Vorthryn's Archivir

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The priesthood of Azuth has many sacred books, known as “Touched Tomes” to the initiated (that is, touched by the divine hand of Azuth himself). Most are various wizards’ spellbooks that were once part of the library of magical tomes collected (through adventures, sometimes by plundering the tombs of earlier mages) by the mortal Azuth. They offer paths to power for both priests and wizards. Priests of Azuth or Mystra who read of them are allowed to study and cast spells from them, and wizards who read them are asked in a dream vision if they wish to become priests of Azuth. A rare few accept and these are allowed (on probation) to enter the service of the God of Mages. (Refusing such an invitation carries no penalty and the wizard can use the tome and its spells normally.) Priests who read a Touched Tome can memorize the wizard spells from it as a wizard does, casting them as a wizard of the same level as they are as priests. Such spells require no material components, but one “prayer slot” (a spell the priest generally carries) must be sacrificed for every wizard spell memorized. Two such “slots” of the 7th level must be sacrificed for every 8th- level wizard spell taken, and 9th-level wizard spells are beyond the reach of priests of Azuth. Wizards who join the priesthood of Azuth after reading a Touched Tome and being invited to join the church can use priest and wizard spells interchangeably. However, priest spells must be prayed for and wizard spells must be studied and cast with the proper material components, as usual, and priest spells of an equivalent level occupy the spell slots a wizard spell would normally take. (For example, a 2nd-level priest spell prayed for would take the place of one potential 2nd- level wizard spell to memorize.) Such wizards are honored by clergy of Azuth, and referred to as “the Enlightened,” or “Enlightened Ones,” but never rise in power within the church much beyond the influence or “rank” of a 7th-level priest and cannot ever cast priest spells greater than those a 7th-level priest could. They tend to spend their days in battle, defending or avenging the clergy of the faith with their spells. (This situation does not apply to dual-classed characters who are both wizards and priests of Azuth. Their particulars are described in the Player's Handbook.) Vorthryn's Archivir is one of the few holy books of the faith that is nor a Touched Tome. Rather, it is a book of prayers (spells) dedicated to the god by the priest who crafted it long ago, Vorthryn Saraddath. The Archivir was intended to provide a central and orthodox source of magic for the devout priests of the Azuthan abbey of Onter’s Pool. The abbey stood on the island of Norlorn in the Sea of Fallen Stars. (A shipwrecked Sembian merchant, Onter, discovered the freshwater spring or pool on which the abbey was later built. Used for drinking water, the Abbey of Onter’s Pool was named for the place.) Norlorn is a tiny island northwest of Kelthann, known today only for its wild goats (whose grazing keeps the entire island like a pasture) and its beach, which is ideal for washing up careening, damaged ships. The abbey was sacked and burned by pirates in 1172 DR, but “the ghosts of the slain priests of the Magegod” were so restless, hurling spells as they drifted wraithlike in the night, that the Brotherhood of the Red Tide met and decided that the very stones of the abbey must be carried off and sunk, “to take the haunts with them, and trouble crews no more.” (These words come from the diary of an anonymous pirate, discovered in Selgaunt in 1341 DR, but they recount a history that no pirate disputes. The meeting, and the destruction of the abbey ruins that followed, took place in 1324 DR.) The Archivir is a rectangular book of “classic” design. It is thin and about two feet across by four feet in height. When closed, it continuously exudes small motes of purple-white light that have been described as “sparkling stars.” The particles look like sparks, but carry no heat or power of ignition or electrical discharges. They appear to “bubble out” of every surface of the tome in a lazy, irregular fashion, drifting away aimlessly into the air (regard¬less of winds or the movements of nearby creatures or objects), and quickly fade away—the less of winds or the movements of nearby creatures or objects), and quickly fade away—the cause of these sparkling stars and when they began, is unknown. No one has yet found a way to harness their power (if they have a power) and they never vary in brightness. (They are like a faint faerie fire and can be used as a light source to illuminate writing, a keyhole, or anything else that the book is touching or nearly touching.) They pass through cloaks, shields, and other solid items if someone tries to cover them to conceal the book’s presence, and they do not respond to spells, flame, or anything else—including dispel magic effects, which lends support to the argument that they are more than a mere endless illusion. There is a tradition that insists that magical items regain expended charges when left touching the Archivir overnight, but tests have shown that, although