The Keeper's Vault

Cover image credit ChaoyuanXu on Deviantart

"As much as I despise desk research in favor of field work, I always relish the opportunity to return to the Keeper's Vault. It's wide marble corridors and stacks of well used tomes are as much home as anywhere these days. The food could stand to be better though."
-Jian Taishi, Three Hundred and Seventeenth Seeker of the Keeper’s Vault, 1665 C.C.

Purpose / Function

The Keeper's Vault in Korrindor is the largest temple in Senéa dedicated to the goddess of knowledge and secrets, Persea. In addition to housing the primary collection of her priests and clerics as well as holy relics, the temple serves as the largest library and repository of knowledge on the continent as well as a school for aspiring acolytes of the faith.

Alterations

The Keeper's Vault was built to enormous scale from the beginning and the face and interior of the building have remained mostly unchanged. However throughout the years additions and expansions have been added to the sub-levels of the grand library to make room for more tomes and artifacts, as well as increases in security measures taken as the collection grew to include more dangerous and mysterious items.

Architecture

The structure is built in much the same style as other Korrindian buildings and keeps with the motifs of the cities architecture. The main body of the temple is circular and five stories high with multiple sub-levels. The roof comes to a shallow dome and three taller towers with pointed steeples are situated at points of a triangle around the temple proper. The main ring of the building is crafted from smooth grey stone and is interspersed every hundred feet with tall stained glass windows depicting Persean iconography that stretch the height of the five floors, the borders of which are carved in intricate arcane tracery. Inside, the great circle is paved with white and rose colored marble pieced together in an intricate labyrinth design, with no definite beginning or end. Smaller torch-lit hallways lead from the buildings outer ring throughout the interior.
The first floor of the Keeper's Vault contains the primary worship area and serves as the public temple. A large kitchen here serves both the scholars living at the temple as well as providing charity to the public. Stairwells in the peripheral towers lead up to the second floor which acts as the general library, and higher floors where more specific research collections are housed along with classroom areas, an eating hall connected to the kitchen via elevators, and priests quarters. The towers themselves act as housing for initiates and visitors. A spacious garden graces the western side of the temple and a wall of ivy climbs the exterior here. The gardens contain secretive reading corners, quiet walking paths, and a small training yard for the temple's Keepers.
Well guarded stairwells lead down from the ground floor into the sub-levels where restricted archives are kept. At least four sub-levels are known to exist, with the first containing private study chambers and rare, if harmless, collections. Below this each level is blocked by a ceremonial gate that can only be passed by those with proper rank within the faith. The Bronze, Silver, and Gold gates house progressively rarer and more dangerous artifacts, and rumors say some hidden areas even operate as prisons for beings too powerful for normal containment.
A fourth, secret gate exists past the fourth level and is only accessible by the highest echelon of Persean clerics. The Bone Gate is a closely held secret and what lay beyond it is a mystery to all but those who hold the key.

History

After the First Dragon War the city states of Faneshorn began the long and arduous process of rebuilding. Many turned to faith in this weary time to find the strength to continue, and in the center of the southern coast a hardy people came together to create a new civilization. In the lands that would become the city of Korrindor, the church of Persea found a people hungry to learn how to move forward, and was there to provide what guidance they could. The priests of the Knowing Crone rallied together and did all they could to not only help the people build a new home, but usher the burgeoning civilization forward to become a modern and efficient state. In the following decades the natural hardiness and persistence of the Korrindian people along with the knowledge and planning of the Persean priests elevated the city to a new level of organization and functionality.
In the year 849 C.C., with the devastating war a distant memory and Korrindor and a defined regional power, the Korrindian King Wolff Adelos, with the overwhelming support of the populace, offered to build the church of Persea a temple in the heart of the city as repayment for their dedication to the city. Construction began on the Keeper's Vault and continued for over a century until it was completed in 962 C.C. and is considered to this day to be the most beautiful building in a city known for its architecture.

Alternative Names

The Grand Library, The Crone's Cathedral

Type

Cathedral / Great temple