Lisbeth Vestergrim's page

I'm running a Skull and Shackles campaign for my friends and one of my players asked me where the pejorative term 'slip' came from, as one of my NPCs consistently refers to Rosie Cusswell by this racial slur. I told him I'd look into it, but all I can find is that it's mentioned in the Cheliax Campaign Setting as a racial slur originating in Cheliax for many halfings that are slaves there and the iconic Mesmerist Meligaster grows up in a 'Sliphouse'. I'm not sure which term came first. I'm sure I could think up something creative and awesome, but I wanted to know if it was ever mentioned somewhere that I missed or if anyone else has a creative way that they've used to explain the term to their players.

Thanks!

I've read the entire page and checked out several threads and I can't seem to find the answer. (I apologize in advance if it is stated somewhere and I've had blinders on this whole time.)

What is the gold cost for writing a spell into a spellbook actually for? What are you paying for when you pay the 5gp to scribe a 0 level spell into your spellbook?

Some background: I'm running a homebrew campaign and my wizard lost her spellbook escaping from a disaster in the party's home town. She's only level one, so it isn't necessarily a huge loss and she likes the realism of her character on the run learning all of her spells as she goes, somewhat starting from scratch. For the sake of this post, I'm referring to this bit from the Core Rulebook specifically:

Replacing and Copying Spellbooks

A wizard can use the procedure for learning a spell to reconstruct a lost spellbook. If he already has a particular spell prepared, he can write it directly into a new book at the same cost required to write a spell into a spellbook. The process wipes the prepared spell from his mind, just as casting it would. If he does not have the spell prepared, he can prepare it from a borrowed spellbook and then write it into a new book.

We understand the technical rules for the checks and costs to copy a spell down from another source into a new spellbook and in this case, she would be copying down into her new spellbook the spells she had prepared from her original spellbook earlier in the day. But where is the money going? We had originally assumed it was the fee paid to an NPC that a PC might be borrowing a spellbook from, but the above quote dismisses that theory. If the wizard PC is hiding out with the rest of her party in a cave outside of the destroyed town writing down her prepared spells from memory by candle-light, who is she paying the gold cost to?

I know that I could homebrew it so that there is no charge for this particular instance, but both my player and I want to keep things balanced and mostly want to know how you guys would handle the thematics behind this scribing cost.

Thanks in advance!