Books

Books are uncommon, but popular. The printing press has been around in cities for a long time and there are newspapers that have been running for centuries. Books written more than 1000 year ago still can be found. Books older than 1500 years old are usually kept under glass or kept intact by magic. Books between 1500 and 5000 years old are almost unheard of. There are a smattering of books, some written in ancient dead languages that may be 6000 or more years old, but they appear to be made of synth that does not degrade. These can be found in some locations, and magic can momentarily decipher them, and some select cyphers can do other actions around these books. These are known as Texts Everlasting, and those known to exist are kept under lock and key at all times. Books of magic are actually far more common, and most are not that old. Books of philosophy are very common and new versions printed every year. Adventure, novel, literature, histories and political treatises are printed in short runs, the market for these is not large and usually only large cities and the educated middle class at that. Universities have libraries, borrowing books is by a fee, and they cannot leave the library building Cities may have libraries at a low cost but will only have mundane books that cannot leave the building. Journals, diaries and records are common among city dwellers, but in rural areas it is rare. Books of maps are available, but of dubious accuracy, there are many areas of Alterra that have actually never been explored, but the overall shape of the continents is close enough. Areas that are populated are going to have the highest detail. New maps are considered highly critical intelligence, ship captains and explorers rarely share or publish these, so finding set of maps can be highly valuable.