Annoth the Keeper of Scrolls

Origins and Birth

Annoth the Keeper of Scrolls was born from the collective dread of the scribes, clerks, and record-keepers of the Human corridor world: the towns of the Confluence Marches and, most strongly, of the Serathic League.

As the corridor towns grew, more and more of what they lived by was written down: water shares, debts, ranks, inheritances, and the sworn oaths that made a claim something a lord might hear. Much of that writing-craft was not the towns' own. It descends partly from the forms of the vanished Archive-Law Civilization, which the Reedfolk kept (see The Last Keeping) and which reached the Human towns with the Floodkeeper rule their lords took over. The scribes who kept it rarely knew where it came from. They knew only that a lost record was a lost claim, and that the weak had little else to claim with.

Appearance and Presence

Annoth appears as a figure of aged, delicate wisdom, perpetually caught between remembering and forgetting.

• Visuals: She is an elderly woman, small and slight, with skin like old parchment: thin, translucent, and covered in the faint lines of faded script.
• The Book: She carries a massive tome, the "Codex of All Things," which writes itself as events unfold.
• The Atmosphere: In places where she moves, the air becomes still and dry, smelling of dust, leather, and candle wax.
• The Voice: Her voice sounds like the rustling of turning pages mixed with the scratch of a quill on parchment.

Powers and Abilities

Annoth does not fight; she records. She does not create; she preserves.

• The Recall: She can reach any memory her followers have kept, revealing lost knowledge or forgotten facts.
• The Inscription: She can write a rule or a vow into the fabric of reality, making it unbreakable as long as the record is kept.
• The Echo: She can summon the "ghost" of a past event, allowing people to see history as if they were there: a murder in a locked room, a massacre at a ford, a treasure carried into a cellar that was later bricked up.
• The Catalogue: She can order the memories of a person, helping them make sense of their own past.

Current Status: The Burning Record

Annoth is active, but she is always imperilled.

• The Fires: Somewhere in the corridor towns, a record-house is always burning: by lamp and carelessness, in a town's sack, or because someone set the fire.
• The Seizures: Rolls are taken as readily as they are burned.
• The Dilemma: In every fire she must choose which records to save and which to let burn.
• The Fading: Each lost record is a loss of belief, a reduction in her power.

Relationships with Other Entities

• With Memoria Prime: Annoth is a faithful expression of Memoria's nature, embodying the "preservation" and "narrative" aspects of the Prime.
• With Ushkar the Ancestor-Warden (Memoria): An argument of principle rather than of place, since their worshippers live a world apart.
• With Ostrin the Lantern-Bearer (Lux): Uneasy allies in the same towns.
• With Calvesh the Chronos-King (Aion): A faded ancestor of a kind, never met.
• With The Many-Named (Faded Memoria): Rival and predecessor in the same office; see his page.
• With Oblen the Trauma-Weaver (Faded Memoria): Never met, but opposed in principle; see her page.
• With Ennor the Grave-Watcher (Umbra): Close allies in the corridor world; see his page.
• With Iskel the Scribe of the Silent (Verba): Close neighbours who quarrel over sealed rolls; see his page.

Legacy and Echoes

Annoth is a living presence in the record-houses of the corridor towns.

• The Scribes' Vow: Across the corridor world, scribes and record-keepers swear in Annoth's name to read, write, copy, and keep, and to save the record before themselves when a record-house burns.
• The Legend of the "Last Page": A folk tale tells of a time when Annoth was so overwhelmed by the volume of history that she forgot her own name.
• The Whispering Stacks: In the deepest rooms of the oldest record-houses, there are shelves of rolls that whisper their contents to anyone who listens; treasure-seekers have found lost hoards by listening, and others have gone mad listening too long.
• The Second Copies: The hidden second copies are a treasure in their own right.
• The Reedfolk Answer: Some Floodkeeper Houses say that much of what Annoth's scribes keep is Reedfolk house-custom with a Human seal on it. Few Serathic scribes agree.