The Knowledge of Gyaan - Location
Something new I’ll be trying out is showcasing homebrew locations.
This won’t be on any regular schedule but will happen every once in a while.
What is the Knowledge of Gyaan?
The Knowledge of Gyaan is a massive library housing knowledge from across the multiverse and located in the Deep Astral, a section of the Astral Plane far from the well-traveled paths that connect the domains and dominions of gods and civilizations. In this distant location, only the most committed can safely reach its shelves as horrifying creatures and forgotten cults reside in the Deep Astral.
The library itself is a beacon of knowledge and life with travelers finishing their pilgrimage to arrive at the decaying body of Gyaan, an ancient goddess of knowledge who perished during the war between gods and primordials. Over the eons, a race of creatures known as berbalang have taken residence and were the first custodians of the goddess’ body where they began carving knowledge into her hollowed skull.
History
During Gyaan’s life, she dedicated herself to knowledge, to secrets that were best left forgotten. No knowledge or subject was off-limits to her appetites and she valued, above all else, secrets that other gods found too horrific for mortals to learn. She had many followers who worshiped at her temples, praying for secrets to be passed from her to them. Some have even claimed she played no small role in the creation of undead monsters who tried to live beyond their usual means. While no one can prove it, and popular wisdom points to such creatures as Orcus or Osiris, there are whispers that her secrets to her worshipers helped propel them.
Her Death
Gyaan, during the war between gods and primordials, wasn’t very active, instead, she skirted along the edges of each battle, watching for secrets. If a power fell, she moved quickly to salvage what she could, using one of her hands like a chisel and split their skull. Scouring their mind, she’d gather up any secrets she could and then scurry away before the other powers noticed her and her ill-gotten gains. She was eventually killed when she tried to dissect a body of a fallen god in front of its pantheon. She was quickly annihilated, her secrets dying with her.
Like all gods, her physical body was shunted into the Astral Sea while her soul carried on to where ever a powerful soul belongs, no one knows though many have tried to study it. Unfortunately, to understand what happens to a soul, one must kill a power, and then use powerful magic to observe what happens to the soul. While there are several who have the necessary magic, there are yet to be any volunteers to be killed and studied. Her body, rotting on the Astral Plane, was soon discovered by the berbalang who are seekers of knowledge and secrets. They took over her body, or the only remaining part of it, a massive and hollowed out skull. No one knows what happened to the rest of her body, but some believe it was stolen by the pantheon who killed her and they formed the foundations of their temples with those bones.
The Residence of the Berbalang
When the berbalang found Gyaan’s skull, they quickly made their residence inside of her and begin scratching her knowledge into the bone of her skull. Slowly they brought books made of bone and flesh to this holy site, and outsiders even found this home of knowledge and brought their own books. Slowly, over thousands of years, it became a library of sorts, filled with secrets that should’ve been forgotten long ago.
The berbalang jealously guard their position as the stewards of the library, demanding all who enter to sign a powerful pact that they won’t harm the books, that they won’t steal the books, and that if something were to happen to them, the berbalang claim their soul to work for the library for the rest of the soul’s afterlife.
An Outsider’s Perspective
Most people have never heard of this library, but for those who have grown frustrated with the lack of knowledge found in most libraries, this skull is almost treated like a holy site. Many speak about their first journey to this library as a type of pilgrimage, having to scour the Deep Astral for weeks or months as they search for it. For many, that is the last journey of their life as foul creatures, like astral dreadnoughts, plague the Deep Astral, seeking to devour and destroy anything they find.
Many find the berbalang, the custodians and librarians, to be quite distasteful, but they have little choice but to follow along. Breaking even one rule is enough to get permanently banned from the library, and seeing as how many people owe a certain amount of debt and allegiance to a library that holds such valuable information, it can be dangerous to resist with magic and violence. Once someone gets used to the way things work in the library, it’s fairly easy to stay out of the way and avoid getting into trouble.
A Native’s Perspective
The custodians of the library are separated into two groups; Collections and Librarians. These two groups rely on each other to maintain the library and continue their duty of gathering knowledge and consolidating it into a single place. Both groups are heavily populated with berbalang, though the berbalang themselves rarely, if ever, willingly leave the library in their physical bodies. Instead, they send out a projection of themselves into the worlds in search of new members and secrets.
Collections is responsible for acquiring new knowledge to be funneled to the library and preparing it for the librarians, this often takes the form of adventurers and outsiders scouring the multiverse and finding books. This arm of the library is always looking for new members, though it is a dangerous occupation as the collectors themselves are often forced into deadly situations where they end up dying. Those who work at the library and are part of Collections take the books, scrolls, scarps of paper, and other bits of knowledge and prepare it for the Librarians; either by removing blood and other bodily stains, repairing damaged books, or simply removing duplicate information they already have on their shelves.
