. 
  • Each point of EDU above 10 cancels a point of Difficulty, to a minimum of 0. 
  • Each point of INT above 10 cancels a point of Complexity, to a minimum of 0. 
  (Keepers may also wish to penalise ability scores below 10 by increasing these values as appropriate) 
  So an average 6th edition investigator (INT 13, POW 10, EDU 15) cancels out 3 Complexity, 0 Madness and 5 
  Difficulty (an average 7th edition investigator has EDU 13 and so only cancels out 3 Difficulty). 
   
  
  For The Necronomicon this will reduce Difficulty to 10 
  and Complexity to 9 (Madness is unchanged, as POW 
  of 10 doesn’t give any benefits).  This reduces the 
  multipliers to a total of 31 for a study time of 3,372.8 
  hours (422 days of studying for 8 solid hours each 
  day). 
  Five Go Mad in Massachusetts is easier on the reader. 
  Its Difficulty is cancelled out completely and its 
  Complexity is halved to 3, giving a Personal Study Time 
  of 11.2 hours for this average investigator. 
  It’s worth noting that using these guidelines an average person can understand an average book about as fast as 
  they can read the words. Whether that’s completely realistic is up for debate, but it isn’t half handy. 
  In theory, the Keeper can work out personal reading times for each investigator separately. In practice, they might 
  prefer to ignore that, and just use the average investigator as a handy benchmark to see how quickly investigators 
  are likely to get through their tomes. This gives a rough idea of how much time is needed during the scenario or 
  between scenarios (if they want the tomes read), or how quickly they need to push on with events (if the 
  investigators shouldn’t have all that knowledge yet). 
  Situational modifiers 
  Some special situations might adjust these reading times.   
  Reference works might alleviate Madness by highlighting important sections or perhaps indicating nonsensical 
  elements.  They might alleviate Difficulty by clarifying ambiguities, helping reading to get a basic grasp of topics, or 
  elucidating metaphors.  They might alleviate Complexity by checking what implications ideas might have, or relating 
  ideas to other works. 
  Unusual properties of books – such as those written in obscure dialects, poorly translated, or otherwise outside the 
  general run of things – are best handled as simple exceptions with special notes.  In these circumstances, 
  investigators’ skills or background might influence their ability to read the tome. 
   
  Learning Spells 
  The basic mechanic for learning spells involves reading and then making an INTx3 roll to learn the spell. If you fail, 
  you must start again. I felt that an incremental approach might be more useful; it’s more forgiving when spells are 
  very important to the plot, and makes things more predictable. I also felt that the default 2d6 week, 30-hour study 
  period was too inflexible on the one hand, and (for many scenarios) too damn long on the other.  Many scenarios 
  end up simply ignoring these mechanics entirely, and giving arbitrary learning times that fit into the scenario’s 
  demands.  Rather than have rules that scenario-designers and Keepers ignore entirely, I thought creating a more 
  helpful set of guidelines might help someone.  
  There are two simple elements to this system. 
  Firstly, the time to study a spell is equal to 20 hours, multiplied by the average (mean) SAN cost of casting it. If a spell 
  has no SAN cost, it is 20 hours. Once the time has been spent, they can roll INTx3 to learn the spell. 
  Secondly, a failed INT roll does not mean all the time was wasted. This is not how learning works. The investigator 
  must spend 20% of the original time on further study and practice. For a simple spell with a 20-hour cost, a failed roll 
  means they must spend a further 4 hours before attempting the INTx3 roll again. 
  Under this system, three attempts will allow three-quarters of average investigators to learn a spell, spending about 
  one-and-a-half times the original time to do so. 
  
