The Old Queen’s Library

Books were the singular obsession of the Old Queen. So much so that this was the one tax she imposed upon the City: any person passing the gates or docking ship must yield up any book in their possession. These were then copied by her scribes. The originals were kept by the Old Queen, and the copies returned to the owners. She is now long dead, but her enormous collection of scrolls, tomes, and codices remains. The library is kept by the Cult, whose librarian nuns faithfully tend and preserve the books. The library serves as a resource for the Cult’s historians, scholars, poets, and law practitioners.

Sensations:

Statues representing anthropomorphized arts and poetic genres are set in niches. Bent over long tables, brown-robed librarians reverently bind and mend dry papyrus scrolls. The smell of ink and glue. The sound of a thousand scratching pen nibs against paper.

Rumor:

The copying errors between the original texts and the copied texts are not mistakes at all but a complicated cipher used by the librarian nuns. By reuniting the original texts (held in the library) and the copied texts (returned to the original owners), you can begin to parse this cipher. But what secrets will the it reveal?

Special City Action:

• Copy texts: The Old Queen’s Library has texts on almost every subject. Ask the GM if you can find a text on a particular topic. If one exists, you may pay for a scribe to copy a book from the library for you. Copied texts cost between 100–1400g (randomly determined by the GM).