As new Awakened join the Tower, their stories become inscribed upon the pages of the Archive, a record of who they were before answering the call, and potentially, a warning of who they may become.
Though curses be laid upon you and your kin, your Third Eye sees not a weight to be lifted but a cursed weapon to be used. But a blade wielded without care can cut the wielder as well as their foes.
To break earth and stone, to tunnel, to pry out riches from the dark: these things are older than you know. Older than mankind, from the days when beings with whom you share no tie of blood first struck rock to the rhythm of a chiming bell. Even now, there are other beings you share the eternal dark with. Have you heard their call? Do you dig to their rhythm?
Needle, thread, and scalpel will suffice for flesh and bone - but the awakened must face injury far more strange than this. From what will the stitches on a wounded spirit be spun from?
Long have you prised treasure from the earth, and now the treasures of the stars themselves may be within your grasp. What vein of celestial light shall you delve, and how deeply would you cut for that wealth?
Though gold flows through your palms, and endless ranks of numbers fill your books, it is neither ambition nor eternity that drives you. For you, who seeks out new faces, who asks names, who shakes hands, makes bargains, it can only be a warm hearth that warms your heart, fed by a cold and clear wind. Yours is the trembling thread that spans the chasms between the roots, held in place by a thousand thousand connections and a legion of offered hands. One day, the links you have forged will bear great burdens. But you: you will have flown, free upon the air, like a leaf in the dancing wind.
Far from light, far from blue skies and green fields, the dark stone can still become slick with red blood. Digging deep is dangerous, and it is not just falling rocks and plunging depths that imperil those who carve tunnels from the earth. When the light flickers and the hungry dark presses in, there you are, Anchor. Long after the last candle has gone out, there you stand.
Simple herbs and tinctures can ensnare the wits and the senses, but with the secret magics, you will learn to lift the spirit to new heights.
Where others saw ill fortune, your unawakened eyes saw malice. Now your Third Eye has opened, and it will show you the truth beneath.
Devoted deliverer, mail-bringer and binder, the path of letters is a web of knowledge that connects a community. Here is a Tome thick with messages from the past, all addressed to you. Who will you share their secrets with?
You are not the first to find their home on the road, nor will you be the last. But every wanderer creates their own path, furnished with the stories and experiences that only they can treasure. Wherever it takes you, remember this: a traveller can always find their way back home.
Your nightly penance must become your nightly patrol, for who better to guard the sleepers than one who knows the frontier well? The darkness has taken from you, but you can no longer warn others away from it by creating deeper shadows. Shadows, by their nature, encroach upon the light wherever they are found. To be free, you must bring light into darkness, and banish it for good.
You find thread in the dust of history and weave new cloth into the new day. Soon, you will make stranger cloth from stranger thread, and unfold a new kind of tapestry.
It is no coincidence that iron carries the scent of blood, nor that burning coal roars with earth’s breath. Since before there were words, iron was ere hacked from screaming stone, touched to flame, and turned upon its kin anew. What we call steel is an amalgam, a hybrid. A weapon wrought from perfection, courage, and ambition. To make this thing your servant is no small responsibility. Wield it with care.
To lose a thing is simple. To find it again can take lifetimes. Once you have lost it, you might never find it again - even if you get it back. Too much has changed on your journey. In your search, you have found yourself anew. What will you search for next?
Over your years you have built a towering library of lies. How many of them now turn out to be true? Are you a charlatan or a prophet? If you find that your wild ideas do not come from your own imagination, will you have the courage to discover their true origin? You will have to choose between safety and answers.
Wealth comes in many forms. For some time now you have courted its golden aspect, and known the power of dragons. Now you come to a place where knowledge is wealth, a hoard ever-growing yet never sealed away. What is the greatest treasure, and where shall you seek it next?
One who watches does not sleep, and one who sleeps watches not. Yet here you are, Watcher. There is nothing in the dreaming world that does not have its origin in the waking one, and the tangled links betwixt the two have not even begun to be unravelled. Your task has become ever the more urgent, and nightmares close in upon Keld. Be watchful.