Librarians are almost entirely made up of berbalang, though they have allowed a few other creatures who have proven themselves loyal to the Knowledge of Gyaan. They stock the shelves, ensure that no one is attempting to steal their knowledge, as well as process newcomers to the library. The members of the Librarians are never allowed to leave the library once they join as that could mean a sign of betrayal to the Knowledge of Gyaan. To ensure that their members don’t try to sneak off with their precious knowledge, they bind the creature’s physical body to the skull using secrets that Gyaan’s corpse gave them, tying the creature’s essence to only a few miles within the skull. If a creature leaves the skull, whether by choice or forced, their body falls apart and rots to death once they get too far away.
Traits
Appearance
The library has been carved into the skull of Gyaan with materials and supplies brought in, or scavenged, from across the multiverse. It’s nostrils, eyes, occiput, and ear canals have all been blocked off with various materials that protrude out so that the librarians can store ever more information within the skull. The only entrance into the library is through the mouth where the main atrium is located, and the front desk can add new members to the roster and issue library cards. All along the outside of the skull are ancient runes, some written in common, celestial, infernal, abyssal, or other well-known languages, and others written in forgotten sigils and characters that even the berbalang forget what they mean.
Traveling to the Library
Traveling to the Knowledge of Gyaan is as hard as journeying across the Astral Plane, though a traveler must head off into the Deep Astral to find the library. The Deep Astral is the uncharted realm of the Astral Plane and entire civilizations have risen and fallen within these distant lands without being stumbled upon by outsiders. Horrific monsters, the results of failed experiments by the gods, prowl through the silvery void, their howls of pain and agony can be heard wailing across the plane.
To arrive at the library, it requires a traveler to search for it in the Deep Astral, their mind focused on the library and its contents. Those who are exceptionally lucky can find it within a week of travel, while others are forced to scour forward for months as they seek the library. It seems as if the remains of Gyaan do not wish to be disturbed, and it’s rumored that elves have an exceptionally hard time finding the skull and the library contained within it.
Traversing The Library
If it can’t be found recorded in the bone-halls of Gyaan, it isn’t worth knowing. At least, that’s how many of the custodians, librarians, and inhabitants think. Of course, knowing something is written down and finding it within the library is a completely different process. The head librarian, an ancient berbalang known as Oracle, is in charge of deciding where each book that arrives in the library belongs to, and most agree that Oracle has lost most of what is in his head.
Any book could be labeled as a children’s book, even if it is a recipe written by a hag about the best ways to prepare children. To Oracle, the intent of a book is a lot less important than the substance of it and so a book might be sent to the floor on gardening even if it is about burial rights, or a summoning book could be left to rot in the cooking section if it gets too specific about how to properly butcher the sacrificial chicken.
The library is separated into different floors, with each floor responsible for a different subject, and each floor with a Floor Head in charge of its organization. Some floors, like History or Non-Fiction, have grown so large that they take up multiple floors, much to the anger of the other Floor Head who have less sought after material and must make do with a decrease in floor space.
Between the floors are dozens of staircases, some ornate, some barely held together with rusted nails and rotting rope, and others made of pure marble. The Floor Head is responsible for maintaining all of the equipment on their floor, so some floors are incredibly well cared for, like the section on Magic as maintained by Mr. Fox. Other floors, like the section on Curses, never has a Floor Head for more than a week and has largely been abandoned by the library, only growing in large piles of books as the other librarians run down the stairs, toss the book in the room, and then run away as fast as they can before they are grabbed by something horrific down there.
Library Card
This platinum card has arcane sigils etched into it and allows the wielder to walk through the library without being attacked by the librarians or the books. Each card costs the purchaser a secret or a book of knowledge not yet in the library, and it is up to a librarian if the secret provided is worth the price of admission. Most who try to trick their way in by giving a useless secret is met with contempt and sneers by the librarian before being told to leave.
Those who do provide something suitable are allowed membership, though they must first sign their name in their blood in the library’s membership book. Upon doing so, they give the library all rights to their soul if they die in the library, and in exchange, they are given a library card and allowed to walk its halls. While the librarians don’t specifically try to assassinate visitors, they don’t rush to anyone’s rescue who is in danger of dying, often giving those cries a few days to wear themselves out before checking on whoever was calling for help.
Also, this card offers services to the signer from the library, and while they are in the library it can be used to help them figure out what section of the library they are in and where the section they are looking for is located. The inside of the library is almost like that of a maze and librarians rightly offer help without expecting payment.
