The Astral Library of Athenaeum

In the late 15th century NE, Zobeck faced a series of increasingly destructive raids by marauding barbarians from the East. In order to preserve the majority of the knowledge preserved at the time in the Great Library of Zobeck, along with various dark secrets that should not be allowed to fall into the hands of enemies, an elderly cleric of Arden called Senuthius the Ageless gathered a cadre of powerful priests and created a new haven in the image of the Great Library.
Watched over by an Eye of Arden, the Astral Library of Athenaeum exists in a timeless dimension, curated by Senuthius himself, now “the Ageless”, who may never leave or be turned to dust. The library can only be accessed by secret magical means, some say involving an old tome called Meditations of a Bibliognost. It appears as a glowing edifice floating in the infinite blackness of space, Arden’s Eye suspended between its twin spires. A magical index in its atrium guides knowledge-seekers to the books they seek, but it exacts a cost upon their physical bodies by way of testing their sincerity of spirit.
Senuthius is helped by a mutant librarian called Winnifred whose soul was split between the library in Zobeck and the library in the astral dimension, as facilitator and guardian of the portal between the planes. The library contains thousands of volumes including religious texts of all natures – esoteric, profound and unholy. Arden wished to cast light upon all things, including those that he found vulgar or obscene, so that he might know his enemies better and bring Light to the inhabitants of the world. It has remained for five centuries a secure sanctum of knowledge and one of the last bastions of the Sundered God.