We all know that any good RPG needs books, hopefully, lots of them. But creating vast amounts of books is not an easy task, and the books created by the developers could not always be fitted to the actual reality within the game (due to the constant changes that a player-based game have).
For that matter, and to add a fun and interesting factor to the game, Custom Books could be implemented.
For example, my character, Fiztkarloff, is a Red Way mage and Alchemist (doesn\'t work yet, yes, but still is one). Now, lets say that I traveled long to find, by accident, some tipe of strange leaf with powerfull healing properties. Now, I would like to have a way to keep the information of where I found it and how to use it, as well as how to identify it. Then, if my character carries some ink and paper, I could start writing a book/scroll with information. I would be updating new information to the book from time to time, to make it better.
Any player could write his/her own book or scroll, to hold any information he want. Stories about their jouneys, rules of a certain Guild, the properties of a certain monster, guides to find the stores in a city, the names of important character, etc, etc, etc.
Books and Scrolls should be limited by the Inteligence of the character, so really smart character will be able to have bigger collections of books (a wise wizard is much more leaned to write a book than a dragon hunting barbarian).
And books could even turn into a profitable bussines. Books and scrolls with really usefull and rare information would be very expensive and unique, and the owner could want to sell it only to important and rich characters, or hold it as a jewel of his highly exclusive collection, an envy to other book collectors.
These books would also be usefull to create sorts of custom made quest. A certain Guild would, for example, require the new members to study the Guild Book and then test them. Or an important Alchemist is in need of a book writen by another character who will only negitiate with ceratin tipes of character, etc.
And even new jobs could be created, such as Notaries (who keeps track of Guilds, new important figures, disputes, etc), Scribes (can write lots of books, requier less elements to make them, etc), among others.
Wizards could be able to enchant their most valuable books with security spells, traps, etc.
I belive something like this would greatly enchance the way people play and exchange information. Just think the possibilities of a certain group of people publishing some sort of newspaper, or scribes actually opening profitable libraries, selling their books or the ones brought to others. Merchants buying and selling books found in far away places. A myriead of things can come up of something like this.
