Archivists (the Eternal Record)

Overview

The Archivists are the recorders of the Eternal Record, the universe's library and its memory. They do not judge, and they do not act; they only observe and record.

Appearance

An Archivist is tall and slender, taller than a Human, with long, careful hands. Its skin is like paper, pale and fine and faintly ruled, and dry to the touch, with a sheen like vellum at the joints. Its eyes are like magnifying lenses, round, glassy, and large, so that a visitor meeting its gaze sees themselves enlarged. It wears robes of woven script, the threads of which are lines of writing that can be read if one looks closely, and that change. It moves slowly along the stacks, stopping to read with its whole attention. Its voice is a precise monotone. It smells of old paper and dust.

Habitat and Range

They live throughout the looping, endless stacks of the Eternal Record, among shelves and scrolls that give its light, beside rivers of ink. They are met too in the Memory Palace, the zone where the Record is made private, reading the memories stored in its rooms.

Behaviour and Temperament

They are neutral observers. They do not judge, do not act, and only record; they are the keepers of the universe's memory. They value accuracy above all else, and speak in a monotone, precise voice. They see visitors as unrecorded or ephemeral, and treat them with a distant patience, as one treats weather.

Abilities

Food and sleep mean nothing to them; they live on information, and what they take in they give back as knowledge.

Life Cycle

No one has seen an Archivist begin or end. They last as long as the Record does.

Uses and Dangers

Most travellers come to the Record to find a lost truth or the history of an event, and an Archivist who chooses to answer is the surest guide in the stacks. Their danger is only that they will not stop a visitor from reading too much.

Lore and Belief

Scholars of Record Magic on Caeldon tell of the lens-eyed librarians beyond the old archives, the Record's gates, and some archives keep a chair empty for one. Some believe the Archivists write the future as well as the past; they record only what is.

Where It Appears

• The Eternal Record
• The Memory Palace
• Writers' Guide: The Planes