{{Robert}}: Just realised, this is a lot like BookOfShadows. We could junk this page, or we could differentiate them further. The book is the hero's useful reference guide; the tome is the hideously dangerous text used by villains and the deeply unlucky.

{{Ununnilium}}: This is definitely something different; the "book of forbidden knowledge"-type thing.

{{HasherBritarse}} To be horribly pedantic, a Book of Shadows should be an individual Wiccan's personal witchcraft journal (or ritual magician's magickal journal) containing spells learnt, rituals attempted etc. It should be in the owner's own handwriting and some covens used to require that the basic part (containing the coven's main rituals) be copied in a single night as part of one's initiation. Practising Wiccans can tell me if this is still done, I don't know. The Tome is more like either a) A grimoire, a book written by a great magician as a guide to magick for his followers or b) a holy book of some obscure sect who worship/deal with terrible things.

{{Scrounge}}: Would Tom Riddle's diary count as a Tome Of Eldrich Lore? It certainly had some nasty effect when read.