This is copied from the Unspeakable Oath 6, from Pagan Publishing.

1. First determine when the book was written or translated.Compare it with the present year of the campaign and figure out how old the title is.
2. If it was written on or after 1000AD divide it's age by 100
3. If it was written between 1AD and 1000AD divide it's age by 500 then add 10 to the result
4. If it was written before 1AD then divide it's age by 1000 then add 15 to the result.
   

The final number you get is the age code.

1. Add the age code to the number of mythos points it adds
2. Add this number to the maximum sanity loss it can cause
3. Multiply this by the spell multiplier
   

The final sum is the number of hours taken to study the book.

so the formula looks like this:(age code+mythos points+san loss)*spell multiplier

So for example De Vermis Mysteriss written in 1542, grants 12 mythos, max san loss of 12 and a spell multiplier of x2. If the campaign is set in 1927, the book is 385 years old. It's age code would be (385/100)=3.85

Using the formula like this (3.85+12+12)*2 gives us 55.7
And that is the number of hours study to fully comprehend the book.

It's very easy to use when you know what to do and it would be used prior to play of course. During study, if the book is not written in his native tongue then he will have to make an Other langauge roll for the study period in question. You can award study multipliers if they make use of university libraries. For example if Herbert West intends to study the De Vermis Mysteriis for five hours, and does so at Miskatonic University Library, then he would get a x2 multiplier, allowing him to mark off 10 hours from the total time remaining. Of course you can use the same rules for skimming as described in 5th edition.


That Horrid book!

These suggestions made by John Goodrich in UO 16/17, discuss possible effects from owning, studying, or trying to copy cancerous tomes of blasphemous knowledge. These are some of the suggestions made, and you are free to think of others.

1. The player reading the necronomicon (not a copy but the real deal) would hear whispering and strange buzzing noises all day...it's not called the AL-Azif for nothing.

2. Some books are so potent, so evil that they literally leech the life force out of anything near it. Every morning the investigator will have to sweep away dead insects or small animals that were close by to his reading table. Pity the investigator who has a beloved pet or worse is actually a parent.

3. Such Knowledge does not allow itself to be easily produced. Photocopiers overheat and break down. Disks are corrupted, hand written notes seem to fade and become indistinct. makes you wonder how reliable copies of certain works actually are and how useful the spells.....

4. reading san blasting tomes may leave the investigator with a particular phobia, more of an obession, an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that leads him/her to seek out ever more obscure and dangerous books.

5. Remember that most of the authors of these books simply vanished. An incautious reader may meet a nasty end as well...

These books (originals) Should make the skin crawl of those who find them, perhaps even make them ill or mad. You should really play up these malign aspects. I for one never give stock descriptions of spells and there is never a guarantee that the spells will even work. Remember what was said about copies of occult tomes.

Of course none of these apply to standard occult works. They are the equivalent of the Mary, Mungo and Midge childrens stories (I'm really showing my age here)