A Cerilian Library.

[ConjurerDragon]

A_dark schrieb:

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> A_dark wrote:

> Some more books.... (in quotes are the actual titles, the rest are assumed)

...

> How Bjarn Saved the raven by Unknown (RH p.6)

> Foolish Vjalli by Unkown (RH p 14)

> The Faithful Skald by Aethelstan (RH p 7) (this and the 2 above could be merged in an anthology.... Rjurik Tales or something...)

> An account of the battle of Dankmaar by Unknown (RH p.12)

> The Concordia Digitalis, by unknown (Sword of Roele,p 41) (forbidden book...)

> Eaters of the Dead, by Unknown (SoR p. 41) (again... forbidden book)

> The Logic of Glyphs: A primer on Warding Magics and their Application by Unknown Avani priest (SoR p.44)



I would assume that the rjuven stories are not books and rather

will be distributed by skalds...

bye

Michael

[A_dark]

I considered the possibility as well, but then I thought that some skalds in lands under the Oaken Grove... some settled people that is, might have put word on paper... Rare books if you will, but there should be some IMHO...

And btw... not all of these books should be available in all libraries and especially not Daznig's book.... The BE, I believe, mentions clearly who has copies of it... Avan is one I think...

[geeman]

Michael Romes writes:



> I would assume that the rjuven stories are not books and rather

> will be distributed by skalds...



That`s a pretty good point. There should be fewer texts amongst certain BR

races/cultures. Someone may very well have written down the Rjurik stories

in work(s) that might equate to something like the Eddas, but there probably

are not a lot of copies of such texts--which might might them all the more

valuable to scholars.



It should probably be noted, however, that in the real world one reason such

texts are scarce is because of the tendancy of Christians (amongst others)

to burn pagan texts. We don`t have the same amount of religious antipathy

amongst the BR faiths. There are, of course, rivalries and zealotries, but

not the same systematic destruction of the works of other faiths.



Gary

[geeman]

At 12:28 AM 12/4/2003 +0100, A_dark wrote:



> Some more books.... (in quotes are the actual titles, the rest are assumed)



Excellent work. Thanks much.



Gary

[ConjurerDragon]

Gary Foss schrieb:

> Michael Romes writes:

>> I would assume that the rjuven stories are not books and rather

>> will be distributed by skalds...

>

> That`s a pretty good point. There should be fewer texts amongst certain BR

> races/cultures. Someone may very well have written down the Rjurik stories

> in work(s) that might equate to something like the Eddas, but there

> probably

> are not a lot of copies of such texts--which might might them all the more

> valuable to scholars.



And even less books among the Vos... And learned people like the

Khir-aften-al-Arrasi certainly would have a very high number of books

around. It depends even more on the decision if the printing press has

been already invented or not in the campaign played...



> It should probably be noted, however, that in the real world one reason

> such

> texts are scarce is because of the tendancy of Christians (amongst others)

> to burn pagan texts. We don`t have the same amount of religious antipathy

> amongst the BR faiths. There are, of course, rivalries and zealotries, but

> not the same systematic destruction of the works of other faiths.



The fire of the bibliothek of Alexandria would be another fine example

how a large number of books could be destroyed - perhaps a very large

selection was destroyed in the destruction of the Imperial College of

Wizardry´s tower. Or as an example in the opposite direction: The

arabians preserved the knowledge/books of the old greek authors during

the time in which the christians burned every of these copies - and

after the arabians were defeated in spain for example those books were

re-discovered. Perhaps the Khinasi have some books in their storage of

the old Vos before Azrai? ;-)



Why do we not have similar problems of book-burning in Cerilia? The

Orthodox Imperial Temple would in my opinion be ready to burn every book

in which the Book of Laws would be "interpreted in the context of the

current times" ;-)



And the description of the Northern Imperial Temple is one of the few

temples who might start a holy war - and certainly in such a war not

only people but also books will burn...

bye

Michael

[Ariadne]

Originally posted by ConjurerDragon@Dec 5 2003, 03:08 PM
The fire of the bibliothek of Alexandria would be another fine example how a large number of books could be destroyed - perhaps a very large selection was destroyed in the destruction of the Imperial College of
Wizardry´s tower. Or as an example in the opposite direction: The arabians preserved the knowledge/books of the old greek authors during the time in which the christians burned every of these copies - and after the arabians were defeated in spain for example those books were re-discovered. Perhaps the Khinasi have some books in their storage of the old Vos before Azrai? ;-)

That's a really great idea. I'm completely same opinion that some exceptional things like destroying or recovering book can be created for different cultures. This would make the history of cerilia a bit more colorful...

