The Accursed Archive

Work in progress

# The Accursed Archive - The Vault of Dark Secrets

Hidden away in a place outside the ravages of time, there is a singular library, accessible to only an unfortunate few. This place is known as the Accursed Archive, and it contains the hidden mysteries of the world, carefully collected and curated over untold centuries.

Those who learn of this place are rarely the wise and well�prepared. The foolhardy and impetuous, the brave and the power-hungry are far more often those who manage to find their way to this place.

The reason for this is simple. Those poor, misguided souls are the ones the Archive seeks to use to fulfill its purpose: the spread of ruin and suffering to every sentient being in the entirety of the endless planes.

Sadly, few of them are aware of this risk. The Archive’s malevolent intelligence is cunning and alien. It does not communicate by words, but by the small twists of fate that guide its pawns to discover the entrance and open the way on their own.

## Entering the Archive

A forlorn and power-hungry soul will often find the Archive through what they would call sheer luck or chance. A drafty window will blow down a stack of papers, causing a scholar to scramble underneath a table in search of them, finding an ancient tome of forbidden lore in the process. A door left conveniently open will tempt a would-be thief into entering a dark hallway that leads to a place darker still. A desperate scion of a noble house will speak with a madman, who rants about the images that plague his nightmares before guiding the questing fool to a small monument carved from bone and lashed together with still-living sinew.

In all of these cases, the result is the same. The scholar shall speak the words within the tome, the thief shall turn the final corner, and the noble shall chant alongside the madman. In an instant, they appear inside the Archive, staring around at the sights to behold within the great hall.

## The Great Hall

Whenever one enters the Archive, they will always find themselves in the great hall, within which is a unique and massive tome alongside a small bell mounted to a desk.

Beyond this, seemingly endless space is filled with dark wooden shelves, alcoves, stairways, and seating areas. There are no lamps or flames here. Those who travel within rely upon the brilliant red light of the single full moon above, which shines down through the open space and is captured and reflected in the crystals that dot the walls.

Fire is extinguished even as it sparks within the Archive, a phenomenon believed to be caused by the simple refusal of the intelligence within this place to suffer the indignity of loss.

Statues of nightmarish monstrosities and vile horrors are commonplace, along with replicas of armor and weapons wielded by the greatest tyrants from all worlds. Each is sealed within a coating of pure force, preventing them from being tampered with or damaged except when the Archive decides that the time is right for these forces to be unleashed.

Within the stacks of books, scrolls, and unbound manuscripts, the darkest secrets and greatest triumphs of magic, religion, philosophy, history, science, and every topic ever researched or discovered by mortals can be found.

However, the shelves themselves are not sorted by any conventional means. Many have been driven mad attempting to catalogue the shelves, as they seem to move and twist and distort whenever they are closely inspected. One will often find completely disparate topics adjacent to one another, seemingly categorized not by subject, year written, or author but instead by something as mundane as the color of ink in which they were transcribed. Many of the books within are inherently dangerous, bearing defenses such as sharpened steel sheets instead of pages, magical glyphs of blindness and destruction, living eyes and teeth that snap at observers, or poison in place of ink.

## The Index Incarnatus

In order to find a particular tome by anything other than sheer mad chance, one must consult the Index Incarnatus – the one singular document that contains the location of each and every scrap of lore within the Archive.

Unfortunately, this means opening the tome located within the entryway of the great hall and exposing oneself to the soul�scouring weight of the Archive’s malicious intent. The process is exhausting and terrible, weighing heavily upon one’s sanity. Nevertheless, some believe it is a price worth paying.

## Beyond the Archive

In the worlds that bear the burden of the Archive’s attention, there are many who have responded to this place’s presence. Those who have entered and survived often go mad, rambling of the things they have seen and the truths that have been revealed to them. Blood sacrifice and ritualistic murder are common in places where the Archive’s influence is heavily felt, leading to dark rumors and terrible secrets.

Orders of inquisitors and heretic-hunters often arise in response to these events, holding book-burnings and purges to help regain control over their citizens. In places where the leadership itself has been corrupted by the Archive, hellish fiends and aberrations often stalk the streets and countryside, feasting upon the unwary and the brave alike.

One of the most common symbols of the Archive is a single scroll, painted black and dripping with blood. Another, favored by scribes and fanatics who have seen within, is a quill crafted from a raven’s feather.

When the Archive is accessed, places near the entryway have reported unattended papers filling with scribbles of undecipherable glyphs and runes. The asymmetry and long, sinuous shapes of these scrawlings causes instinctive distress and fear in most who view them. Those who whisper rumors in the quiet evenings may speak of dark dreams dominated by a blood-red moon. Persons formerly unable to read suddenly learning how to do so are often said to have visited the Archive, even if clear proof to the contrary is easily provided. Mysterious gatherings of carrion birds are sometimes called a “curse” in cultures that associate them with the Archive, claiming that they feast upon the bodies of the dead only as a cover for their fouler work: stealing the secrets of goodly folk and inscribing them upon some tome to take away to the Archive’s unearthly corridors.

Nearly all cultures that have a written language of some kind will have stories and tales of the Archive in some form or fashion. Some feature heroes who have sought the Archive in search of knowledge required to complete their quest, but far more portray the terrible consequences of this knowledge coming to light.

