Ergonomic Codex Design

Here we are in the year of our Lord 3824 (I didn't check) and we're still using rectangular books. Shouldn't they at least have a handle even if we won't go so far as to have a curved design so that there's room at the upper left to be grabbed while there's space where your heel will be? Also, is there another term for the part of your hand continuing from your thumb that makes a valley of your palm? I looked around a little bit but didn't find one.

An Inquisition Intolerable

The adventurer stepped down to the floor, checked his map, and made an addition. On it was proof, to those who understood, of the challenges behind him. There was not a room or passage recorded there which had not some danger from an arsenal of traps, sentinels, and possessive spirits.
Even crossing the entrance was a triumph never before achieved in all the centuries over which the bold, curious, and greedy sought hints to the location of the fabled vault sunk in the earth by a king of whom nothing still was known save for the wondrousness of his possessions. How deep the vault went and what was its extent, none knew, but he presumed when he entered a chamber with no other exit in any direction that he had reached the ultimate point.
A jumble of materials in the center stirred and coalesced into a great face which began to speak.
"The final trial for the seeker of my master's treasure is a riddle. Listen well, for but once will I ask it."
"A riddle? Never mind."
The adventurer ascended forthwith, reversed his journey, and sold his maps to someone willing to put up with that sort of nonsense.
Finis

Addendum

And don't feel forced to include, for instance, goats just because somebody mentions the year of the goat. That can be another tantalizing mystery.

Take the Easy Way Out

You want to include astrological matters in your fantasy story but aren't sure about coming up with your own constellations, processions, retrogradery, interpretations, and so on? Don't! Just use ours! Let readers debate whether that means it's post-apocalyptic. They love debating.

Rethinking Scale

You know how there were those dudes over in Greece that had a hundred hands? Contemplate this: They weren't big guys, their hands were just tiny. Good for needlework.

Addendum

Their relationship with dream mages is that they're always pranking them, naturally.

Splitting Into Camps

Do you think thunder and lightning mages are different people? If so, do they get along? I bet they are different and wish people would stop presuming they have some kind of relationship more intimate than what they have with dream mages etc.

Ethical Holes

Though when you think about it, isn't bribing a judge effectively proof of usefulness? That's why we should judge animals by how delicious they are. As we do.

The Meed of Use

When men were chosen as judges in the contest, their role being to decide who deserved the laurels of the most useful, the nominated animals did not so much resort to bribery as leap to it. The cows called on their crow friends to find baubles, the chickens arranged with lizards for the secrets of the earth to be brought forth, and as for the pigs, they tricked the others out of many of their offerings by their wiles.
The cicadas, those gossipers, went to the gods to tell them of the shameless cheating, but the gods laughed at it. "Would they be as energetic as they are if they knew! There is no risk of favoritism from judges who will soon eat and skin them all equally, third place to first!"
Horrified, the cicadas tried to warn the world that the projects of the gods are ghoulish amusements not meant for our good. They still do. But none heed them for the annoyance.
Finis

Backup Plan

Audiences are getting wise to having characters claim "there's no time right now" when there obviously is or else time could easily be made later, but it's so convenient. What do we do? Here's the solution: "Questions slithered through my mind like noodles, and as simple as it seemed it must be to grab them, every time I tried the thing slipped out of my fingers." Then if anyone complains you can respond (from an alt account) that clearly not everyone understands psychology, some people just want to be spoonfed, diminished attention span, media literacy, and so on.