This is another prop from my Curse of Strahd campaign. The Book of Whispers, complete with dessicated gossiper’s tongue bookmark.
This was inspired by the Hag’s Lair items from Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
It is a large, gentling susserating tome filled with everything that was said in the Hamlet of Strikat for an entire year that Sora, a half-hag from Strikat they have befriended who is filling a similar role to Jenny Greenteeth from the Adventurer’s League Curse of Strahd content, asked for the party to retrieve from Old Bone Grinder for her.
I will be sharing the layout and characters from Strikat, as well as the few quests I built into it, including one inspired by the fantastic Gothic short story The Smell by Patrick McGrath, another time.
There is great reading of the story by the author here: https://archive.org/details/TheSmellByPatrickMcGrath
The prop itself is a big old Reader’s Digest book from a charity shop that I stupidly decided to soak in coffee, which was unnecessary and took an absolute age to dry. I painted the cover grey with Games Workshop paints and wrote the word ‘secrets’ in various fantasy languages including Elven and Draconic. I added some superglue to the pages, tied it up with string and painted up and stuck on an approximation of a lock. The dessicated gossiper’s tongue is a cutout of the cover of a recycled paper notebook I’ve had for a while.
Rather chuffed with how it turned out. Just need to firm up my rough ideas for why Sora wants it so fervently. I believe it is something to do with her sister’s family of shells and abusive husband, his experiments and breakdown, and Morgantha’s predation on the largely soulless population of Strikat.
Good hunting and happy gaming :)
