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4%% Trope was declared Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=ge84v32t %%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800&page=558#comment-13929
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6[[quoteright:300:[[Franchise/EvilDead https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eldritchlore_t.png]]]]
7[[caption-width-right:300:The Necronomicon Ex Mortis, the only book you ''can'' judge by its cover.]]
8%%
9->''"A long time ago, when the world was so new nothing had a name, something woke up. It learned all about what was and what would be... but most of all it learned what couldn't be, what shouldn't be. And it gave those things names, names it wrote on indestructible pages, because a namer has mastery of the named."''
10-->-- '''Diabolique''', ''ComicBook/DarkholdPagesFromTheBookOfSins'' #10
11
12The EvilCounterpart of the GreatBigBookOfEverything. An old leatherbound book with engravings depicting [[EldritchAbomination unpleasant]] [[MonsterOfTheWeek creatures]], [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow prophecies of certain doom]], and {{spell|Book}}s that do everything from turning toenails green to stopping (or causing) TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Needless to say, YouDoNotWantToKnow where that [[GenuineHumanHide leather]] and [[BloodMagic ink]] came from.
13
14Villains collect these books for their step-by-step guides to bringing about their evil plans. When read by the hapless, they tend to {{summon|ingArtifact}} TheLegionsOfHell into the mortal realm. When the books are read by the comic relief, HilarityEnsues.
15
16In [[CosmicHorrorStory Cosmic Horror Stories]], they typically [[GoMadFromTheRevelation drive their readers into gibbering insanity]]; the title alone can make them [[HearingVoices hear voices]]. Reading from one carelessly can result in an AccidentalIncantation.
17
18Normally these books are centuries old, but one common subversion is for them to be modern paperbacks with [[BlandNameProduct almost-familiar names]] — e.g., ''The Idiot's Guide to Demonology'', ''A Child's Garden of Gibbering Horrors'', ''The Home Handyman's Guide to Building Gates to Hell'', ''Chicken Soup for the Soulless''.
19
20See also ArtifactOfDoom, TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow, and BrownNote. Not to be confused with the GreatBigBookOfEverything or SpellBook, which are more of a neutral nature, or the DeadlyBook, which is more actively harmful. May overlap with TomesOfProphecyAndFate if they have evil prophecies. May serve in-setting as a MonsterCompendium, especially in stories in the style of Creator/HPLovecraft, in which the heroes sometimes have to familiarise themselves with horrible books, despite the danger to their sanity, in order to understand what they are fighting. Can involve TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou. In some cases, [[PlotTriggeringBook a character coming across such a book will kickstart the plot]].
21----
22!!Examples:
23[[foldercontrol]]
24
25[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
26* Grimoires in ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'' seem to be this, considering that they allow the user to gain ''tremendous'' power, but the results range from (so far) BloodFromTheMouth at best and BodyHorror at worst. Only the eponymous Index of Prohibited Books has been able to read the grimoires and [[PhotographicMemory store them in her head]], since she has no mana to power the grimoires. One of the grimoires within Index is the Necronomicon, which was originally just a fictional book until some magicians decided they wanted to bring the Cthulhu Mythos to life and defictionalized it.
27* The Black Bible from the {{Hentai}} anime ''Bible Black'', replete with demonic rituals. You really don't want to be in the building when this thing gets used. Every major spell requires a HumanSacrifice, and even the ''minor'' ones tend to cause cases of DemonicPossession.
28* Asta's five-leaf clover grimoire in ''Manga/BlackClover'' hosts a devil from the underworld which is the source of his anti-magic. His grimoire was formed when Licht was overcome by despair after the elf genocide, turning his four-leaf grimoire into a five-leaf.
29* The Manga/DeathNote probably counts, or at least the portion containing instructions on how to use it, as it’s a notebook used by Shinigami intended to kill humans.
30* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}:'' The Red Book of Appin belonging to Baalmon's X-Antibody form. The regular one is just a GreatBigBookOfEverything, but thanks to the X-Antibody the book has come alive. It will offer people the knowledge contained within it, provided they can best a trail first. If they fail, the Book will attack before Baalmon does and eat them, making them a part of itself.
31* The Books of Zeref in ''Manga/FairyTail''. Black Mage Zeref wrote a bunch of books infused with magic that allows people to accomplish truly awesome and terrifying feats, such as demon summoning and time travel. Each Book contains the rituals and magic necessary to summon a different demon.
32* Caster's Noble Phantasm in ''Literature/FateZero'' is Prelati's Spellbook, a tome with a covering made of human skin. It's a self-powering prana generator and allows the user to summon {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. It's also called the R'lyeh text, as a ShoutOut to the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. It can also allow Caster to [[spoiler:[[FusionDance merge with the book]] in order to summon a gigantic EldritchAbomination]]. Is it any wonder that Caster is so absolutely insane?
33* ''Anime/JewelpetTwinkle'' has a book in which Jewelina encased all the Dark Magic in the world. Anyone who tries to read it for their own purposes risks getting possessed by the book, in which case it's going to try to destroy everything while it has a body. Also, it can turn into a CoolSword.
34* ''Anime/{{Madlax}}'': The ''Firstari'', the ''Secondari'' and the ''Thirstari'' are capable of driving cities of men into their darkest emotions, creating [[EvilTwin doppelgangers]], and bringing down airplanes.
35* The Book of Darkness in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs''. It managed to open itself despite being chained shut. To power it up, you have to collect the magic power of other people and creatures; if you decline to, it will drain your power instead, slowly killing you. And when all its pages (naturally, there are [[NumberOfTheBeast six hundred and sixty-six]] of them) are filled, do you think you can wield its power? You're as good as dead, and so is the planet you are on. (The tragedy is that it wasn't originally that way — it has been corrupted by people who wanted to use it as a weapon.)
36* Common item in the ''Anime/ReadOrDie'' TV series done different ways. One example had a god-like man named "The Gentleman" who had his essence written into a number of such books. In the {{OVA}} series, there's a subversion: handwritten notes in the margins of an otherwise-harmless book held the secret to [[spoiler:driving the entire human race to suicide]]. The manga used it straight; ''The Dark Abyss'', a book bound in human flesh, that the publisher required 5 different people to print, a page at a time. Reading it or listening to someone read it instantly resulted in insanity.
37* ''Manga/SchoolMermaid'': Revolves around a journal containing a spell when chanted at a certain time at night, will cause human looking mermaids to appear before the user. If the mermaid with the first letter of the boy you love is caught and killed, all you have to do is eat the flesh of it while thinking of your true love and, presto, instant boyfriend.
38* The Claire Bible in ''Literature/{{Slayers}}''. Its author is benign enough (one of the good dragon-gods of the Slayers world), but its subject is the Mazoku race and the dragons' war with them, with extra details on the Mazoku-powered black magic and the secret magic of the supreme creator deity. The genuine Claire Bible is also not a book, but a sphere holding infinite knowledge, however many fragments of it are indeed scribed as books and scrolls.
39** In NEXT, the heroes suspect every strange magical effect they hear of to be caused by a Claire Bible manuscript, indicating that even the mundane fragmentary copies can have weird properties.
40* ''Manga/SoulEater'' has the Book of Eibon, written by a sorcerer centuries ago. It contains the information Arachne used [[spoiler:to create the original Demon Weapons, and to turn herself into a pseudo-Kishin. It is currently being used by Noah, who impersonated Eibon, to collect anything he sees as interesting. Such as Death the Kid.]]
41** Which is a shout-out to the fictional tome (aka the Liber Ivonis) from the Cthulhu Mythos (see below).
42** The book itself is so evil that it's indexed by sins, and it currently contains at least one of the worst creatures imaginable, [[spoiler:[[CloudCuckoolander Excalibur]]. Oh, and there's a Great Old One who bears a striking resemblance to [[ShoutOut Cthulhu]].]]
43** And later we learn that [[spoiler:Noah is actually a ''construct'' of the book itself, embodying one of it's chapters, not it's owner. After the first one (Greed) is defeated, the book produces a new one — embodiment of chapter of [[OhCrap Wrath]].]]
44* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' has a videotape, Chapter Black, which serves essentially the same purpose. It's a recording of the worst evils ever done by humans, which human-hating BigBad Sensui makes a point of showing to his followers to drive them insane with disgust at people.
45** Notably, it's part of a two-tape set. The other tape, Chapter White, records the best ''good'' deeds ever done by humans, and you're not supposed to watch one without the other. Guess what Sensui did.
46[[/folder]]
47
48[[folder:Comic Books]]
49* In an episode of ''ComicBook/TheBadger'' dealing with Lovecraftian beasties, Mavis whipped out her "Pocket Necronomicon".
50* The ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'':
51** The tome called The Darkhold was written by the elder (and evil) god Chthon as one of the — if not ''the'' — first books of magic ever. Writing the Darkhold allowed Chthon to influence the very nature of magic itself. It contains a variety of spells, but using one equals sealing your soul to Chthon, and most of them work in really sick and twisted ways. The Darkhold is also known as the ''Book of Sins'' because of its corrupting influence.
52** The ''Book of the Vishanti'' is said to contain every counter-spell and all defensive magic ever (to be) known, including a spell to free one from the Darkhold's control. (Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to contain the spell to cure vampirism, which is in the Darkhold.) It also contains a lot of useful lore penned by previous holders of the tome and it seems to explicitly add new pages for current owners to add their own information into its pages.
53** ComicBook/DoctorStrange has an entire library of these.
54* Creator/KurtBusiek's ''The Wizard's Tale'' revolves around an eldritch tome which the [[IneptMage inept]] and not particularly evil wizard must locate and cast spells from. [[spoiler:Fortunately, he learns that the good guys hid it rather than destroyed it because it contains a spell to banish evil. He [[HeelFaceTurn casts it instead]].]]
55* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'':
56** In ''ComicBook/SinestroCorpsWar'', the Sinestro Corps have the Book of Parallax, which contains everything every Sinestro Corpsman has ever done or will do in the name of causing fear.
57** Later on we see the Book of the Black, penned in the tainted black tears of the undead Guardian Scar.
58* In the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse: ComicBook/DarkEmpire'' comics, the resurrected Emperor Palpatine has written two and is working on a third. They were a kind of combination of Necronomicon and Mein Kampf. The ''Dark Empire'' series itself is referred to on occasion as "The Dune Sea Scrolls."
59** The two completed volumes of the originally intended several-hundred-volume set, to in turn be titled the Dark Side Compendium, were ''The Book of Anger'' and ''The Weakness of Inferiors''. The third almost-completed tome was to be titled ''The Creation of Monsters''. In the audio drama Luke comes across tapes of ''The Book of Anger'' and finds them horrifically compelling. Just listening to them makes him feel cold and perceive the world as getting darker. It takes an effort of the Force to wrench himself away, and even then he wants to study them.
60* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' also brings us the Sith holocrons: essentially audio/video/Force recordings of a [[TheCorrupter Sith Lord's teachings]] and accumulated dark wisdom. They're almost always hidden someplace unpleasant, and if you can find one and disarm all the booby traps, you ''might'' get [[SarcasmMode lucky]] enough to [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity learn something]]. Sith holocrons also contain an imprint of the personality of whichever Sith Lord created them. If the Holocron finds you worthy it will try to corrupt you into a successor to the dead Lord, while if not it might well try to manipulate you into getting yourself killed. Have fun!
61* The ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' G1 Comics contains ''The Book of Horrors'', an ancient tome kept locked away in Majesty's Secret Room in Dream Castle. In the comic story ''Ponyland in Danger'' it is consulted by Majesty and Gypsy after they both see ominous indications of an ancient evil approaching in the form of a red cloud.
62* In ''ComicBook/LoriLovecraft'', Lori acquires all of her occult expertise and power from a copy of the ''Necronomicon'' given to her by the ancient priest Ama Ton for protection in ''My Favorite Redhead''.
63* ''ComicBook/Supergirl1984'': Selena can be seen perusing a large, heavy, leatherbound copy of the Necronomicon and reading up on summoning elemental demons right before ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} crashes into her lair. One black, horned skull-and-crossbones symbol is drawn on the red front cover.
64* ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}'': Giacomini's Apocrypha. Originally called the "De Fascino De Libre Tres", the book was written by a Catholic bishop named Vairo who was an expert occultist that understood the "fascination of evil". The book was stolen by one of Vairo's priests, Domenico Giacomini, who was jealous of the attention Vairo's work received in Rome. Forming a cult known as the Council of Worms, Giacomini took the ideas contained in the book further than anything Vairo had come up with and basically transformed it into an instruction manual [[DealWithTheDevil on how to traffick with demons]]. The Council of Worms were eventually killed by the [[ChurchMilitant Cestus Dei]], a covert operations force formed by Pope Clement X. It was believed the Apocrypha was destroyed by the Cestus Dei, however, some of the information within it survived and was scattered across the globe. [[spoiler:Von Kreist intends to use it to restore his original body]].
65* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Back during WWII the protective magical barrier around Europe was dropped temporarily in order for Paula von Gunther to read from an unsettling magical tome in a cathedral under Hitler's watch and turn herself into a powerful monster.
66[[/folder]]
67
68[[folder:Comic Strips]]
69* ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'' lampshades this while the knights are playing ''[[TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu Scream of Kachoolu]]'' (the webcomic strips, bound in Tales from the Vault 5): Brian warns everyone to burn all books they find. This is further compounded by the fact that the last campaign ended messily with Bob's character reading ''a traveler's guide to Boise''.
70[[/folder]]
71
72[[folder:Fan Works]]
73* In the ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' fic ''Fanfic/QueenOfAllOni'', Jade is searching for the Teachings of Eternal Shadow (a series of three tablets with the BlackMagic of the Shadowkhan/Oni on them) so she can increase her own power and keep Jackie and the other heroes from capturing her.
74* In the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fic ''Inter Vivos'', Draco's mother gave him a book that contained "a great deal of Dark Arts knowledge—spells, but also rituals, potions, and many other things, willed into the book by its possessors". When asked a question, it would shift into a book about whatever the subject might be — provided you asked it the ''right'' questions.
75* The "Black Book" in ''Fanfic/FalloutEquestria''. It contains [[spoiler:dark, necromantic zebra magic designed to conjure flesh-eating megaspells, the creation of {{Soul Jar}}s, BloodMagic and other nasty things]]. Notably, it has a malicious aura that both tempts the owner to read the book, along with other maddening effects; one courier [[spoiler:chewed his hooves off]].
76* Luna becomes Nightmare Moon by reading an unnamed book about dark magic in ''Fanfic/{{Whispers}}''.
77* Parodied in the Blog/ReadingRainbowverse by the shadowbolts book. While it can add and remove itself from the library catalog, the most terrifying thing it does is draw a dick on Lightning Dust's head.
78* In ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9007910/40/Altered-Histories Altered Histories]]'' Circe was a necromancer who created her own version of the ''Necronomicon'', made of skin flayed from the backs of a thousand men and capable of containing a thousand souls.
79* In ''Fanfic/MyLittleBalladeer'', human [[EvilSorceror Thorne]] has the [[ArtifactOfDoom ''Letters Of Cold Fire'']], a particularly nasty example of this trope because it has been enchanted to [[spoiler:force any mage reading it to release Discord from his [[TakenForGranite stone prison]]]].
