Goodman Games

When a player gets a grimoire during character creation, or finds a non specific one.
Is it just a book that wizards & there apprentices are assumed to carry or does it automatically come with information?

Well, it should damn well include the wizard's spells.

It should absolutely provide something useful. Just like anything else generated in character creation, it's part of that's character's stuff. If their dagger is useful, the grimoire should be useful, too.

Is there some other underlying question here...?

I guess my question is, when you create a level 0 character with occupation of wizards apprentice.
His Trade Good is a Black Grimoire. Do lvl 0 dudes get a spell with that (I don't think they get spells until reaching lvl 1).
Thus, the grimoire is just a thing that will hold his spells after he learns some at lvl 1.
(yes/no)?

This is how I've played it.
ETA: Clarification...at 0-level, it's a book that holds notes about what the "student" is learning. Then, upon reaching first level, if that character survives and take wizard as a class, the notes all come together to be the first spells...

And if you don't take wizard as class, you pass it on to someone else who does.

that sounds good, thanks.

To think of a grimoire as "just a book with spells in it" is missing an opportunity.

It's not just spells -- it's full of information about spells, about how/where important material components can be found, about which regents react with which other reagents, about things to do and things NOT to do...

In the modern world, things are very compartmentalized. You may have books on your shelf that deal with all kinds of things,, but each thing is in it's own book.

But a grimoire is THE book the wizard (or future wizard) keeps ALL of the information he needs in! It may stretch to multiple volumes... He may own other grimoires that used to belong to other wizards and sages... It's like a diary as much as a book of recipes for spells.

That begins to scratch the surface of the potential of the grimoire. ANYTHING that a wizard might have written down because it MIGHT be important will be in there, ready to use...


So a Zero-Level character with his own grimoire has KNOWLEDGE at his finger tips. It might be esoteric and uncommon knowledge -- but then sometimes adventures verge upon the esoteric, the strange and the uncommon...

Thanks, that's the perfect way to describe it.