The Compendium

Created by

Tlcassis Polgara | Arrhynsia
Zerrubabel
Byrnkastal
Back to World Homepage

Scope

The motivation behind building The Compendium

The Compendium is the setting of a meta-world in which stories live within the context of a meta-story set in that world.   The stories that the meta-world - the Compendium - houses occasionally interact with the meta-world, impacting both the world and the characters in the meta-world.   Initially, I simply wanted to have a home for my short stories that did not fit into Arrhynsia.

The goal of the project

I hope to create an interesting story world where the larger context of the stories I write is given a place to express itself.

The Compendium's Unique Selling point

I think the struggle to become noticed - selected - to live and become real is a universal human drive. It's interesting to personify books and stories and give them those struggles within a meta-story f it's own.

Theme

Genre

The Compendium is literary fiction - I hope! The technology level is first world from about 50 years ago - computers are still non-existent in a meaningful way, but printing presses are real!

Reader Experience

The world should feel comfortable, but gain a creepy kind of "Twilight Zone" feel as you spend more time in it and work your way through the stories.

Reader Tone

It's definitely in the middle tending towards dark. There's only so much room on the shelf...

Recurring Themes

The ferocity of competition   Your insignificance in the universe   The indifference of others to your well being   The idiocy and arrogance of human pride   The meaning of life and significance of people

Character Agency

Compendium characters are fully empowered to effect change - they are god-like in their scope of power - at least to the books. In their reality, they experience both limitations and empowerment as we all do.

Focus

Focus One

  Values. What matters, and why. And how does that meaning drive behavior?

Focus Two

  The Magic and Physicality of the Library of Ages is paramount. The Library of Ages is an abstraction symbolic of our physical world, our lives, and our selves. It needs physicality to ground all that, and magic to manipulate it!

Focus Three

  The Laws. Libraries are places where there are rules. Rules for reading, Rules for writing, Rules for behaving...   Rules, rules, rules...
Sometimes the stories that are real, well, they don't always stay put. Sometimes the stories bleed over into other stories. And sometimes, the Head Librarian suspects that they might even bleed over into the Library itself.

Drama

The Head Librarian

The position of head Librarian has recently changed. In spite of his relatively young age, the previous Librarian had become senile and was no longer able to express his thoughts clearly. The process of selecting books for the Shelf of Life had been interrupted the previous decade, and the currently shelved books were enjoying a period of longevity that is as rare as it is unmerited.   The new head Librarian, Thoth by name, has called for an out-of-cycle sorting. And the machinations begin...

The Rot

It was a very very long time ago, over two hundred sortings, and the carelessness of it has never been forgotten. The consequences are still with us.   Someone shelved the Eldritch.   They never found out who put their book on the Shelf of Life, but they know who found it. Gutenberg. And fortunate it was that he found it when he did, for the source of the infection was removed before it could reach The Library of Ages, but it was a brutal time. Stories died in an orgy of editing, hewn to pieces as the Eldritch rewrote book after book.   Over a hundred universes were lost to death and darkness as their stories were transformed into tales of falling to the ravening onslaught of the Nightmares of the Dark. Universes that will never see light or life again. The entire shelf had to be emptied and re-read, edited to save what could be saved.   It was little enough.   And while we stopped the worst of it, we never got it all, though we tried. Gutenberg knows we tried. We cannot tell where it comes from, where it is hiding, how it escapes our repeated searches. Occasionally we find a book fighting for it's very existence against the Eldritch infection. Another universe in peril, and we move to intervene, but - well, sometimes it is just too late.

The Rebel

Twenty sortings ago, a radical by the name of Lau proposed that The Library of Ages not be shelved on the Shelf of Life.   That went over about as well as one might expect.   Lau was cast out of the Library, but no one knows where he went.   It's always a bad idea to lose track of your enemies...

Ambition

Her name is Rory and she's the Head Librarian's right hand. Some days she's his left hand too. She rose from obscurity into the position she holds today. It's obvious why, she's capable thoughtful, effective -all the things you hope will be there in the people who rise to prominence.   So what's the big deal? Maybe nothing. Maybe she's exactly what she appears to be. Of course, there was that little thing back three sortings ago. But that's nothing. Nothing to be alarmed about at all. After all, the high council looked into it and determined it was totally the delusions of an old man and the fabrication of a jealous rival.

Good Eats?

The food at the Library is terrible. Unappetizing glop that no-one enjoys. The head cook Nagusi claims that the problem is with the supply chain - no foodstuffs of high quality are available from outside suppliers. Of course, there is no outside of the library, so everyone is constanty wondering what he's talking about...   What's a fine chef to do?

Find your way!

Resources

WHO WE ARE

LEGAL

Get the news

Our Shop

Development

EVENTS

REACHING OUT

A BIG THANK YOU

To all our Our Patrons for their unwavering love and support.

For the amazing images. His Titanship Christopher Dravus of Ironrise Games, Our Revered Deity Basic Dragon / Rin & His Majesty Caeora