What name is buried under all that you have seen and all that you have known? You have gazed into the face of madness and not turned away. Now, however, your Third Eye is opened, and things far worse than madness can creep in when you behold unwisely. Consider what your visions have taught you already. Consider what you have yet to learn.
You picked through flesh and ooze to dig to the truth even before your eyes were even open. Now they are, you now must decide on what to direct your gaze. How deep will you cut, and how far are you willing to go to understand the work? What will you do once you do?
Among the murk and the eels you have made yourself strong, you have surrounded yourself with allies and wealth and infamy. Even as you come into your power as an Awakened, you shall find that these more ethereal strengths remain useful. Power comes in many forms, as does peril.
Beneath Keld, you found stories lost to time. There is far more to find in the depths, and more still in the secret places across Solem. Do you truly wish to uncover them all?
Though you may reject the siren song of secret treasures for more practical prizes, you will soon come to find that it is the esoteric treasures that are truly worth finding. Just take care not to sink into the mire yourself.
Cut open a thing, and know its inner workings. Look closer, cut finer, learn deeper. When you find the limits of your current methods, then begins your hunt for methods stranger still.
The walls of Keld are nigh-impregnable, proven again and again in times of war. Less well guarded is the darkness beneath the city, from which foes no less lethal encroach upon its people. To stand the walls of Keld puts one in the light, a noble defender with banner and gleaming armour. Guarding the depths is a hidden duty, and one that enacts a heavy toll. Take heed: the monsters whose visages elude you in your sleep must be kept at bay. Stand your vigil. Drive back the nightmare.
There is a magic that guards and cares for family. It is not bound by blood, but by the ties of duty and camaraderie. Will you wield this magic to guard or to heal those you care for? Or will you cast aside old allegiances and forge a new path? Either way, the Tome awaits, to aid you on your journey.
Once, you worked with contracts. Now, you will work with the hidden mysteries of the world. Will your intentions stay the same? To change the world for the better? Or has your awakening changed your heart?
Though you may yearn for it, death in battle is a fate you know that you cannot allow yourself to claim. For if you were to fall, who then would safeguard the younger warriors? Through loss, you have found purpose. Through death, you have found new life. Now you are awakened anew, and your roster of wards has grown immensely. Will you show them the safe path? Or will you abandon them to despair?
The road you have travelled has prepared you well for the road ahead. To bypass obstacles, overcome challenges, seek value, and - above all - to survive. These are the skills that will be tested. These are the qualities of worth. Perhaps your unknown saviour realised this. Perhaps they knew your worth.
In the end, everything dies. There is always more work for those who shepherd the dead. Soon, however, you must come to learn where those traditions began. Why it is that burning and safely burying the dead became first ritual, then tradition. In the ancient days, your forebears wielded blade and fire alongside shovel and pall. Take up arms, gravedigger. Your time is coming.
Beauty and love go hand in hand, not because beauty is easy to love, but because love begets beauty. It is love that guides the crafter as they release the form of their masterpiece, and masterpieces may come in abundance from your hands if you are cunning and inspired.
Many have lost their lives in the darkness under Keld. Few have escaped whole of body, but without their memories. What manner of thing was it that took them? What is it you do not know? Perhaps those answers are less important than the knowledge of what you have gained, and the flame that misfortune did not quench. You will find your answers out there in the dark. One way or another.
When marks were first made on stone, when crude matter was first shaped into words, they were never meant for sharing. They were an embalmment, a petrification, the freezing of a thought into a stark new form that would stand as a new pillar of the world. A thousand thousand generations hence, and the Word is still there, on that stone. You have brought life to that unyielding weight, breathed it into movement, and set it to flowing across space and time. To copy that which was meant to stand immobile, to bestow it upon another, to spread the Word: this is strong magic.