such recharging can occur (sometimes restoring as many as 1d 10 charges), it does so apparently at random. (Some sages say full moonlight has to touch the item and the book for a certain length of time, others assert that a living being had to sleep within a particular distance of the item and book, and still others claim that running water must be present within a similar “magical distance” before this effect can occur.) The covers of the Archivir are of a dark, pebbled cloth bonded to ebony boards, and are bare of ornamentation. Anything can be written on them or attached to them, but within 4d12 days they suddenly become bare again, the markings or attachments vanishing to some unseen other¬where. The covers are sewn to a spine that in turn is attached to 21 vellum pages, each one bearing a single spell. The Archivir cannot burn, rot in water, or be affected by any known magic—presumably due to the strong, many-layered enchantments placed upon it (though, curiously, it never radiates any magic when examined with detection spells). The Archivir was discovered by a pirate (his name now forgotten) who was sheltering from a storm in 1344 DR. He was huddling in a hollow in the grass above the beach when he literally “fell through the earth” into an underground room that had once been at the end of a secret passage descending from the now-vanished abbey. The room contained a table and three stone chairs, two of them occupied by slumped and crumbling skeletons (presumably the remains of priests killed by pirates). On the table was what looked like a child’s coffin at first glance, but on closer inspection proved to be a stone coffer worked into the shape of a large human hand, forefinger extended, and surrounded by a jagged halo or surround (the symbol of Azuth). Being a pirate (or only a human or some southern fool— the tellings of this tale vary here according to the prejudices of the teller), he opened it. Motes of light spilled out, and the astonished pirate saw the book. Cautiously he poked it with his scabbarded sword. Learning that he was still alive, he gingerly touched it with a hand. Still his life continued, so he scooped it up, being very careful not to open it, and turned to leave, only to choke in horror—the slumped skeletons were struggling upright, their scattered bones rising and jostling for position. The pirate did not wait to witness this wonder further, deciding he had a sudden urgent need to taste the full fury of the storm. Lightning bolts played dance-and-dodge with him as he sprinted, screaming down the slippery slope and back to where his ship lay aground, its crew waiting for better weather and a chance to staunch the leaks in its hull. The pirate’s fellows spent the rest of the night smashing apart skeletons that seemed to rise out of every hillock and rock pile on the island, lurching through the storm to where the pirates cowered. Sometime before morning the skeletons stopped coming and the weary pirates made a bonefire to make sure they stayed gone. Then they killed the fellow who had brought the skeletons down on them and threw him on the fire too. The book they saved for sale in Sembia. Realmslore does not record who bought it there, or what happened to it for the next decade. Nevertheless, it came to public attention in 1355 DR when Jassandra Alastrin, the only daughter of a wealthy and haughty Saerloonian merchant, announced the founding of a Temple to the Dark Magic, a new cult of Shar, with herself as high priestess. She made this pronouncement while standing upon the body of an iron golem that was being carried on the shoulders of no less than 80 acolytes, in a slow parade through the streets of the city, to the newly redeco¬rated Saragath Towers warehouse. As she was borne sedately to her new temple, Jassandra held high a black book that trailed bright sparks, waving it in triumphant proof of the “awakened power” of “my dark lady patron.” She invited all Saerloonians to the consecration ritual that very night, promising them a revel, a feast, and “entertainments beyond compare.” The Supreme Priestess of the Dark Mystery kept her promise. The wine flowed freely and the food was first-rate, though the drow and mind flayers who served it made more than a few of the curiosity seekers a mite timid about sampling the wares. The golem was animated to pluck up Jassandra and set her on her high throne to an impressive fanfare of bleating trumpets and rolling drums, two mages began a grudge-duel to the death by summoning monsters to fight each other’s monsters. The Supreme Priestess opened the book that leaked sparks and called on Shar to manifest herself. The air darkened, and rifts opened in it like red slashes, leaking crimson mist like blood as the Mistress of Loss sent beholders into the temple to feed on the Sembians and let loose a little fear—and, ultimately, craven obedience. Then there was a flash of blue-white radiance, the temple split from top to bottom with a roar, and the beholders, the rifts, and all, vanished in a rising, crackling cloud of coiling lightning, drifting toward the stars. Under it stood a lone, bearded figure in simple black robes: the High One himself, Azuth the Mightiest of Mages. “I believe