I wrote a while back about using physical props like invisible ink. One prop that I created some time ago was a collection of books that could be printed out as cards for a sage’s library. Now I’ve turned that into a different sort of prop: registry books.

I wrote about registry lookups as a type of procedural puzzle you can use to enhance an adventure. So I sat down recently to actually make some registry books:

• Marriage registry
• Birth registry
• Death registry

These can be used in a variety of ways, mostly for mystery adventures.

• Find the name of the spouse of an NPC or their wedding date.
• Find the date of birth or parentage of an NPC.
• Find the date or cause of death of an NPC.
• Find how old a person was at the time of their marriage or death.
• Find the father-in-law of a woman who was murdered by, you suspect, her father-in-law.

Let’s take that last one as an example. They can first look for victim Jalista Dunmarsh’s marriage record. She’ll be recorded under her maiden name, of course, so you’ll need to look for her married last name to find one where the bride’s first name, Jelista, matches the groom’s last name, Dunmarsh. (Having her maiden name would help ensure you have the right girl.)

Then, look up husband Borgast Dunmarsh’s birth record to find his parents’ names: Sevistikal and Viviska Dunmarsh. Now you know the woman’s father-in-law was Old Sev Dunmarsh. (This assumes that, for some reason, so you can’t just ask her relatives.)

In my files, I made sure that one bride and groom on each page of the marriage registry was also present in the birth and death registries.

• Borgast and Jelista [Reverga] Dunmarsh
• Alred and Imogast [Dumpol] Lant
• Hengal and Molli [Warchest] Silverthrone (dwarves)
• Glober and Mistal [Pleasantglen] Fairfield (halflings)

Why?

Looking up information this way is fun. You’ve got a clue about something, follow up on it, and find the information you want. It’s kind of like decoding a cipher.

Additionally, such records are just kind of fun. I put extra effort into the death records to come up with interesting causes of death. Some players will enjoy just reading thru them. I leaned toward humorous deaths (fae fever, struck by a falling bell, execution by public boiling) to avoid the depressing litany of infant and childbirth deaths of a historically accurate registry.

And lastly, of course, being given any kind of handout from the GM is fun–a letter, a map, a wanted poster–and a little booklet full of information that’s useful to you is even more fun. I’ve deliberately kept them the same 1/8-of-a-page size that I did the book cards in the sage’s library. You could create larger ones of your own, but that would require a lot more entries.

Where Do You Find Them?

Registry books would be kept in the church where event took place (baptism, in the case of a birth) and/or in a chancery in the seat of the county/shire government, where clerks beaver away creating official documents and records. In either case, a clerk can explain little things like the bride being listed under her maiden name and parentheses in a birth record denoting an illegitimate birth.

The Files

I’m including here both a PDF and the PPTX file I used to create the books. If you have access to PowerPoint, you can modify the PPTX to have exactly the layout you want. And I left the year blank so you could fill it in with whatever year makes sense for your campaign.

(Note: for the PowerPoint, you’ll need Blackadder ITC font or something similar.)

For the format, I built a generator in Perchance that uses my fantasy name generator.

I tried printing mine, cutting out pairs of pages, and folding them so the fold is on the outside. That way, you can glue the pages in, and they’ll seem to be more of a single page (which makes them pages 1, 2, 3, & 4). I formatted them so that half are right-hand (larger margin on the left) and half are left-hand pages (larger margin on the right).

But I also found I could print the pages and put the paper back in the printer and print them again on the other side (which makes them pages 1, 4, 3, & 2). This meant each page could be separate or two could be folded and the fold glued to the inside spine of the book. For actual use, I’m not sure I’d even bother gluing them in place. Each book is only a couple of leaves.

You may want to age them with tea or coffee, print them on parchment paper, or add parchment coloration to the PowerPoint pages before printing.

Another idea would be to buy a fancy journal and make larger registry pages that fit it. After using it as a prop, you can discard the pages and use the journal for GM notes. (You do keep GM notes, right? Like, where the PCs go, whom they meet, what they do, and so on? You’re not really going to remember it all later.)