Pictured Above: A small Camber of TeGaLa only 20 floors deep
The Great Library, known to those who understand it as TeGaLa, is not merely a building of shelves, ladders, scholars, and dust. It is a deep and living archive, descending floor after floor into the earth, where whole galleries are given over to subjects most kingdoms barely know exist. Its collections include learned works on law, healing, history, mathematics, war, navigation, languages, beasts, spirits, gods, monsters, cities, bloodlines, dead empires, lost roads, forbidden rites, impossible geographies, and the strange workings of the planes.
Not all books within TeGaLa are ordinary things. Some are rare beyond price. Some are supernatural, changing their words when read beneath certain moons. Some are cursed, bound in skin, ash, bone, shadow, or metals that bleed when opened. Some are prophetic, recording events that have not yet happened, or futures that may never come to pass. Others are so learned and exact that a single paragraph can ruin a false religion, expose a royal line, or make a lifetime of study look childish.
Visitors do not need appointments. The Great Library will receive nobles, beggars, pilgrims, soldiers, inventors, priests, exiles, monsters, and liars, though it does not treat all questions equally. Books may be copied out by visitors, but this often takes time, patience, and permission. The payment TeGaLa values most is not gold, but testimony. It wants tales of life and people across the WarpedEarth and beyond. Those unable or unwilling to write may speak their memories into Recounting Stones.
Yet the Great Library is not loved by all. Many of its records are not available to the public, and some are sealed so completely that even senior scholars only know they exist by absence. It is said TeGaLa holds records from the earliest days of the world, even from before it was called the WarpedEarth. Many resent this withholding, believing the Library hoards truths that could save nations, expose tyrants, or prevent disasters.
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