The road to knowledge is paved with failed experiments. You are no stranger to this truth, but new frontiers now open up to you. You may discover so much more, yet the consequences of failure may be that more dire. Do not fear the unknown, for it yearns for you.
How much of your road was laid by another? Do you forge your own path or follow the footsteps of one who left a trail? Whatever its origin, you have shed blood for it. When you find the truth and reach your destination, there will be far greater prizes than coin, and far greater perils than Cutter Haneth.
The world is full of treasures both wondrous and perilous. With your help, the Repository filled their shelves. Now the Gnosis Solem ask you to find far greater prizes, and safeguard truly calamitous weapons. You will build upon what you have learned already, and your collection will grow, for good or ill.
A hundred sagas and ballads have stirred your heart and fed its flame. With the lessons you have learned, you will write a thousand more yourself. What will you sing of?
The shadow of sickness withers before the power you now possess, and a thousand maladies might one day be catalogued within this Tome, to cure or inflict. Will you love the tamed disease as dearly as the wild sickness?
Your love for the deep earth runs to your very core. As within, so without. There is more history bound in the simplest of stone than could fill a hundred libraries. Know this: the first words were written on stone, and that act has made its mark. That you have endeavoured to bind your knowledge of rock and stone in ink and parchment is no coincidence: it is among the oldest magics of this world.
How many of the restless spirits rising from your mother's mire are your doing? Not all the beasts that feed in your wake make a meal of just flesh and bone. As you have awakened, so too have the older parts of the wilds, bringing with them things that owe no allegiance to the land or the water. It is easy to see the people who harm the Unbound and call them foe: easier still to let her strike the final blow. Soon you will be called to help her find a new balance in an old world, and her enemies will not be so easy to see.
Though you have crossed the boundary before, you have made it your purpose to walk its borders, to guide others across when proper, and turn others away when necessary. Whether the darkness under Keld or the journey beyond death, you have kept the crossing tirelessly. Now, you will find new boundaries, leading to new horizons, and the question of who should stay and who should cross becomes ever more occluded, even as it becomes ever more vital.
Some only seek ore in the mountains, but you have pulled iron from the bog and made it sharp and wondrous. You know that foulness may hide beauty and beauty may hide foulness… how deep shall you plunge to explore your ambition?
Your lies and betrayals sate your heart, but not your spirit. In truth, you know that true greatness is won only with great sacrifice.
Before now you have stitched flesh and set bone, ground poultices to soothe fever. Now you shall see maladies of body and spirit both, and you shall find here the tools to treat them. Many strange and wonderful creatures walk the world - is it blood that beats in their hearts? Does magic linger in their hides, their eyes, their claws? All this is yours to discover.
The marks of ink on skin are a special kind of writing. They may bind the marked to a group, capture yesteryear’s passions in intimate signs, or brand one an outcast. What marks do you seek to make upon the world? What ink could be fit to the task? Seek them, and learn their making, and you may yet make your mark.
Smiles and laughter have a value not measurable in gold, perhaps not even in the weight of magic. What is all the vast world for if not to bring joy? How far you will travel is yet untold, as is who you will bring a smile to next, but with the Unfinished Tome you may find a way to lift even the deepest of doldrums.
What do you see when you close your eyes? Blinding light, or suffocating darkness? What is it you feel in your heart? Glory, or desire? Great and terrible deeds are done when these two forces meet, and you yearn to stoke the flames of both. Within you, they have become a joyful beacon. A song that declares “these things matter!”. For in truth, neither must bear a dread aspect if you do not want them to. And what of your own flame, Firekeeper? Where will you look for your tinder?
Someone must walk at the fore. Someone must hack aside the brush, bear the torch into the gloom, and be the first to fall when the wilds lash out at the intrusion. That has been you, Pathfinder. And yet you live. Good fortune or prodigious talent? In all likelihood, both.
