Librarians

**Librarians** are a race of Elfkin hominid. Their numbers are very small, only in the low hundreds, and they are endemic only to the island of Feronar in Saveria, on which the Red Library is located. The Librarians derive their name from the fact that they are the sole custodians of the Red Library, having founded it long before the Saverians themselves settled the Elvish Archipelago.

The origin of the Librarians is unclear. Tradition states that they were created by the Titan known as Acerion the Archivist, who was also supposedly the builder of the Red library itself, but there is good reason to believe that Acerion may be an entirely fictional character, either a heavily embellished exaggeration of the founder of the Library or simply a total fabrication that was misinterpreted as fact.

## Physiology

Librarians are similar in appearance to Elves, though with a few notable differences. The most immediately obvious difference is that they do not stand as tall as Elves, instead being roughly as tall as Humans. They lack the diverse and vibrant hair and eye colouration of Elves, instead universally having honey to amber coloured eyes and hair coloured some variation of blonde, from brownish dirty blonde to near-white.

Other, more subtle differences appear upon closer inspection. Their eyes are larger and more noticeably slanted than those of Elves, their noses are larger, and the points on their eartips are longer and thinner. Their skulls are slightly larger to make room for their large brains, and whereas Elves are generally slender, Librarians are leaner still, appearing thin and almost gaunt.

The natural lifespan of Librarians is slightly longer than Elves, and they tend to live for 110-120 years. When magic still lived, they could exaggerate their lifespans to an even greater degree than Elves, frequently living as long as 200 years, whereas only the most powerful of Elvish mages could hope to live that long.

## Inbreeding

Tradition holds that the Librarians cannot breed with anyone but themselves, but there is no evidence to either prove or disprove this statement, since there is no recorded instance of a Librarian ever having intimate relations with an outsider. Many scholars have speculated that it may be possible for them to have children with Elves, whom they bear a great resemblance to, but again this has never been tested. Not only are Librarians forbidden by law to marry anyone but another Librarian, but any kind of relationship - romantic or otherwise - between a Librarian and an outsider is made difficult because of the extremely controlled nature of access between Feronar and the outside world.

Since Librarians have always had small numbers, and will not - and most likely can not - breed with outsiders, their population is significantly affected by countless centuries of inbreeding. Librarians do prohibit siblings from having children just like every other nation of Inecuria, but unlike the rest of the continent they permit marriage between first cousins. The reasoning for this is very simple; if they did ban cousin marriage, there would be far too few prospective options for partnership amongst a race that numbers only in the low hundreds. Every Librarian is related to every other Librarian to some degree, and it is something that the Librarians generally put out of their minds and try not to think about, despite the fact that every individual's lineage is well-documented.

The widespread and necessary inbreeding of Librarian society has resulted in all of their genetic traits and quirks, both positive and negative, being heavily concentrated. It is, most biologists believe, the cause of their high IQs, analytical minds, near-perfect memories and their shared love of research and development - however, it is also the cause of their extraordinarily high rate of miscarriages (with over half of pregnancies not coming to fruition), the high frequency of birth defects and deformed limbs and the comparatively widespread prevalence of muteness, deafness, blindness, autism, OCD, depression, anxiety and other assorted disabilities and disorders.

Though the negative traits of Librarian inbreeding do impair them greatly, the sheer prevalence of these traits has created a society that is deeply empathetic towards the physically and mentally troubled, and which takes great pains to ensure that their disabilities and disorders are as small a hurdle as they can be. For example, a result of the high prevalence of deafness and muteness was the development of the world's first comprehensive sign language, and the Red Library is covered in various subtle features intended to help the blind to navigate, with very few sharp edges in the spaces where people walk.

## Magical Prosthetics

The most obvious, famous and occasionally controversial means by which Librarians overcame their defects was the extremely delicate and difficult art of magical prosthetics, which the Librarians were the sole producers of. These prosthetics were artificial limbs which could connect to the innate magic within every Librarian, whether they were a trained mage or not, and act as fully-functional replacement limbs. Magical prosthetics could only vaguely convey sensations, giving the limb they replaced an extremely dulled sense of touch and heat, but on the other hand they provided far superior strength and resilience - to such an extent that many Librarians whose limbs did not require replacing still acquired magical prosthetics, believing them to be superior to the weak flesh they were born with.

Magical prosthetics could only be affixed to Elfkin and other magically attuned creatures until the pioneering work of Areia the Steelskinned, who was the first to succeed in creating a fully-functional prosthetic limb powered by an external magical source rather than the magic of the user. The user in question was Empress Rixa I, who bestowed great heaps of wealth upon the Red Library and Areia in particular to further develop the technology after Areia made her a fully-functional artificial replacement for the arm she lost fighting the Festerkin. With the disappearance of magic, the antique prosthetics powered by an external source are the only remaining magical prosthetics that actually work, as the Librarians seemingly no longer have any magic that can be tapped into. They are recycled and re-used for those who are most needing of prosthetic limbs, but the vast majority of Librarians who do need artificial enhancements have mundane prosthetics.