Families are torn apart after a genealogical lie is revealed, split down the middle and squabbling over inheritances lost and discovered. Kingdoms are thrown into chaos when the deeds of a supposedly-benevolent ruler are revealed to the world. Practitioners of the arcane arts, who sought methods to increase their power, reveal the disgusting madness that hid within them the entire time. Clerics and priests seek the truth behind the nature of the gods and fall to doubt, confusion, and ruin after their core teachings are revealed to be hypocrisy of the highest order. Warriors, brave and foolhardy, seek the locations of weapons thought lost to time and tragedy. Only too late do they realize why such things were better left undiscovered. Thieves, seeking to steal the secrets of the Archive, find themselves stumbling upon corruptive texts that enable them to twist the minds of others. When these enchantments fail, they are left to roll the dice in the devil’s game. Crusaders and paladins of noble orders, desiring the downfall of the forces of evil, venture into the Archive in a desperate attempt to discover the means by which they may defeat their foes. All too often, they fall prone to the very same hubris that plagues their enemies, dragging them into the vile arts unspoken by better men.

No matter who enters, the questions are always the same: What price are they willing to pay, and will they be willing to survive the consequences?

## Unlocking the Archive

If you’re interested in adding the Accursed Archive to your world, you may want to consider how it has affected the literary tradition of the civilizations that have arisen.

Are scholars and sages held in high esteem, or are they viewed as meddlers who undermine the will of the gods? Is the Archive a new phenomenon, or has it always been present and active in the world? Did writing itself come from the Archive, or did the Archive manifest after the mortal races began to write? Who was the first Archivist to venture inside and learn the secrets of this place? Do angels and demons and creatures from beyond the planes have access to the Archive? What kind of relationship does it have with them? Is it viewed as a treasure by the forces of evil, or is it sealed somehow by the agents of good? What is the most reliable way for a layperson to stumble into the Archive? Can the Archive be accessed by seemingly non-magical means, or does it require study and arcane intervention?

## Inside the Archive

While few venture into the Accursed Archive, those who do cannot help but be drawn through the great hall to gaze upon the tome in the center of the room – the Index Incarnatus, a singular, endless book that contains the location and description of every single scrap of forbidden lore within the Archive. Even gazing upon it for mere moments can cause discomfort, and reading from it can cause agony to both the body and the soul.

Any creature that attempts to read from the Index must make a Charisma saving throw with a DC equal to the skill check DC that would be required to gain the knowledge they seek through ordinary means. If they fail, they gain a level of exhaustion, but might still find the location of the correct tome or scroll at the discretion of the Index

All levels of exhaustion gained while within the Archive are removed whenever the subject finishes a long rest.

## The Silent One

Each time a person speaks or makes noise within the Archive, roll a d20. If the result is a 1, the person has attracted the attention of the Silent One: a terrifying, tentacled nightmare of unspeakable strength that exists with the sole purpose of curating and protecting the knowledge hidden here. The Silent One is blind, but has keen hearing and long tendrils that cannot be truly harmed by ordinary magic or metal, only driven back for mere moments.

### Hunting Methods

Each turn this creature is hunting the party, randomly choose one target, prioritizing those who have spoken loudly or who have damaged writings within the Archive.

The target must make an appropriate saving throw or ability check with a DC equal to 10 plus the character’s proficiency bonus. If they succeed, they manage to flee, quiet themselves sufficiently, or fend off the monstrosity for a moment, buying time for the rest of the party to complete their work.

If they fail, the dark tendrils of the creature corrupt the flesh of the target, inflicting one level of exhaustion. If a member of the party gains six levels of exhaustion, they are seized by the horror and dragged into the depths of the Archive to meet a dark and twisted fate.

### Fighting the Silent One

If the party somehow gains the knowledge and skill required to face the Silent One in open combat, the fight will not be an easy task. The creature will make multiple attacks using its tentacles, each one inflicting a level of exhaustion to any creature struck by these eerie tendrils.

The horror may resort to hit-and-run tactics, concealing itself within the endless and shadowed alcoves of the Archive before lashing out in a vicious barrage of attacks. The Silent One may also grapple and abduct any spellcasters within the party who use spells that require verbal components, seeking to choke the life from them.

The Silent One is deliberately left without a defined statistics block in this document. It is up to you to define the form of the Silent One and the statistics it will use, though in all cases it should be all but impossible to fight with conventional means.

### A Nightmarish Visage

While no two accounts of the Silent One are the same, all describe it as large, powerful, and extremely dangerous. Some claim it looks similar to a hound, blind and eyeless, with massive teeth and an eerie walk that conceals its speed. They say tendrils spiral from its back, laying around the hallways waiting to ensnare someone walking without sufficient caution.

Others claim it looks like a bat, with large wings and ears that twitch atop a mass of tentacles. Those who have seen this incarnation claim it swoops down from the highest bookshelves, crashing into unfortunate souls before pinning them beneath its unholy mass and devouring them alive.

Few see it as a serpent, silently flickering a tongue-like tendril that enables it to seek out those who are quiet enough to hide from it. A rare number call it a spider, sitting within a web of limbs and tentacles, waiting for a fly to stumble upon it. Those who have fallen to madness after seeing the beast multiple times claim all of these answers are wrong, and put forth an even more disturbing hypothesis: There is not merely a single Silent One, but many. Each that greets the next unfortunate soul is one of the previous victims of the horrors, transformed into their worst nightmare by the unspeakable powers that dwell within the darkest depths of the Archive.

Few believe these tales, of course, but those who have attempted to resurrect individuals who’ve fallen to the beast have failed, even when using the most powerful of magic.

## Leaving the Archive

The party can depart from the Archive by returning to the great hall and striking the small bell located beside the Index as an action. Each person striking the bell instantly departs and returns to the location from which they entered the Archive, with no time having passed from the moment they left.