Graduate Library

The Graduate Library of Chronulus in Wizard City Hexcrawl looks like a building in bondage: flying buttresses propping up jutting floors, massive chains binding together crooked towers, impossible wings defying gravity and architectural modesty. It is recursive in the way it's supported: the buttresses have buttresses, the chains have chains.

The interior gives a similar impression. Rooms with other rooms inside and secret shelves between the shelves. Labelling is in constant renovation. To navigate without prior knowledge or a guiding Librarian is to risk isolation and ruin.

It's a labyrinth, in a very real sense: one may turn a corner to find the way back has been blocked by a shelf, or spend days making nothing but left turns only to find no exits. There's a Minotaur. It lairs in the Mythology section. The Librarians call it Alexis. It eats lost undergraduates.

The tentative map of the library.

~~~~~

Three factions hold dominion within the Graduate Library

The Grey Gnosts

a.k.a. The Grey Ghosts

a.k.a. The Bibliognosts of University of Chronulus Graduate Library

a.k.a. The Librarians

The Grey Gnosts are given sacred charge to administrate and protect the Graduate Library. In this line of duty they are rigorously trained in cataloguing, community outreach, database management, custodianship, curation, pathfinding, survival, tracking, infiltration, small unit tactics, assassination, marksmanship, and assault.

They have their hands occupied simultaneously managing the library and fighting a full-blown three-way war with the Bookworms and the Department of History, all without destroying the library's precious contents.

It's an ugly war. Casualties are high. With an ill-kept ceasefire arranged with the History Department, the Grey Gnosts have focused on exterminating the Bookworms with ruthless new tactics that safeguard the books: cold magic and poison gas.

Leader: Head Librarian Arcadia

Students call her Arcadia the Icepick, for her ruthlessness, stoic disposition, and sharp wit. Rumor has it she directly commands a mysterious black ops librarian unit called The Fumigators, which specializes in magical-chemical warfare and secretly returning books to enemy-occupied portions of the library.

The Bookworms

The Bookworms, contrary to popular belief, are not a single magically mutated and enlarged species of book-burrowing or book-eating pest, but a collection of several 'enhanced orders'. The population includes numerous species: giant weevils, wood cockroaches, fungus moths, cigarette beetles, and even a mutated pseudoscorpion variety.

To them, the Graduate Library is the only home they've ever known. The Library is life, and the Library is death. The Stacks contain enough food for a hundred generations. It provides for their young and facilitates their quick-paced evolution. Because of this, they are locked in an existential war for survival.

Every day, the various species of the Bookworms get smarter and more educated. Every time they consume a book its contents gets integrated into the genetic memory of the host, hence being passed on to future generations of bug. Fortunately for the other factions they've mostly just consumed dictionaries, old newspapers, and poetry. God forbid they consume a manual on small unit tactics: with smarts and numbers they'd be unstoppable.

Leader: The Council of Worm

There are no actual worms among the represented species: it's simply become their confederate name. There are five leaders on the council, and all decisions are made by majority rule.

Councilor Weevil - A gossip, a liar, and a flirt. Ate too many tabloids.

Councilor Cockroach - A survivalist to the core. Notoriously difficult to kill.

Councilor Moth - A poet and philosopher. Abhors this war. Very sad.

Councilor Beetle - A sesquipedalian pedant. Ate too many dictionaries. Pipe smoker.

Councilor Pseudoscorpion - Spiritual leader of the bugs. The Library is life!

The Department of History

The Department of History has, to this day, still not recognized the end of hostilities of the Great Departmental War. "We will never forget!" They chant, remembering the atrocities committed against them during that horrible conflict and since. As such, their department within the university is presently "extricated" (which is to say its funding has been divvied up and everyone pretends it doesn't exist).

The History Department wants to change that. They want people to remember. They will MAKE them remember! As such they exist in a perpetual guerilla war with the forces of the University, principally the Grey Gnosts, who they consider to be war criminals. Alas, the matter of war crimes will surely be a matter for the Historians... if they ever stop being in open rebellion.

The dwindling forces of the Department number about a hundred guerillas, spies, and 'civilian collaborators'. Recently, they came under control of the Rare Books collection, and are presently holding it hostage as collateral against invasion. This has brought forth an ill-kept ceasefire between them and the Gnosts. Both sides gear up for the conflict to get hot again, while fortifying their borders.

Hence, the Maze and the Minefield. The History Department has made good use of the Library's secret passages, using them to smuggle supplies and troops around for surprise attacks. It's more than likely they have sympathizers and spies within the Gnost ranks, allowing them to pick and choose their engagements.

They make war with the Bookworms for the same reason the Gnosts do: the bugs are eating the library. Recently though, there have been attempts between the two factions to try and create a separate temporary peace, allowing both of them to focus on fighting the Gnosts. Obviously, the librarians are doing everything in their power to sabotage these negotiations.

Overall, though, the Department of History is dwindling. This conflict has gone on for too long and cost too many non-tenured professors. They hope to sue for peace with favorable terms, despite their propaganda that they'll never back down from the fight.

Leader: Manixo, Chair, Department of History

Friend and foe alike call him: The Chair. Charismatic, intellectual, ruthless, tough as nails. He is a relic of a bygone era: a professor-veteran of the Great Departmental War and a mentor to hundreds that perished. He has not forgotten their names: he keeps a mental list of each and every student that has died for the cause (approximately seven hundred long), and is said to have a perfect memory.

His pioneering spell is called Memory Extraction. Victims are strapped to chairs and have their brains probed with metal needles like cooking roasts. Doing so produces a film-like collage of their memories, perfectly stored. The History Department keeps these for archive, and to write essays about them and maybe publish a book. The Department of Torture would like to examine this method very much.