Repository

A **Repository** was an archive of Ancient Knowledge and Relics which served as the main places of worship, learning, and operations for the Arkivists and the various forms of Arkivist Colleges which administered the faith throughout its history. The structures served as secure havens for the Arkivist clergy to store, study, and maintain their large archives of various ancient texts, manuals, and objects in safety and privacy from the outside world, although laypeople could be let in for the occasional assembly or lecture about the basics of the faith. The priest of a Repository was known as a Curator, whom was usually the only person who possessed a Key to the Repository, and therefore was its guardian and protector. Each Curator usually had a staff of assistants known as Acolytes who would assist him around the Repository performing various duties such as teaching and performing acts of charity in surrounding areas, copy-making in scriptoriums, organizing archives, simply maintaining the Repository. Sometimes groups of aspiring members of the Arkivist College known as Pupils would study, work, and live at the Repository for several years, in hopes of passing their Ordination Exams and being admitted to the College's clergy.

The form and purpose of Repositories is greatly varied, and they could serve a multitude of functions. But they almost always possessed a lecture hall for Assemblies, living quarters for its clergy, a library of various and categorized ancient texts, and Scriptoriums where copies of these ancient texts were repetitively hand-made to prevent them from ever being lost again to history. Some Repositories also held special chambers known as Reliquaries, where pieces and parts of, or sometimes whole ancient machines, devices, or objects of great rarity known as Relics could be viewed and studied.

Repositories were the centers of one of the College's administrative regions known as Districts, and the Repository served the district in which it was located. Repositories usually came in rural and urban forms depending on their location and purpose, as well as larger forms for higher ranking administrators of the College.

* **Cloister Repositories** were usually located in rural or even hidden locations for the purpose of allowing quiet and isolation so that its clergy focus on their divine studies, and were off-limits to laypeople besides Pupils in their studies.

* **Public Repositories** were usually located in cities or towns, and had large areas open to laypeople, allowing the spread of the Arkivist message. They also often served their communities as gathering places, schools, and hospitals. This is especially true for the centuries during and after the spread of the religion across the Khagoan Empire and Maer'Ka following The Scattering.
* **Grand Repositories** were large and central Repositories**,** which were generally located in cities central to the Colleges administration such as provincial or royal capitols, and served as the College's headquarters for a collection of Districts called a Grand District. These large and sometimes monumental buildings usually had multiple large libraries, lecture chambers, and scriptoriums. They also usually contained cavernous Reliquaries which resembled the museums of the ancients. These large chambers were used for the safe display and study of the most prized Relics in possession of the College, usually famous ancient treasures, such as original-copy books, paintings and works of art, machines and devices, or other objects of great importance and rarity, many of which were saved from the Destruction of Ark Mount itself. Their main function was to serve as the seat of a high-ranking Archcurator, who among the most powerful clergy in the College aside from the Council of Deans and the Provost themselves. They were staffed by several to dozens of subordinate Curators who assisted them in a multitude of different areas, as well as their flocks of up to hundreds of Acolytes.

## History

The earliest Repositories were founded across Kohlratia during the centuries following Ausra's Unsealing of the Ark of Knowledge, and served essentially as a more localized version of the Ark itself. A safe and secure location or structure where anything ancient and considered holy or of interest to the Arkivists could be stockpiled and guarded from those outside, who may not understand or respect its value to the religion. Like the Ark, the first Repositories were often a series of rooms, chambers, and structures carved into the faces of or deep within the numerous mountains of the religions homeland. These initial Repositories were often monastic communities affiliated to the original College of Ark Mount, and each one was administered by a Curator of the College. They served as places of worship, archives, libraries, and perhaps most notably as Scriptoriums. Within the quiet and isolated Scriptoriums of the Repository Curators and their Acolyte assistants would spend countless hours copying ancient texts from the Ark or found elsewhere word-by-word, so that the original copies of valuable books and manuals would not be lost and were replaceable, as well as available to a larger audience.