| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Azar |
Posted - 02 May 2021 : 11:16:21
Hello there.
I'm creating a clandestine portion of Deneir's priesthood; while they are just as moral as their front-and-center brethren, this group infiltrates in order to reclaim books, documents and scrolls of all sorts. One mission may involve locating an illegal auction selling off risque (and damaging) memoirs while another mission could require earning the trust of an avaricious noble with a private library full of original manuscripts belonging to another nation. Basically, if you take the common faith of Deneir and blend it with exaggerated fictional benevolent portrayals of the Vatican, you'll have a fair approximation of this how this subset looks and feels. The majority of members are Thieves (or Rogues, depending on your edition of D&D) that have sworn an oath of loyalty, Thief/Priests or Priests in possession of specific magical items that aid their endeavors (such as the hat of disguise, ring of invisibility, ring of human influence and the like).
Below are some names that I am contemplating.
* The Hidden Pages.
* The Lost Pages.
* The Shadow Pages (somewhat sinister?).
* The Secret Study.
* The Liberated Tomes.
* The Letters Unchained.
* The Freed Script/Words.
* The Invisible Inkers (just kidding  ).
Suggestions are welcome! |
| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| NonProphetApostle |
Posted - 18 May 2021 : 02:38:01
I love a good multilayered pun, my vote is for "The Lost Tails" because they tail people who have rare tales of arcane power, and then those scrolls mysteriously go missing. (Also you might see them out of the corner of your eye, and then they disappear, and you think you lost your tail, nope, you got lost tails-ed.) The name is like an Ogre, it has layers. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 05 May 2021 : 17:53:08
quote:
Originally posted by BadCatMan
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
I think we have a winner here. A "hidden document within the written word". Good job BadCatMan. The only thing I might recommend is the changing of the word Priests (it works mind you, but it feels a little too focused on it being clerics, maybe?).
Admittedly, I didn't like it myself, I only added "Priests" for (a) making it sound like a religious group and (b) the alliteration. Thinking about it now, I don't think it needs anything, just "the Palimpsest" works fine and sounds cooler. It can also be its own code-word: a Deneirrath could say "A new palimpsest was delivered to the library." and an outsider wouldn't be at all suspicious.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
And looking up info in Faiths and Avatars, this order makes a great "arm" of the Master's Library in the Earthfast Mountains.
I wrote up the lore on the Master's Library for the wiki. It's an interesting place Candlekeep gets all the attention, yet the real and much bigger library of the world is here.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Master%27s_Library
Yes, that does sound even better as just "The Palimpsest", and I liked the way you used it... when I first heard this idea, I was only slightly keen on it, but picturing it more and more in ties to the Master's Library makes it more "concrete" to me.
Oh, and yes, I immediately turned to the wiki, which is where I found George's writeup linked.
One thing that I do note in all of this is that we have it that Deneir disappeared during the spellplague, but now he's back. I wonder what might have gone on with the library in the past hundred years. My immediate thoughts are "send it to Abeir", but I think in this instance that's not a good instinct. As written, the library was hard to find as is, so maybe with their god gone and magic running rampant the inhabitants of this library ran into issues. BTW, was this library featured in any of the novels?
Secondarily, with 8 mist dragons guarding it, I'd wonder what happened with the rage of dragons... though perhaps they'd be immune to the dracorage if they took on gaseous form and just continually kept renewing it since its an at will ability. My guess would be that they would just ride out the dracorage as mist clouds, which of course means that for a time there the library lost several of its protectors. Could be used for some kind of invasion force taking advantage. |
| BadCatMan |
Posted - 05 May 2021 : 15:31:05
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
I think we have a winner here. A "hidden document within the written word". Good job BadCatMan. The only thing I might recommend is the changing of the word Priests (it works mind you, but it feels a little too focused on it being clerics, maybe?).
Admittedly, I didn't like it myself, I only added "Priests" for (a) making it sound like a religious group and (b) the alliteration. Thinking about it now, I don't think it needs anything, just "the Palimpsest" works fine and sounds cooler. It can also be its own code-word: a Deneirrath could say "A new palimpsest was delivered to the library." and an outsider wouldn't be at all suspicious.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
And looking up info in Faiths and Avatars, this order makes a great "arm" of the Master's Library in the Earthfast Mountains.