Floors of the Library
There are dozens of floors that span the height of the skull, with each floor roughly 12 feet high and stretch from one side of the skull to the next. Some floors are taken up by two different sections in the library, but a solid wall of books and shelves have been erected so that each section is separated from each other as the Floor Heads typically can’t stand each other and think their section is the most important.
Main Atrium
The main atrium is located at the mouth and is carved directly from the jaws of Gyaan with purple-black marble installed for its floor, ceilings, and walls so that it appears like a massive bruise on the inside. This floor soars with 30-foot high ceilings with a reception desk set near the entrance to the library. This is the first place outsiders are allowed to visit and where they must sign up for a library card, if they choose to not sign up they are asked to leave. If it comes to force, Floor Heads from across the library are called on to force them to leave, if that fails, they can force or persuade the members of the library to help them push out the outsiders.
Behind the main desk is a marble staircase with a golden handrail that rises on either side of the chamber, and a central staircase that descends to the bottom floors. The receptionist, a disgruntled berbalang known as Apostle, watches over the entrance and signs outsiders up for membership. It rarely has much work to do and so often finds ways to amuse itself, often by announcing an emergency to the Floor Heads that it dislikes, causing them to leave their shift and go on ‘missions’ to other sections where Apostle claims fights are breaking out that they must solve.
Oracle, the Head Librarian, has been asked multiple times to remove Apostle, but many believe Apostle has something on the elder berbalang and so he retains his position despite the number of distractions he causes in the library.
Children
Located in the right ear canal in a region below the temporal bone, there are thousands of ‘children’ books. Books on children’s names next to children’s cookbooks, for cooking and being cooked, books made from children, books to help with child-rearing, and more fill the overflowing shelves. In the center of this floor is a large rug with plenty of pillows tossed on the floor for relaxing with small wooden blocks strewn about the floor like a child who just recently had a temper tantrum.
The Floor Head is an old woman who has pledged her service to the library, so long as she could be in charge of the Children’s section. While the position was filled when she demanded the job, it was quickly emptied when the berbalang couldn’t find the Children’s Floor Head a week later. The old woman, who goes by Dear Granny, always keeps a tray of cookies and warm milk on hand for visitors, and always has a few pearls of wisdom she reminds her guest constantly of. It’s not uncommon for Dear Granny to remind you to keep your duckies in a row while bringing cookies and milk to those studying the books she maintains over.
Some believe that Dear Granny is a hag, and while that is true for many of the patrons on the Children’s floor, no one has proved it for Dear Granny. She just appears as a warm and pleasant old woman who tuts around the floor, constantly cleaning up messes that appear sporadically as if from an angry child displeased with their grandmother.
Curses
In the occiput, the bottom of the library and hangs dozens of feet below the skull like it is a tumor trying to escape is the floor devoted to Curses. No Floor Head has survived for longer than a week on this floor, and so it has largely been left abandoned by the library staff as they couldn’t find anyone willing to take on the job. When books for this floor are brought in, the staff pull straws to determine who will be dropping off the new additions, and whoever gets the task gets it over as fast as they can. They run down the rickety staircase, and with no Floor Head to maintain them many of the steps are rotting away, they then chuck the books with all their might at the large pile growing in the center of the floor and then run as fast as they can back up. They don’t always make it back up, but rather crash through a step and their screams are heard echoing through the next few floors.
Those who have journeyed down here, and returned, report that ghostly figures, often called poltergeists or allips, roam the bookshelves. That the books are made of humanoid flesh, demonic ichor fills the floor in pools of filth, and that several bodies are slowly rotting beneath a pile of books that seem to have attached themselves to the body. They warn that no one should open a book from this section, that doing so causes a face to emerge out of the book, screeching and screaming as a powerful curse is placed on the reader.
Fiction
Knights of old, creatures of imagination, and brave tales of heroics are often found on this floor located against the Frontal Bone of Gyaan. Here, wild stories with little to no basis in truth are stored, as well as stories on how the multiverse was created. Certain books have slowly crept into this floor as monsters die out or civilizations go extinct, they are no longer deemed as non-fiction and are left to be digested on this floor.
The Floor Head, Sir Percival Galois, is a berbalang who has grown quite mad with his charge of protecting the floor. He has only allowed himself to learn knowledge from these fictionalized books, and now, quite excitedly, demands a challenge of any who venture onto his large floor. He drags a broom behind him, claiming it is his noble steed he calls Troyes and makes clicking noises with his wings that sound similar to that of a horse walking across a stone street.
