Library of the Cobalt Soul
"Reason. Knowledge. Truth."
Under the enlightening scriptures of Ioun, the Knowing Mentor, teachers, priests, and monks who have been drawn to the calling of truth and knowledge spend their lives training within the Library of the Cobalt Soul. Rather than a single physical building, the Library of the Cobalt Soul is a collective term for the universal knowledge and philosophies upheld by those who follow Ioun’s teachings. The Cobalt Soul is guided by a central belief that true strength is found in understanding the world around you. Despite their idealism, the pursuit of truth is hampered by the realities of life in the Dwendalian Empire and beyond: politics, propaganda, and the dangers of the wilderness.
The Cobalt Soul is based in Rexxentrum but operates throughout the empire and across the whole of Exandria. Temples to Ioun under the management of the Cobalt Soul act as massive libraries called archives, usually located in larger cities and cultural centers. Its members come from all walks of life and are expected to assist in the maintenance, organization, and protection of the archives. Its satellite archives collect artifacts and research information both historical and contemporary along the Menagerie Coast and in the distant lands of Tal'Dorei, Issylra, and beyond.
Archivists act as administrators at each Archive, delineating tasks, overseeing the training of new members, and even negotiating for or purchasing artifacts and records—often from those unaware of their true value.
The monks of the Cobalt Soul are the enlightened knowledge-seekers of their order. They research places where ancient knowledge could be hidden and lead large-scale expeditions to these places.
Expositors are the covert agents of the Cobalt Soul. These enlightened infiltrators extract information that others would keep secret and use their newfound knowledge to better the world. As masters of acquisitions, expositors answer only their High Curator.
At the top of each Archive is a High Curator, who dictates the Archive’s goals to subordinates and uses this power to assign marks to expositors, outline allies and enemies to their archivists, and approve the expeditions proposed by monks.
The Cobalt Soul was founded within the Julous Dominion before the nation fell to the armies of the Dwendalian Empire. The Dwendalian Crown permitted the Cobalt Soul to be assimilated into the social hierarchy of the empire rather than destroying it. This was not an act of mercy, but a political maneuver; the Cobalt Soul was allowed to survive only to provide a sense of normalcy and appease the restless populace.
The Library has continued to work with and under the empire out of necessity, but its archivists are savvy political players—whenever possible, they avoid making moves that could put them in danger of being exploited by the Crown or the Cerberus Assembly. Nowhere is this tension more apparent than in the very existence of the militant truth-seekers of the Cobalt Soul: the expositors, rigorously trained to root out corruption and falsehoods. Behind the scenes, a silent war is brewing as expositors bring the dark secrets of the empire’s social elite out into the light.
Figures of Interest
Operating under the will of Ioun, and driven by curiosity and the desire to further universal understanding, the diverse agents of the Cobalt Soul seek to change the world for the better.High Curator Loman Turray, Herald of the Zadash Archive
Lawful neutral, male human Curator Turray has held the position of High Curator of the Valley Archive in Zadash and the title of Herald of the Archive under the Crown for over forty years. He faces increasing pressure to instill his subordinates with loyalty to the Crown, and he is slowly giving in to imperial indoctrination. He fears that enforcing the will of the Crown when it contradicts the philosophies of the Library will cause his own colleagues to depose him — which only leads him further into the Crown’s protective embrace.High Curator Yudala Fon, Herald of the Rexxentrum Archive
Lawful good, agender half-elf Yudala is a wise and respected figure who has spent most of their life fighting to protect and maintain the Rexxentrum Archive. They have mastered the art of parrying the Crown’s and the assembly’s attempts to subjugate the Archive and bring it under state control. For nearly two decades, they have been engaged in a battle of wills with the infuriated Theolocrat Kon Bruda—and they fear that Kon’s patience is at an end. His vengeance will be elaborate, exacting, and swift, or so Yudala fears. Their network of spies and expositors is frantically seeking to find and publicize evidence of Kon’s unlawful dealings and end the feud before it escalates further.High Curator Jamil A'alithiya, Herald of the Ank'Harel Archive
Chaotic good, male human At 29 years old, Jamil A'alithiya is the youngest monastic high curator in the history of the Cobalt Soul. He is often underestimated by his contemporaries and uses that fact to his advantage.High Curator Greisalda Cassios