I wrote up the lore on the Master's Library for the wiki. It's an interesting place Candlekeep gets all the attention, yet the real and much bigger library of the world is here.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Master%27s_Library |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 05 May 2021 : 12:30:22
quote:
Originally posted by BadCatMan
The Priests of the Palimpsest, a document from which the original text has been erased and been reused, but the original text can still be recoverable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest
I think we have a winner here. A "hidden document within the written word". Good job BadCatMan. The only thing I might recommend is the changing of the word Priests (it works mind you, but it feels a little too focused on it being clerics, maybe?). What about
Prelacy of the Palimpsest
Order of the Palimpsest
Penmen of the Palimpsest
Registrars of the Palimpsest
Pursuers of the Palimpsest
Preservers of the Palimpsest
And looking up info in Faiths and Avatars, this order makes a great "arm" of the Master's Library in the Earthfast Mountains.
Iron Dragon Mountain, a hidden, legendary peak in the Earthfast Mountains, is the site of the Master's Library in Faerūn, a complex of many caverns where more books than anywhere else in all the Realms; even Candlekeep, the Library of Curna in the Curna Mountains, and the great libraries of Shou Lung#151;are stored. Here can be found the High Librarians, who have samples of all known written tongues and can read them (even dragon writings). Sixty or so High
Librarians; said to all be bearded, balding, shuffling men of great age-are said to live here. Their leader is the Librarian Supreme Haliduth Orspriir, a vigorous man who has lived some 600 years by the grace of Deneir. He can call on eight mature adult to great wyrm mist dragons who lair in various nearby peaks to defend the Library from attack. All devout Deneirrath undertake a pilgrimage to the Master's Library at least once in their lives, but most never get beyond the Reading Room, a small fastness well to the south of the true e temple, where a kindly old female Keeper (assisted and guarded by loyal watchghosts) makes use of a secret gate (usable only by nonliving matter) to send notes to the Master's Library requesting specific texts and to receive copies of the requested writings to hand to the faithful.
Furthermore, George K wrote some stuff on candlekeep for a dragon tied to said library that might prove of interest
http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11779&whichpage=3
By that I mean, the formation of this library was the result of a great library "The Tometowers" being threatened to be destroyed (and hastily emptied before it could be destroyed). Having some laymen form a group meant to recover books stolen from the Tometowers before it could be moved to the Master's Library, and then continuing on from there would make sense.
From said article as well, there is the concept of some automatons called "Banedrinkers" created long ago by the Raumathari based on possibly Imaskari works. They are said to be capable of absorbing the power of lower planar fiends that they destroy. They are discovered far away near the Lake of Mists in the Endless Waste, but the dragon who discovered them has tasked her children with protecting the library. If this banedrinker were turned against the fiends which threaten Impiltur and surrounding lands... it could be interesting.
|
| BadCatMan |
Posted - 05 May 2021 : 03:36:44
The Priests of the Palimpsest, a document from which the original text has been erased and been reused, but the original text can still be recoverable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 04 May 2021 : 15:56:53
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
The question though, as I see it, becomes WOULD they want to keep themselves secret. By that I mean, they may not announce who its members are, but they may want it to be known that they exist. They may want it to be known that the church views the "profane" use of books as a sacrilege that they will seek to prevent, and they may want it to be known that the thieving of books and hoarding of knowledge is something they seek to prevent. In a way, they might resemble the harpers, but with an entirely different goal set involving education, sharing of knowledge, stopping book theft, etc...
This order might even turn a blind eye on other crimes which others might consider more horrible (such as slave trading, theft and selling of powerful magic items, etc...) in order to stop crimes against the written word. This might earn them a rather unflattering reputation as a result, as they leave someone behind to suffer in order to save a book.
That sounds rather extreme. Deneir - and, by extension, the bulk of his worshipers - is Neutral Good. What you've described more closely resembles a hard-line True Neutral philosophy...peculiar Oghmanytes, perhaps?
When you have limited resources (and let's face it, they probably do.... I'm picturing small 1 to 3 man teams, who MIGHT be able to hope for a rescue mission if they fail, but that's doubtful), then you have to focus on the task at hand or you fail your mission. If they are going in to recover a handful of books which can fit in a satchel (a rather simple task), they are not prepared to say free 50 people and try to sneak them out of a place, which will likely be a lot more dangerous and involve a lot more fighting. That being said, they might report this information to another group (such as the harpers or the moonstars or even just the local constabulary) who do HAVE the resources afterward, but like I said, while on their own mission they might have to turn a blind eye towards it. Just saying someone is good doesn't necessarily mean they have to champion all causes that they see as good. Sometimes they have to pick and fight the fights that they CAN win.
