Encyclopedia Nioratha

Contents

Cosmology

Diseases and Conditions

Fauna

Flora

Geography

Magic

Materials and Resources

Some could see it as bragging to say that the Encyclopedia Nioratha is one of the world's most important collection of information. But even though I am the author I don't think there are many people that would agree with my statement. If they think they can do it better they should stop coming to me for advice.

— High Sage Syronikir

Information gathering has been done probably even before the start of the Avaronian era. However, for quite some time the books themselves were not available to all or very specific. This meant that many books needed to be read if one would want to improve his knowledge of the general world.
This changed when the High Sage of the Keepers, Syronikir , decided to create summaries of all the information she possessed. Given that she had the largest library in the world available to her, the work is deemed exceptionally good and has become a standard in the world.

History

First Version

The first version of the Encyclopedia Nioratha was created in the year 765 AE by the High Sage of the Keepers, the Dragon Syronikir. In the beginning the Encyclopedia was still rather compact giving only short pieces of information for each subject. The amount of information available, however, was already quite impressive with covering large portions of biology and the world of Niorath itself.
It was structured alphabetically and orginally only available in the Arek language. Several copies were made of which most remained in the Great Adroon Library where the Keepers could study them as they pleased. Some were sold to interested parties. As the interest grew the Encyclopedia was eventually translated into other Saver Elvish, Median and Pavan.

Spread

With the growing interest the amount of copies was increased. Many libraries in the world were keen to have a copy themselves and soon the Encyclopedia could be found as far as Oneraga. When the Keepers started building new libraries around Farlis and Pavanor, they ensured that everyone had at least several copies of the Encyclopedia. This spread increased in speed even further when the printing press was invented.

Yamaderis misplaced this image by Kefkjaco with heroforge

by Thomas Bormans

Later Versions

Over the centuries the Encyclopedia was being expanded time and time again. Especially after the start of the Progressive Era new additions became common as the knowledge about topics such as physics and astronomy grew.
The Encyclopedia also grew in number of volumes. Whereas it originally started as 2 books it eventually became a total of 18 volumes. The alphabetical order is still maintained within each volume but each volume in itself discusses a different main topic (Fauna, Flora, Magic,...).
For the covers of each of these volumes the same image was used as in the Adroon Library. Here the different sections can be identified by the stained glass decorations. In a way Syronikir makes them match to give the feeling that the encyclopedia is a miniature version of the library.

Other Works

Eventually Syronikir made other works that did not fit well in her idea for the Encyclopedia. She is also known to have created summaries for historical events, sometimes with her own takes on them, and anything related to the societies of the world.

Further Reading