80* [[Fanfic/InquisitorCarrowChronicles Inquisitor Carrow]] writes one as a present for Hermione Granger.
81* In ''FanFic/SplitSecondMyLittlePony'', Sparkle possessed several of the books in a ''series'' of these tomes. Interestingly, the book itself is alive.
82* In the lore of ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'', the Bible and the Koran are depicted as this, [[KnightTemplar driving people]] [[TheFundamentalist to madness]] and being able to summon Lovecraftian horrors with the right versions.
83* In ''Fanfic/TheBridge'', all of the villains trained by [[spoiler:[[GodOfEvil Grogar]]]] — Equestria's [[PhysicalGod Nexus]] of Dark Magic — were gifted with one of these. [[spoiler:Scattered among the four of them are the components of the spell needed to free Grogar from his [[SealedEvilInACan imprisonment]].]]
84* The Book of Characters in ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone: The Soft World'' might count, though ultimately it's just a throwaway {{MacGuffin}} rather than any major influence on the world. Its main significance to the four is that after George destroys it to save lives, they're fined 150,000 Swords and threatened with jail/endless pursuit if they don't pay the fine. They spend several days struggling to get the money.
85* A major plot point in ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' is the Death Eater/HYDRA alliance led by Lucius Malfoy steals the Darkhold and gifts it to [[{{Necromancer}} Gravemoss]]. Like in it comic canon counterpart, it's the ultimate book of BlackMagic, created by [[EldritchAbomination Chthon]] as a SoulJar to maintain his foothold in reality. The book itself is indestructible, and it just being outside of its containment causes reality to slowly start breaking down.
86** The ''[[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Word of Kemmler]]'' appears in the sequel, ''Ghosts of the Past''. Unlike most examples, it's not inherently magical, and neither were the other books Kemmler wrote. However, its predecessors contained ''a lot'' of serious necromantic knowledge, which back in the early to mid-20th century meant that a lot of otherwise fairly minor dark practitioners got hold of the How To guide on real necromancy. The ''Word of Kemmler'' is the worst of the lot, as among other things, it contains the instructions for a necromantic ascension into a PhysicalGod.
87** The trope is also parodied in said sequel, with [[TheGadfly Doctor Strange]] supplying Harry with a number of relevant books, often with snarky titles. Examples include: ''Blood Magic for Morons'' (which Strange wrote himself — Harry strongly suspects that he titled it such because being a {{Seer|s}}, he knew that Harry was going to do something stupid), ''Everything You Wanted To Know About Vampires But Were Too Afraid To Ask'', ''[[{{Literature/Discworld}} The Necrotelecomnicon]]'' ('The Phonebook of the Dead'), and ''Liber Paginarum Fulvarum'' ('The Book of Yellow Pages').
88* ''Fanfic/TheFreeportVenture'': The Black Codex is an infamous grimoire written by a cabal of warlocks and lunar cultists during the Lunar Rebellion and containing information on every form of BlackMagic in existence, including things like {{necromancy}}, MindControl and demonology. Most people don't believe it's anything more than a myth, a belief the Equestrian government encourages to cut down on the number of would-be warlocks trying to get their hooves on it. In ''Freeport Venture: Auction Night'', a copy surfaces... at an auction house in the local WretchedHive. Sunset spends the rest of the story trying to get before a known warlock facilitator does. Uniquely, the Codex is not magically enchanted, cursed, or even difficult to use, which is exactly what makes it so dangerous; Most dark magic books like this either requires a fair bit of knowledge of the subject to understand, or is full of magical traps and curses. The Black Codex is an ''introductory primer'' to the most horrific BlackMagic imagineable.
89* Deconstructed in ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/332084/cant Cant]]''. As the tome is so old, it's at risk of falling apart entirely, and as the writer was insane (or, in this case, drunk) when she wrote it, its instructions for summoning eldritch beings are wildly off-base and would never work. Reconstructed when none of this stops it from being dangerous, as the mere act of copying the writing is implied to do ''something'' to Twilight, slowly driving her to an unhealthy obsession with replicating the book ''exactly'' as written.
90* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': The seventh chapter of the fourth story, ''The Diplomat's Life'', mentions the "Inspiration Manifestation" spellbook from canon, and that Rarity encountered it while Twilight was on her world tour. Thankfully, Princess Celestia noticed what was happening in time and stepped in to deal with it.
91* ''Fanfic/AStringOfWords'': Chapter nine, "summon", involves Trent buying an old book supposedly used for "communing with the forces of Hell", though he doesn't believe it. After a few drinks, he and the rest of the band accidentally end up summoning a demon for real.
92* The Barabbas Manuscript from ''Fanfic/TheAwakeningOfAMagus''. An ancient tome with five original copies, with Draco's grandfather giving him the presumably only surviving copy. Among other things, it has hidden text visible only to descendants of the demon Klaatu, and absent in all secondary copies.
93* ''Fanfic/TheNewAdventuresOfInvaderZim'':
94** Season 2 Episode 9 features the Ikiwikinomicon, a blatant parody of the Necronomicon which when active is capable of transforming people into mindless monsters.
95** The sixth entry of the non-canon spinoff ''New Adventures: Mature Edition'' features the Tome of the Abyss, the book that Gaz uses to summon [[EldritchAbomination Kastrofi]] after the writing changes itself from some ancient alphabet into English for her to more easily read.
96[[/folder]]
97
98[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
99* ''WesternAnimation/SausageParty'' features [[spoiler:a cookbook]] being treated as this. It's found in the "Dark Aisle" (i.e. [[spoiler:the place where cook and kitchenware are located]]), and its illustrations of [[spoiler:foods being cooked and eaten]] are presented with all the same horror as the grisly artwork inside the Necronomicon. Frank tears pages out of the book to show to the rest of the store in order to get them to believe him.
100[[/folder]]
101
102[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
103* ''Film/Asylum1972Horror'': In "The Weird Tailor", Smith says that he spent his entire fortune to buy a very expensive, one-of-a-kind mystical tome. Its full contents are not revealed, but at the very least, it details how to make a suit that will bring a corpse back to life.
104* The eponymous book in ''Film/TheBabadook''. A ''pop-up book'', believe it or not, one which seems to be a bedtime story for kids, the book is not just magic and cursed, but alive, sort of. The monster seems to become more and more sapient the more the book is read, and stronger the more disbelieving adults deny that it's real, tormenting children and parents alike. Tearing the book up only makes it come back with a scarier story, and while burning it prevents that, it doesn't get rid of the monster; the protagonist has to resort to [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath other methods to finally crush it.]]
105* ''Gray's Sports Almanac'' from the ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' movies. Technically an ordinary sports almanac purchased in a conventional book store in the then-future year of 2015, this book truly matches the trope when [[TimelineAlteringMacGuffin brought 50 years into the past]], as it contains information on the outcome of sports events from 1960 to 2000. Biff Tannen is able to use the knowledge to amass a fortune from gambling, eventually creating a BadFuture where he rules. Much like the typical cursed tome, burning it at the end of the second movie is required to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.
106* ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' has the [[AllThereInTheManual Handbook for the Recently Deceased]], [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin which explains important things to know right after you die]], making it a rare instance of a Tome of Eldritch Lore that's actually ''helpful''. Unfortunately, it isn't very reader-friendly, as it [[RunningGag reads like stereo instructions]].
107* ''Film/BigTitsZombie'' also features a version of the Necronomicon, which summons and controls zombies.
108* In ''Film/TheButchers'', The Book of the Dead is used to cast a resurrection spell that brings the serial killers back from the dead.
109* ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' kicks off its serious horror elements with the reliable Latin incantation from a spooky old book. Marty, the EruditeStoner, immediately sees where this is going.
110-->'''Marty:''' "Okay, I'm drawing a line in the fucking sand here. Do not read the Latin."
111* Italian director Creator/LucioFulci used two. ''Film/CityOfTheLivingDead'' had the Book of Enoch (an actual text used in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, though it probably doesn't really open the gates of Hell), and ''Film/TheBeyond'' has the Book of Eibon, which has first written about by Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith, and used in Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark", "Literature/TheDreamsInTheWitchHouse", and "Literature/TheShadowOutOfTime".
112* The Lifetime (of all things) movie ''Film/DevilsDiary'' references a book found in a graveyard, planted there by a lightning strike. Anything negative you write in the book will come true.
113* ''Film/DeadBirds'': Todd and William find one while searching the house. It contains a ritual for raising the dead, which apparently involves the torture and murder of many. [[spoiler:Hollister performed this ritual to resurrect his wife, who had fallen ill and died. Instead of getting her back, he let something else in that turned his children into monsters.]]
114* ''Franchise/EvilDead'' featured a book called Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, which, when read, resurrected a bunch of evil Kandarian spirits. In [[Film/TheEvilDead1981 the first movie]] and the beginning of [[Film/EvilDead2 the second]], it was called the ''Naturom Demonto''. By the time of ''Film/ArmyOfDarkness'', it was just called the ''Necronomicon''.
115* ''Saviour of the Souls'' in ''Film/TheHazing''; an age old book of blood rituals rescued from the ruins of an corrupt ancient monastery by Professor Kapps' ancestors that allows the possessor to travel between the dimensions of life and death to return from the grave through a rite of possession.
116* ''Film/InTheMouthOfMadness'' features the popular horror novelist Sutter Cane, whose last book is [[BrownNote So Bad Its Horrible]], if inexplicably [[TheVirus well received by the public]]. Still managed to have a movie made, which was almost as well received as the book and made [[EndOftheWorldAsWeKnowIt quite an impact on audiences around the world]].
117* It doesn't have a name, but Winifred's book in ''Film/HocusPocus'' qualifies. Given to her by {{Satan}} himself, it is bound in human flesh and cannot be destroyed by any known method (when the protagonist tries to burn it, it doesn't burn). It's also ''alive'', proven by an eyeball set in the cover, which moves around on its own accord. Among the evil spells that Winnie casts from this book is the curse she places on Thackery which [[ForcedTransformation turns him into a cat]] and makes him unable to die, and a spell which raises her ex-lover Billy from the dead as a [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombie]]; it also contains the recipe for the potion used to keep her and her sisters forever young — at the cost of the lives of children.
118* In ''Film/MerlinsShopOfMysticalWonders'', Myth/{{Merlin}}, of all people, gives one of these to a [[StrawCritic snobby critic]], of all people, to try to persuade him that magic is real. As a result, the critic summons a demon, sets fire to a cat, almost crushes himself and eventually manages to provide his wife with the baby she desires by, in a bizarre kind of "reverse incest", turning himself from her husband into her son. Naturally, Merlin thinks this is a jolly delightful jape.
119* ''Film/TheMummy1999'' had the Book of the Dead, which unleashed the title monster upon the world, as well as its good cousin, which [[spoiler:stripped him of his undead immortality and made him mortal]].
120* ''Film/NightOfTheDemon'': Cult leader Karswell has one of the only copies of an ancient tome on witchcraft and demonology, written in ancient runes he claims are unreadable — though it turns out he has the translation, and uses it.
121* The plot of the movie ''Film/TheNinthGate'' (based on ''Literature/TheClubDumas'', above) revolves around a book called ''De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis'' ("The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows"). All known copies of the text were burned along with their author Aristide Torchia because it was an adaptation of an earlier work called the ''Delomelanicon'' (the ''Invocation of Darkness''), supposedly co-written by the Devil himself and contained clues on how to summon him in person.
122* ''Film/OneNightInOctober'': Kate finds an old book full of pages containing magic images while she's hiding in the barn from the killer.
123* In ''Film/WarCraft2016'', the ornate book Khadgar finds in Medivh's vast library is a tome on the Portal and fel magic, both of which are pretty much evil.
124* In ''Film/Warlock1989'', the Grand Grimoire is a Satanic book that was broken up long ago. When brought together it reveals the hidden name of {{God}}, which if said backwards will undo all that he created and destroy the world.
125[[/folder]]
126
127[[folder:Literature]]
128* Creator/ArthurMachen's story ''Literature/TheWhitePeople'' predates the {{Trope Namer|s}}: during a discussion on the nature of sin, an ascetic gives his friend a "green pocket-book" with a "morocco binding", used by a young girl as a "book of secrets" (she says she has many others) to record her engagements with TheFairFolk, who in this story are definitely more on the "[[EldritchAbomination eldritch]]" side of elvish. Hilariously, said book appears to have a sequel, T. Kingfisher's "The Twisted Ones," that [[{{Sequelitis}} leaves a lot to be desired]].
129* Creator/CliveBarker's Books of Blood has the creation of the "books" as the story vehicle behind the telling of these short stories. A researcher meets a famous medium who's supposed to be able to communicate with the dead but is actually a fraud. At the site of an actual haunting, the spirits of the dead are enraged at the conman's buffonery so they give him what he claims. The ghosts render him helpless as they take broken glass and carve all their stories of woe into his flesh. The researcher is unharmed and actually rather pleased by this event as she reads the stories written on his skin.
130* The ''Necronomicon'' of Creator/HPLovecraft's ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'' is the TropeCodifier and quasi-{{Trope Namer|s}} (the term "Eldritch", meaning "otherworldly", being pretty much only used by Lovecraft or writers trying to sound like him). It's the definitive book of black magic, created by Lovecraft as a sendup of the real-life "black books" — but since Lovecraft found them kind of underwhelming, he upped the scariness factor by creating his own. Unlike many later versions, in Lovecraft's stories the book is just a mundane, rather rare medieval text — it's what it reveals about our place in the universe that [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow drives the reader mad]], not some inherent magical quality of the book itself.
131** Lovecraft claimed the name ''Necronomicon'' meant "Image of the Law of the Dead" in Greek, but due to his rather lacking education, that's not quite what it means. Modern translations use "Book of the Dead", which isn't quite accurate either. Other authors translated it to "Book of the Laws of the Dead" or "Book of the Names of the Dead"; S.T. Joshi has it as "Book Considering the Dead" or "Book Classifying the Dead". Lovecraft also wrote a short piece, "The History of the ''Necronomicon''", which traces the text from its origin — the Arab mystic "Abdul Alhazred"[[note]] Which is bad Arabic, by the way — some modern stories render it Abd Al-Azrad or Abu Alhazred, or [[JustifiedTrope explictly say "Abdul Alhazred" is bad Arabic]] that came via the book's European translators[[/note]]— and its original title ''Kitab al-Azif'', through Greek and later German translations, and in his stories the characters usually only have access to the medieval German version.
132** The ''Necronomicon'' has now become so ingrained in Western culture as the definitive Tome of Eldritch Lore that it's been {{Defictionaliz|ation}}ed, to an extent. Obviously, no one can print a ''Necronomicon'' that actually drives you mad, but enterprising pranksters have inserted fake library card entries for the book (using its ostensible author "A. Alhazred", from the books' "Abdul Alhazred [[InsistentTerminology the Mad Arab]]"). The book has also been used as a sort of shorthand for the Cthulhu mythos as a whole (for example, ''My First Necronomicon'', a primer to the mythos for children, bound in soft felt no less). Some people [[DaydreamBeliever aren't convinced it's fictional]], and during the "SatanicPanic" of TheEighties and TheNineties, several [[MediaScaremongering instructional guides]] on [[CouldThisHappenToYou how to tell if your kid was involved in Satanism]] asked if they had ever read the ''Necronomicon''. Among the books calling themselves the ''Necronomicon'' are:
133*** A collection of short stories about the fictional ''Necronomicon'' by Creator/HPLovecraft and other writers.