If visitors aren’t willing to challenge him with a joust, then he assumes them to be delicate lords and ladies and refers to them as such the entire time they remain within his domain until they eventually agree to joust him. Of all the berbalang, he is the only one who believes himself to be human and anyone pointing out his non-human features is begging for Sir Percival Galois to call upon his divine power and smite the devils out of them.
History
Located on the floor above the Fiction section, and with floors thin enough that the Floor Head can hear Sir Percival greeting visitors with a joust, lies the History section with books on a variety of topics. Strangely, many of the books here are also fictional books, but Oracle claims that eventually, they’ll come to pass and so they won’t be fictional then. The Floor Head, Rahasy, doubts such claims and so has made a sub-section on his floor where he places those books. Rahasy’s favorite pastime is to go through a Not-Yet-History book, leaving notes throughout the margins specifically pointing out every instance where a fiction occurs. He takes great pains, researching the period, the world where the book takes place, and more; spending years and years on a single book to tear it apart and point out every plot hole and inconsistency, as well as the falsehoods. In Rahasy’s opinion, none of the books he has placed in the Not-Yet-History subsection of his floor has even, or will ever, become a History book.
Visitors to this floor find the organization a bit odd, as Rahasy has organized his floor based on a calendar system he decided was the best, one of his inventions. Calling it the Rahasy Calender, he goes through each new book and carefully places it where it belongs in chronological order based on how old the world is in comparison to other worlds, and in comparison to when time started in the multiverse. Since not every world came into being at the same time, nor is time a guaranteed single unit everywhere in the multiverse, some books start in the year 33 R, while other history books won’t start until 15,328 R, while worlds created at the same time may have three, five, or seven years for every 1 R year. There is no telling when something happens based on Rahasy’s calendar, and Rahasy has little time to explain his calendar system to those he deems unsuitable.
Magic
An old man can often be found sleeping in a worn maroon armchair with a book fallen open on his chest and a pair of thick spectacles perched on his nose. This is the Floor Head, known as Mr. Fox, though he only acts as if he is sleeping and ‘wakes’ with a start whenever someone gets too close to him. Of all the Floor Heads, Mr. Fox goes to great lengths to maintain his floor and ensure that every book is in a logical place, that a crackling fire can be found in the fireplace, and that there is always a comfortable chair to sit in while patrons study his books. The floor itself looks like a personal library with thick rugs, bookshelves loaded with books on everything magical, from spellbooks to dissertations on magical theory.
Mr. Fox takes on the appearance of a wizened human, though his looks have deceived many who thought they could take advantage of him. He is an arcanaloth who has been bounded and forced to be the Floor Head for Magic. While he isn’t opposed to such sentencing since he can study the huge amount of knowledge stored here, he does despise outsiders who think it’s ok to mistreat his books and wear shoes on his nice carpets. Of all the Floor Heads, Mr. Fox is constantly getting in trouble with Oracle due to his mistreatment of patrons who break one of his innumerous rules.
Mystery
Thick fog obscures much of the books on this floor located somewhere near the center of Gyaan, though patrons swear that it slowly drifts across several floors. Those who venture through this floor find they must hunt for clues to find the exit, finding dead end after dead end of bookshelves blocking their progress out. Some patrons have claimed to have found the remains of those who have died seeking a way out, but since the Knowledge of Gyaan is located on the Astral Plane where you can’t starve or die of old age, those reports to the Floor Head are met with derisive, high-pitched laughter.
Prophet, the berbalang who maintains this floor, loves its job as the Floor Head and goes to great lengths to increase the ambiance. It has even been known to rip the last few pages out of mystery novels to drive patrons of the library crazy as they try to figure out who did what at the end, of course, Prophet makes sure to keep those pages safe as it doesn’t want Oracle to punish it for destroying knowledge.
Those who venture onto this floor claim that many of the books have been cursed, that if you read a book, you learn all the facts about a mystery except the one fact to help you solve everything. That those who can’t figure out the mystery are strangely compelled by the book, or maybe the library itself, to find the final clue to solve the mystery or be overtaken by a great yearning desire as to forget all other reasons for visiting the library.
Non-Fiction
Located near the top and back of the skull where the parietal bone is, is the Non-Fiction section watched over by Berbalang, a berbalang who believes that names should be truthful and accurately describe who the creature being referred to is. The books on this floor are arranged based on how truthful Berbalang feels that the book is being, often rearranging the entire floor when it decides that it was wrong before and that hundreds of books weren’t as truthful as it originally thought.
