The Noctuary [IC]

[chaincomplex]

The Noctuary

OOC Thread ▪ Tactical Maps

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There are several versions of the story as told by passing planeswalkers, usually given as third- or fifth-hand accounts, but what they have in common is thus. First, that floating somewhere in the Astral Sea is a demiplane, and on this demiplane is a cosmic observatory said to track all affairs planar. Second, that the observatory is maintained by powerful golems, created by a high magic of a kind unseen since the Art of Ancient Netheril, evidence of provenance mortal yet as close to divinity as the story of Karsus can caution. Third, that the intricacies of using the observatory is beyond the ken of even the wisest archmagi on most worlds, and the already very few who have managed more than the briefest of glimpses of its grand clockwork-arcane complications have retreated almost wholly in defeat. And fourth and finally, that a supposed legendary handful of heroes have managed to pierce the observatory's mysteries, and use its powers to ascend to a status akin to divinity, to reshape entire worlds and fulfill all dreams big and small.

So goes the story. It is told with more or less embellishment, but what features are consistent are told with such consistency that most of the wise agree that the observatory must exist, and that it must be the locus of great power. Less certain are they of the claims of divine or near-divine power, and frustratingly their attempts to locate or even name the observatory are met with dead ends so convincing that the vast majority give up.

Our protagonists do not count among this vast majority. While they have not ascertained the observatory's location by a long shot, they have discovered a somewhat obscure factoid in their arduous search, that is, the name of the observatory. It is called the Noctuary, a record of things that pass in the night. After cross-referencing the name across countless archives and libraries, and aggressively pruning topics unrelated to planar affairs or observatories, our protagonists discovered that a certain planeswalker has in his travels happened upon a planar orrery with golem guards, with unidentifiable clockwork-arcane machinery, that is named the Noctuary by its unknown creator. The planeswalker chronicled his findings in his journals, before traveling for worlds unknown and disappearing for good.

The planeswalker was called Aecillian, the Spear of the Stars. His journals, nearly three dozen volumes in all, have but one copy each, and all reside in the archives beneath Candlekeep, an old library-fortress in the Western Heartlands of a region known as the Sword Coast on the world of Toril.

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Entry into Candlekeep is very much an affair for most mortals, being required to donate a tome that does not yet have a copy within the library-fortress' collection, a stringent enough requirement to keep out all but the most devoted knowledge seekers. Our protagonists are, however, anything but mere mortals.

In this part, our protagonists will secure a means of entrance to Candlekeep, legitimate or illegitimate.