  Skill changes, Other Language rolls and finding spells    
  These three ideas are grouped together because I think the best way to handle them is to relate them to one 
  another. 
  The core rulebook requires a roll to read Other Language books. A success lets you read it as normal, while a failure 
  means you lose “some” Sanity but gain no benefits. While simple, it’s potentially punishing and unclear on what 
  ‘failing to read a book’ means in practice, since if you spent a year studying it full-time you must have found 
  something to do.  Learning nothing from your epic read-through of the Necronomicon because you failed your 99% 
  Latin roll is a bit harsh.  It also allows readers to be driven mad without learning anything, which doesn’t make sense 
  to me; you lose SAN from tomes because you learn about the Mythos, so if you haven’t learned anything, why lose 
  SAN?  A further problem is that it makes reading small tomes a much better option mechanically than major ones, as 
  you’ll have less to reread if you fail your roll.  Narratively, though, reading a major tome should be a better option 
  because they contain much more lore. 
  A related problem is the way skill changes and spells are applied. By default, Cthulhu Mythos is gained, SAN lost and 
  spells identified only when someone finishes reading a book. This makes it harder to use major tomes as ongoing 
  sources of plot in campaigns, or a way to gain new abilities between scenarios, since even if investigators are reading 
  them between scenarios, by the rules as written they learn nothing until they finish. And again, that’s not how 
  learning works. 
  My solution is to combine these problems. 
  The reading time is divided by the Mythos bonus, giving a number of blocks of equal reading time. At the end of 
  each block, the reader makes any necessary Language roll. If successful, they gain a point of Mythos and incur a 
  proportional amount of any SAN loss, as well as gaining access to whatever spells the Keeper deems appropriate. If 
  they fail, as with spells, they must spend 20% of the original time on further study before making another roll to 
  successfully learn that block’s content.  
  SAN loss might be calculated by the Keeper beforehand and allocated as reading proceeds. Alternatively, Keepers 
  might save them for the later sections of the book, when the reader understands more of what is going on. In either 
  case, SAN loss should relate directly to Cthulhu Mythos gained. 
  “The Necronomicon” confers +18 to Cthulhu Mythos, 
  so our average investigator will make an Other 
  Language (Latin) roll after sessions of 187.4 hours 
  (roughly once every 24 days). If their roll fails then 
  they’ll have to re-read that block for 37.4 hours and 
  try again. 
  “Five Go Mad in Massachusetts” confers +3 to Cthulhu 
  Mythos so can be studied in three 3.7 hour blocks, 
  subject to any English rolls required. 
  After each block, the reader gains +1 Mythos, and any proportional SAN costs, and possibly identifies some spells 
  that they might choose to try and learn. 
  This system spaces out the effects of reading, makes reading major tomes less of a thankless (and suboptimal) 
  activity, and allows some benefit from reading even substantial tomes during scenarios. 
   
  Shimmin Beg (with thanks to Emrys), July 2012 (updated September 2015) 
  
  Tome Title
  Language
  Pamphlet
  10 mins
  -0.2
  -0.2
  Introductory work
  1 hour
  +0.0
  +0.0
  Children's book
  1 hour
  +0.2
  +0.2
  Novel, slim
  2 hours
  +0.5
  +0.2
  Novel, average
  4 hours
  +1.0
  +0.5
  Novel, heavy
  8 hours
  +0.5
  Novel, brick-like
  16 hours
  +1.0
  Encyclopaedia
  32 hours
  +1.0
  Necronomicon
  64 hours
  Length (Ln)
  Condition (Cn)
  Legibility (Lg)
  Length is shown in hours (10 mins is 0.16667 hours)
  Base Reading Time (BRT)
  Ln * ( 1 + Cn + Lg )
  Unusual clarity
  -2
  0
  0
  Normal
  0
  3
  3
  Questionable arguments, implausible plots 
  or incoherent imagery
  3
  5
  6
  Incoherent arguments, nonsensical plots or 
  incomprehensible examples
  6
  10
  9
  Truly insane, confounding descriptions
  12
  15
  12
  Madness (Ma)
  Difficulty (Df)
  Complexity (Co)
  Base Study Time (BST)
  BRT * ( Ma + Df + Co )
  Investigator's POW
  Revised Madness
  RMa = Ma - (POW-10)
  Personal Study Time (PST)
  BRT * ( RMa + RDf + RCo )
  Reading block size
  (CM) blocks of (PST / CM) hours
  Spell
  Block
  Spell
  Block
  Spell
  Block
  Cthulhu Mythos gain (CM)
  blocks of                 hours
  blocks of                 hours
  blocks of                 hours
  blocks of                 hours
  Investigator's EDU
  Investigator's INT
  Revised Difficulty
  RDf = Df - (EDU-10)
  Revised Complexity
  RCo = Co-(INT-10)
  Require considerable background knowledge, 
  much cross-referencing, specialised language 
  and/or symbolism
  Basic academic works, stories with points to 
  make
  Designed for professionals, many footnotes 
  and references to check, highly symbolic or 
  metaphorical
  Advanced academic works, detailed technical 
  manuals, poetry portraying complex ideas, 
  stories with very complex plots
  Very limited audience, densest academic 
  texts and manuals, cryptic allegorical works
  The most specialised textbooks, 
  comprehensive new philosophies, narratives 
  with radial points about reality
  Madness
  Difficulty
  Complexity
  Exceptional quality, natural and captivating 
  narratives, perfect arguments
  Introductory works, straightforward poetry 
  and very familiar narratives
  Normal works
  Normal works
  Illegible handwriting
  Excessively damaged
  Poor printing
  Poor handwriting
  Very poor print
  Normal
  Normal
  Damaged
  Small, dense print
  Heavily damaged
  Good handwriting
  Length
  Condition
  Legibility
  Exceptional
  Exceptionally good
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Call of Cthulhu (CoC) (BRP) [multi]/3rd Party (Unoffical Content)/CoC - Tomes and Times.pdf