We’ve all been there–scrambling to deal with the question “I search the shelf, so what do I find?” Of course as DM’s we want to have interesting volume names to rattle off so we’re not just saying “Oh, this book (which is obviously the magic one)”. But, who has the time to litter their world with tiny useless book names?
I do.
Going off of a post on reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen by /u/Amicron about creating lists of book names that I just read about an hour ago–I decided to put my not-useless Excel skills to bear on the problem and create a book list generator from random values I clipped from various piles of adjectives, names, and synonyms for book/tome/etc. from a few websites (like Tower of the Archmage)
This tool should auto-calculate 25 books (and recalculate a new list every minute). Feel free to use them as fodder for the shelf (in which you hide the actual magic book you had there)… use them as launching points for potential campaigns… just have fun with it.
I enjoyed making the generator–I might have to do more in the future for more “background clutter” sorts of things like art.
The Many-Sided Tool for D&D Library Book Names
(this is my first publicly shared Google Doc, so if something isn’t accessing correctly for you, let me know and we’ll try and find the answer together)
Many-Sided Dice 
Tripped over your post on RPG.net.
This is very cool indeed. I can see my game getting some fun mileage out of it. I love interesting and quirky random elements, they add richness and depth by themselves and are a useful source of details that spur campaign development.
So, thank you very much!
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This is awesome and just what I needed! It was taking forever to scrawl out tomes of my own! Thank you!
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this was exactly what I needed! – need a list of tomes at hand to distract as my arty enter candlekeep! – I’ll be coming back to this again and again I think.
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I’m glad you’re getting use out of it. : )
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