So what happens to that scroll after you use it? (d20)
Everyone knows that if you find a piece of parchment with some weird letters and symbols on it in your dungeon of choice, it's probably magic: one of those spell scrolls, as you've probably heard people with long white beards say. Someway, somehow, someone has inscribed those highly processed trees or animal hides with mystical powers and they're just waiting to be unleashed by the lucky adventurer who finds them. And then what?
Honestly, despite what the world's okayest roleplaying game said on its Dungeon Master's Guide, I really don't think that just having the words fade and the scroll crumble to dust feels magical enough. Ink fades and paper crumbles all the time, especially when it has been left in a wizard's weird desk drawer for god knows how long. Other games which I really like such as Cairn and DURF just say the scroll disappears or is destroyed, and even games as creative and whimsical as Land of Eem don't really bother with pondering the fates of scrolls...
It's fine in the end, though. I'm not here to advocate for scroll disappearance to be a core mechanic of every single ttrpg, but I do think some fun things could happen to our little scriptures of unknown powers after use. Maybe some drops of said unknown power were still lingering from that fading ink after all.
So here are some ideas that came to me in a late saturday night for the fate of our future scrolls. In every case, the scroll loses its original spell afterwards.
| D20 | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | Leaks black ink into a big puddle beneath your hands. You get some blank, magicless parchment, which is nice. |
| 2 | Folds into a swan and flies away, calling to its fellow parchment birds. |
| 3 | Coughs, chokes and says its goodbyes in a mellow voice. It feels weirdly limp in your hands. |
| 4 | Wraps itself into your body, stamping you with its words while melding with your skin. |
| 5 | Rearranges its characters to form a dungeon map. 1 in 6 chance to be the dungeon you're currently in. |
| 6 | Vanishes by going "poof". There's some leftover magic smoke. |
| 7 | Becomes a copy of the nearest scroll, but some letters are missing. Only one way to find out if it still works. |
| 8 | Rolls itself into a makeshift trumpet and starts tooting. Roll a save of some kind if you were trying to be quiet. |
| 9 | Splits into two smaller, harder to read scrolls, with weaker versions of the spell previously on it. |
| 10 | The letters start to shuffle and bend until your name is written on the parchment. In d6 minutes it has drawn your face. |
| 11 | A draft of air romantically wafts it away in one of d8 directions. The location is now permanently windy. |
| 12 | Continually unfurls as the text elongates and becomes unreadable. Stops after unfurling for d6 hours. |
| 13 | Rips itself in the middle. It keeps trying to get itself back together, to no avail. |
| 14 | The lines composing each letter start wiggling in a funny way, then crawl out of the paper, into the walls and ceilings. You may find them pupating in d6 days. |
| 15 | Catches fire right in your hands. Roll a save of some kind. |
| 16 | Crumples and flings itself into a nearby trash urn. Wait, was that urn there before? |
| 17 | The writings and symbols are blurred and erased as a childish scribble of an owlbear starts to appear. |
| 18 | A faint smell of dough emanates from the parchment, which now feels softer in your hands. If you bake it, gain a ration. |
| 19 | Folds itself in half 8 times making a dry, clasping sound. That really shouldn't be possible. Strength check to unfold it, but I personally wouldn't risk it. |
| 20 | Turns back into the creature that was used to make the parchment after d6 hours. |
Hopefully they lead to some fun moments at the table!
anb