Lectern of the Rightful Tome
This hazard is a judgment ward bound to a temple archive. It is meant to test whether a reader has taken the proper sacred text from the proper shelf. The ward does not care about theft alone, but about spiritual disorder, returning the wrong book to the wrong place, or opening a sealed volume without the right invocation. In a library, it feels less like a trap and more like a stern, invisible librarian deciding you have failed the exam.
Lectern of the Rightful Tome
Defenses
Detection
“A brass lectern stands beneath a cracked stained-glass dome, its surface inlaid with tiny silver script. The surrounding shelves are ringed by prayer ribbons and censers, and every book near the lectern has been carefully wrapped in linen. When disturbed, pale glyphs bloom across the air like lit pages turning themselves.”
Standard Engagement
A creature removes the wrong sacred book, opens a sealed scripture without permission, or attempts to place an unapproved volume into the lectern.
On its initiative, if a creature has not yet placed the correct book, the lectern opens by itself and a column of pale script lashes out at the nearest living creature within 20 feet, then drifts to the next nearest creature if its target is destroyed or out of range. This is the hazard's Repudiating Rebuke.
The hazard resets after 10 minutes if the incorrect book remains in the lectern or if the lectern is left unattended after a suppressed rebuke.
The target takes 2d6 spirit damage and is pushed 5 feet directly away from the lectern by invisible force as the ward pronounces judgment. On a critical failure, the target is also enfeebled 1 until the end of its next turn as divine disapproval weighs on its limbs.
The lectern is keyed to a specific book, usually one already present somewhere in the temple library. Finding the correct book is part of disabling the hazard and may require searching the stacks, consulting shelf marks, or using clues from surrounding scripture.
While the hazard remains active, creatures attempting to remove books from the immediate area must succeed at a DC 18 Will save or feel compelled to return them to the shelf, losing the Interact action used to draw the book as they hesitate before the ward's invisible scrutiny. This is a subtle divine pressure, not a mind-affecting compulsion, and is not triggered if the correct book is being placed in the lectern.
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