The roads have warred with the wilds since first they were carved from tangled soil. The roads are few, and the wilds are unceasing in their encroachment. That the war still rages is solemn testament to the blood given by those steadfast souls who walk their road. These bridges cannot build themselves, and to keep the way open requires endless vigil. To make your stand, to drive in a stake and write the name of the road: this is to be at war. Your battle is fierce, and your foe will never surrender. You must mark the path. You must show the way. The war rages on.
Child of the forests and scion of the Repository, you believe that the Law does not end at the walls. Who makes the laws of nature? Do they judge with compassion or mercy? And shall you abide by ancient compacts, or seek to write one anew?
You have returned the callousness of others with an ample supply of your own. This is a tradition older than history. What will you do when others finally fail to betray you? Is it too late to change? Whether you reach out your hand or keep to the lone survivor's path, your struggles will not have been for nothing. The need to survive is the strongest drive there is.
An enigma, one who bears the weight of the spear but prefers to set it aside to aid others. In the eyes of some it is cowardice to be reluctant to fight but for others it is wisdom. The Awakened will need both warriors and healers in the Age to come but which road you choose to take is yet to become clear.
The voices of the dead whisper many secrets to those who will listen, and your ears are opened to their words. What will you be to those lingering spectres? A guide, to help them on their way, or a master, leashing and binding them to your will?
You have trod many roads in your pursuit of swordcraft, and now you have come to a trove of many wisdoms, a Tome that may be your greatest whetstone. When you have mastered the art of cutting, where will you bring your blade to bear?
A master of the blade and a blade for hire. What would your master say if they could see you now? Will you make them proud with what you might achieve? Is the ability to swing a sword truly the only value your road has given you?
You were born of the Unbound, and now that its twin selves have awakened and so have you, perhaps you will find answers. You have always known that the eels walk, but now that others have seen them, will you heed their urgent voices or bury them deep within? When you speak in your own mind with many voices, madness is no longer a kind and helpful crutch in the awakening world. Swim your own ways, One-and-Many - but do so with your eyes open.
Joy. Laughter. Revelry. Rare points of light in a world where even those mighty Awakened who call thunder and lightning with their words may unceremoniously cease. Guard well and cherish those happy moments but choose carefully where you place your faith for false steps can lay you low.
Can you put joy in a bottle? It is one of a thousand questions the cunning herbalist might answer, and you stand now in a nexus of discovery that you might find all the answers in. The Awakened do not easily grow dependent, save on the very flow of magic itself, and the allure of new knowledge.
Bonds lay upon you, bindings of family and legacy, of power and subjugation. There are ways to slip from any chain on body or spirit, and live free, and there are ways to master bonds, to tie the strings on which others dance. What will you choose to be: a binder or a breaker?
Many beloved companions you once had, now they are returned to the mud and become dust. But those who fall are remembered in your markers and words. Nothing is eternal, all things end and pass on, what will be your marker and the words spoken for your end. Will they be long in coming or do they even now approach?
Story-seeker and courageous wanderer, you may have left those you love, but you are connected to them still. Stories untold for centuries are waiting for you to uncover them, and their weave ties all history, all of Solem, into a single shining whole. What legacies call to you most keenly? Where shall you continue your own tale?
The world is much older than you know, and its history much richer. Soon, you will be the curator of more than mere trinkets. Will you decide that some things should stay buried?
There is no shortcut to mastery. It will always require practice and effort and seeking out the next challenge. Stone yields but slowly. But with the wonders afforded to you now, old barriers will fall away, new heights will be within reach. Stone yields more readily to hammer and chisel, and the Tome is a chisel to ignorance itself.
Patcher of wounds and broken bones, something in you grows weary with the mundane ailments. Awakened break so much more than you know now, and perhaps you shall find a use for a keen eye and a steady hand.
Magic runs through the world like bright threads in a tapestry. Now you may weave it to your own ends, for wealth, for comfort, for wonder. But once you see the world rich with spells and enchantments, will that be enough for you, or will you seek deeper into the weft of the world?