134*** A collection of artworks by Creator/HRGiger.
135*** At least two books purporting to be the "real" ''Necronomicon'', which contains a hodgepodge of Sumerian mythology, Hermetic lore, Kabbalah, and other mystical writings. In no way do these stories relate to Lovecraft's works.
136*** One written by Donald Tyson that details the "wanderings of Alhazred", probably the closest to Lovecraft's original idea.
137*** Countless omnibus collections of Lovecraft's stories.
138** It's had all manner of {{Shout Out}}s in all manner of mediums, from ''Franchise/EvilDead'' to ''Literature/{{Magnus}}'' to ''TabletopGame/UnknownArmies''. Many of them are listed elsewhere on this page, and even if they don't refer to the ''Necronomicon'' by name, they're clearly heavily inspired by it.
139* The original ''Magazine/WeirdTales'' circle featured many books of dark lore other than the ''Necronomicon'', including:
140** Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith's tome of choice, the ''Liber Ivonis'' or the ''Book of Eibon'';
141** Creator/RobertEHoward's ''Nameless Cults'' or ''Die Unaussprechliche Kulten'' — Lovecraft thought the latter was German for "unspeakable cults", but it's actually closer to "unpronounceable", which given [[TheUnpronounceable the names of the Great Old Ones]] is probably more appropriate; and
142** Creator/RobertBloch's ''Cultes des Goules'' and ''De Vermis Mysteriis'', the latter of which is featured in Creator/StephenKing's short story and Lovecraft {{homage}} "[[Literature/NightShift Jerusalem's Lot]]", in ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon'', and in ''Literature/{{Revival}}'', in which it is claimed to be the "real" book that inspired Lovecraft's ''Necronomicon''.
143** The ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' RPG gave us the ''Massa di Requiem par Shuggay'', an "opera" that is impossible to perform, namely because an uninterrupted performance will lead to [[spoiler:Azathoth being summoned midway through the second act]], leading to everyone going mad and [[spoiler:TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]].
144* Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
145** A recurring parody of the ''Necronomicon'' is the ''Necrotelicomnicon'', translated as "On Communing with the Deceased" or the "Phonebook of the Dead". It was written by "Achmed the Mad", who prefers to be known as "Achmed the [[InsistentTerminology Sometimes I Just Get These Headaches]]" — his AboutTheAuthor page [[IncendiaryExponent spontaneously combusted]], leaving only the "Other Books by the Same Author" page (which has only one entry, ''Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches's Book of Humorous Cat Stories''). Reading it will drive a man insane, and ''Literature/EqualRites'' recounts the unfortunate case of a mage who tried to read it and was not only never seen again, but whose compatriots noticed that the book became several pages thicker. It's kept at the Unseen University library by the Librarian, who deals with the book containing [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow things man was not meant to know]] by being [[ForcedTransformation an orangutan]] and thus [[LoopholeAbuse not technically a "man"]] — but he does get a headache and a nasty rash. The ''Necrotelicomnicon'' also appears in Pratchett's collaboration with Creator/NeilGaiman, ''Literature/GoodOmens'', and from there to Gaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' (under its alternate title ''Liber Paginarum Fulvarum'', which is [[CanisLatinicus Dog Latin]] for "The Book of the Yellow Pages").
146** The ''Octavo'' is a book containing the eight most powerful spells, left behind on the Disc by its creator. Rincewind "accidentally" read the book and got one of the spells stuck in his head, which left him unable to learn any other spells (even after getting rid of it) and drove much of the plot of the first two books.
147** One of Pratchett's [[FootnoteFever many footnotes]] describes how the Unseen University library has some books chained to the shelves. It's a sendup of Oxford's Bodleian Library, which does this to stop the students damaging the books. At UU, though, it's the other way around — and sometimes it's to protect the books from each other.
148** Another of Pratchett's footnotes describes Unseen University's several volumes of sex magic, one of which must be kept in a room full of ice. Humans can't read them without being driven a [[LovePotion very specific type of mad]]. The Librarian, on the other hand, gets [[PerverseSexualLust unusual feelings about fruit]] for a while.
149* ''Literature/AlmostNight'' has the book by the previous DarkLord [=McEvildude=]. The cover is bound in human flesh, the ink is made from orc blood, and each page is made from dryads.
150* In ''Literature/IShallWearMidnight'', the ''Bonfire of the Witches'', written on behalf of the Cunning Man, is so full of his hatred of witches that a copy of it allows a curse ineptly attempted against a witch to work simply by being in its proximity, and later almost allows said creature to manifest into the world through its pages before it's pressed shut very decisively.
151* Robert W. Chambers' ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'' stories feature the eponymous ''play'' which simultaneously enlightens and drives mad anyone who reads it all. Reportedly, the first act is normal enough, but glimpsing even the first few words of the second compels people to finish the whole thing and expose themselves to all manner of hideous revelations. (Presumably a production would be impossible to stage.) Only a few brief excerpts, not enough to clearly indicate the plot or subject matter, are ever given. Likewise, the Yellow Sign is never actually described. Chambers' stories predated Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories and Lovecraft cited them as an inspiration.
152* The ''Dictionary of the Khazars'', as described in the lexicon novel of the same name, was printed in a poisonous ink. Remarkably, this ink causes convulsions, pain, and eventual death not from licking or eating the pages, but from reading them, and death would always strike at a particular point on the ninth page.
153* In ''Literature/BetsyTheVampireQueen'', the "Book of the Dead" can only be read for a page or two at a time before it starts to mess with your head. As it contains instructions and prophecies for Queen Betsy's entire reign (whether or not it has more unpleasant spells is not mentioned), it also serves as a GreatBigBookOfEverything.
154* The vampire novel ''Literature/TheHistorian'' has one which has the effect of attracting Vlad Dracula and his minions to those who find a copy. This is made creepier by the fact that the novel actually looks like the Tome of Eldritch Lore described within.
155* ''Literature/TheClubDumas'' by Arturo Pérez-Reverté reproduces the nine illustrations that provide the clues to invoke the Devil in the tome of eldritch lore (''De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis'' — everything occult [[GratuitousLatin sounds better in Latin]]), repeated each time the protagonist finds one of the three surviving copies of the ''Novem Portis'', as each one has a subtly different set of illustrations. There is a TwistEnding that hinges on these differences. It is little surprising that these illustrations are supposedly reprinted from the fabled ''Delomelanicon, or Invocation of Darkness'', which legend has it was co-written by Lucifer himself.
156* ''Literature/JackieAndCraig'' features Talon's Diary, which she keeps chained to her wrist. A combination of a teenage girl's SecretDiary and a record of unholy black magic and mad science experiments, it's pink and has a heart drawn around the ''Necronomicon'' Sigil on the front. Craig gets a glimpse of the inside and [[BreadMilkEggsSquick sees crude diagrams of people vivisected in human sacrifice]].
157* From the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: {{Literature/Eisenhorn}}'' series of novels:
158** The ''Necroteuch'' from the first book emits an aura of incredible evil, so it's a bit of a no-brainer what to do with it; although it's the entire focus of the book, no one knows, needs to know, or cares to know what exactly it does. [[spoiler:Until you trick a Chaos Space Marine into picking it up and take advantage of its effects to kill him.]]
159** The ''Malus Codicium'' contains many scriptures on things like daemon-summoning and binding and slowly corrupts the reader. The protagonist, an Inquisitor, perfectly used to dealing with such artifacts, finds this book particularly creepy — because it ''doesn't'' give off a sinister aura like the others.
160* Played for comedy in Creator/BruceSterling's ''Literature/{{Schismatrix}}'' with "the literature of the [untranslatable]".
161* In the Literature/WhateleyUniverse:
162** One of the main characters, Sara Waite, is a young EldritchAbomination. She owns shelves full of these books and considers them ideal casual reading material. As long as she can remind them not to eat her friends.
163** The Whateley library has a restricted section of these books. And a ''really'' restricted section of the worse ones. However, there are some books even they don't dare touch — those are in Sara's library.
164** Horror novelist Michael Waite's best-seller ''Incongruity'' is really the First Book of Kellith. The relationship between Michael Waite and Sara Waite is... complicated.
165* F. Paul Wilson's ''Literature/RepairmanJack'' series has the ''Compendium of Srem'', which translates itself into your native language for your [[SealedEvilInACan cans-of-evil-unsealing]] convenience.
166* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon'', the wizard Flagg has such a book that he has been reading for over one thousand years and is less than a quarter of a way through, lest he go mad from reading it too quickly.
167* The ''Literature/OldKingdom'' trilogy:
168** The ''Book of the Dead'' is a green leather-bound book that's different each time it's read and shows a certain disconcerting independence of movement — ''i.e.'' it knows where it needs to go and will follow along with someone headed in that direction, with or without their cooperation. It can only be opened by a necromancer and closed by an uncorrupted Charter mage — that is, the Abhorsen and their successor. Normal people find it exudes an aura of deathly chill and utter terror. It's not actively malevolent, though, since it's kind enough to ensure that the reader doesn't remember the more [[GoMadFromTheRevelation horrifying sections]] until they really ''really'' need to.
169** In the second book of the trilogy, Lirael takes on a job working in the Great Library of the Clayr, which is a bit more like a museum. The books (and "exhibits") range from the prosaic to works of great magic, which are kept under lock and key. This has the unfortunate side-effect that if one of said [[SealedEvilInACan exhibits]] gets loose somehow, the person responsible has to find a sneaky way of getting at highly protected books if she wants to have any chance at all of stuffing it back into its can.
170* In the young adult horror anthology ''Still More Scary Stories for Sleepovers'', the short story "Night of the Ki-Khwan" has an example. The protagonist's scholar mother brings home a collection of texts that describe Native American rituals. One of these rituals provides instructions on summoning the titular Ki-Khwan, who are essentially Native American werewolves. The protagonist and his friends, being young and foolish boys, decide to give some of the rituals a shot late at night in the woods for a thrill. To their horror, they succeed in summoning the man-beasts. [[HopeSpot Just when it seems like they can keep their campfire going long enough to keep the creatures at bay]], [[spoiler:a rain dance they performed earlier kicks in, putting the fire out]].
171* In the guide book ''How to Be a Villain'', its guide to weapons contains books of evil, which more or less fit this trope perfectly.
172* John Barnes's ''Literature/OneForTheMorningGlory'' features ''Highly Unpleasant Things It Is Sometimes Necessary to Know'' and worse, ''Things That Are Not Good to Know at All''.
173* Creator/TadWilliams' ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'' trilogy:
174** ''Du Svardenvyrd'' (The Weird of the Swords) is a perfectly straight example of this trope. Written by a mad prophet, it causes mortals who read it to GoMadFromTheRevelation, and it is eventually revealed that the book is basically an instruction manual for summoning the undead [[BigBad Storm King]] back into the world. The book doesn't have any inherent mystical power, but the secrets it reveals are too much for a sane mind to accept.
175** The sequel ''Literature/TheLastKingOfOstenArd'' has Bishop Fortis' ''Treatise on the Aetheric Whispers'', a book which has been banned by the church since the mysterious disappearance of its author, over two hundred years ago. The censors' copy is kept apart from other books.
176* ''The Book Bound in Pale Leather'' in P.C. Hodgell's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'' books works a lot like this, even though it was given to the Kencyr people by their God. Said god is not exactly nice, and neither is the book; reading too much of it can drive you mad or kill you, and the Master Runes inside are highly dangerous to use. Oh, and that leather? Human skin, and the Book appears to be alive; dropping it gives it bruises.
177* ''[[Literature/{{Shannara}} The Shannara Series]]'' by Terry Brooks has the Ildatch, an ArtifactOfDoom dating back to the war between the good Fae and [[TheLegionsOfHell the Demons]]. Filled with dark magics, it corrupted the rebel Druid Brona into becoming [[SorcerousOverlord the Warlock Lord]], transformed his followers into the Skull Bearers, and later transforms a new group of people into the Mord Wraiths. Destroying it serves as the main plot in ''[[Literature/TheSwordOfShannaraTrilogy The Wishsong of Shannara]]''. [[spoiler:Unbeknownst to all, the book is alive, reasoning, and the BigBad of the entire trilogy. It nearly turns Brin, the main character, into a monster, before her brother brings her to her senses, enabling its destruction]].
178* In Creator/BenCounter's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' Literature/HorusHeresy novel ''Galaxy In Flames'', Loken runs across a book that changes languages (and alphabets) under his gaze, gives him horrific visions, and convinces him that the OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions view of the Empire is wrong.
179* In ''The Cassini Division'', a Literature/FallRevolution book by Creator/{{Ken MacLeod}}, two characters peruse a market stall selling old books. One tome, ''Home Workshop Nanotech'' by a "Dr. Frank N. Stein", published some 250 years before the events of the book, explains in straightforward terms how to make [[GreyGoo replicating nanotech]] using a simple computer, some household chemicals, and a tunnelling electron microscope. Sci-fi to be sure, but a mysterious ancient book containing world-shattering knowledge of things man was not meant to meddle with makes it pretty eldritch.
180* In ''Literature/TheGoldenDreamOfCarloChuchio'', the hero buys a mysterious book in a market and finds that it contains not only tales of old but a treasure map. The description implies that the book is a ShoutOut to the ''Literature/ArabianNights''.
181* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' typically {{subvert|edtrope}}s the trope, as the White Council ''encourages'' the spread of books of dark rituals — they only have a limited amount of power to draw from, so mass publication tends to dilute them into uselessness. But in some cases, there are works which contain knowledge that's too dangerous to know regardless of the power of the book itself.
182** In ''Literature/DeadBeat'', "The Word of Kemmler" is a book written by the necromancer Kemmler, a major BigBad who was responsible for a whole mess of atrocities and other badness throughout history, up to and including UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Yes, all of it.
183** ''Dead Beat'' also features ''Der Lied der Erlking'', a collection of poetry, art, and prose dedicated to [[TheFairFolk the Erlking]], head of TheWildHunt. Among all that poetry is a summoning rite meant to bring the Erlking and the Hunt into the world.
184%%* The dark Book (''The Book Which is Not Named'') in Diane Duane's ''Literature/YoungWizards'' series.
185%%** Arguably the bright Book (''Naming of Lights'' or ''The Book of Night with Moon'') has the same potential... reading from either book is not something you do lightly.
186* The short story ''El Libro de Arena'' ("[[http://anagrammatically.com/2010/03/08/the-book-of-sand-el-libro-de-arena-by-borges-translated/ The Book of Sand]]") by Creator/JorgeLuisBorges contains a variant. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliophilia bibliophile]] protagonist trades a priceless 14th-century Bible for a mysterious book in an unknown language that has no beginning, no end, pages that are out of order, and never allows the reader to see the same page twice — and it is implied that the number of pages is infinite. Over time, he loses what few friends he has and spends every waking minute fanatically obsessing over a book he cannot read, copying pages and illustrations before they vanish forever. But unlike most such stories, this one appears to end relatively well — the protagonist recognizes the evil of the book and disposes of it. He doesn't want to burn it, thinking that could be dangerous given the book's physical properties, but he does [[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles put it in a random, dusty shelf among the National Library's 900,000 books]], ensuring that neither he nor anyone else will ever find it. The story implies that he was better off with his [[GoodOldWays good old-fashioned Bibles]].
