Zakharov

Background: In my current Fantasy campaign, most artisans in the city of Thalassene belong to guilds: the cobbler’s guild, the silk-weaver’s guild, the papermaker and printer’s guild, and so on. (There are also guilds for professions such as doctors, lawyers and bankers.)
 
But some crafts are too small to have guilds. There just aren’t enough artisans to make it worthwhile. These are locally called “oddmongers.” And just as most of the big-time jewelers cluster around Gold Court and most undertakers are on Coffin Street, the oddmongers have a neighborhood of their own called, naturally, Oddmonger. This is where the PCs are based, so I’m developing the neighborhood more than the rest of the city.
 
I have thought of many different oddmongers, but I could use more. Suggest away! Explain why a craft wouldn’t employ many practitioners, and why it wouldn’t be folded into some larger group of artisans. To illustrate, here’s what I already have:
 
Parasol-Makers. Some lace, some cloth, some painted paper. A couple factories as well as freelance artisans, but I’s enough of a specialty/luxury item that the whole industry fits easily on one short street.
 
Fanmakers. Likewise, and on the same street as the parasol-makers. Paper or cloth fans may be painted, so the business involves limners as well as artisans to glue the material to the frame of wood or ivory ribs. Lots of people own fans, but it doesn't take a lot of people to make them.
 
Artificial Flower Makers. Paper, silk and one fellow who works in glass. The craft began with religion: flowers as a common offering at household shrines to show piety, but the cost mounts up for fresh flowers every few days. So, buy realistic fakes. (Though it eventually became something of an art form in its own right.)
 
Wax Fruit Maker. A newly invented craft, for similar purposes as artificial flowers: Look like you can afford fresh fruit all the time, when you actually can’t.
 
Featherworkers. Anything from little ornaments to shimmering feather cloaks. A foreign craft introduced by Furanian refugees.
 
Picture-Scroll Printers. A sort of long comic book in scroll form. Outside the printer’s guild because halflings invented it and still dominate the craft. (Inspired by RL art form from old Japan, btw.)
 
Sugar-Spinner. A gnome who is both a master alchemist and master tinker invented cotton candy. No one else has yet duplicated his two-story machine, which requires several strapping laborers to turn the cranks, pump the bellows and stoke the furnace. The confectioner’s guild would like to have him, but he insists that selling cotton candy is only to fund his further experiments to his ultimate goal: edible candy clothing! It’s genius, I tell you! Genius!
 
Tattoo Artists. Complex, detailed body art, not the basic ink of a soldier, sailor or thug.
 
Music-Box Maker. Another luxury item, too tinkery for the musical instrument makers, and too musical for the tinkers.
 
Bonsai. Some gods are traditionally worshiped at sacred trees rather than temples. How to do this in a built-up city? Own a miniature, portable sacred tree.
 
Toy Soldier Maker. More detailed than usual for the pewtersmiths; comparable to jewelers. But  they are not jewelers.
 
Lens Grinders. You can buy spyglasses or spectacles, but these precision items cost a lot.
 
Denturists. Another precision craft, and costly enough that the market remains small.
 
Paper Appliqué. Another foreign craft, recently introduced: patterns or pictures of colored cut paper applied to a wooden surface and coated with lacquer or varnish. Not quite a poor man’s enamel work, but not quite as expensive.
 
China-Doll Makers. This requires specialized forms of multiple crafts: porcelain-workers to make the heads and other body parts, some tinkering to put them together, and seamstresses to make the miniature clothing. Hm. There might be enough artisans to form a Toymaker's Guild, but presently they're scattered: People who make wooden toys, for instance, in the woodworker's guild.
 
Mask Makers. Several possible crafts (cloth, leather, wood, etc.), possibly in combination. For costume parties, some religious festivals, or the big Autocrat’s Ascension Day parade down in Mactown.
 
Vellum Maker. Papyrus and true paper have largely supplanted parchment and vellum, but the lone business in town that still makes writing material from animal skins stubbornly resists absorption into the guild.
 
Pearl Carver. Making stuff from nacre. Not quite a jeweler, and there’s a foreign aspect as many techniques and designs are copied from the merfolk.
 
Alchemists have a small guild, but there is no magic guild.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

I'd treat it as a multiform, with a charge, focus, concentration, and activation time based on his reading immersion speed. The multiform would allow him to have skills based on concept.
 
Don't let him get away with speed reading.  He should need to total immerse himself in the book.  So say an hour minimum to 5 hours probably.  He should also explain in what circumstances would he leave the persona.  Does his power disappear when he sleeps (non-persistent)?  After a day?  Can he immediately go back to the same form without re-reading the book?  Does he forget one character when he reads another character?
 
As the saying goes, "With great power comes great limitations." or something like that.
 
 

I like your player's concept. I agree with you, VPP does seem like the best route. I would also make the time to switch something that needs to be done out of combat.
 
I would sit down with the player before hand and express my concern that the concept has the potential of overshadowing the other PCs and ask them what things we could do to make sure that everyone still had fun. I would come to the table with some ideas, but ultimately I want the player to choose to self-limit so they have buy-in on what they are playing. Treating players with respect and dignity FTW.

I think the easiest way would be with a VPP. I could have each book just contain a selection of powers and a side effect of the VPP being that they can only use those powers unless they swap out.
 
This was how the concept was relayed to me: 
 
"Each book would have some sort of a theme, and the powers available within would vary. So, for instance, I could have a book inspired by a desert traveller which would grant me some skill bonuses, survival powers and maybe some fire powers. Another one could be about archeology and give me a lot more skill bonuses. Maybe a warrior manual would give me martial arts."

To keep it balanced with the other characters, I don't think I'd allow more than a single book's powers to be accessible at once. I'd also probably have it so some in-game time would need to pass to swap them out, making choosing the one you want to use have some weight instead of being able to continually swap around powers in combat. It will also make my life easier as the GM!