[geeman]

At 02:37 PM 12/5/2003 +0100, Michael Romes wrote:



>Why do we not have similar problems of book-burning in Cerilia? The

>Orthodox Imperial Temple would in my opinion be ready to burn every book

>in which the Book of Laws would be "interpreted in the context of the

>current times" ;-)



They certainly could. In general, however, I`d suggest that there`s a

couple of problems with both the scale and the scope of the issue in BR in

comparison to the real world. In the real world, of course, the Church was

much larger than any of the BR temples. It`s temple "holdings" (if we can

use that term to describe real life) spanned a much larger area than

Cerilia itself, and though there were certainly regional and cultural

changes across the continent it was still, relatively speaking, a pretty

homogenous organization. In BR, no one temple or even any one faith

compares in size and influence, even in BR`s historical periods. There

might be more aggressive temples in BR that burn the books of other

religions--and the faithful would destroy the articles of worship for

opposed faiths--but they aren`t going to have the size and influence of the

historical Church, or some of the other real world faiths that went about

destroying such things as a matter of course.



As far as scope goes, I don`t know that it makes as much sense for the

temples of BR to be as exclusive as other, monotheistic religions might

be. The BR pantheon is really it`s own faith. It`s broken up into various

groups, of course, but in general they are part of the same general belief

system. Worshippers of Haelyn aren`t going to burn the works of their

patron`s son, nor of his wife. They might destroy those of Azrai certainly

and those of Belenik or Kreisha, but since each of the regions of Cerilia

have their own patron deity and look at the other gods as less important

and sometimes superfluous it seems unlikely that many temples would endorse

and exclusive, monotheistic system. There are a couple temples that do

just that, of course, but what I`m saying is that those are the

exceptions. In general, the believers of Cerilia are more polytheistic

than monotheistic, and less likely to go on a sort of literary pogrom as

part of their worship.



Of course a certain amount of book burning would go on. What I`m driving

at is that it would probably not be considered quite the act of faith to

burn the works of all other religions in Cerilia, and that most of the

temples aren`t of a size that would make such an effort as devastating to

the literature of other religions as in the real world.



>And the description of the Northern Imperial Temple is one of the few

>temples who might start a holy war - and certainly in such a war not

>only people but also books will burn...



The one that strikes me as the most likely is the Holy Temple of Nasri in

Ghamoura. They have all the trappings of book burners; inquisitors,

control of the population, intolerance, a highly insular population....



Gary

[geeman]

This is slightly out there, but could be related to the topic at hand....



The site below has some descriptions and additional links to sites about

unsolved codes, languages and encrypted texts ranging as far back as

thousands of years. Some of these could be very interesting inspiration

for mysterious text, which could in turn be used as the basis for another

adventure or even a campaign. The clay tablets of Linear-A, or the

Etruscan inscriptions could be used as a basis for Masetian texts, or some

ancient Cerilian race (when giants and dragons were common) for a campaign

that delved back when the gods walked upon Aebrynis--and maybe left a few

artifacts lying around....



Personally, I find this kind of thing fascinating.... It`s nerd factor 10.



http://www.elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html



Gary

[CypherPax]

I sometimes add real life texts to a library, mainly books that fit the flavor.

Examples would include:
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
The Kosmographia
The Prince
The Doomsday Book
The Metamorphis by Ovid
The Art of War (as a text of Kirche)
The Timeasus by Plato
The Decline and Fall of the (Anuriean) Empire, 6 volumes

If some of the names resonate, it seems to add to the reality.

-Cypher Pax

[huehar]

It is funny - I have found this post during search of one book about awnsheghs I have forgotten (Theocrats of Mystical Forces) but found preatty good ideas, thank You! Maybe I can give some ideas for others, too.

For the next few lines I have to tell that we play the same game for years and we are already on epic levels, so do not wonder if some things seem too unbeliveable or not well-fitted for Birthright:
As the high prefect of IHH I am now building Anuire's greatest library (at the end it will be a monument level 10) where I collect every piece of knowledge available. I have an organization for searching knowledge (houndreds of copyists, linguists, historians, etc.) and they travel across Cerilia for books, scrolls, maps. For example we harmonize the historic knowledge of the races (humans, elves, dwarfs, goblins, etc.) for one solid history that is - we hope - will be full and correct.
The library's whole building is protected againts fire, inside there are continual light lamps, protected by permanent hallow spell (no one can enter with evil purpose) and the main librarian is a construct, Pater Subtiliter (seems like an old priest) who has the full knowledge of the library with persistent update. Three sections are: Publica (for everybody), Ecclesiastica (for priests only) and Licentia (indexed knowledge visited only with permission).
Now the library gives pluses for research actions and knowledge skill checks but at the end (level 10 monument) it will give one free research action/turn.
I really enjoy having this project in our game. :-)