The Archive
The Archive
In the dark heart of the Empire, buried deep beneath the crumbling ruins of an ancient citadel, lies the Archive. Scholars debate the truth of its existence endlessly. Those who learn the truth quietly exit the conversation, never acknowledging their former role in it.
Somebody hired you to find the Archive. You don't remember their name, or their face, or where you met. You just know you walked the road, and now you are here.
The First Hall
Creatures
Whispers
HD 3 AC 6 # Appearing 2d6+1
Echoes of the scholars who once studied here, now cursed. They emerge as disembodied voices, filling the minds of intruders with doubts, secrets, and forgotten sins. Each whisper may plant a compulsion (Cunning save), drawing those who fail deeper into the Archive against their will.
Librarians
HD 4 AC 4 # Appearing Always in pairs
Figures stitched together from pages of cursed tomes and forbidden scrolls, shuffling through the Archive’s shadows. They crave knowledge.
They may offer a bargain - one secret in exchange for a glimpse of the Archive’s deeper layers. Refusal results in the librarian attempting to extract knowledge by force.
The Stacks
The shelves are filled with tomes of forbidden ritual and alchemy, atlases of places that no longer exist, forgotten histories. To dig too deep is to open your mind to things best left unknown. For every book read, make a Cunning save. Failure causes 1d3 Cunning damage that can't be recovered. Those reduced to 0 Cunning in this way do not die but become permanently empty, automata driven only by the last book they read.
The Heart of the Archive: The Well of Lost Names
The Archive’s centerpiece, an obsidian pool of unsettling stillness. Whisper your name into the well, and it is erased from the world’s memory. No records, no remembrances. Not even your companions will recall you. Only the Archive knows.
A name erased from the world becomes a tool of power within the Archive. To pull a name from the well, Exert 1d3 Cunning. You alone remember what drove them to the Archive, and what they left behind. But beware: the Archive does not part with its names gladly, and the creatures that walk its halls hunger for the truths contained within them