Now, could this earn them a bad reputation? Yes, because other people don't always KNOW what's going through people's minds. They don't KNOW what resources people have. They just see "someone who didn't help, because all they were worried about was rescuing some books" and immediately cast aspersions. Even once they rescue those books, does that 2 man team have the resources afterwards to go in and take on a slaver ring, which probably has powerful wizards, clerics, etc... protecting it? Probably not. So, they can do what they can, but they can't necessarily fix the entire world. If they tried, they'd probably die.
Would all of those people that get rescued by the harpers later KNOW that it was these Deneirrath that clued them in? Probably not, because the intelligence given to the agents that do the freeing will probably have passed through different groups, and then finally they aren't going to reveal the inner workings of their organization to every person that they rescued. So, the people that are rescued just know that they heard about some books getting stolen by some grumbling guards, and then 2 weeks later the harpers... oh those great harpers... came in and rescued them. Aren't the harpers wonderful? But man those book people suck! See what I mean now? |
| Azar |
Posted - 04 May 2021 : 13:21:20
quote:
Originally posted by TheIriaeban
Personally, I like The Hidden Pages BUT if you want to keep something clandestine, you need to give it as innocuous a name as possible (and hide it in plain view, if possible). I would go with something like The Bookbinders. Publicly, they repair and restore written works but in actuality, they do just what you say. With a cover of repairing and restoring written works, they would be more likely to be invited in and given access to secret libraries and the like.
Naturally! There is the name that the group uses in private and then there is whatever name they use as part of their front.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
The Sequestered Quill
I like it. Hell, I like it quite a bit.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
The question though, as I see it, becomes WOULD they want to keep themselves secret. By that I mean, they may not announce who its members are, but they may want it to be known that they exist. They may want it to be known that the church views the "profane" use of books as a sacrilege that they will seek to prevent, and they may want it to be known that the thieving of books and hoarding of knowledge is something they seek to prevent. In a way, they might resemble the harpers, but with an entirely different goal set involving education, sharing of knowledge, stopping book theft, etc...
This order might even turn a blind eye on other crimes which others might consider more horrible (such as slave trading, theft and selling of powerful magic items, etc...) in order to stop crimes against the written word. This might earn them a rather unflattering reputation as a result, as they leave someone behind to suffer in order to save a book.
That sounds rather extreme. Deneir - and, by extension, the bulk of his worshipers - is Neutral Good. What you've described more closely resembles a hard-line True Neutral philosophy...peculiar Oghmanytes, perhaps? |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 03 May 2021 : 13:06:09
The question though, as I see it, becomes WOULD they want to keep themselves secret. By that I mean, they may not announce who its members are, but they may want it to be known that they exist. They may want it to be known that the church views the "profane" use of books as a sacrilege that they will seek to prevent, and they may want it to be known that the thieving of books and hoarding of knowledge is something they seek to prevent. In a way, they might resemble the harpers, but with an entirely different goal set involving education, sharing of knowledge, stopping book theft, etc...
This order might even turn a blind eye on other crimes which others might consider more horrible (such as slave trading, theft and selling of powerful magic items, etc...) in order to stop crimes against the written word. This might earn them a rather unflattering reputation as a result, as they leave someone behind to suffer in order to save a book. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 May 2021 : 20:49:38
quote:
Originally posted by TheIriaeban
Personally, I like The Hidden Pages BUT if you want to keep something clandestine, you need to give it as innocuous a name as possible (and hide it in plain view, if possible). I would go with something like The Bookbinders. Publicly, they repair and restore written works but in actuality, they do just what you say. With a cover of repairing and restoring written works, they would be more likely to be invited in and given access to secret libraries and the like.
This is a really good idea!  |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 02 May 2021 : 17:56:15
Just to throw out some more ideas
The Salvaged Scripture
The Cloaked Quill
The Concealed Quill
The Sequestered Quill
The Cryptic Chapbook
The Clear Cyclopedia
The Buried Bulletin |
| TheIriaeban |
Posted - 02 May 2021 : 15:55:59
Personally, I like The Hidden Pages BUT if you want to keep something clandestine, you need to give it as innocuous a name as possible (and hide it in plain view, if possible). I would go with something like The Bookbinders. Publicly, they repair and restore written works but in actuality, they do just what you say. With a cover of repairing and restoring written works, they would be more likely to be invited in and given access to secret libraries and the like.
Edit: I realized that the old Top Secret RPG from TSR had some modules that would be good to adapt for these kind of adventures. Operation: Sprechenhaltenstellen and Ace of Clubs are just a couple that come immediately to mind. |
|
|
