Living Library

Medium construct, neutral

Armor Class 14
Hit Points 161 (19d8 + 76)
Speed 30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
15 (+2)	18 (+4)	18 (+4)	21 (+5)	16 (+3)	5 (-3)

Saving Throws Con +8, Wis +7, Cha +1
Skills Arcana +9, Nature +9, Perception +7, Religion +9
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 17
Languages any 6 languages, telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge 9 (5,000 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +4

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Blend In. The living library can use a bonus action to assume the form of a piece of Medium academic furniture, such as a desk covered in scrolls or a bookshelf full of tomes, or returns to its true form. While in furniture form, it is indistinguishable from normal furniture and it can’t move or act except to take its true form.
• Constructed Nature. The library doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.
• Fire Damage. If the library takes at least 15 fire damage from a single spell or effect, one of its spellbooks or scrolls is damaged. It permanently loses one prepared spell of its choice.
• Spellcasting. The library is a 9th-level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 17, +9 to hit with spell attacks). It has the following wizard spells prepared, which it can cast without material components:
  • Cantrips (at will): detect magic, light, message
  • 1st level (4 slots): color spray, expeditious retreat, shield
  • 2nd level (3 slots): mirror image, ray of enfeeblement
  • 3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, dispel magic, lightning bolt, tongues
  • 4th level (3 slots): conjure minor elementals, stoneskin
  • 5th level (1 slots): cloudkill
• Versatile Counterspell. When the library successfully casts counterspell on a spell that appears on the wizard spell list, the library can immediately replace one of the spells it has prepared for this new spell.

ACTIONS

• Multiattack. The library makes three book attacks.
• Book.Melee or Ranged Spell Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage.
• Scroll Vortex (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). The library creates a vortex of swirling parchment in a 10-footradius sphere centered on a point it can see within 60 feet of it. The vortex persists for 1 minute or until the library dismisses it, and the library must concentrate on it as if it were a spell. A creature that starts its turn in the area or enters the area for the first time on a turn must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw, taking 27 (6d8) slashing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

ABOUT

When a powerful wizard loses or abandons their spellbook, the book can retain a portion of their owner’s magical energy, gaining sentience in the process. Alone, these sentient books pose little danger, but large numbers of such lost books can find one another and magically bond into a walking repository of arcane knowledge with a mind of its own-a creature called a living library.

Living libraries tend to wander the world, searching for lost knowledge and rare books to add to their collection and increase the repertoire of spells at their disposal. Though they typically read by subsuming scrolls, tomes, and tablets into their form, living libraries can also learn new types of magic just by watching spellcasters. Suffused as they are with such massive stores of arcane power, it’s no surprise that living libraries can cause spells to fizzle or falter before they ever reach their target.

Most living libraries tend to assume a humanoid figure that resembles the size and shape of their original owners, but no two libraries are the same, and some might just as well walk about in the form of a four-legged mammal or six-legged insect. The most ancient living libraries are massive and alien looking, shuffling across the cosmos as serpentine or globular assemblages that defy mortal description.