The Grand Archive
Structure
Culture
The Archivists are a group that as a whole are very secretive and competitive. As the council grew with more and more research heads being added, the cohesion that the council once had became more akin to a parliament. There is no discussion of ideas and findings rather it instead is undertoned with a need to raise up your status and ability as a researcher while making your rivals look incompitent. As such very few research heads talk about what they are currently working on so that they may present their findings to the council without a rival immediately discrediting their research. Once a finding is presented the counselor will usually gain accolades and recognition by their fellow councillors. That is not even to mention new found prestige and potential future consideration for promotion to the role of Grand Archivist.
The amount of prestige and happiness that a councilor gets by presenting novel findings to the council is only eclipsed by one thing, the discrediting of the findings of another council member. When a new finding is presented and accepted by the council the councilors of closely related fields get to work on discrediting their findings. When a finding is discredited the councilor that presented the finding is usually ridiculed and their overall standing falls lower than before they presented their finding. In order to reduce the risk of this occurring the councilors will spend far longer than what is necessary double checking, and reexamining their findings to remove any threat of discredition. A common rule of thumb is that an experiment that would take only a day to carry out would take an archivist a year.
The only thing that is worse then discredition by a colleague is discredition by an outsider. If a councilor has their findings challenged and discredited by an outsider, immediate resignation is not uncommon. Due to this archivists are loath to share their findings with outside nations much to the chagrin of outsiders. This way of mind has caused multiple issues for diplomates and froeign ambassadors, and is no doubt to blame for the xenophobic attitude of the orcs.
To the orcs there is little more important than the research that they undertake, and as such the lengths they go to protect it are extreme. The borders are closed and strictly guarded so only those who are invited or allowed in may enter. To enter without permission is a crime punishable by death, but in order to allow non researchers to make a living and not relying only on researchers or diplomats two towns were created: The Visitors Hub and The Dormitories. Both are open to all visitors and have inns, shops, and archivists there who will answer questions. Though of the two the Dormitories is much more popular, as the visitor hub is accessible only by food and one has to walk through the Jungle of Predators to get there, but The Dormitories are accessible by boat and is a safer trip with the boats of visitors being escorted by Azurean Navy vessels.
Matrimony and childbirth is rare in the archives with Archivists more interested in research than love or child rearing. Those that wish to be wed usually have a small wedding with little fanfare. It is a basic Ioun wedding with few visitors and no sort of afterparty in order for the archivists to return to work. Children when born are given the highest priority, once a child is born one of the parents takes complete leave from research and the like and moves to the dormitories with the child where they can devote their time to raising and teaching the child. However this has caused what is called “Trokgatal” the closest common to this is “unneeded distraction children”. In other words children are left alone or neglected as they are in the way of research for the parent. There are many orc “Orphans” who were abandoned by their parents at the dormitories so the parents can get back to research.
Public Agenda
Assets
History
The Grand Archive is considered the oldest surviving nation on the continent. Founded in 15000 BA when the orcs came from the broken lands to the south. Having fled their home after the cataclysm the orcs originally planned on wandering the lands in a nomadic lifestyle similar to their ancestors. As they headed north they found the land to be bountiful and had little problem surviving off the land. After generations of wandering the orcs came across a sprawling building the size of a large city. This turned out to be the remains of a library left over from an ancient empire.
Upon seeing this the chief Balogog Maragul made the decision to have his clan claim these ruins as their own and settled in the archive. Balagog Maragul became obsessed with the history of the archive, who made them and what they contained. He isolated himself and devoted his time to researching the tomes attempting to translate and gain insight into the ancients. After 20 years Balagog came out from his study his physique now atrophied, and declared he has had a breakthrough. Balagog said he has spoken to the goddess Ioun and she has helped him translate and understand the archive. He declared that a new nation shall be built here with the archive at the center. “No more shall we wander and fight, Gruumsh is no longer our father, mistress Ioun has become our patron!”. He immediately dissolved his clan and said that its name shall no longer be spoken of. Balagog had quickly divided the orcs of his clan into two parties the loyalists who stood by their clan leader and his decision to worship Ioun and create a new nation, and the traditionalists who remained loyal to Gruumsh.
The orcs of the now unnamed clan began to fight amongst themselves and the War for the father began. The fight was bloody and though the numbers of both sides was small (about 2 hundred each) the destruction was widespread. Many tomes and books were destroyed by the traditionalists who saw them as an affront to Grummsh, while the loyalists destroyed the architecture of the library in order to remove the hiding spots for the traditionalists. After 10 years of bloodshed and guerilla warfare the loyalists emerged victorious after burning the last stronghold of the traditionalists with them inside. The war ended with all traditionalists dead and only 30 loyalists remaining.
Balagog, now far older than any orc should be, knew he had little time before his time came. He quickly set up the new laws and government of his nation. He stated the mother Ioun has decreed that instead of clans there will be 5 research heads and their archivists. Each head will specialize in a certain field with those of their “clan” working under them. The research head will always designate the new successor but it must always be approved by the other heads with a supermajority as well as the potential research head’s archivists. The archivists may choose whichever specialty they wish to go into but once decided they may not change unless permission is granted by the research head. The 5 research heads will form a council which will be led by the Grand Archivist who shall act as the de facto leader of the nation. The grand archivist will be chosen from among the research heads and will need unanimous approval. Once the grand archiver is chosen his seat as research head will be vacated and a new research head will be chosen from among their archivers. The Grand Archivist must then devote its time to studying all areas of research and knowledge becoming the mortal embodiment of Ioun. New areas of study and research heads may be added but 2 must be added at a time keeping the number of research heads of the council odd.
Balagog then decreed the 5 areas of study that shall be created; Nature, Technology, History, Religion/ The Divine, and The Arcane. He named a research head for each field and told them to choose 5 orcs each to act as their archivers. With that final decree Balagog went to his study and locked himself in. He later was found dead by his council a week later his body hunched over a book. Balagog was posthumously named the first Grand Archivist, and was titled the Chosen of Ioun.
After the passing of Balagog the Grand Archive as the nation became named grew slowly as the orcs became more interested in research than growing their populations. However every now and then a new orc clan would wander in to the Grand Archive and the population would experience a growth spurt as they were assimilated. Due to the nature of the archive and the worry of subterfuge from other nations the cohesiveness of the orcs grew stronger but so too did the mistrust of outsiders. This quickly grew into xenophobia and eventually the borders were closed to outsiders in 600 BA.
As the number of areas of study grew for the archive so too did the number of council members. Despite the best intentions of Balagog the decision to allow the council number to grow caused a gradual cessation of progress for many areas of study as the heads became more interested in the internal power jockeying. Nowadays the researchers spend little time researching things that could prove to be beneficial to society as a whole and rather things that could undermine a finding a council rival had researched
Demography and Population
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Knowledge is all
Maps
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The Grand Archives