30 Types of Ink

1-Never ink

Never ink is called that because a few days after it was used, it fades away not just to nothing, just as if it was never there. No known tests can find any trace of it once it has vanished. It is used mainly by confidence tricksters who can make a lot of money by selling something expensive like a house on condition that a few days are given to empty it of the furniture, and then denying that it was ever sold, since there is no trace that a contract was ever signed. Spies also use it, and terrorist cells use it for their secret plans. As you might expect, it is an illegal item anywhere where laws are enforced.

2-Multi-colour ink

Multi colour ink shimmers and randomly changes colour when light falls on it and the book is moved around. It is quite rarely used, as some people dislike reading words written in it. Scammers can use this ink to make fake magical scrolls, as the ink itself is very mildly magical and the magic that it gives off can be sensed by a magic user or measured by a thaumometer. It is often used in banknotes, so forgers of money find it useful as well and in many countries it is classed as legal but restricted.

3-Flammable ink

After little more then a month after it dries, this ink goes up in flames, and has been used by those who dislike them to ignite their house, for example. A large book written in this will become a book-shaped fireball that is more then capable of igniting any dry and flammable items that are touching it. If used for tattoos, it causes a nasty tattoo shaped burn when it ignites. Whilst the fire caused can be put out with water in the normal way, it can grow quite large if not discovered in time. The Children of Ma-O and The Cultus of Vautu have both used books written with this ink to burn down holy places, libraries, mansions and the like, and the possession of this ink is illegal and even punishable by death in some countries.

4-Living Ink

This ink is used in the making of Magical Tattoos that can move around and do other minor feats of magic. Some countries ban it because of this, whilst in other more magic friendly countries it is legal.

5-Magic Food ink

This ink is edible and is commonly used in The Magic of Food, as a skilled Culinancer can use it to animate food, make it change colour and do many other interesting things.

6-Portal ink

If a portal to somewhere is drawn over a period of several days, like a tunnel in a hill with the end clearly marked, it becomes a tunnel. Road construction crews find it very useful as it is much cheaper to pay one skilled artist then pay a construction crew of hundreds to tunnel through the mountains and dispose of all the industrial waste afterwards. It has much less legal uses, such as tunnelling into a bank vault to steal everything. Also if a plain black hole is drawn with this that is big enough for a person to fall through, the person will fall until he or she hits molten rock far below, a very unpleasant and deadly booby trap. In most countries it is on the legal but restricted list because of it's less savoury uses.

7-Cursed ink

The maker of the book chooses one of 30 Curses in their mind, and when the book is read by anybody else, the curse is activated and lasts for 1 D6 weeks or until the cursed one dies, whatever comes first. If the maker of the cursed book does not get it to their target in time, they risk random people or even their own family members falling victim to the curse instead. The sort of thing that might be found at the Garage Sale from Hell.

8-Poisoned Magic Food ink

The bane of the unlucky Culinancer, this ink can also be used in the magic of food, except that it is a deadly poison that kicks in a couple of hours after the magical meal is eaten. This has killed a few nobles, at least one member of a royal family, and a score of unfortunate food tasters, and is one of the most illegal inks to be found anywhere in the world.

9-Ink of illiteracy

Within 1 D6 hours after reading something written with this sinister ink, the reader loses the ability to read and write entirely. The effects are not permanent, but the affected person must learn to read and write all over again as if they were a small child who had not yet been taught how to read and write, and it can take years to fully recover from this evil ink's affects, during which scribes, sages and anyone else whose job involves reading and writing loses their job.

10-Glowing ink

This ink glows in the dark. Large bottles of it can be used as torches and streetlights, or it can be used to write books, messages and other things that can be read in total darkness.

11-Magical ink

This ink strengthens the effects of magical spells and is found on many a spell scroll and in many a spell book, making the effect of the spell up to three times stronger then normal. If used to write anything non magical, it has no magical powers at all.

12-Royal ink

By law, this purple ink can only be used by the monarch to write royal commands, and is made from a kind of shellfish. Because it is so rare, a message written in this ink is usually taken to be a genuine royal command. Fun if one of the PCs has a purple pen from somewhere, although blinding is the traditional punishment for anybody who dares to seal purple ink or use it to forge royal commands.

