Tome of the Dragon

"Power has its own beauty. Perhaps the most beautiful combination of grace and might among the mortal creatures of Toril is a dragon."

- Sammaster the Mad, Tome of the Dragon

The Tome of the Dragon was a tome written by Sammaster and completed in 905 DR. It contained all of Sammaster's theories, experiments, and conclusions in his efforts to turn dragons into dracoliches and was a basis for the Cult of the Dragon.

Description
The book measured 35 cm (14 in) by 25 cm (10 in) and was 15 cm (6 in) deep. It had a clasp in the form of the symbol for the Cult of the Dragon. The only adornment on its cover was a gilded gold version of the Cult of the Dragon's symbol. Its cover radiated magic and a dispel magic spell was needed to safely handle it for a limited time.

Defenses
Touching the book without proper precautions would lead to a dragon breath effect that emanated from it, but would never damage the book itself. This breath effect could vary, and included the breath effects of black dragons, blue dragons, green dragons, red dragons, or white dragons. One of the pages also contained an invisible enchantment that, when activated, would cause damage to the wielder, but would imbue him or her with the ability to use a dragon breath effect, and another page of this type that allowed the wielder to use teleport without error to a random location, leaving the book behind.

Text
The words in the book were written in a magical cipher that could not be understood even with comprehend languages, but this cipher was known by wizards in the Cult of the Dragon.

Copies
Many copies of the original book were made by Cult of the Dragon members. The original book was almost indestructible (rumored by the Harpers to be damaged only by silver fire), but the same did not hold true for copies. There were also known to be many corrupt copies in existence.

Quotes
"Benevolence is the best mask for manipulation. Those who have power are sluggards and wastrels if they use it not, but are wisest if they learn many ways to achieve their ends. There is a time for the ravening assault and a time for deft misdirection. And then there are grimmer occasions when one lacks even the time to choose how to proceed. These are best kept rare."

- Sammaster the Mad, Tome of the Dragon