damm, folks.. naming the books after valars is just silly, it won't suit game's aesthetics.. Tolkien will turn-over in his coffin.

Maybe call them at least by territories names? eg

Gondolin's Arcane Control
Valinors's Nature Craft
Beleriand's Wild Forces

etc.. though it's also sounds wrong to me. Better have it simple:

Arcane Control
Nature Craft
Wild Forces
..much better in terms of style.

Or maybe call some books as `grimoire`, `manuscript`, etc.. eg:

Arcane Control Crystal
Grimoire of Deadly Powers
Manuscript of Creature Dominion

I like naming them after regions. I vote for egions, and major non-valar figures. So Fingolfins Fury, Rivendell Rituals, etc. The inplication being these are techniques developed by that person, or in that region.

Sorry to cause trouble, but I'm very anti-Tolkienization of spellbooks. Those guys didn't teleport around throwing fireballs. To light a fire, they had to either use flint and tinder or a Gandalf.

Agree. Tangar's last idea seems reasonable

As long as they don't start sounding like cookbooks for regional cuisine.

It's just a cosmetic change (other than the breaking sav files bit) so there's no objective standard, other than "don't add suckage."

If you want to find lore-appropriate names for the books, look to the names of owners of the Rings of Power. Those were really the only high-magic users in ME's low fantasy setting.

This +1


Though for half-casters (Blackguard, Rogue, Ranger, Paladin) I find it strange that it has to be a "magic" book. Why not just a manual or reference book for their skill set?

Some good discussion and some interesting ideas here. Let me just explain where I was coming from with the Ainur - because it wasn't a completely arbitrary idea and I certainly didn't think it was silly.

Obviously we have to take some kind of liberty because Tolkien's world is not a perfect match for Angband's game, and our characters in this game are not exactly like figures from his stories. However, there is a lot of magic in Tolkien, even though it doesn't really look like gnomes learning incantations out of books.

I personally think the two most obvious 'high' magic users are Gandalf and Saruman - if anyone is close to the Angband mage it's these two. That's why I chose their names for the red books and, actually, I think Arcane Control sounds reasonably up Gandalf's straight and Tome of Power is definitely right up Saruman's street. I used their less usual names just for fun and for the more exotic sound of them. Gandalf and Saruman are both Maiar and there is another Maia, Sauron who seems like a shoe-in for necromancy being the original necromancer; giving the other necromancy book to his boss made sense.

The Nature magic then just seemed like it might be allied to Yavanna and Valar were definitely capable of feats that we would identify as mighty magic. Radagast seemed like a good match for a Creature book and, honestly, Osse was a bit more tenuous.

Priestly powers are a stretch (there isn't much about 'praying' in Tolkien) but since several of the powers themselves already reference Manwe and his allies it didn't seem that big a stretch - Wrath itself already has a prayer inside it named after him.

Oangband has books which are representative of a few of the ideas here:
Radagast's Shapeshifts
Melian's Lore
Bombadil's Songs
Spirit of Yavanna
Mysteries of Angmar

Tolkien's characters do in fact call upon the Ainur to get magical effects.

I'm with tangar here: this is sacrilege, not Tolkienization.

Is there really anything wrong with, say (for priests):
Beginner's Handbook
Words of Wisdom
Chants and Blessings
Exorcism and Dispelling

;)