Library

From Edge of Darkness Wiki

Your character maintains within his Sanctuary a personal collection of useful information, which can help with both natural and supernatural research. Whether it’s in the form of musty occult tomes, encrypted computer files, sacred scrolls, visual art or stranger media, this library includes reference works that can help the mage understand the realm surrounding him. The library also offers insight into supernatural and occult topics that mortals cannot comprehend. In both fields of knowledge — mundane research and occult lore — this collection relates to one or more fields of specialization.

Each dot in this Merit represents one field of study or area of knowledge in which your character has a wealth of tomes, computer files or scrolls, and from which he may draw information. If he has Library 3, his dots might be assigned to demons, cryptozoology and Greek mythology, respectively. Topics can include arcane lore that most people don’t know about or that has been forgotten since antiquity.

Ordinary people have libraries as well, of course, dealing with less exotic specialties. The study of the supernatural is different from ordinary research, however. Many occult tomes refer to magical insights that only mages understand, allegories to magical philosophy, ciphers and diagrams that make little sense to Sleepers, or even inscrutable incunabula that can be deciphered only by willworkers with certain Arcana. Aging magical tomes don’t typically use indices, keywords or cross-referenced page numbers — they’re as arcane as the mages who use them.

Gaining information from a library is a research task, except that a mage spends only 10 minutes per roll when researching from his library. Success doesn’t guarantee exactly the information for which she looks. Libraries aren’t all-knowing, and they don’t always provide one definitive answer to a question, since multiple authors may have different points of view on the same subject. The Storyteller is perfectly justified in saying that a particular library simply doesn’t reveal something.

Any mage may allow another mage the privilege of consulting his library, but unless this consultant has put points toward the Merit, 30 minutes are spent per roll researching his topic.

A library is located in a haven/sanctum and is protected by that Sanctuary's security.

Special : Characters who share a haven/sanctum can also share Library dots, with each contributing to its areas of knowledge. These characters each receive the full benefits of the library, and may invite others to use the facility, so long as all parties agree. It may happen that mages suffer a falling out, in which case one or more might be asked to forfeit their library privileges by the others. Those who are banned lose whatever dots they contributed, unless an agreement is worked out to split the library, allowing outcasts to take their areas of knowledge with them.

See Also Alchemical Lab • Athenaeum • Bastion • Chapter Library • Den Merit • Guardian Ghost • Guardian Retainer • Guardian Spirit • Hallow • Haven • Hollow • Lair • Library • Locus • Necropolis • Occultation • Safehouse • Sanctuaries • Sanctum • Sanctum Gauntlet • Sanctum Materials • Scriptorium • Shadow Sanctum • Shadowless Chambers • Sites • Workshop

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