In your museum, you revive forgotten tales and give them new life. There are many tales still untold awaiting your care, and you will add new stories of your own to your collection.
Even though your debt has been repaid a hundredfold, you continue to make amends. Though burdened with guilt, your path to redemption is crowded with the lives you have saved. It will take more than courage, or guilt, to preserve life in the face of what is to come. It will take forgiveness. For how can you learn to protect others, when you live your life trying to protect him, again and again?
Now, are you a crafter by destiny, or by choice? With this chance for a new life, will you heed the recipe inscribed upon your fate, or shall you create a new concoction of your own making.
Life is a journey through mires of misery and wayhouses of contentment. The road winds through peril and adventure, crossing with friends and enemies both. And most roads end. But must it be so for every road? By cunning and wit, the journey is prolonged, and new horizons found. Here in the Tower, a thousand new paths await your exploration.
The years turn, ages pass, and cities become ruins and their names are forgotten to the living. But not all things forget. In the memory of stone, in the whispers of bones, the secrets of the past are preserved. Will you listen to all their tales? Where will you seek their forgotten stories?
Yours was a new face to all you met upon your journey. But now you walk a different path, and all new roads come with a risk, and yet you have followed this one. Brushing close to roots and bindings that would anchor you, and ties to people who would know your name. No longer will you be just a stranger.
What your companions find, they entrust you to keep. Until now, mundane materials sufficed to safeguard the relics of the ancients. Now, you must build walls out of materials much stronger than mere stone and iron. Just as you have awakened, so too have the relics of the past. Not all of them are content to hide in the dark. Not all will let themselves be caged.
Burdened with purpose and yet not fulfilled. You wander these woods like a knight errant seeking a quest, but is it perhaps in the journey where your true path lies? Take care not to lose yourself in pursuit of it.
It is said that a traveller may always return home. This is true, even for you, for your home is not what it once was. The clarity you feel in those liminal moments, the yearning you feel in between: this is your awakening. You have left the path, and your home is where you make it. Here, if you choose, amongst the colours of the mortal world, muddled and mixed. Or beyond, where there is only radiant light. Those glints you see: they are not pinholes. They are stars.
Salt and Song run through your veins. The water has always called to you, although you could not hear its voice until you Awakened. Now with this magic washing over you, the sea calls to you anew, with a chorus unlike that found in the darkened swamp waters. Will you choose to open yourself to the siren's song? And what will you sing back?
Many are the monsters of the world and many their methods of killing, but the tools to name and know every one of them lie within this tower. What will you use your learning for, when it grows past even the most veteran scholar? Will you be a hunter, a guardian, both, or something else entirely?
The willingness to leave your land and life behind will serve you well. Your world will never be the same after this moment. And yet, this has all happened before. Your place is between things. Past and future. Life and death. Your companions will need you to bridge these worlds and help them find the centre.
It is a rare insight for one who seeks to make history to begin by making paper. After all, history is not written on air, and all legends begin with a blank page. Many great deeds echo into nothing, forgotten by time for the lack of a witness to watch and a scribe to chronicle. If this is to be your burden, then you must be ever-vigilant: rarely do the moments that change the world announce their coming.
Tending the wounds of those who delve below has taught you much of mundane anatomy. Now that your Third Eye has opened and the secret arts unfold, you must cut the invisible with that same questing fervour.
What drives you from safety? Is it death you seek, or do you flee from the slow death of a life imprisoned within walls? It is a rare thing for one to walk the wilds alone, and rarer still for one to try and make them their home. Be warned, Intruder. You walk in enemy territory. You are not welcome. But that has never stopped you, and it should not stop you now. This world is yours to conquer.
A road is a tie that binds places together, a truth you know in your heart. Wandering guardian, will you tread new roads to forge new connections, or conserve your guardianship for the people you know already? Who built the roads and set watchers upon them, and would you follow in their path?