Half-dragonblood leader of the Cobalt Reserve The High Curator of the Westruun archive of the Cobalt Soul is a high-cheekboned, bald woman who would appear fully human if not for her slitted, silver eyes and the silver scales that run across her head, neck, and upper arms. She is regarded as one of the fastest minds in Tal’Dorei, for she has the rare gift of perfect recall. Monks tremble when her clear, unpretentious voice rings through an archive chamber, for Greisalda remembers acts of justice and personal slights with equal intensity, making her a powerful ally and a furious enemy. She is concerned that corruption is spreading throughout the Tal’Dorei Council.Expositor Cressida Holt
Neutral good, nonbinary orc The name Cressida Holt is synonymous with style and effortless charisma—and also a blunt, merciless coldness. Cressida is nonbinary, and uses both she and they pronouns interchangeably. Though she's fresh blood to the expositors of the Cobalt Reserve, she has already taken advantage of her license to kill on her espionage missions. They are slim for an orc, but still more muscular than many of their human colleagues. Their assignments take them across Tal’Dorei in search of political corruption. She is currently stationed in Emon to observe a person of interest on the Tal’Dorei Council, where she alternates between lurking on rooftops and striding through ballrooms in fine suits.Expositor Sia Kresh
Neutral, female halfling As Yudala Fon’s secret right-hand, Sia organizes the expositors of the Rexxentrum Archive. She is determined to root out the infiltrators who would seek to undermine the leadership of the Library and grab power for the Crown, and she is swift and brutal in her work. Those that know of her fear her, and many wonder if her methods are crossing a line.Archivist Salomane Rothtree
Lawful neutral, male uniya A haggard, overworked administrator, Archivist Rothtree is known throughout the Cobalt Reserve as someone who tries too hard to prove himself and constantly bites off more than he can chew. Half-orc and half-elf, he has said that he hopes to accomplish as much in his lifetime as an elf could in theirs. He often is tasked with helping adventurers find information. Though he resents the task, he may slowly open up to heroes who treat him well.Structure
Beneath the veneer of being a dopey order of bookish monks, the Cobalt Soul is one of the most dogged espionage organizations in the world. The secret agents of the Cobalt Soul, its expositors, are spies who wield the truth as a weapon more potent than any blade. The Cobalt Soul was born in Wildemount, just after the end of the Calamity, when the Knowing Mentor was maimed by an evil god. Her most loyal followers went into hiding and vowed to continue her divine work in knowing all there is to be known—and most importantly, to use the truth as a holy weapon against lies and propaganda.
Each archive of the Cobalt Soul has a common hierarchy, and higher-ranking members of the Cobalt Soul can command their lower-ranking comrades from another archive.
Monk
The monks of the Cobalt Soul are their most visible members, for they travel the land in search of knowledge both modern and archaic. Not all monks are engaged in fieldwork, especially new recruits. Those who work entirely within an archive aid in the organization and preservation of information. Few know that these monks are dedicated to the Knowing Mentor; the common opinion in Tal’Dorei is that they are ascetics, obsessively dedicated to the chronicling of knowledge, not devotees of an obscure god.Expositor
Trained in the art of espionage, the expositors of the Cobalt Soul use their infiltration expertise to uncover the secrets of governments, world leaders, and obscure cults. In times of great crisis, undercover expositors have even incited revolutions by sharing the knowledge they discovered with people toiling under evil regimes. This true mission of the expositors is a secret even to low-ranking monks, who see them simply as well-trained field agents.Archivist
Though they are not involved in field work, archivists play the vital role of organizing the overwhelming flow of information that the monks and expositors return to their archive. They also train new monks and perform administrative tasks, like negotiating with sellers of artifacts and with government officials to ensure the stability of their archive.Curator
A small group of three to five curators manage the top-level operations of each archive. One of their number is given the special designation of High Curator, to whom all other members of their archive must ultimately answer.Public Agenda
Untold knowledge was lost when the Calamity brought the Age of Arcanum to its fiery end, and so too was the case when Ioun was mortally wounded in that terrible war. Since that day, the Cobalt Soul and their progenitors have sought to recover what was lost. They hope that, in time, their tireless effort will eventually usher all societies to an enlightened future.