187* The Grimmerie from the novel ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'' is implied to be one of these, but no Ozian can actually read the thing. [[spoiler:Elphaba can make out bits and pieces, but that's because she turns out to be only half-Ozian]]. It's also revealed that the [[spoiler:Wizard's entire despotic reign]] is a mere EvilPlan to get his hands on it.
188* These are apparently pretty commonplace in ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
189** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'': Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class includes ''[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment The Monster Book of Monsters]]'' as ''required'' reading. The book is a sentient beast that will bite you if you try to open it. The only way to safely read it is to stroke its spine, which will soothe it and convince it to open for you. [[NightmareFetishist Hagrid]] apparently thinks this is [[LostCommonKnowledge common knowledge]] and is genuinely befuddled on the first day of class to see that none of the students have figured this out and have tied their textbooks shut in various ways. They are a pain in the ass for the owner of Flourish & Botts to stock too, with him having to keep them in a cage so they can't hurt customers.
190--->"I'm never stocking them again, never! It's been bedlam! I thought we'd seen the worst when we bought two hundred copies of ''The Invisible Book of Invisibility'' — cost a fortune, and we never found them."
191** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'': The graffitied copy of ''Advanced Potion-Making'' contains margin notes by someone called the "Half-Blood Prince" (who turns out to be [[spoiler:Severus Snape]]), which provide a lot of useful advice to Harry on how to make potions — better than the textbook itself (which frustrates Hermione to no end). It also contains a lot of ''other'' spells, and when Harry tries one labeled "For Enemies" on Draco Malfoy, [[spoiler:he nearly kills him from the ensuing blood loss]].
192** The Restricted Section in [[WizardingSchool Hogwarts]]' library contains books that more traditionally fit the "Eldritch" role, having to be chained to the shelves or screaming when they're opened. Early on, Ron warns Harry of books that burn people's eyes out, that are impossible to stop reading, or that [[RhymesOnADime make you speak in limericks]] for the rest of your life. The protagonists find that it's pretty easy to get a professor to write a permission slip for you to go in there; they do this as early as ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'' to learn how to make a Polyjuice Potion (and get Lockhart to sign off the form under the guise of getting an autograph). Oddly enough, when Harry learns about [[SoulJar Horcruxes]] in ''Half-Blood Prince'', Hermione scours almost the entire restricted section to learn what they are and finds ''one'' reference, in a book titled ''Magick Moste Evile'' (which apparently makes a "ghostly wail" when closed), and mentions them [[EvenEvilHasStandards only to say that they are so evil they will not be discussed]]. It is later revealed that the school does have a book which explains about Horcruxes in detail, called ''Secrets of the Darkest Art''. However, Dumbledore confiscated it from the Restricted Section years ago, and is implied to have done this because Tom Riddle used the book as a reference to create not only one, but seven Horcruxes.
193** ''Chamber of Secrets'': Tom Riddle had a diary, which talks back to you when you write in it. It possesses Ginny to sic a Basilisk to petrify muggleborn students, and convinces her to open the eponymous chamber, and it nearly kills her and replaces her with the teenaged Tom. Said Tom Riddle turns out to be the future [[BigBad Lord Voldemort]], and Harry finds out much later that [[spoiler:the diary was a Horcrux]].
194* Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/FatherBrown'' story "The Blast From The Book" {{subvert|edtrope}}s it — the whole thing [[spoiler:is an elaborate practical joke]].
195* Thoroughly {{deconstructed|trope}} and parodied in [[Creator/RobertAntonWilson R.A. Wilson's]] ''The Masks of Illuminati'', where a number of people are apparently mailed copies of a book that after only the slightest glance inspires them to thoroughly destroy the volume and then enter a suicidal mania. As it turns out, [[spoiler:the whole thing was elaborately fabricated for the narrator's benefit]]. The real kicker is that the book was [[spoiler:''Mother Goose's Rhymes'' — [[FridgeBrilliance and it had even been subtly foreshadowed earlier in the story!]]]]
196* ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'':
197** In "Literature/AWitchShallBeBorn", the title witch did not mind when the magician who raised her drove her off:
198--->''I could never endure to seclude myself in a golden tower, and spend the long hours staring into a crystal globe, mumbling over incantations written on serpent's skin in the blood of virgins, poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages.''
199** Several ''Conan'' stories mention "The Book of Skelos", an ancient tome of black magic that contains spells for summoning demons.
200* In Valentin Ivashchenko's ''Dancing Flame'':
201** The unnamed tome on necromancy, written by the last grand {{necromancer}} Yaromor, contains pure BlackMagic knowledge and a large fraction of Yaromor's power, granting both to the current user. The power also actively searches for new users every few centuries, although HeroicResolve allows one to contain the power without being corrupted. Killing the user grants the world said few centuries of peace, thus forcing a later generation to deal with the next grand necromancer.
202** Earl Valle is the most powerful and most studious necromancer to ever live, and his spellbook contains a few things generally thought impossible for necromancers by the setting's MutuallyExclusiveMagic. Valle himself was disgusted by the book's contents, so he just destroyed it.
203* In Vitalij Zykov's ''Return'' series, this trope takes the form of stone tablets rarely found at relic sites of ancient civilizations. The tablets are covered with text in a language older than any humanoid race, including two elven races. It's only known that the tablets contain magic-related information. The protagonist happens to learn said language by ExpositionBeam, learns one of the spells, and casts it in a magical duel. The resulting damage is considered overkill in comparison to magical carpet bombing by dragon squadrons.
204%%* The Codex in ''Literature/TheSecretsOfTheImmortalNicholasFlamel'' series.
205%%* Coriakin's GreatBigBookOfEverything in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia''.
206* In ''Strong Spirits'', the protagonist's rival in mediumship, Cockcroft, has acquired a famous {{necromancer}}'s Tome of Eldritch Lore and wants to summon the author's ghost to help him figure out its cryptic contents. [[spoiler:Subverted when the ghost is finally contacted and admits he was a charlatan who wrote a fraudulent "spellbook" to impress the rubes.]]
207%%* The Darke Index in ''Literature/SeptimusHeap''.
208* The grimoire of King Gorice of Witchland in E. R. Eddison's ''Literature/TheWormOuroboros'' is used to harness the powers of Hell.
209* Creator/NickPerumov's ''Literature/KeeperOfTheSwords'' series has the book ''Of the Essence of Otherbeing'' by Evengar of Sallador, which is a typical example.
210* The Book of Salzared in ''Literature/TheBeyonders'' only contains a few pages of material explaining the Word that can destroy the Emperor and the first syllable of the Word, but it's enough to be considered one of these. And since the author, and source of the leather used to bind it, was a Displacer, it's still alive.
211* In ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', the protagonists Blake and Rose Thorburn discover that their departed grandmother was not only a powerful [[TheDarkArts diabolist]], but that she wrote several dozen such books on the subject of the [[TheLegionsOfHell forces that she trafficked with]], and had left them to her heirs upon her death. The given comparison is suddenly inheriting control of a historically troublesome rogue state with access to nuclear weaponry.
212* In the webnovel ''[[Literature/DoNotTakeTheShells DO NOT TAKE THE SHELLS]]'', Jonathan Vaun's bookcase contained several of these. One of them is named "The Ancient Art of Daemonism", and another "A Window into Providence".
213* The three books in ''Literature/DanceoftheButterfly'' could be, but their actual use is never fully explained. They are highly sought after and guarded closely by those in possession of them.
214* ''Literature/TheSisterVerseAndTheTalonsOfRuin'' has the eponymous Sister Verse, a book that eats any reality it is written in and assimilates it into its stories.
215* Creator/JosephPayneBrennan's short story "[[Literature/TheShapesOfMidnight The Willow Platform]]" features an ancient book written entirely in Latin owned by hermit Hannibal Trobish. After Trobish's death, it falls into the hands of a man named Henry Crotell, the local CloudCuckooLander. Crotell's efforts to have it translated into English lead to him [[DrivenToMadness going insane]] and attempting to summon an ancient evil entity by building the eponymous willow platform. [[spoiler:Because EvilIsNotAToy, Crotell ends up EatenAlive by the monster he summons.]]
216* Literature/TheShadowhunterChronicles has three books which fit this trope.
217** The Gray Books are copies of the Book of the Covenant, a collection of Shadowhunter runes dictated by the angel Raziel a millennia ago. Every Shadowhunter use them as reference, but they can only learn a rune every few years, because trying to memorize them all at once [[MindRape will cause lasting headaches]]. Only few copies exist (all Institutes have one), because only the Silent Brothers can create them. Magnus also collected one during his centuries of working with the Clave.
218** The Book of the White contains some of the strongest spells in the world, including one which can put someone to a state of DeepSleep, one capable of binding demons to automatons, and another which can break wards preventing demons from entering Earth. Because it contains demonic magic, warlocks see it as their rightful inheritance and the only known copy is stored in the [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything Spiral Labyrinth]].
219** The Black Volume of the Dead is by far the most dangerous and mysterious magic book of the three, containing, among other things, [[{{Necromancer}} a resurrection spell]] and [[CharmPerson a charm which can make a person become irresistible to everyone]]. It used to be stored in the Cornwall Institute, but has changed hands many times because many evildoers want to use them for their own ends. Its current whereabouts is unknown.
220* ''Literature/TheToughGuideToFantasyland'': Grimoires. In Fantasyland, these are not spell books generally, but specifically books of ''evil'' spells. Many seem to be alive, invariably made of black leather or human skin. They may smoke somewhat when touched. Some may try to entice the curious into reading them, but others stubbornly keep their pages blank. Those really wishing to consult them will need a lot of spells for protection. All Tourists are advised to leave this for a Wizard and or Tour Mentor.
221* The eponymous grimoire of the novel ''Liber Lilith'' is a blasphemous [[{{UsefulNotes/Gnosticism}} Gnostic]] text, apparently written in the early Common Era, that is attributed to Lameth, the son of Cain in the Bible. It describes Lilith as the creation of the Demiurge Samael; she, in turn was the true creator of Adam, as well as being the Serpent who tempted Eve (who was created by Samael, causing Lilith to become jealous). The rest of the grimoire describes the grotesque rituals needed to worship Lilith in exchange for great power and enlightenment, which often involve ingredients such as baby fat and mensural blood. The rituals themselves range from mere possession by her to (spoilered for NauseaFuel) [[spoiler:what the disclaimer at the beginning describes as [[{{Squick}} "sexual necromancy"]] .]] Much of the book is a reproduction of the diary of a German occultist named Karl Steiger who attempts to worship Lilith as the grimoire describes, only to be driven to insanity, being tormented by horrific nightmares and becoming increasingly paranoid and distrustful of the outside world, before losing contact with reality altogether and committing suicide.
222[[/folder]]
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224[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
225* The Grimoire in ''Series/BloodTies2007'' is used several times to summon demons. [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Henry]] has his own copy, "confiscated" from a bunch of Medieval cultists, and uses it to sabotage summoning rituals.
226* On ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Giles had whole ''bookcases'' filled with these. "Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the books."
227** He used to keep them in the library of the high school. This was [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] once, with the principal doing a search of the library and questioning whether it was appropriate to have in a high school library filled with tomes instructing on the uses of dark magic — despite being asked during a period of demonic-inspired moral panic against magic, this was actually quite a reasonable question, considering.
228** Giles explained in an early episode that he did it because the students never come into the library. It's the perfect place for a Watcher to put a collection of books so no one will ever read them.
229** Remember that in a previous episode Giles physically threatened Snyder so he would reinstate Buffy. Besides, the books were probably kept by the anti-supernatural mob and would probably return it to him since it was his "personal collection".
230** And then at the end of season 6, [[spoiler:Willow]] absorbs all the knowledge from these books and actually does [[spoiler:set off to destroy the world.]]
231** In season 3 several episodes focus on a set of tomes called "The Books Of Ascension" which apparently detail the process for a human ascending to demonic form. The Mayor, who's attempting to do just that, gets his hands on them pretty quickly but Willow manages to steal a few key pages while being held prisoner.
232* In ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'', there is the Grimoire, which is the demon equivalent of the Book of Shadows.
233* ''Series/DoctorWho'': [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis "Extremis"]] features ''The Veritas'', a short book kept in the Vatican's secret library of blasphemy, the contents of which cause everyone who reads it to [[DrivenToSuicide kill themselves]]. Why? [[spoiler:Because it reveals the "world" is a computer simulation created by hostile aliens as preparation for their planned invasion of Earth, and thus no one in it is real.]]
234** TheMaster himself is said to have a copy of none other than the infamous ''Necronomicon'' itself among many other horrible and sanity destroying pieces of literature.
235* The Book of Changes from ''Series/GhostWhisperer''.
236* ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'' had the Galaxy Book. Tellingly, our heroes found it answering a DistressCall from a ship whose crew had been wiped out be an unnamed monster. It might not be inherently evil, but it has the power to open a portal to the titular Lost Galaxy, a pocket dimension full of deadly space pirates. It also contains the history and location of other creatures and weapons that are nearly as dangerous.
237* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' features The Darkhold, one of the classic Marvel tomes.
238** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': It appears in Season 4. Like its comic book counterpart, the book is centuries old and completely indestructible. It is also able to alter its contents according to the skills of the reader, such as changing its text to their first language, and allowing modern-day engineers to create devices far beyond the technology from the book's original time period. It also [[GoMadFromTheRevelation drives readers insane]]. When necessity required ''someone'' to read the book to save Coulson and Fitz from being trapped between dimensions, the android AIDA volunteered since her processing power would withstand the information overload and she could be rebooted if anything went wrong. The book even [[PostmodernMagick changes its text to binary code for her]]. She saves the day, but it appears to have given her [[BecomeARealBoy real emotions]], overwhelming her and sending her off the rails. [[spoiler:Except not, as her seemingly erratic actions were at the order of her creator [[MadScientist Dr. Radcliffe]], who was [[TheCorruption corrupted]] by merely ''glimpsing'' the book's contents.]] In the season finale, it's explained that the Darkhold is able to defy all laws of physics and reality because it's from a different dimension of TheMultiverse.
239** The book comes back in ''Series/Runaways2017'', used by [[EvilSorcerer Morgan Le Fay]].
240** And again in ''Series/WandaVision'', used by [[spoiler:Agatha Harkness]]. And then by [[spoiler:Wanda herself]] (whose already fragile sanity is completely shattered by its effects) and [[spoiler: the titular doctor]] in ''Film/DoctorStrangeInTheMultiverseOfMadness''. This one is implied to be a copy, hence it's different look from the previous appearances. This one ''can'' be destroyed. However, the original writings are revealed to cover the inside of the temple of Cthon, the first demon, and the Darkhold itself merely a transcription of these.
241* The Book of Forbidden Knowledge in ''Series/ShoeboxZoo''. Its dark magic and science corrupts those around it.