you have something of mine,” he said, almost pleasantly. However, his voice rolled out into every corner of the shattered structure, causing galleries to sag and then slide down into ruin. An obsidian statue of Shar hit the floor and burst into shards. Shrieking with terror, Jassandra Alastrin fled—right under a toppling pillar. Azuth looked at her and magically snatched her back to stand before him. Her shrieks were of insane fury this time, as she snatched out a dagger as long as a sword and charged at him, steel flashing as she raised it to stab. Azuth raised his arm and the cowering Sembians saw stars glittering in the darkness of his cloak for an instant before he flowed sideway. The howling would-be priestess vanished into the darkness he left in his wake, never to be seen again. Azuth looked around at the whimpering and stunned onlookers quavering amid the ruin of the temple, shook his head with a sigh, and crooked a finger. The book that dribbled sparks was floating alone in the air where Jassandra had let go of it, but in response to the god’s gesture it flew to his hand. Azuth tucked it under his arm, turned in a flourish of dark robes, and seemed to vanish into a fold of roiling darkness for an instant before a white, lip-biting Sembian suddenly found himself staring into a pair of eyes that blazed like two white flames. “You,” the melodious voice observed rather dryly, “worshiped Azuth last fall. Is not it high time you went back to my altar? Take this with you.” The gaping Sembian suddenly found himself holding the book, motes of light curling merrily around him. The face that had almost touched his own was gone. Trembling with fear, he forced himself to straighten up and walk out of the ruins with slow dignity. And that is how a Sembian merchant with no talent for magic, Alendyn Crothar, became Azuth’s Champion in Sembia, and Vorthryn's Archivir returned to the use of Azuthan clergy. At first Alendyn kept the tome, but try as he might, despite all the willing assistance that the priests of Azuth and more than one Sembian mage could give him, he could work no magic. So he prayed to Azuth for guidance, and forthwith gave the book to the priests with the god’s commandment: that it wander from hand to hand in Faerun, serving those who had need of it and could take hold of it—and so that priests who wavered in their faith could be sent to seek it out, and on the solitary journey turn either wholly to Azuth or fall away and seek other lives. Alendyn became an investor in spell components and other rare substances, funding the Sembian church of Azuth with his profits—a role he ably continues to this day. The Archivir stayed at Yeven’s Shrine in northern Sembia for a time, as Azuthan clergy from all over Cormyr, the Moonsea, and Sembia came to it to touch and read and be renewed. And then it vanished, taken by a thief, some said, others maintained that it was a wizard overcome by his thirst for true power. A few swore that a priest, reading the tome, had suddenly picked it up and walked out—the other Azuthans there letting him pass unhindered, for his face had changed to that of the god himself, with eyes like two white flames. From that day in 1359 DR onward, the Archivir has traveled the Realms, falling into the hands of all too many adventurers on a wild journey that has taken it from Neverwinter to Zazesspur, and from Athkatla to Alaghon. The wizard Sharanla of Elturel had it briefly, and turned to embrace the worship of Azuth, becoming an Enlightened One and venerating the god atop the Tor where the God Talks, a certain rocky eminence somewhere west of Triel (its exact location “every Azuthan must discover for himself’), where Azuth does indeed converse from time to time, as an unseen voice, with those who stand on the summit and call on him. Those eager to talk to a god are warned that both crossbow-firing brigands and a cunning band of bugbears keep watch for pilgrims and travelers, and make full use of the mists that often arise in those hills for concealment as they creep closer. Those fortunate enough to gain possession of the Archivir are advised that many Azuthans will pay handsomely to receive custody of the book, and that the rumor that it will (once only, per user) completely heal anyone who touches its covers with his bare flesh and says (in Common) “Heal me, Azuth,” is true—diseases, lycanthropy, mummy rot, parasites, and all the rest are banished. The 20 spells in the book are as follows: Analyze balance (a spell detailed in the Tome of Magic sourcebook), aura of comfort (Tome of Magic), Azuth's alteration mantle (a spell detailed below), Azuth's exulted triad (a spell detailed in the Faiths & Avatars sourcebook), Azuth's fedensor (Faiths & Avatars), Azuth's firing frenzy (detailed below), Azuth's immo¬bility (detailed below), Azuth's spell shield (Faiths & Avatars), draw upon holy might (Tome of Magic), extradimensional detec¬tion (Tome of Magic), helping hand (Tome of Magic), imbue with spell ability, invisibility purge (Tome of Magic), know direc¬tion (Tome of Magic), know time (Tome of Magic), log of ever¬burning (Tome of Magic), mystic transfer (Tome of Magic), nap (Tome of Magic), reverse time (Tome of Magic), sacred