Ioun is still wounded, but her wisdom and grace has returned to the world—at least in part. Under the guidance and wisdom of their patron god, members of the Cobalt Soul seek to enlighten themselves through study and research. They devote their lives to studying the mysteries of the world, and turning that knowledge to protect it from another Calamity. To this end, the Library makes the immense breadth of knowledge within their archives available to anyone and everyone who seeks to educate themselves—though some secrets are so potent that they must remain hidden from the public until the proper time.
Empires thrive on misinformation and propaganda, yet it is necessary for the Cobalt Soul to operate within the Dwendalian Empire. As such, the Cobalt Soul works to provide the truth to those who will listen, to covertly update revisionist history, and to remove false information before it can spread too far. Unfortunately, imperial agents and even spies from foreign powers have successfully infiltrated the Library over the centuries, and some of their attempts to rewrite fact and history in favor of their own interests have succeeded. In response, the Library has had to construct a powerful, hidden force of expositors to defend their texts from manipulation and uncover truths that remain guarded.
As instructed by their reclusive god, the Knowing Mentor, the Cobalt Soul in Tal'Dorei makes their archives available to everyone, so that knowledge can be used to improve and enrich the lives of all. Despite this, the curators of the Cobalt Reserve privately determine what knowledge is too volatile to be freely disseminated. Typically, this privileged information is magical in nature, but it also includes secrets recovered by expositors that must be strategically employed as a weapon against unjust leaders, cults, and power-hungry factions.
Foreign Relations
The Library tries to remain autonomous, but their agents within the Dwendalian Empire are under constant siege by Theolocrat Kon Bruda, a once-respected monk of the Cobalt Soul who is now just another corrupt lackey of the Crown. Bruda and the archivists wage a quiet battle of wills and subterfuge, each trying to outsmart and undermine the other. This situation, combined with the empire’s efforts to prevent the education of their people, has created palpable unrest within the Library.
The perceptive ears of the expositors often hear rumors of unwholesome practices behind closed doors within the Soltryce Academy and other places under the Cerberus Assembly’s oversight. The Library is concerned about the assembly’s secretive cabal but has thus far been unable to infiltrate deep enough to uncover anything damning.
Meanwhile, a small number of volunteers from within the Library have agreed to travel deep into Xhorhas in the hopes of communicating with the Kryn Dynasty to learn more about their mysterious society, and to understand the level of threat they pose to the people of Western Wynandir and beyond. None of the volunteers have yet returned.
In Marquet, the Library's seat of power is the Temple of the Mentor in Ank'Harel, a temple to Ioun founded nearly 150 years ago. The archivists there focus on rooting out evil in the city's civilian factions—principally the Consortium of the Vermillion Dream, whose members reportedly wield magic weapons made of some strange red mineral the likes of which no Cobalt Soul Archivist has ever seen. The faction is wary of the Allegiance of Allsight's fascination with Cael Morrow, but as fellow academic insitutions, the Allegiance and the Cobalt Soul work together most of the time, sharing resources from their libraries.
Though Tal'Dorei is a freer society than the Dwendalian Empire, the Cobalt Soul knows better than to think that means it is free of corruption. From the Cobalt Reserve, their archive in the city of Westruun, the Cobalt Soul keeps close tabs on members of the Tal’Dorei Council, the leaders of Syngorn and Kraghammer, and other powerful individuals across the land.
The Cobalt Soul actively opposes the Remnants—followers of the Whispered One, a tyrannical god of secrets who is diametrically opposed to the goals of the Knowing Mentor. They are also concerned by the meteoric rise of a guild of arcanists called the League of Miracles, whose political maneuverings have made puppets of dozens of delegates to the Tal’Dorei Council and political leaders across the land. This worry has only deepened as rumors reach them of the league filling their ranks with Remnant cultists who seek to dominate Tal’Dorei.
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