Backstory: I'm working on a mod to bring more variety to the text on spell scrolls in TESIII. You can see a list of such text (and what scrolls they appear in) http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Scrolls on the UESP.

Since many of the texts seem to be blessings and curses, I've been using google to try to find lists of blesssings and curses - kind of difficult, as I get many non-relevant results. The most prevalent lists usually have Irish or Yiddish blessings and curses, so that's what I've been accumulating so far. Many include the word "devil" and "god" so I want to find a substitute for these words, as these particular entities are not present in the TES Universe. You can see my compile list o' stuff http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1062108&view=findpost&p=15434336.

Lore Question: Then I thought: "Wait, what should be on a scroll, anyway?" What type of text should be on a scroll? Is it relevant to the casting of the scroll, or just a description of what the scroll will do? Is it just some poetry or some sort of invective (offensive spells) or benediction/blessing (beneficial spell buffs)?

So, I guess the first question is: What sorts of things should be written on the scroll? Is it a curse/blessing theme, or is it supposed to be something entirely different? If I do go with the whole curse/blessing thing, then I need help finding substitutes for "the devil" and "God" that are appropriate for the context of the curse and Vvardenfell/Nirn. I had thought about replacing "devil" with Dagoth Ur or a Daedric Prince, but then it sounds as though the PC is asking those powers to cause harm, which is, in a way, a sort of worship/prayer to these 'evil' beings.

Here's some ideas, mostly for comedic effect, taken from character dialogue.


A few from Lord Vivec in various texts and forum posts that I find amusing:

"Make of your love a defense against the horizon." (used for defensive, healing and possibly intervention scrolls?)

"Your mouth is stuffed with birds." (silence scroll)

"Love is used not only as a constituent in moods and affairs, but also as the raw material from which relationships produce hour-later exasperations, regrettably fashioned restrictions, riddles laced with affections known only to the loving couple, and looks that linger too long. Love is also an often-used ingredient in some transparent verbal and nonverbal transactions where, eventually, it can sometimes be converted to a variety of true devotions, some of which yield tough, insoluble, and infusible unions. In its basic form, love supplies approximately thirteen draughts of all energy that is derived from relationships. Its role and value in society at large are controversial." (damage intelligence 100 points)

"YOU.ARE.BANISHED.FROM.THIS.STARRY.HEART." (scrolls which do massive damage, such as hellfire)

various NPC quotes that would be funny and appropriate for scrolls:

"I'll be back, and you'll be dead!" (recall/intervention)

"You fight like a pregnant cow!" (damage speed/burden)

"..and yet there I was, alone, naked.." (disintegrate armor)

I have an important question too. Why are scrolls a ONE TIME use while spell books are reusable? They're both sheets of paper with words on them, nothing more. How does a scroll work to where any shmuck can say the words aloud and cast the spell? Whereas if you look in Vedaa's grimiore and say the words she wrote down, most would go, duh gee george which way did he go?
Does anybody know the difference or how a scroll works? UESP didn't help much. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Scrolls

My guess? Books are important. They have hard wooden/leather covers because the mages who wrote them intend for them to be protected from the elements and so forth. They also look nice on a shelf. Scrolls on the other hand, aren't considered important enough to protect (otherwise they'd be bound in a big tome), so they're written on cheap paper that's engulfed by the magic of the spell.

Osa Seawind: "Simple answer: cause not everyone is magickally inclined, and scrolls are a nifty work-around for that fact. To answer your other question: spellbooks are enchanted (at least mine is/was) so then when the page is used, it automatically rewrites itself. Granted there may be some downtime to that (especially if you are a cheapo) so as to let the page do its thing...of course your taking this from a lady who enchanted a box to be constantly cold, so yeah"

Now honk a second there, I never had Vedaa's grimoire enchanted. But that's just in my version of the story. Maybe in your fanfic, your PC does, which is perfectly fine. But why are scrolls a one time use? Was ist los mit das?

"Help, I'm trapped in a magic scroll making factory!"

{snippets} they're written on cheap paper that's engulfed by the magic of the spell. {end snippets}

Osa Seawind: "That above is reason enough, in my opinion anyways, to justify their one time use. Ever tried to enchant your own scrolls from Morrowind? If you had you would know that no matter how grand the soul gem you use is, you cant really make a scroll more powerful then a weak touch spell. Also, as I previously mentioned, while everybody has innate magickal powers, most will never see those bloom to full blown magick-usage...thats why so many mages dump tons of time and money to join the mages guild. I couldn't cast a healing spell if I had to, yet my book allows me to not only heal myself, it allows me to unleash magickal hell on creatures that normally wouldn't be effected by a bow and arrow or non-enchanted sword, plus the spellbook is reusable...like I said that is how Ive always understood it, and so far no one has told me otherwise."

I always viewed the spell book/grimoire as just a means to recall the incantation for your spell. To me, it's just like a composer who writes a score for a symphony. He can't remember all the notes by heart, at least, not at first. Same with magicians. They have all their spells written on the pages of a book so that they can look in it and go "hmm, what was that incantation for Butterfly Effect or whatever the spell is". That's how I view it, and it works great in my fanfic story for Vedaa.

Osa Seawind: "Personally...I've never ever heard a mage go 'wait a second mister Clannfear, I have to find the spell in my book' in my encounters a mage just knows what spells he or she has learned, and can cast them naturally...its as unforced as breathing to them. These are completely my experiences and yours may vary"

You've all lost me with this Osa Seawind and Grimoire thingy. :confused:

As for paper being cheap - I don't think that's a good explanation. Some of the spells on TESIII scrolls is REALLY powerful - as a spell, it would probably consume more magicka than most spellcasters would have. For example: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Scrolls#Levitate, or http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Scrolls#Shield. That the player cannot achieve similar results might be due to gameplay.

