Behold my grimoire! Well, my Earthdawn character’s grimoire to be exactly. Our pen & paper group is playing an Earthdawn campaign at the moment. I am the group’s only spellcaster, a T’Skrang Nethermancer. That’s something like a lizard man necromancer for those unfamiliar with the Earthdawn pen & paper roleplay game.
I made this spellbook as a container for my dice. It’s about 600 to 700 pages thick, but I cut out the center of about 480 pages in the middle of the book for a secret compartment inside it. I also wanted to have something to show to my fellow players, when I am talking about my character’s grimoire or when Kenshan (that’s the character’s name) is interacting with it.

As base for the grimore I used an about 90 years old novel. It pretty sure had no special value, but the German fraktur lettering, the huge size and thickness of the book and the used look of it made it a great base. I began with the cover. The faux leather look and eysocket is done with tissue paper and adhesive varnish. For the three-dimensional look of the T’Skrang scales I used egg shell pieces. Unnecessary to say Fightingwolf and me had eggs for breakfast that day. XD I broke them into pieces and glued them with adhesive varnish on the cover. The adhesive varnish also glued the eye and the central lock to the cover, but I used some extra glue for the lock just to be sure. Then I primed the cover white. Between all the steps I needed to let it dry for a while. When the priming was dry I painted it all with a mix of 1 part sienna and 3 parts black acrylic colours. I applied the English gold acrylic colour with my finger for more control. English gold is a little greener what looks really nice on a scaly especially in combination with the leaf green wash I added when all the colours were dry. For the inside of the front and back cover I used a red and black decopatch.
The margin is darkened additionally with a black ink wash. Now it looks really old and used. The padlock has been abraded and coloured with black metallic colour. The padlock and the chains have also been coloured with English gold a little bit to match the look of the book.

Now I only need a proper name for the grimoire.

PS: It takes way longer to cut out a secret compartment in a book than I thought.

Materials needed (without tools): A book, decopatch paper, copy paper, tissue paper, acrylic colours in white, sienna, black, leaf green and englishgold, black metal paint, black drawing ink, a black ink pen, a cabinet lock, chains, a padlock, adhesive varnish, glue and egg shells