The Wanderer's Library

The first campaign set on Boreal and in the Shards of Light realm in the year 1388 A.B.

The Wanderer's Library is meant to evoke a sense of history, secret knowledge, covert operations, and setup a story of a world in the middle of a cycle of destruction.

The Wanderers

Themes & Influences

 * SCP Foundation (Secure. Contain. Protect.)
 * The Wanderer’s Library
 * The Organization (Cabin in the Woods)
 * The Men in Black (MIB)
 * Monster of the Week
 * Buffy, Torchlight, Warehouse 13, Doctor Who

Premise
The Wanderer's Library is the story of a group of ragtag adventurers brought together through their recruitment to the clandestine operation known as the Wanderer's Library, a secret organization that tries to protect the world of Boreal from the old world anomalies and artifacts that seek to destroy it.

Player Characters

 * Player A
 * Player B
 * Player C
 * Player D
 * Player E

Major NPCs

 * Mister Borges
 * Mister Vallon
 * Mister Connor
 * Phineas 'Finney'
 * Sophronia 'Fronie'
 * Schermerhorn
 * Noon
 * Pardon
 * Brannigan Family
 * Doctor Marlowe and Dinkelman
 * Lorena Desna
 * Evergreen
 * Royal Blue
 * The Poor-Fellows
 * Bernadette Enid Knock

Supporting NPCs

 * The Twelve Verdicts
 * Mister Hosteen
 * Tweed
 * Glady Olvio
 * Keldiga
 * Amadar Light
 * Aldo and Maheen
 * Temperance Oxendine
 * Doctor Seamus
 * Happy Jack
 * Mr. Busy
 * Ellwood

Minor NPCs

 * Arlie Exie
 * Tilda Jeanne
 * Zella Jeanne
 * Harmon Rho

Story Outline

 * Chapter I: Recruitment (TWL)
 * Chapter II: Processing (TWL)
 * Chapter III: Operations (TWL)
 * Chapter IV: Breach (TWL)
 * Chapter V: Balance (TWL)

Backstory
The Wanderer's Library is a campaign that will look to show off the many different ages of Boreal through time travel and storytelling. The campaign will begin towards the end of the Age of Silence, the world has just recently began to recover from the epidemic that wrecked havoc on the world's population as civil wars begin to turn into world wars.

After thousands of years of dealing with the tyrannical forces of the nature spirits known as the Primals and the human empire that followed them, the other surface races of the world are free to manifest their own destiny. Early in the Age of Silence, roden scholars created an arcane network of knowledge and communication throughout the world using the worlds leylines. This not only ushered in a new era of cooperation among the races of the world but also aligned Boreal to the Plane of Cognition more commonly known as the Wanderer's Library, sparking a portal between the two planes.

This plane was an endless realm of hexagon galleries that expanded in all directions, containing every book that could ever be written. An ever expanding realm of pages that mostly contained falsehoods and gibberish, but each having the potential to contain a rare volume of undiscovered knowledge or truth. News of this portal to a realm of infinite knowledge spread throughout the world and soon the roden built the great clockwork city and wonder of the world, Dirigidale, to house the travelling scholars seeking pilgrimage to the Library.

The Way to Boreal
It was in this state that the races of Boreal found their way to the library early in their Age of Discovery with the creation of the Codex in 718 A.B. (3,868 SOL) by roden scholars in the capital city of Dirigidale. Immediately realizing the potential dangers of the library they quickly established a secret coalition of roden and the other surface races calling themselves The Wanderers.

For centuries they served as devout order of historians who valued truth and preservation of that truth above all else. These Wanderers began to comb through not only the galleries of the library but also the ancient ruins and capital cities of their own world, intent of preserving their history from the endless clockwork cycles of terror that occurred on their home.

At first these wanderers operated very differently than the other races that had discovered the library. When they encountered the ancient and deranged homunculi  instead of harassing them, they befriended them and attempted to understand their endless babel. They tried to make pacts with the other groups in the library when they encountered them, and were more concerned with any knowledge these groups may of disturbed rather than securing that knowledge for themselves. Eventually the Wanderers had a vast facility of agents and archivists who began to catalog and protect the many wonders of the universe.

The first major discovery in the Library for the races of Boreal came decades later in the year 767 A.B. (3,917 SOL) when a young intern of the Wanderers found a book on his training expedition that among hundreds of pages of the usual gibberish had three pages of legible instructions. These instructions planted the seed for a way to use the spellstones of their home world to manipulate their way portal to travel to a new timeline.

However these discoveries and others were hidden from the public by the events of the last century and the Fifth Balance in 700 A.B. (3,780 SOL). Though open to a few of the brightest minds of the time, the library most remained closed. They became the entirely secretive organization they are today following the horrors of the Pox Echo outbreak in 905 A.B. Eventually all knowledge of the way portal to the Library was lost when Dirigidale fell and the other larger cities of the world were abandoned to the endlessly moving dead.

Those who remained within the library took this opportunity to remain hidden and began to operate from the shadows as they continued to secure and contain the world's secrets. They became the first among the surface races to discover the Gargoliths and their ongoing efforts to destroy the surface, however this information was only accessible to the very top of the organization.

The Wanderers secretly working together with the empires of the world prepared and made war against the Primals, defeating two of them after thousands of years of strife and warfare. However their efforts were not enough as the lords of the Great Below finally emerged to the surface in 1400 A.B. (4,550 SOL) destroying all hope of saving Boreal from total destruction. As the darkness of the balance swept over the world the way portal to the library closed, trapping the scholars within the library for seventy years.

It was during this time that those in the Wanderer's Library decide to reactivate the Prismatic Way for the first time since its discovery, sending groups of travelers through time to attempt to save those timelines from this same fate. When the portal reopens the scholars found a world overran by the gargolith lords and their commanders who rule as their masters slumber until the next balancing. The members of the library continue to help in the fight against the gargoliths, securing several important victories before the the next balancing came and again awakened the unstoppable full power of the gargoliths upon the surface.

Unlike the other balancings this time it did not end after seventy years. Instead the grand finale of this cycle had begun and a final age of seven-hundred and seventy years of darkness enveloped an already desolate world. The last surviving members of the surface races would die when the gargoliths destroyed the three suns of Boreal, preventing anyone in the library from ever seeing Boreal again.

The Age of Silence
This adventure takes place near the end of the Age of Silence, a time when Boreal was going through changes like industrialization and a time of disease and epidemics. It was also a time when the world experienced its first modern conflicts on the world stage between superpowers, leading to innovation and new social structures.

Though historians at the end of the timeline would often view the Age of Silence as the beginning of the end to the people of the time they were still blissfully unaware of the doom that slumbered beneath their feet. They had just experienced nearly a millennia of prosperity following the Age of Ruin that saw their world reshaped and ancient past erased. The surface civilizations were arrogant and proud during this time, displaying their wealth and power with extravagant fleets and lavish capital cities, they discover the basic of economics, sanitation, and the scientific theory. It was also an era of fine art, an appreciation for natural history, colonialism, and nationalism.

The look and the feel of the world was that of an old dark and gritty Victorian theme, with elements of baroque, neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, and impressionism worked into the vibes of the world. Early in the age would have the whimsical feel of Hayao Miyazaki while later in the era following the outbreak of the Pox Echo would have a sort of Bloodborne / Dark Souls motif.

High-collared jackets, extravagant hats, lots of buttons.

For a real world comparison it would feel like a mix of 1800's London and 1940's America.