Hey y'all.

After I get done with DLC Book Jackets, I'm planning on working on a mod that I'm calling "Literary Treasures", which will include rare and unique texts, obscure magicks, and forbidden tomes. My question is: What are some books that would be considered controversial or rare for whatever reason during the end of the 3rd Era? This can include inflammatory texts like "The Common Tongue" from the Tribunal expansion or books from, say, Daggerfall that have a bawdier "1st Edition" version that's been edited over the years. Obscure texts would be something like the "Love Letter". Forbidden or repressed texts might include certain necromantic texts in there, since Necromancy has been banned in Cyrodiil. I'm especially interested in books that were rare in past games or are reputed to contain forbidden knowledge.

Thanks!

http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/sermon0.shtml.

Ooh! Perfect. :icecream:

That passage from The Real Barenziah is still censored by the Temple. Although its sale in Cyrodiil may be due to the fact that you don't need an ID to buy the censored version.

It's not really that big of a deal and I don't think the censored version is that much different. So she had six with a Khajit, we don't really need details to immagine THAT.

Um, yeah, we do. How else are we supposed to know that Khajiitti pencses have barbs on them?

Study the feline anatomy

But they'd have to place the books in the back room instead of on display, and you'd need an ID to buy them.
[/Notserious]

The http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/lessons.shtml, hands down. They fulfill the criteria "literary treasure", "rare" and "unique" without any effort. Additionally, most of the scripture of the http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/ would qualify, though my personal favourites would be http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/vehk_teaching.shtml, the http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/5th_era_loveletter.shtml and the http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/aldudagga.shtml.

If you're looking for rares, try Vampires of Vvardenfell, Galur Rithari's Papers, the Parchment with Scrawlings, Boethiah's Pillow Book, and Progress of Truth. Most of those are also banned by the Temple, making them doubly desirable.

well blasphemous revenants, corpse preperation v1,2 and 3 would most likly be banned as they guide necromancers

Necromancy has only been banned from the mages guild. It isn't, in itself, illegal. Of course, Beth failed to feature any necromancer that wasn't a villain with which a friendly chat was possible. With a couple of exceptions they were all part of the bad guy team from the Mages Guild's questline, and without any exception all were hostile and evil.

Maybe that's not a gross oversight on Bethesda's part and actually reflects the reason that the Mage's Guild banned necromancy. I don't blame people for failing to see the heroism in heroes throwing armies of rotting human corpses at a problem.

The pillow book... ah. Maybe. Maybe. Touchy. I'll have to look at what Slof did.

The Temple seems to be big on banning literature. I'm having a rough time finding good examples of books that the Empire might care about. :shrug:

Ah, but the drama!
"Nothing shows my love for you more than reviving your corpse as a soldier in my undead army, honeymuffin."