242* ''Series/SleepyHollow'': Season 1, Episode 4, revolves around the heroes stopping a group of [[AncientConspiracy Hessians]] from retrieving the ''Lesser Key of Solomon'' an ancient text capable of opening a [[HellGate portal to Hell]] and unleashing the 72 demons [[SealedEvilInACan sealed]] there by King Solomon.
243** Several episodes near the end of Season 2 involve the ''Grand Grimoire'', a collection of extremely powerful dark magic gathered by John Dee (notably, not to be used, but so he could better understand and combat it). Among other things, it can open [[TimeTravel portals into the past]], or [[spoiler:awaken latent magical powers in otherwise normal people.]]
244* The finale of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', of all series, featured one of these. The fact that its pages remained blank until splattered with the blood of a murdered man really should have been a hint that the ritual it was going to be used for was not a good idea.
245* The Book of Pure Evil from ''Series/ToddAndTheBookOfPureEvil''.
246* ''Series/TruthSeekers'': The ''Praecepta Mortuorum'', a book made of human skin and written in human blood, contains forbidden spells that deal with human souls and human sacrifices.
247* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Gramma", Georgie finds the Necronomicon from which his grandmother, a powerful witch, gets her power. It contains several references to [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth]].
248* The crossover series ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'' has Twilight Chronicle [[labelnote:*]] 魔降臨暦, lit. ''Great Calamity Advent Calendar''[[/labelnote]], which records the ascension of time and space [[TheCaligula tyrant]], [[PhysicalGod Oma Zi-O]] and the events leading up to it. So all the spoilers for Zi-O and the Heisei era Kamen Rider seasons before, making it also a GreatBigBookOfEverything. Usually it's carried around by Woz, Oma Zi-O's AffablyEvil [[HammyHerald prophet]] and reffered to simply as ''the book'' or ''Woz's book''.
249[[/folder]]
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251[[folder:Pinball]]
252* As one would expect, ''VideoGame/{{Necronomicon}}'' is centered on the famous tome from the Franchise/CthulhuMythos.
253[[/folder]]
254
255[[folder:Podcasts]]
256* ''Podcast/TheMagnusArchives'' has a story arc about the library of Jurgen Leitner, which consisted of particularly nasty examples of this trope. The mention of his name in a statement is enough to make the usually-sceptical archivist immediately believe every word of the subject's story.
257* ''Podcast/{{Malevolent}}'' features a couple, most notably the tome that housed the mysterious Entity ([[spoiler:who later started going by John Doe]]), which directly causes the IncitingIncident of the story.
258* ''Podcast/OnTheThreshold'' has ''A Revelacao Preta'', which not only was derived from the notes of a Brazillian plantation owner who subjected his slaves to horrifying rituals and experiments to try to [[DealWithTheDevil appease dark powers]], but has since allegedly been found in the hands of cults and serial killers for centuries (though [[AgentScully the podcaster]] dismisses these as likely trumped up or coincidental. Still, one professor considers its English translation [[MundaneUtility a valuable work of comparative anthropology]], [[spoiler:before she starts reading it and then begins feeling stalked by unseen observers, experiences memory loss, and not long after dies under questionable circumstances.]]
259[[/folder]]
260
261[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
262* ''TabletopGame/ArkhamHorror'', being Franchise/CthulhuMythos TheBoardGame, features the usual library of eldritch tomes such as ''Unaussprechlichen Kulten'' or ''Literature/TheKingInYellow''. You generally burn movement points to read the tome, make a Lore check, and gain spells, skills, or some other benefit at the cost of sanity.
263* The ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' {{RPG}} has the typical Lovecraft library from the original stories, and a few additions of its own. And by ''a few additions'' we mean an entire sourcebook filled with half to two page descriptions of books both taken from other Mythos sources and invented outright. The major works generally include an ApocalypticLog hinting at what has happened to characters who came into contact with the book, a history of the book and the explicit effects both skimming and reading it have. Guess what the sourcebook is called...
264** The legendary Fanfic/OldManHenderson, a.k.a. "the only character to ever '''win''' ''Call of Cthulhu''", had a backstory that was an eldritch book of madness on par with anything from the universe of the game he was a character in (which was actually ''TabletopGame/TrailOfCthulhu'', but close enough). It was a massive {{Doorstopper}} clocking in at 320 pages, justifying all of Henderson's many skills in minute detail. It switched perspective and tone wildly, at one point switching to a script format with stage directions, and at another point switching to German. Henderson's player did not speak German, yet it was both written in his handwriting and grammatically flawless. The player claimed that he felt like did not create it, but that it already existed and was merely waiting for him to give it life. After the campaign was over, the player burned the only copy, claiming it was truly evil.
265* ''TabletopGame/CthulhuTech''
266** The game has a Tome of Eldritch Lore that was used to develop the setting's {{Magitek}}, [[BrownNote but all the scientists that worked on the project were driven stark raving mad]]. There is one subversion though, ''The Ta’ge Fragments'', which actually brought those who read it back to sense, realizing that bringing {{Eldritch Abomination}}s back to Earth wasn't such a good idea. And they made a HeelFaceTurn.
267** The world government actually produces and distributes copies of these in the black market. Why? [[GenreSavvy Because the ones they do are mostly neutered and have the really bad stuff in them taken out. By selling the neutered copies anyone stupid/insane enough to muck around with said tomes would first find those versions and stop looking.]] When someone finds a non-neutered copy or [[ThisIsGoingToSuck an original copy with things that even the later edition didn't dare put in.]]
268* As befits its tone, ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' has a few of these tucked away in its pages and pages of {{Splat}}books. The most "Eldritch Lore-y", though, would be the Whateley Family Bible, which — in addition to having the Family Tr... Shrub (don't ask) in the front pages — contains margin notes on how to perform all manner of dark arts. The irony of profaning a [[Literature/TheBible Holy Bible]] is not lost on the [[ItRunsInTheFamily misanthropic family]]. PlayerCharacter Whateleys, while assumed to be a moral cut above their NPC brethren (and cousins and uncles, some of which are the same people), can get a "pocket-sized" version, which contains less forbidden lore and can cause [[BrownNote panic in anyone attempting to translate it]]... whether they succeed or not!
269* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has had countless numbers of these over the years and editions, some of which serve as mere {{MacGuffin}}s for adventure modules, others as potent magical items characters can make use of. If one is of a magical turn of thought, caution should be taken when putting pen to paper.
270** The ''Book of Vile Darkness'' is a catalogue of dark knowledge and despicable deeds, expanded upon by a series of evil scholars over the millennia, leaving the book so tainted that nature abhors its presence and the tome gradually corrodes whatever it rests against. Evil characters can gain powerful abilities from studying it — and non-Evil characters run the risk of having their alignment flip to NeutralEvil by attuning to the thing — but the book demands constant acts of evil from its current bearer, and will disappear to find a new one if it isn't satisfied. Even if the tome is destroyed, it will eventually re-form somewhere in the multiverse AsLongAsThereIsEvil.
271*** The ''Book of Vile Darkness'' was in earlier editions of the game dedicated specifically to evil priests, with the ''Libram of Ineffable Damnation'' being a wizard-oriented companion artifact. {{Good Counterpart}}s of both books are the ''Book of Exalted Deeds'' and the ''Libram of Gainful Conjuration'', while the ''Libram of Silver Magic'' was intended for Neutral readers. Both the ''Book of Vile Darkness'' and ''Book of Exalted Deeds'' were eventually {{Defictionalized}} as sourcebooks for utterly evil and exceptionally good characters, respectively.
272** The ''Codex of the Infinite Planes'' is one of the oldest artifacts in ''D&D'', and one of the most powerful. Its lead sheets are bound in an obsidian cover, and the book is so large it takes two strong men to barely lift it. Those who study the tome can use its magic to summon mighty fiendish servants, raise the dead, or open a portal to any place on any plane, and prolonged use will eventually allow one to transcend mortality (sometimes [[AndIMustScream in the worst way]]). Unfortunately, disasters both natural and supernatural seem to follow the ''Codex'', and some who open it for the first time are instantly annihilated on the spot. The book is also sentient and subtly takes control of its "users," compelling them to expand its knowledge until they are drained husks pushed aside by the next to claim the ''Codex''.
273** The ''Black Scrolls of Ahm'' are a collection of artifacts concerned with demonic lore, the only records to survive the infamous Tulket nor Ahm's efforts to study the Abyss. They include the ''Abyssal Mundus'', a baroque bundle of maps of the Abyss, the ''rubric of Tulket nor Ahm'', containing pages of demonhide, and the ''transcriptions of Ergon'', fragments of notes assembled by Ahm's apprentice. Possessing some of the ''Black Scrolls'' grants passive bonuses to skills or saving throws, and access to powers like teleporting to a specific layer of the Abyss for a set duration or mimicking a demon's spell-like abilities, but each use of them has a small but cumulative chance of causing a demon to appear nearby and attempt to capture the artifact for destruction in the Abyss. To counteract that, the ''Black Scrolls'' are enchanted to have a chance to teleport away if a demon gets too close. There's an entire organization, the Black Cult of Ahm, dedicated to studying and protecting the ''Black Scrolls'', which brings them into conflict with both forces of the Abyss and those who view demon lore as inherently corrupting.
274** The ''Demonomicon of Iggwilv'' is a similar work, a tome by the archmage Iggwilv that chronicles Abyssal history, some of her new spells, even the histories and [[IKnowYourTrueName true names]] of demon lords.
275** The ''Black Scrolls'' and ''Demonomicon'''s devilish equivalent is the ''Codex of Betrayal'', a collection of four books, each with several dozen chapters, totaling multiple thousands of pages, written by the last follower of the God that was murdered and over thrown by [[{{Satan}} Asmodeus]]. It chronicles the history of the god, the war in heaven, and the creation of devils.
276** The ''Book of Keeping'' is not truly a magical tome, but still a ''dangerous'' one. This book contains information on summoning powerful yugoloths, even giving the true names of a few of them. No one knows who wrote it — given that the author would likely be the yugoloths' most hated enemy, they are likely no longer be alive. At least four copies of the ''Book'' exist, although some say as many as seven, and their owners tend to change frequently.
277** The various gods of magic have divine artifacts with this sort of reputation. Vecna's ''Tome of the Stilled Tongue'' contains instructions for creating a [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]]'s phylactery, assorted other spells, and mental exercises to improve spellcasting ability at the price of physical endurance, but the dessicated severed tongue nailed to its cover stresses the importance of keeping the Maimed God's secrets. Wee Jas has the ''Scrolls of Uncertain Provenance'', which contain magic for avoiding or even reversing death, but are written in every language imaginable — sometimes switching from one to another mid-sentence — and studying them runs the risk of driving the reader mad or even cursing them to exist as a ghost for a year and a day. The ''Tome of Ancient Lore'', supposedly "borrowed" from Boccob's library, has a deliberately confusing system of cross-referencing that seems to rearrange itself at will, but a reader has an excellent chance of finding ''any'' arcane spell they look for somewhere in the text.
278** In the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' setting, one of the most powerful (if not ''the'' most powerful) artifacts are ''The Nether Scrolls'', two sets of 50 scrolls made of gold or platinum sheets written by the mysterious [[{{Precursors}} creator races]]. While they are completely harmless by themselves, they contain a near-limitless amount of magical knowledge; no matter how many times the scrolls have been perused, there is always new information to be gained. In fact, the Netherese grew to be the most dominant magical empire ever known simply by the power of this artifact, with mages that were powerful enough to build [[FloatingContinent flying enclaves]] and at one point drain the power of the goddess of magic herself, although [[ColonyDrop that didn't end well for them]].
279** The ''Cyrinishad'' is a book written by the [[GodOfEvil god Cyric]], full of craps explaining how Cyric is the most awesome god ever and why you should worship him. Once you start, you can't stop voluntarily and you will become a devout worshiper of Cyric. That and alone isn't that dangerous by itself... except for the fact that it's potent enough to ''brainwash deities'' as easily as mortals. One of the reasons Cyric was a MadGod for a long time was because he read the book himself immediately after he finished writing it.
280* ''TabletopGame/{{Earthdawn}}''
281** Any book about the [[EldritchAbomination Horrors]] can potentially have bad effects on the person who reads it (including the ''[[{{Defictionalization}} Horrors]]'' source book), but probably the straightest example of a Tome of Eldritch Lore is the Book of Scales. According to legend, a group of powerful Horrors captured a dragon and forced it to write a history of the Horrors, using the dragon's own scales as pages and its own blood as ink. The dragon then scattered the scales as far apart as possible to minimize the damage. The Book of Scales allegedly contains valuable information that can be used to battle the Horror, but is so tainted that carrying around a single scale (not even reading it, mind you, just carrying it) will eventually drive a person mad.
282** The BackStory mentions the six Books of Harrow, which tell of the existence and powers of the Horrors. The first man to study them was found dying after ripping out his own eyes and holding them in the fire. Thus far, only one was fully translated; perhaps coincidentally, the Scouring happened a few hundred years later.
283* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has numerous examples, but the most infamous might be ''The Broken-Winged Crane''. How bad is it? It isn't even ''written'' yet; all the copies that exist are reverse engineered from the perfect version that comes into existence the day the world ends.[[note]]It should be noted that time travel is explicitly impossible in the ''Exalted'' setting. This has not stopped the imperfect copies from appearing well before the book is written.[[/note]] And seeing as the only canon character to have read the book is implied to have been abducted and {{mind rape}}d by archdemons, there's a very good chance the book ''causes'' it.
284* ''TabletopGame/FabulaUltima'' has the Tome of the Gate, a sinister book filled with incomprehensible eldritch scribbles and illustrations of disturbing entities. It can be used to ritualistically open a portal to a realm of cosmic horror during the night of a full moon.
285* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}''' ''Pyramid'' magazine had an article detailing ''Clay Bricks'' of Eldritch Lore which fit pretty much every aspect of this trope (unreadable, evil, drive you crazy) except that they're not actually books (being from before bound books were invented, or from cultures that never did).
286* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''
287** While most of them don't literally involve books (and conversely not all book-related cards in the game suffer from this, either), the game features its share of cards that play on the 'forbidden knowledge' theme by providing access to additional cards for a modest sacrifice in life points or cards already in hand or in play.
288** [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=geth%27s+grimoire&v=card&s=cname Geth's Grimoire]] deserves a mention for both being a book of evil knowledge (in this card's setting Geth is a powerful Black-aligned character,) and for [[AndIMustScream housing a conscious spirit that is in constant torturous agony due to said evil knowledge]]. The flavor text states that save for when the book is opened and presumably being read, the book is always shrieking, and mechanically the card activates off of an opponent discarding, which Black [[MindRape can force on others]].
289** With the release of the ''Innistrad'' set, based on gothic horror, it has an archetypal example: [[http://magiccards.info/isd/en/226.html Grimoire of the Dead]], whose playtest name was, in fact, "Necronomicon".
290* Appropriately, the Necronomicon features as a usable (by [[BadassBookworm Professors]] only) item in the ''TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}}'' expansion "Munchkin Cthulhu." As do Necronomicon parodies like the ''Necro'''comic'''on'', the ''Necro'''nookie'''con'' and the ''Necro'''telecom'''''.