Is it possible that these are not paper (plant fibre) but parchment? That is, the skin of Lesser Daedra - hence the large enchantment capacity for inscribing spells. On the downside, this material might not be durable enough for more than one use (to address your question, TES96), or the ability for anyone to cast it might be a process that inherently weakens the material. Perhaps, instead of the soul being used as a charge, it is transformed into potential that can be released when the words on the scroll (a sort of verbal activator?) are uttered?

Yeah, and of course you just automatically inhale healing potions from the bottle. It's just a game. Sure some spells a mage would use over and over would become memory. But for something you aren't familiar with, you'd have to read the formula for it. It's just done automatically in the game because it's a computer game. In real life, it'd be a lot more tricky to find the time to read a spell during a battle. But it could be done; run and hide somewhere and read the spell. Same with potions. You don't stop in the middle of a fight and say, "Excuse me for a second while I drink this here potion." And the clannfear stands with his fists on his hips and taps his foot. And then after you've swallowed loudly, he says, "You finished?" And you say, "Yuppers puppers."

Perhaps the rules of combat in Tamriel call for an opportune tea break? :hehe:

Scamp: "By joe! I do say, it's almost tea time."
PC: "Hm, yes, indeed. So it is. Chip chip, cherrio."
Dark Seducer: "Would you be so kind as to pass the sugar, PC?"
PC: "One lump or two?"
Dark Seducer: "Two please. Thank you."
PC: "Oh, you're very welcome."


EDIT: But seriously, why are scrolls only used ONCE? Why?

To much to multi-reply to and its been far to long since I've had to

@ Alais: it's a roleplayer thing I guess, at least from my end, but thats okay, since this is...also, your scroll example duo was probably produced by a high-end wizard in a good mood (IMHO). The skin is a nice example for epic stuff, but that stuff is hard to come by for your average joe looking for a little bang

@ "Tea breaks": this is the common example of gameplay issues vs. lore perspective, example, the Imperial City is considered to have far far more people then it does in game, you just have to assume so

@ Tes96: That's a gameplay issue, magicka is as easy as a button press in our reality, so I don't really see why things would differ in actual Tamrielic reality, sure a mage could run and dodge while trying to chant out a spell from a book, but I just don't see it happening during a huge battle. Again thats just my take on things

You're not the only one.

If you played Daggerfall then you'd know what a grimoire is since it's what your spells was scribed to. You'd buy a spell and the screen would say "This spell has been inscribed into your grimoire". It's also on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire

I know what a grimoire is, I just didn't understand the relevance of it to the topic at hand, nor who Osa Seawind is. I was confused, I thought One87xe was posting snippets of character dialog from one of the TES games, but I do not recall an NPC named Seawind.

Look at the images on the spell scrolls in Morrowind.

? What do you mean? Spell scrolls have text written in Daedric, a collection and translation of which I linked to in the opening post of this topic. My question is: what purpose do the words serve? Knowing that, I might have a better understanding of what the content should be, so that I might then expand upon the variations of text in the scrolls in a manner consistent with the vanilla text and the lore of the game.

I have a feeling most of those is some sort of incantation to sound cool. If you have noticed, a lot of them just repeat the same thing. But the ones that don't seem to refer to a symbiotic or purposeful intent and/or action. For instance, the cure blight scroll reads;

pretty straight forward of some sort of invocation of a blessing to rid the blight disease of the person.
For cure common disease:

Sounds like the same sort of deal with the remove blight disease.

Something like for the chameleon scroll is like an invoking suggestion turned spell.

So, when a spellcaster casts the spell (not from a scroll), he/she wouldn't say those words, right? So, when a person says the words on the spell scroll, does that "activate" the latent spell?

I'd say so. Where as normal casting requires concentration and such to manipulate the world around you, scrolls require a password (the incantation) to activate the latent spell. Or at least that's how I see it. I guess some nasty surprises can occur if one has a bunch of scrolls in their back, and accidentally speak the fire spell's incantation.

*draqes garland on the skull throne* Thank you!

Does the length of the incantation/password have anything to do with the power of the spell, or is it simply a artistic component?

Looking over, a lot of it seems to be more artistic than trying to cram as many words as possible to make it more powerful. Some scrolls that'd be pretty taxing to cast using magic are not that terribly long, while some are (like curing blight). On the flip side, some of the easy to cast spells have long incantations, and a lot have short incantations. My guess towards this is the specific nature of the spell.

Something like blight, while specific, is a pretty hardcoe disease, so I guess that gets a pass, as it needs to be called to attention that this is not a normal disease. Or that the dunmer priests like long winded blessings. With cure common disease, saying "I'm sick, heal me," is too plain and boring. For one invisibility scroll, the incantation is "SHADOWS AND FOG," so that's pretty specific that's the code for the scroll to activate invisibility. Another would be like Scroll of Icarian Flight in which is says "FROM THE EARTH TO THE AETHER...AND BACK" sounds a lot like...jumping really high. For Scroll of Warrior's Blessing, " STRENGTH AND HONOR. DEATH TO OUR ENEMIES." What it does is restore health, fatigue, and increases attack. Given the incantation, it makes sense. Then there are scrolls that sorta make sense, but stretch it, like this scroll that lowers strength to enemies "DOWN WITH DUNMER OPPRESSION."