These books are often focused on the creatures of the world as well as inspiring stories written by ancient bards to modern leaders; all offering their advice on how to succeed in life. Many of the books focused on creatures will summon forth an illusion of the creature it is referring to, allowing the patrons a chance to see the creature up close. Once the book is closed, or no longer being held, the illusion disappears. There are also books on how to fight, how to cast spells, as well as scientific theses on a wide variety of topics from the arrangement of the Outer Planes to the migratory patterns of swallows.
Other Floors
There are dozens of other floors, all focused on their specific topics with strange overlaps based on the guidance of Oracle who decides where each book that arrives in the library belongs. Sections on Arts, Cooking, Geography, Language, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, and many other floors focused on esoteric topics to the more general. Each floor has a Floor Head, though many are not as attentive as they should be in keeping their floor, or floors for very large sections, well maintained and organized.
Inhabitants of the Library
There are a wide variety of creatures that can be found in the library at different times, though several creatures who tend to always be there are detailed below.
Berbalang
The caretakers of the library, and the first founders, the berbalang are strange creatures who are said to have originated in the Far Realm, the plane that is said to exist outside of the multiverse, where reality breaks and ancient beings rest in slumber. While many hate these aberrations, there are so many berbalang in the library, and so many patrons to the library as well, that there is little they can do about the creatures.
For the berbalang, they are focused on gathering knowledge from across the multiverse and, while they hate sharing their knowledge, know that if they tried to revoke patronage, they’d be in a very dangerous place. They are not gracious hosts, but they don’t attack visitors to the library at least and will even help if they are forced to.
While a creature can’t age in the Astral Plane, the berbalang still seem to have their minds affected by the tens of thousands of years they live, even if their physical body is no worse for the wear.
Oracle
The current Head Librarian and leader of the Knowledge of Gyaan, Oracle is said to have forgotten much of its life and is now degrading into a deranged state. Of course, the other berbalang don’t seem to care and just accept that Oracle has some eccentricities that they have to be mindful of. Oracle has been in its position since the previous Head Librarian, Sibyl, was deposed when it came to light that that berbalang was selling books in the library to demons. It’s said that Sibyl’s screams can still be heard echoing through the corridors of the library.
Celestials
Celestial beings have been sent by gods focused on knowledge to browse the shelves and record any knowledge that the library has and the god doesn’t. While the berbalang groan and moan when a new deva or planetar walks through their main atrium, they grant a library card to them simply because those beings often have access to greater knowledge than even the berbalang have in their library. For every secret and book found in the Knowledge of Gyaan, the berbalang are gifted more knowledge from the celestial, making it a very lucrative trade between the two groups who would normally be at odds with each other.
Monsters
All sorts of creatures have made their way into the library over the years, from accidentally summoned creatures to horrific transformations when a cursed book was read to astral beings simply wandering through the main entrance. While a few mindless monsters have destroyed some of their books, there are dozens of others that have journeyed to the library to learn and add to the vast collection.
Hags often bring in their books on rituals containing the frightful knowledge of gore and bones. Demons and devils are always looking for information on each other, scouring the shelves for something that will be the undoing of each other. While violence often erupts between the two, the berbalang have learned to separate the groups by quickly dragging bookshelves around, blocking line of sight between two hated foes. Magic-users, liches, and other creatures seeking secrets to the multiverse can be found perusing shelves, seeking new spells to add to their repertoire, or simply ways of subjugating others for their own devices.
Vampiric Books
With such powerful creatures and strong gatherings of psychic energy from the knowledge collected into a single location, it has created these constructs that flap around the library in great flocks. The vampiric books hungrily seek knowledge and flutter over the bookshelves seeking out prey to attack, landing on a creature and attaching itself as it slowly drains the intelligence out of a creature. Berbalang are constantly hunting these books down, and may even offer rewards to those who kill a flock or two of them.
Encounters
All in your Mind - Rumors have crept through the streets of Sigil, that the library has suffered a breach through its skull and that books were stolen from the berbalang. The berbalang are offering massive rewards to find out who did this heist that tore through the top of Gyaan’s skull and to bring them to the library for punishment and execution.
Knowledge is Power - The secrets to an ancient ritual have been lost, and rumors of this library have reached a group of adventurers willing to take on such a challenge.
Mathematical Formulas of Control - The gods have heard troubling news, that Anise Karthik is currently in the library and has made a breakthrough on her mathematical formula to figure out the true names of the gods. They have decided to end Anise’s research and burn her notes, sending their most trusted clerics to deal with her, though to little success so far.
Who Me? - While conducting research, strangers seem to be following a group of adventurers through the library. Oddly enough, it never appears like the same stranger, but the feeling of being watched constantly can’t be shaken and the stranger always seems to disappear when approached or talked to.
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