291* A flavor text in the ''TabletopGame/{{Nobilis}}'' Third Edition rulebook says that [[FictionalDocument A Philosophy of Treason]], a book detailing the case for serving the Excrucians, has many fake copies that will remove the eyes of any who read and fill their eye sockets with worms. Oh, and the genuine article is almost as bad.
292* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', being an off-shoot of D&D, has its own version of the ''Book of Vile Darkness'' known as the ''Book of the Damned'', a repository of all evil knowledge in the planes. Its angelic author, Tabris, wanted to have as accurate an account as possible, so what did he do? [[spoiler:He corrupted a part of himself and put it into the tome so it would always update with the most recent information. This lead to the birth of [[EldritchAbomination The Voice of the Damned]], who guards the Book of the Damned zealously.]] This act got Tabris [[FallenAngel barred from Heaven]] as a result.
293** Fortunately, Tabris also wrote a ''good'' tome as well which chronicled the histories of the good-aligned forces called ''Chronicles of the Righteous''. He also wrote a supposedly neutral tome called ''Concordance of Rivals''.
294** [[TheArchmage Runelord]] Zutha, an extremely powerful [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]] from the ancient Thassilonian Empire, made his [[SoulJar phylactery]] into one of these, known as the ''Gluttonous Tome''. He split it into three parts when he foresaw [[ApocalypseHow Earthfall]], hoping his disciples could reassemble it and ressurect him afterwards. When Earthfall proved more devastating than anticipated, the parts of the book were lost for 10,000 years, until they resurfaced in the present day of the setting. One of the novels details some [[SarcasmMode very intelligent people]] trying to reunite the book fragments and restore Zutha; an adventure set after those events allows the players the opportunity to use one of the fragments to permanently get rid of him.
295* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}''
296** The Nine Books of Nagash the Necromancer, in which the first necromancer wrote out the secrets and nature of his dark art. The originals were destroyed, but there are some copies still lying around.
297** The ''Liber Chaotica'' (the Book of Chaos), a guide to all things Chaotic, with occasional referances to ''Warhammer 40,000''. As a different take on this trope, the writer was not trying to support Chaos, but was ordered by the [[ChurchMilitant Cult of Sigmar]] to compile it to help fight Chaos. Naturally the study of such subjects [[GoMadFromTheRevelation has a less than stellar effect on his mental health]].
298** ''Storm of Magic'' describes the Black Book of Ibn Naggazar, which is such a powerful repository of dark magic that its bearer will become the most talented Death and Shadow mage on the field, capable of turning two power dice into an apocalyptic display... but, at the same time, it eats ''a lot'' of the people around him, since it automatically claims a blood sacrifice for every spell cast, and will eat its wielder too if he doesn't keep it fed. [[WeHaveReserves It's very popular with Necromancers, Skaven mages and goblins.]]
299* These are one of the types of artifacts that can be found throughout the galaxy in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. They often draw the attention of treasure hunters, Inquisitors ([[KnightTemplar puritanical]] and [[WellIntentionedExtremist radical]]), and military forces trying to seize control of these artifacts for good or ill, and it's conceivable, even probable that battles or even wars broke out for control of these. However, it's more often that covert operatives are used to avoid drawing too much attention when someone makes a grab for one.
300** One of the most notable books is the ''Book of Lorgar'', penned by the [[PredecessorVillain Primarch Lorgar]] when he turned to Chaos and started laying the groundwork for the Literature/HorusHeresy, the Imperium's first and largest civil war. It's essentially a Bible of Evil, though it's implied to hold quite a bit of practical information, particularly on daemonology.
301** Another of the most notable books is the ''Book of Magnus'', penned by Lorgar's brother, the Primarch Magnus. Where Lorgar was a preacher, Magnus was a scholar and a wizard, so the Book of Magnus is a compendium of knowledge of Chaos, psychic mechanics, and sorcery.
302** Then in true 40k fashion, it goes [[ExaggeratedTrope overboard]] with the Black Library: an entire extradimensional stronghold full of forbidden lore, guarded by [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot space elf ninja clowns]] who worship a god that managed to trick other gods into '''eating each other'''. Named the Laughing God of course.
303* ''[[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness World of Darkness]]'':
304** ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' has numerous books called grimoires, where a mage inscribes all their knowledge of a spell (literally; it leaves their mind forever) so that others can learn it more easily; notably, the ''mage who wrote the grimoire'' can relearn it from that same book, and anyone who already knows the spell can use the book as a reference, making the spell easier to cast. Needless to say, some grimoires are less than wholesome, including: the book of the life of an Atlantean prophet that turns those who study it enough into a psychic clone of said prophet; a bestiary on [[EldritchAbomination Abyssal beings]] that leads the mage who reads it enough to believe that he's uncovered an important secret and that all his friends have turned on him; and the book that contains both normal spells and spells that draw upon the Abyss but doesn't tell you which are which. ''Grimoire of Grimoires'' is an entire sourcebook dedicated to these.
305*** The worst of these are ''The Final Spell Of Eli Ben-Menachem'', ''The Invisible Codex'', ''The Tome of Power'', and ''The Prince of 100,000 Leaves''. The first is a seemingly-sentient spell that teaches you how to summon reversed forms of [[EnemyWithin Goetia]] symbolizing reversed Virtues into your enemies' minds, which are actually [[EldritchAbomination Abyssal entities]] who ''[[EnemyWithout will]]'' [[EvilTwin escape]]. The second ''is'' an [[EldritchAbomination Abyssal creature]] in the form of a Tome of Eldritch Lore, which actually takes that form to lure power-hungry mages so it can eat their souls. The third is also a gulmoth, but the [[DealWithTheDevil tempting devil]] to the ''Codex's'' HoneyTrap, teaching its readers inherently [[BlackMagic Abyss-tainted]] versions of incredibly destructive magic designed specifically for them to have talent with, and when the mage is fully corrupted summons a different gulmoth to [[EvilMentor continue their education]]. The last is the [[SoulJar heart]] of an [[GeniusLoci Annunaki]], one of the living alternate universes that compose the Abyss, that takes the form of 100,000 pages detailing a twisted alternate history for the world, which will then proceed to become real — the catch is that it's not fully written or put together.
306*** Interesting subversion: The ''Ialdabaoth Codex'', besides being [[TheUnpronounceable incredibly hard to spell]], ''seems'' like it at first, being an Abyssal bestiary that gradually drives its readers to paranoia and the summoning of its contents... except that's the precise ''opposite'' of the book's intended function. It's actually a ''[[SealedEvilInACan prison]]'' for the various {{Eldritch Abomination}}s it describes (it scours the mind of its new prisoners and writes an entry based on its findings), and the madness is the result of them trying to get out. The writers of the book were actually pretty nice people, and a story hook presented involves reconstructing their [[PrestigeClass Legacy]].
307*** Not ''quite'' as bad as the others, but still quite thoroughly horrid, is the Hildebrandt Recording, a recording of a seance that contacted an entity of the Abyss. The disc is sometimes described as feeling tacky and unclean, the spells it can teach are profoundly disturbing at best, it brings misfortune to its holders, is actively sought out by profoundly vile individuals (whom it seems to actively influence), and on top of everything else, it ''should not exist.'' Hildebrandt should not have been able to even contact the entity, his equipment should not have been able to record its sounds, and for the recording to become a grimoire is just not possible, explicitly stated as such. It violates [[EldritchAbomination every principle of reality]] just by existing.
308** ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse''
309*** The game has the Chronicle of the Black Labyrinth which was written by an [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment insane Black Spiral Dancer Kinfolk]] describing the lore of the Wyrm. Reading it slowly corrupts the reader to the power of the Wyrm.
310*** An expansion book, ''Warriors of the Apocalypse'', includes a Bane character named Tsannik. His human host summoned him using an ill-gotten book of sorcery.
311[[/folder]]
312
313[[folder:Video Games]]
314* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': The Consortium is in possession of an ancient scroll called The Codex, which contains 12 chapters written in an ancient codified language. Its contents are a source of information and different hypotheses such as the existence and details regarding [[EldritchLocation Hinterland]]. Major corroborate findings from The Consortium informed them of a mythical weapon called [[ArtifactOfDoom The Artifact]], hidden away in Hinterland that might be the key to destroy LIMEN.
315* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'' has the Necromancy of Thay, a Necronomicon {{expy}} (face and all) detailing the practices of TheMagocracy known as Thay. The book is hidden underneath the Blighted Village, and the player has the choice of either deciding NoManShouldHaveThisPower and destroying it [[HolyBurnsEvil with radiant damage]] or reading it. If you choose to read it, you have to make [[GoMadFromTheRevelation progressively difficult Wisdom saves]] and you're rewarded with the Speak With Dead spell as well as a permanent bonus to Wisdom checks. [[spoiler:In Act III, using the Tharchiate Vigor book will allow them to read further and unlock the Danse Macabre spell to summon ghouls in combat.]]
316* ''Dr. Ludwig and the Devil'' has the Grand Grimoire, which contains everything humanly known about demons, hell and other related matters. Its only defect in Dr. Ludwig's eyes is that the cover happens to be sheepskin rather than the traditional human skin.
317* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
318** The eponymous Elder Scrolls themselves:
319*** The Scrolls combine this with being TomesOfProphecyAndFate. Referred to as "Fragments of Creation," the Scrolls are of unknown origin and number which simultaneously record past, present, and future events irrefutably; what did happen, what could have happened, what might yet happen. [[MindScrew Even the falsehoods in them are true]]. (''Especially'' the falsehoods, as is pointed out several times in the series.) To the untrained eye, the Scrolls will yield an odd chart that looks like it has constellations on it with odd glyphs printed over or under it. A knowledgeable reader will be able to interpret the Scrolls to a degree, but incompletely, and will be irrevocably struck blind. A well-trained reader, such as a member of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth, will glean much more from the Scroll and will even recover their eyesight... for a finite number of times before their sight is permanently lost. In all of these cases, reading the Scrolls tends to lead to madness for the user. Even those who merely ''study'' the Scrolls, never actually using or even handling them, are [[GoMadFromTheRevelation driven to complete madness]] with alarming regularity.
320*** The power of the Elder Scrolls is so great, their truths so irrefutable, that not even the machinations of a [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Prince]] can overcome them; that's how [[spoiler:the curse on the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal is broken]] in the ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' ThievesGuild questline. In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', you get to read one yourself to [[spoiler:gain knowledge of a [[MakeMeWannaShout Thu'um shout]] lost to time; it turns out you don't read the scroll, you see events happen as if the scroll was a window to another (possibly alternate) time]]. Trying to read the scroll outside of the [[RealityIsOutToLunch Time-Wound]] temporarily robs you of vision — and the reason you only suffer that much is because you have the soul of a being that exists partially outside of time, not unlike the Elder Scroll itself. Even the [[DragonsAreDivine dragons]] like Paarthurnax and [[BigBad Alduin]] himself fear the Elder Scrolls' power. Turns out that they don't just reveal events, they can [[RealityWarper alter reality]] as well; with no recourse left, the ancient Nordic heroes who faced Alduin invoked the power of an Elder Scroll to "cast Alduin out of time", postponing his reckoning until the age where ''Skyrim'' (the game, not the province) takes place. The residue from that event created the Time-Wound, mentioned above.
321*** As seen in ''Skyrim'', the glyphs on the Elder Scrolls match closely to those seen on the Eye of Magnus, an [[ArtifactOfDoom artifact of great and mysterious power]] connected to Magnus, the god of magic and "architect" of Mundus. This has led to the theory that the scrolls are related to that event (and their alternative name, "Fragments of Creation", further lends credence).
322*** In ''Skyrim'''s ''Dawnguard'' DLC [[spoiler:you undergo the same ritual Moth Priests go through to be able to read an Elder Scroll after the Moth Priest you rescued goes blind after reading one without the necessary precautions. After reading the Scroll you are none the worse for wear, likely because as the [[SemiDivine Dragonborn]], your [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Aedric]] [[OurSoulsAreDifferent soul]] protected you from the normal side-effects]].
323** The Mysterium Xarxes, an artifact of [[OmnicidalManiac Mehrunes Dagon]], the Daedric Prince of [[PersonOfMassDestruction Destruction]]. The ''Oblivion'' script notes actually call for Martin, the most knowledgeable major character on the subject, to react as if given "a handful of glowing plutonium" when he receives the Xarxes. It's just that sort of book.
324** The Oghma Infinium, which translates to "infinite wisdom" in [[ClassicalTongue Old Aldmeris]], is bound in humanoid skin and is an artifact of [[EldritchAbomination Hermaeus Mora]], the Daedric Prince of Knowledge (with a particular specialty in [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow Eldritch]] knowledge).
325** ''Skyrim'''s ''Dragonborn'' DLC introduces the Black Books, which are more or less the Oghma Infinium's little brothers. Reading them teleports you to Apocrypha, the Daedric Plane of Hermaeus Mora, via black tentacles that come out of the book in search of a new power. Like many of the other examples here, it drives most mortals insane. The Dragonborn, however, gains power in the form of spell buffs, shout buffs, and skill increases.
326** ''Online'' introduces a subdued example in the ''Necrom'' chapter with the tomes used by Arcanists. Like the Infinium and Black Books, they're books (or, at least, Creatia that takes the form of books) from Apocrypha. However, they bind themselves to a given Arcanist and will only lend their powers and insights to their chosen Arcanist.
327* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' revolves around the stories of TheChosenMany of [[EldritchAbomination Mantorok]], as written in the eponymous Tome of Eternal Darkness; to unlock new chapters, [[PlayerCharacter Alexandra]] has to find missing pages. The book itself is larger than a dictionary, bound in human hide and detailed with shrunken bones, and remains hidden in an [[EldritchLocation extradimensional room full of statues and with a floor of screaming faces, held inside a huge skeletal hand]]. Anyone who gains access to the Tome can read it regardless of language and literacy level and possession of it allows for use of [[InstantRunes rune-based magicks]]. The Tome also works as a LoreCodex, and in a nice bit of GameplayAndStoryIntegration, it [[DiegeticInterface serves as the menu system]].
328* ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}''
329** A couple of optional quests in ''VideoGame/FableII'' have the Normanomicon, the book of the extremely dead. Said quest is a touch underwhelming, as it mostly involves getting the book back from a bunch of undead mooks that two bumbling brothers (Max and Sam) have accidentally summoned.
330** The book returns in ''VideoGame/FableIII'' with a more interesting quest line, which involves getting the book for the ''ghosts'' of the two brothers from the last game, and one of them going mad with power.
331* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has the Krivbeknih and some other unnamed tome, part of a ShoutOut side quest in both the Point Lookout expansion and the original game, respectively.
332* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''
333** The ''Gran Grimoire'' in the ''Ivalice Alliance'' miniseries. In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', it's a magickal tome that transforms the sleepy town of St. Ivalice into the actual Ivalice. In ''VideoGame/VagrantStory'', it's not a book per se — every stone in the city of Leá Monde is inscribed with ancient Kildean runes, turning the city into the ultimate codex of magick.
334** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', you can get two Grimoires, titled Togail and Aidhed, from certain creatures you kill. Their descriptions say that they contain spells respectively capable of [[ApocalypseHow destroying Ivalice]] and snuffing out all life; to you, they only serve as ShopFodder.
335* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' has the "Tomegathericon" an item which allows the party member who equips it to take the "Dark Mage" classes, and grants powers such as attacking with hellfire, summoning demons and raising zombies. Curiously, the tome is given to the party by a benevolent animistic deity, who asks that they safeguard it until the witch doctor of the tribe that worships the deity has matured enough to be worthy of receiving it (witch doctor also being a benevolent role, when not occupied by an irresponsible teenage apprentice). [[ShoutOut Note that it was actually called Necronomicon in Japanese.]]
336** Its English name is also a ShoutOut, and [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast pretty ominous in its own right]]; "Omega Therion" is the [[BilingualBonus Greek name]] of The Beast in the [[Literature/TheBible Book of Revelations]].
337* The various magical tomes from ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire''. With every new GroundhogDayLoop cycle Lillet goes through, they become even more powerful, until she's capable of summoning dragons, golems, and arch-demons.
338* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series has the Three Ancient Tomes. They contain extremely powerful and forbidden magic, and can drive their readers mad. If someone is both smart and stable enough to read and comprehend it without going insane, they will still become detached from the world, realising that humanity is insignificant of the cosmic scale.
339** The most notable one is Émigré Manuscript, a book so evil, it's shaped as a skull. Its magic can bring someone BackFromTheDead, something attempted in all four games of the series. Unfortunately, most attempts end up as grotesque {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. It also can control time and grant eternal life.
340** Pulse Tract is used to summon a god from the soul of the Earth. It's known as Seraphic Radiance, and when it appears it destroys all of Shanghai, and then [[spoiler:subjects our hero to The Mother of All {{Mind Rape}}s]].
341** [[ShoutOut R'lyeh]] Text (mistranslated as "Codex of Lurie" in the first game) can be used to reactivate an extraterrestrial beacon to [[spoiler:summon a godlike alien from 4800000 lightyears away. These aliens are so powerful, they are described as being as far above humanity as humanity is above insects. One of them serves as the first game's final boss, and is referred to as "Meta-God"]].
342* ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' has the Dark Prognosticus. The game's intro states that "The book held frightful secrets not meant for people's eyes." Later in the game, it's revealed that [[spoiler:Lord Blumiere was reborn as StrawNihilist Count Bleck]] upon first opening the book.
343** There's a reason nobody was supposed to look at it: opening the book sets in motion [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt The End Of All Worlds As We Know It]], and makes you continue flipping pages until all worlds end.
344*** The Dark Prognosticus is said to know everything that has happened or will happen, with the end of the world fittingly being recorded at the end of the book. According to lore, wars have even been fought over the book, [[ShaggyDogStory only to realize]] [[TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat the book had said wars documented already]].
345*** And, perhaps even worse, the Dark Prognosticus is ''not'' destroyed or locked up at the game's end. It's simply stated to have "faded back into history".
346** Another book, the Light Prognosticus, was written later. Unlike its darker cousin, this one predicts Mario & Co. stopping the end of everything.
347** To a minor degree, the Ghost's Diary in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor''. The book itself will not kill you for opening it, but his owner asks you to not read it. And if you do read it, he ''will'' know immediately. And he will ''not'' [[NonstandardGameOver be happy about it]].
348* ''[[Manga/TouhouSuzunaanForbiddenScrollery Forbidden Scrollery]]'' of the VideoGame/{{Touhou}} series is entirely about these books; it's even in the title. Kosuzu Motoori is a human bookseller and lender who collects them and has the magical ability to read them. Most of the relevant ones have youkai sealed inside. Or give birth to youkai by making you think about them. Or are youkai themselves, in book form.
349** Also, the Grimoire of Alice, which is always sealed up. The one time Alice used the book, she jumped from a 3rd stage boss into a {{Superboss}}. However, she hasn't used it since then.
350* Books of dark magic and eldritch lore appear in VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} games. Notable ones include the ''Book of Medivh'', which was used to summon the demon lord Archimonde, the ''Compendium of Shadows'', and ''Lexicanum Demonica'', which is said to contain the name of every demon in existance.
351* The Book of Condemnation in ''VideoGame/SuikodenV'' and Alhazred, the recruitable character who is looking for it.
352* In ''Shadow of the Comet'', the player gets to read a few pages of the Necronomicon, although he's been warned that it would drive him crazy. (he can't move forwards in the plot without doing so) Apparently, it's safe to read it as long as you don't take it away from the room it was stored in.
353* "Fragments of the Book of Abdul" and "De Vermis Mysteriis" in the original ''VideoGame/AloneInTheDark''. The first one hurts Carnby, the latter is instant death, unless [[spoiler:you stand in the pentagram to read it]].
354* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' has the Cookbook of the Damned, for Pastamancers to conjure infernal pastas directly from Hey Deze. The Necrotelicomnicon is also there ([[ShoutOut also known in Latin as the Liber Paginum Fulvarum]].)
355-->"Legend has it that the mad Arab Al Aksandir Garambel wrote it after he was driven insane by his very first summoning, a terrifying entity known only as Wa'tz'ynn."
356* In the ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' RPG, all the books are present, from The Book of Eibon to The Necronomicon. Books will give you knowledge of the occult, but also cause permanent Sanity loss.
357* In the Lovecraftian-style InteractiveFiction game ''Videogame/{{Anchorhead}}'', there are (appropriately) several evil artifacts, including a Tome of Eldritch Lore. Tip for players: ''don't read it.''
358* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'', the summoner Claus main weapons are books, including the Necronomicon, Liber Ivonis, Requiem (for Shaggai), The King in Yellow, Celaeno fragments, and pretty much any other fictional grimoire from the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. The GBA version has alternative spellings (or poor translations) of said books. Also, these books apparently weigh a ton, since Claus can use them to smack around monsters.
359* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendIII'', the wizard Shar can use the Tablet to free the people of Pureland from the Master's power. Since the whole game is a ShoutOut to the Cthulu Mythos, it's most likely the Necronomicon. In the original Japanese it's a "Goblin corpse".
360* In a nod to the ''D&D'' examples listed above, ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' has a book called the ''Grimoire of Pestilential Thought''. Not only will it offer to teach spells in exchange for the main character doing increasingly awful deeds, it can also offer 'advice' which has a very good chance of making the main character more evil just from hearing it.
361* The ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series has a few of these — in fact there's an entire school of magic that is dedicated to using the magic in these kind of tomes, the aptly named "Dark" magic (Although, because DarkIsNotEvil, but many think it is, some good dark-wielders call it "Elder magic".) Effects from delving deep into the dark arts often includes insanity and corruption — whereas the spells themselves are known for having interesting effects such as; Stealing one's life force (Nosferatu), Summoning a horde of voracious insects (Swarm), Exposing someone's soul to the torment of hell ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Hell]]), making someone [[PinkMist explode in a shower of blood]] (Balberith)... but the most true to the form of this trope would be the tome of Loptyr in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'' — a book containing the power of a [[ChildEater Child-Eating]] Dark God. Upon reading it, [[FinalBoss Prince Julius]] went completely insane, murdered his mother (he tried to kill his [[TheCutie adorable]] [[MysteriousWaif sister]] too, but she was warped away before he could)... its effect: Halving the stats of anyone who challenges the wielder, unless said opponent is wielding the tome's opposite number, [[GameBreaker Naga]])
362* ''VideoGame/JetsNGuns Gold Edition'' features the Necrofilicon, a book with such horrible grammar, reading any part of it out loud will awaken the dead in the immediate area.
363* Although ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania 64}}'' and it's remake, ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaLegacyOfDarkness Legacy of Darkness]]'', have the Necronomicon as their Main Menus, the book itself does not appear in either game.
364* The "CTHULHU discs" in ''VideoGame/TwilightHeroes'' serve this function in the digital age.
365* Loosely based on Franchise/CthulhuMythos, several tomes are appear in ''VisualNovel/{{Demonbane}}''. In unusual fashion, the original copy of each grimoire [[MoeAnthropomorphism appear as a young girl]] instead of a book (and Necronomicon is the heroine nonetheless).
366* In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'', the In-Laqetti. Somewhat deconstructed in which the entire thing's a sham-but the rumors sparked by its release aren't, which jibe with [[CityOfAdventure Sumaru City's]] powers to bring all of them into reality.
367* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', the Scripture of Miroku. It details how to end the world and bring a new one into reality.
368** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' puts a twist on this trope: The Black Samurai hands out "Literature" that enriches people with knowledge beyond what exists in the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, but also drives them insane, turning them into demons. [[spoiler:It's ''modern Japanese literature'', and the transformation is the result of them [[GoMadFromTheRevelation going mad from realizing there is a better life outside of their kingdom]].]]
369* The Gozerian Codex in ''VideoGame/GhostbustersTheVideoGame'' is one of these. The boss of the area uses four copies of it.
370* The events of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair'' take place in the Grimoire, a book chronicaling the collective history of the namesake dwelling of Dracula.
371* In the Mage Towers level of ''[[VideoGame/{{Thief}} Thief: The Dark Project]]'', some documents mention a rogue necromancer's attempt to locate the dreaded "Book of Ash". As it turns out, [[spoiler:this book can in fact be found in the sequel. From what the player can see it contains rituals in Lovecraft-speak, and has a rather nasty fate in store for anyone who reads it.]]
372* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'' has three: the Grand Grimoire, the Necronomicon, and the Book of Annihilations, all of which can do nasty stuff to inexperienced casters if they try to read them.
373* The eponymous Book of Shadows in the second ''VideoGame/CorpseParty'' game. May or may not be sentient.
374* ''VideoGame/CliveBarkersUndying'': What started the curse.
375* In ''VideoGame/AWitchsTale'', Liddell wanted to find a powerful spellbook to become a great witch. She found the spell, but also unsealed the Eld Witch.
376* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfHorror'', Toshiaki Wakamatsu has a unique item: the Necronomicon, an ancient book that the cultists in his school's club were using to summon the Old Gods, which he stole in the hopes of preventing the end of the world. It starts off with one spell, with up to five more acquired as he levels up: "Aura of Azal-Hoth" (reduces DOOM by 10% when completing a mystery), Krootky's Kill (defeats enemies instantly while increasing DOOM by 15%), F'Thoth Flash (reduces DOOM by 3% in exchange for 15 EXP), Shebbe's Surge (increases all stats by 1 until the end of the mystery while increasing DOOM by 5%), Rage of Ragh-Zull (increases damage inflict on enemies by 1 until the end of the mystery while increasing DOOM by 6%), and Cure of Cthur-Izto (restores 3 Stamina and Reason while increasing DOOM by 7%).
377* ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'': Blood-based magic attacks use a book as a focus, so it's apparent that these tomes are not normal. Especially the ones from hell that looks like Cthulhu fucked a book.
378* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' has multiple that appear in library rooms:
379** The [[StatusBuff damage boosting]] Book of Belial which increases the chance of a DealWithTheDevil,
380** The [[WhiteMagic Book of Revelations]], which gives you a soul heart and forces a Horseman of the Apocalypse to fight you instead of a normal floor boss,
381** The [[OneHitPolyKill Necronomicon]], which kills all the enemies in the room.
382** The [[HomingProjectile Telepathy for Dummies]], which gives you homing shots for a room.
383** The [[InvincibilityPowerup Book of Shadows]], which grants 5 seconds of invincibility.
384** And in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Rebirth]]'', [[YouHaveResearchedBreathing How to Jump]] makes an appearance.
385* In the [[UpdatedRerelease Final Mix]] version of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Sora and Co. discover a book in the Underworld titled "Absent Silhouettes". Said book is also [[PowerFloats floating in midair]], [[SigilSpam decorated with the Nobodies' symbol]] and [[ObviouslyEvil surrounded by an aura of dark energy]]. [[spoiler:Subverted once you examine it, though; it's actually not a book, but [[{{Superboss}} Zexion's Absent Silhouette]], taking the form of [[ThrowTheBookAtThem his weapon]].]]
386** Several of Zexion's lexicons in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]'' at the very least have names that invoke this trope such as "Cursed Manual", "Eldritch Esoterica" and "Indescribable Lore".
387* The Codex Umbra utilized by Maxwell in ''VideoGame/DontStarve''. It can summon shadows of various sorts. In-game, it creates a doppelganger of Maxwell to work alongside him, at the cost of sanity and some Nightmare Fuel. In the backstory, however, its consequences are far more dire...
388* ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': A few of these pop up among the spellbooks you can find for your teachers to interpret. The Deep Divine Tome and the Londor Divine Tome both terrify Irina of Carim; she'll reluctantly interpret them for you if you ask, but if you do, she'll eventually be corrupted to the point that she can't even interact with you anymore, constantly talking about "little creatures that never stop biting in the darkness". Cornyx of the Great Swamp will outright refuse to touch the Grave Warden Pyromancy Tome, recognizing its inherent darkness. Karla will interpret any of the dark tomes for you with no negative consequences (she's already heavily associated with darkness), though she ''really'' doesn't like looking at Divine Tomes, dark or not.
389** For bonus points, Karla is a [[HumanoidAbomination Child Of Dark]] [[TheRemnant whose day has come and gone]]; she can provide a non-sanity-destroying translation because [[DidYouJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu horrific truths about the cosmos are her bread and butter]].
390* ''The Book of Claws'' from ''VideoGame/TheyBleedPixels'' constantly drips blood and causes the main character to have nightmares where the game takes place. At the end of the game we see [[spoiler:that the school library is full of them.]]
391* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' has a couple of examples that develop during world generation. Slabs containing the [[IKnowYourTrueName true name]] of a demon, or slabs containing the secrets of [[{{Necromancy}} life and death]] can be created by deities, and the art of necromancy can spread further by being copied into books.
392* A fair chunk of the gameplay of ''VideoGame/CultistSimulator'' consists of buying these from Morland's shop, stealing them from Strathcoyne's library, and studying them to turn them into snippets of lore.
393** The various books you read can, besides eldritch lore, occasionally give you Fascination or Dread, which may lead you down a SanitySlippage or a DespairEventHorizon respectively
394* The Necronomicon makes an appearance in ''VideoGame/GraveyardKeeper''. Unlike many other examples, you have to retrieve it from the hands of [[spoiler:an illiterate Lighthouse Keeper, who enjoyed the pictures inside.]]
395* In ''VideoGame/KingdomComeDeliverance'' the Necronomicon is a quest item found in the Cabinet of Forbidden Books in the Benedictine monastery at Sasau.
396* Oleander from ''VideoGame/ThemsFightinHerds'' has the “Unicornomicon”, a cursed and forbidden book which contains a variety of dark magic spells as well as a demonic entity known as FHTNG.
397* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'' has the appropriately named ''From the Far Reaches of Hell'' in Cyrus's story. Ostensibly a book about necromancy, it is in truth about [[spoiler:the fallen god Galdera's power over life and death, and contains dreadful secrets such how to obtain great power and immortality at the cost of other people's lives using BloodMagic.]] The book's mere existence poses a great threat because of the knowledge it contains, and Cyrus has decide whether or not to destroy the book and its knowledge forever to keep it away from those who would abuse it.
398* ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'''s DLC, "Love, Guns and Tentacles" has a sidequest that parodies it with the Nibblenomicon: the cookbook of the damned.
399* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': Within Merasmus the Magician's castle lies the Bombinomicon, an eldritch tome of... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin bombs]]. A young Demoman attempts to read it, only for the Bombinomicon to possess the Demoman's left eye and turn it into [[{{Oculothorax}} MONOCULUS!]]. When it makes its in-game appearance in the 2012 Scream Fortress event, it turns out he [[VocalDissonance talks like an Italian used car salesman]] and is actually pretty affable, even helping the mercs fight Merasmus by [[ActionBomb giving them bomb-heads]] to stun him.
400* ''VideoGame/{{Blaseball}}'' had the first season conclude with an election decree that opened of the "Forbidden Book". This was immediately followed by a solar eclipse, the umpires' eyes turning white, a player being spontaneously incinerated, and Hellmouth swallowing Moab, heralding the start of the DISCIPLINE ERA. (Most of the Book is redacted, but just enough is readable to be seriously worrying.)
401* ''VisualNovel/MonsterProm'' has the [[spoiler:Totem of Z'Gord, the sacred book of an eldritch deity also known as the Ruler of the Dark Realms.]] It is used in a secret ending to [[spoiler:unleash the Dark God on the world and destroy all of monsterkind as a "prank."]]
402* The end of the first act of ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' has Max, while closing in on Jack Lupino, coming across his collection of occult books, such as "Necronomicon", "Witchcraft", "Literature/ParadiseLost", the "Literature/MalleusMaleficarum" and "De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis", as well as stacks of horror videos and Ouija boards. Subverted in that the books don't contain any kind of dark magic at all, but are a sign that Lupino has become obsessed with the occult and has lost his mind due to being hopped up on [[FantasticDrug Valkyr]].
403-->'''Max Payne:''' The only thing I could take seriously was the thought of Lupino taking it seriously. He'd been spending a lot of time getting intimate with the guy downstairs.
404[[/folder]]
405
406[[folder:Web Comics]]
407* The Necronomicon was parodied in the {{webcomics}} ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' and ''Webcomic/MegaTokyo'' with the Necrowombicon, with Penny's wombat logo on its cover.
408* ''Webcomic/UserFriendly'' mentions a Necronomicon in one strip, but it turns out it's just [[strike:Cthulhu's resume]] a speaking engagement contract for Cthulhu.
409* The {{webcomic}} ''Webcomic/AMiracleOfScience'' has ''Crank Theories Of Robotics'', one of a number of books which can infect susceptible persons with ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder, essentially an idea-disease that turns you into a MadScientist.
410%%* The plot of the webcomic ''Webcomic/ZebraGirl'' starts with one of these.
411* Played straight in the Lovecraftian DieselPunk webcomic ''[[http://strangeaeons.comicdish.com Even Death May Die!]]'' Here the actual Necronomicon is the MacGuffin for the Nazi villains and PulpMagazine-styled heroes.
412%%* Parodied in [[http://www.pbfcomics.com/130/ this]] ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship'' strip.
413* The ''Book of E-Ville'' in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', which is hinted to have power and backstory far more significant than its cutesy title suggests. Also {{downplayed}} and [[ParodiedTrope parodied]] with the ''Book of Ro'thar-Niece'', the counterpart of the ''Book of E-Ville'' in an alternative [[SugarBowl dimension where everything is so good and peaceful]] that the worst descriptor they can apply to things is "rather nice". [[spoiler:The DestroyerDeity, K'Z'K, is a SealedEvilInACan locked within The Book of E-Ville. While the world is ''intended'' to be destroyed every so often as part of a cycle, K'Z'K has no respect for the appointed time, so The Book was intended to keep him locked away in the meantime. The Book was originally intended to disguise it's true nature by being filled with nothing but useless spells to make it look like a JokeItem, but K'Z'K played to the ego of one of the book's keepers and got her to fill it with lots of dangerous spells that could end the world even without K'Z'K's help.]]
414%%* ''Webcomic/TheCallOfWhatever'' took a humorous approach to the Necronomicon.
415%%* ''Thingpart'': [[http://www.jsayers.com/thingpart/thingpart117.html "Profound Impact."]]
416* The Datasphere of ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater''. What else it can do is a little vague (BM looked into it once as RM mentioned "knockers" and apparently the experience was "very soft"), but when Red Mage took a long look at it without interruption, he gained the knowledge of how to destroy anything that could ever exist. [[spoiler:Sarda powered on the four orbs]] apparently ''couldn't'' exist, so what appeared to be a masterful {{plan}} turned into a BatmanGambit that nearly ended the world. Only a nine-year-old brick joke saved the world from [[spoiler:Chaos]].
417* Rose from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has the "Grimoire for summoning the [[EldritchAbomination zoologically dubious]]".
418** She refused to use it as her weapon because it sounded like a bad idea. [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002197 However,]] that didn't prevent her from using it in alchemy to make the [[ArtifactOfDoom Thorns of Oglogoth]], which she does use as weapons even though no sane person should.
419%%* ''Webcomic/DorkTower'' [[http://www.dorktower.com/2006/06/23/comics-archive-799/ lovecraft is]]
420%%* Tomey[[spoiler:Malevolum]], Fuchsia's gift to Criminy in ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', can be considered both this and BooksThatBite.
421%%* [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2006-10-01 And Lil' Evil has both the Necronomicon and the Origin of Species.]]
422* The Necronomicon in ''Webcomic/CthulhuSlippers'' knows the email addresses of every EldritchAbomination working at [[MegaCorp Cthulhu Corp]].
423** There was an attempt at mass-producing an abridged version, "[[http://cthulhuslippers.com/comic/my-first-necronomicon/ My First Necronomicon]]", but it was less "devour the innocent" evil and more "show your wife [[TheInternetIsForPorn your browser history]]" evil. After it switched [[MustHaveCaffeine Hastur's]] coffee for [[ThisMeansWar decaf]], it was recalled and all volumes incinerated.
424* ''Webcomic/ExterminatusNow'' had the Necrotelenomicon in one arc, a book made from its author that was apparently like a phone book of the Immaterium. A cult was attempting to use it to resurrect their god, but they couldn't translate it and even attempting to read it made their eyes bleed. Virus and Rogue retrieved it from them by allowing them to scan some pages and run them through an online translator, reasoning that whatever it spat out would be completely useless.
425* Meta-example: ''Webcomic/BookOfLies'' is a collection of short horror stories. The comic itself is meant to be the Tome.
426* ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'': Ms. Green ends up buying one of these at a store in a village of bacteria. It's chained up.
427* Yu Zi Uwuud in ''Webcomic/CrimsonKnights'' is an old grimoire filled with dark magic spells and rituals. Only a few remaining copies of the book are known to exist, all centuries old.
428* A comedic variation in ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'', where the scroll of ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow causes heads to explode... if they're men. Women who read it are not only fine, they gain insight into the male mind ([[http://comic.nodwick.com/?comic=2001-11-21 such that one had a fit of laughter and couldn't stop cracking up on seeing a man, knowing what he was sensitive about]]).
429* ''Webcomic/HeroesOfHomeroomC'': Damien owns a Necronomicon, which has glowing green eyes, and a glowing green mouth. It's also a sentient, living being capable of speech.
430* ''Webcomic/BloodIsMine'': ''Geoangular Control'' is a book about magic and rituals that call upon the power of various eldritch monstrosities.
431[[/folder]]
432
433[[folder:Web Original]]
434* The Necronomicon and ''The King in Yellow'' exist in the Literature/WhateleyUniverse, as does The First Book of the Kellith. Unfortunately for the future of said universe, that particular book was actually published as a horror novel, and it was a best seller.
435* [[Website/SCPFoundation SCP Foundation]]: [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-140 SCP-140]] is a modern hardcover book entitled ''A Chronicle of the Daevas'', detailing the history of the Daevites, an ancient, extinct, and preternaturally evil human civilization. Readers find the contents simultaneously repulsive and fascinating, but the worrying part is that it absorbs any ink (or, preferably, human blood) it comes in contact with to expand and rewrite its contents, and the ''really'' worrying part is that those expansions [[{{Retconjuration}} alter history to match]], with new artifacts and ruins appearing in old dig sites. When first discovered, the book stated that the Daevites had been wiped out around 200 BCE by Qin Shi Huang; now the book says they were only temporarily defeated, and that the Daevites continued to thrive until Genghis Khan crushed them, some 1,400 years later. Worst of all, there are multiple copies of the ''Chronicle'' out there, and any one of them that expands itself updates all the rest. The Foundation is ''very'' interested in finding out where these other copies are before the Daevites can retroactively insert themselves into the modern era.
436** Turned on its head with [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-6140 SCP-6140]]: [[spoiler:The entire story of the country of necromancers and flesh sorcerers was the invention of a racist English author, who felt the actual history of Daevastan was woefully boring compared to their bloody myths, and basically wrote the book by stretching some legendarily horrible incidents and extrapolating them into a civilization where they were the norm, instead of the catalyst to have the perpetrators immediately removed from power. The author then used unknown magic to wipe out the real country and allow his fantasy version to leak into reality. However, when the disciples of said civilization finally completed the ritual to bring "the True Empire" forth, they only succeded in releasing the real Daevastan, a perfectly normal Central Asian republic with a colorful mythology.]]
437* ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' has the Absent Grimoire, which told of several [[EldritchAbomination outer gods]] such as the Entity and the King of Worms.
438* ''WebAnimation/{{Dreamscape}}'': [[spoiler:Vampire Lord discovers one called 'Worlds of Darkness', written by ''Melinda'', in his bookshelf. This is what clues him in that his "humble" home is actually Melinda's castle, which had somehow been transported to the Underworld.]]
439* Part of ''Adventure Is Nigh'''s Dabarella's backstory is that she read a necromancer's spellbook after mistaking it for a cookbook. She was looking for cookie recipies.
440[[/folder]]
441
442[[folder:Western Animation]]
443* The first Franchise/CareBears movie has a book that might have been considered a plain old spellbook, were it not for the fact that it [[SealedEvilInACan also contains]] the ''[[NightmareFuel head of a malevolent spirit]]'' that coaxes its owner to cast more and more evil spells.
444* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'' had Dave take up cooking and finding what turns out to be an eldritch cookbook that produces angry sentient food. Then he decides to take up knitting and finds an eldritch knitting guide, and the episode ends with the family being chased by a giant, angry ball of yarn.
445* {{Subverted|Trope}} in an ''WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim'' episode "The Book of Doom", in which the "most evil book in the universe" is revealed to be Fuzzy Wuzzy's Funny Animal Pop-Up Book. [[DoubleSubversion Doubly subverted]] in that a few copies turned out to have accidentally been printed with a page explaining how to destroy the universe, just after the pudgy-wudgy hippo.
446* Kyle, a 12-year-old boy wizard from ''WesternAnimation/FanboyAndChumChum'', wields the Necronomicon.
447* The plot of ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' started when Dipper found Journal #3, and it's later revealed [[EnfantTerrible Gideon Gleeful]] has Journal 2 and [[spoiler:Grunkle Stan]] has Journal 1. The journals contain relatively innocuous information, [[GreatBigBookOfEverything cataloging the various supernatural phenomena around the town]]. However, they also contain things like a spell to summon [[OurZombiesAreDifferent a horde of zombies]], schematics for an interdimensional portal, and most dangerous of all, the instructions to summon [[GreaterScopeVillain Bill Cipher]]; The identity of the writer is another one of the mysteries the main cast tries to discover, but turns out the writer is benevolent and [[spoiler:it's revealed to be Ford Pines, brother of Grunkle Stan]].
448* ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse1983'' and ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'' had a few of these, including a spellbook that would summon Daimar the Demon, in the He-Man episode "Daimar the Demon", and the Ancients' Book of Spells in "A Bird in the Hand". In the She-Ra series, Shadow Weaver got ahold of the Eldritch Book of Spells in "The Eldritch Mist". Then Madam Razz had to locate the Nameless Glowing Book to find a spell to get She-Ra out of the Sixth Dimension in "Three Courageous Hearts".
449* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
450** In the episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E23InspirationManifestation Inspiration Manifestation]]", the book that Spike finds with the spell to help Rarity is hidden in the old Everfree Castle, hidden by a secret wall, behind a locked gate, and on a rock stairway that immediately crumbles when the book is removed from the pedestal. It's made of stone and even has spikes sticking out of the cover. The only spell actually used from it, the titular Inspiration Manifestation, gives Rarity the power to create or "improve" anything she imagines — at the cost of [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity slowly turning her into a megalomaniac]] [[MadArtist determined to transform the world into an artistic masterpiece.]]
451** In the episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS9E17TheSummerSunSetback The Summer Sun Setback]]", to utilize Grogar's Bewitching Bell, Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow break into the restriced section of the Canterlot archives, where they found a chained-up book containing all the information they needed to master it. It even had detailed pictures showing the spells that enabled the Bell to steal a creature's magic and give it to another.
452* ''WesternAnimation/RandyCunninghamNinthGradeNinja'': The Ninjanomicon, while usually acting as a GreatBigBookOfEverything for Randy, also contains great powers and horrible things that can be unleashed in the wrong hands, like the Necronomicon it's named after.
453* In ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'' the Necronomicon and The Nameless Book both fit the bill.
454-->'''Peter:''' I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's just a book!
455-->'''Ray:''' And an atomic bomb is just a couple of rocks slammed together.
456** In the episode ''Russian About,'' Ray mentions that writers like Creator/HPLovecraft and Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith read The Nameless Book for story ideas, but since it's too dangerous for him to read everything he knows about it comes second-hand.
457* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
458** The show parodied it in the first Treehouse of Horror episode, where one segment features an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's "Literature/TheRaven". When the line about reading the quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore comes around, we find Homer reading a book titled "Forgotten Lore, Volume III".
459** In another episode, Lisa is cleaning out the garage and finds a thick leather bound book. She begins to read the Latin and behind her, a demon begins to form. However the horror is foiled when she tosses the book aside in favor of Mad Libs.
460** And again in Halloween special III where Bart and Lisa find a book in the library's "Occult section". Bart attempts to bring back their dead cat Snowball but end up raising the dead in the ''human'' cemetery, which was right next to the pet cemetery.
461** Also the members of Springfield's Republican Party read from the Necronomicon.
462* Titanium Chef from ''WesternAnimation/SushiPack'' uses recipes from "The Book of Chum Chop: Ancient Recipes for Chaos and Mayhem" to perpetrate his villainy. This includes creating perfect (but emotionless) doppelgangers, opening a warp to a [[MirrorUniverse parallel universe]], and cooking up a batch of shoeshine that makes anyone who uses it feel cold even though they're not ([[ItMakesSenseInContext It Was Evil In Context]]).
463* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'':
464** During the trial episode of season 1, Dr. Orpheus asks the bailiff to swear him in with his own book. A book that bears a suspicious resemblance to the Necronomicon. As the book snarls at the bailiff, Dr. Orpheus warns: "Careful, he's a nibbler!"
465** There's also the Orpheus' tome that Dean reads from in the ambiguously canon Christmas special episode. While perusing it for Christmas stories, Dean accidentally summons TheKrampus. Orpheus was also known to read from it while baking [[MundaneMadeAwesome gingerbread cookies]].
466[[/folder]]
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