13-Moonlight ink

This can only be read in the moonlight and is often used by spies who don't mind staying up late. The closer to the Full Moon the moon is, the easier the message is to read.

14-Life extending ink

If one spends long enough reading books written in this (several hours per day) then one will get no older, but one has to be both wealthy enough to buy many books written in this and have a lot of free time to read. Perhaps someone who uses this way of keeping young employs the PCs to do something that he or she lacks the time to do. If separated from their magical books, the person will age a year each day until he or she either reaches the age they would be without the use of the magical books or dies, whatever happens first.

15-Stone Ink

When this ink dries it hardens into stone, using long lasting if heavy books and signposts-or vandalism that has to be chipped off and is annoyingly hard to remove.

16-Strength ink

This harms flesh, burning it, but if an inanimate object like a stick or sword blade is dipped into it and the ink is allowed to dry, it makes the object very strong in the short term, although after a few decades the strong item becomes very brittle and is likely to break when used.

17-Animate Dead ink

If drawn around the wrists, ankles, neck and head of a dead body (or tattooed on which takes longer but creates a stronger Undead) it can be used to create a lifelike zombie. The zombie cannot speak, and when the skin that the ink is on rots away the spell will no longer work, but until then the necromancer has their own zombie slave that can preform simple tasks, fight, or be sent to murder someone.

18-Cold ink

Something written with this will chill an area for two feet around it and it is normally used in the form of a large rune to create a fridge or freezer to store food in. Some cultures use these runes to create very cold tombs to preserve their dead and their grave goods, and it can also be used to make a punishment cell very unpleasant to be in, or even deadly if the person is locked in there for long enough.

19-Imagination ink

These boosts the imagination of the writer and spurs him or her to greater acts of creativity in general, although it has it's limits and won't make a book that is poorly written good all by itself.

20-Blessed ink

Traditionally used in churches or other holy places for writing holy texts in, this strengthens the worshipper's belief and makes him or her feel blessed. If written by an Archbishop or the equvilent it can heal small wounds, lift curses and cast a real blessing on the reader.

21-Forced Reading ink

Whoever reads forced reading ink (except for the original writer) is forced to read it to the end at the top of their voice. This could be a magical curse that affects the reader, a magical curse that affects someone else, political criticism of a dictator who is known to savagely punish his critics, a confession to a crime, the most embarrassing secrets of the reader or someone else, the reader's computer and banking passwords, a marriage proposal to someone that the reader does not love, or anything else that is best not said at the top of one's voice in public.

22-Muffle ink

A single book or even several books written in this ink has no effect, but when thousands of books written in muffle ink are gathered together in a library they make it impossible for sound to be heard, a blessing for those who like to read silently.

23-Musical ink

When musical notes are written in this ink, it plays a tune when read, whilst if it is used to write, it sings the words when read. It does so quite loudly, so it is considered rude to read it in situations where people who don't want to listen to it are forced to listen to it.

24-Trapping ink

This is used to make pentagrams so that for example, demons and ghosts can be safely summoned or a human can be trapped. If the wrong kind of ink is not used, then the pentagram has no trapping powers, which for those who summon demons or powerful undead can be fatal to their lives and often to their souls as well.

25-Architects ink

When used to draw something like a building or a sword. a 3D paper representation a foot high will pop out of the paper when the drawing is finished. It is only made of paper, but shows what the building or sword would look like in practise.

26-Fear ink

Traditionally used to write ghost stories, the better the quality of the story, the more fear is created in the reader by this kind of magical ink. If the person is timid enough to begin with or has heart problems and the story is written well enough by a master writer, the reader could be scared into a heart attack, but this effect is very rare.

27-Romance ink

When used to write romantic stories, the writer gets more interested in the characters and the storyline and can find it hard to stop reading at times.

28-Porn ink

When used to draw pornographic images or write pornographic stories, the better the quality of the drawings or story, the more sexually aroused the reader becomes. Some countries ban this kind of ink outright.

29-Interesting ink

The reader of Interesting ink is more likely to find the book interesting, although this power is not absolute and if the book or message is boring enough, it will cancel out the magical powers of the ink entirely.

30-Ink of boredom

When someone reads this they don't want to read it anymore. Used to conceal secret messages or banned books from law enforcement or the customs men and women, which is hidden under the small amount of words written in the ink of boredom.