All stories are true, even if only in the heart of the teller. And yet, in this new world, even the most fantastical tale will become commonplace. More legends have been forgotten than could be sung by a thousand bards. Which calls to you more? The stories you tell or the stories you are told?
Given nothing, you sought everything. The horizon is open, and the search merely begun. Which road to take is your choice, and your burden. Everything from here is up to you.
Bearer of an ancient legacy, and an even older burden. The roads you must guard lead ever further, and to ever more dangerous places. But the watch must be kept. The roads must be walked. And if not you, then who?
You have been shackled and imprisoned, years stolen for the sake of a few trinkets. Now your Third Eye lays bear the truths of the world and you can begin to see the bonds that lie between all. Whether you will bind others in your turn or seek to break such chains remains to be seen.
You have been marked by the darkness. You feel it in your heart. This is not a curse, but a calling. Your home may lie under the sun, but you turn your face to the border; the liminal space; the penumbra. Others turned their back on it, or want to burn it away. You know better. Down there, in the dark, you found yourself for the first time. Now you are awakened, and you have learned to see. It waits for you.
Solitude is a strange thing. It may be found in a crowded city and kept at bay on a barren plain by a single good friend. Whether you walk alone or in dreams, in safety or in peril, the Unfinished Tome will be there to aid you in your explorations.
You have come into power and you look for fate; where shall you seek it next? Upon a table, across the stars, or in the fickle wilds? You may find truths you hate to know, but you may be destined to know them regardless…
Many have been sent to their eternal rest under your sombre ministrations. Until this moment, that duty was your life. Now, there are far greater things that cry for the guiding hand of the boatman, stern hand upon the tiller.
Disease is a cruel thing, taking those we love and threatening their end. Yet through the arts of magic, life, or something like it, may be granted to the sick and dying. Within the Unfinished Tome are the secrets of healing and necromancy both; given the choice, which will you pursue?
One who yearns to earn your own power, you have awakened to it at last. What your blood has not earned you, your deeds will. It is not your name for which you shall be remembered.
A person with a broken home and nowhere to go back to. You might find a new family in this place and time. You might find a new home. You might even find a new calling, if you are ready.
The names of herbs and their properties come easily to your mind but now your eyes are open and your mind awake with the possibilities of new knowledge. How deep do the roots of growing things reach and what might such mixtures create?
Such restlessness oft comes from sorrow or despair, and yet yours does not. You search, and yet you do not seek, for you have always found what you are looking for. Your hearth is the sun and your home the sky. There are few who can truly say that they have walked every road, but you, traveller, may yet find your final horizon.
The deep places of the world are no more a home to mankind than the teeming wilds, and, like they, are barely kept at bay with candleflame. To be first into the tunnel, to be the one who scratches marks on walls, tests the air, tastes the water and lightless plants. These are the prices that must be paid to spread that flame a little further. Prices you pay without question, for you carry the light. Know the path, Vanguard. Find the way.
You lived where many others died. You stood where many others fell. You have oft wondered why, and searched at the bottom of every glass and bottle you could find. The truth is this: you did not die because you chose not to die. Because you had the will to survive. That flame burns yet, Deathseeker. Let it warm you.
None may know the fate of the coming hours in their totality. But wisdom and careful study the patterns of the world can grant insight. Perhaps even enough to change what comes. You have told the fortunes of many down the years; in palms, cards, leaves and flesh can knowledge be gleaned but now your Third Eye opens and you can see the very essence of the winds of magic, what you might weave with them is yet to be seen.
You would shed the blood and break the trust of those who keep you from the answers you seek, yes, but how much of yourself are you willing to lose in their stead? When all others stand aside and yet obstacles remain, take care that it will not be your own self you find barring the path.
To brave the wilds in search of prey is an ancient calling. Bow, blade, and wits are poor proxies for claws that rend, teeth that crush, and speed that blinds. Unawakened, humanity was ere the prey beyond the safety of their fires. Even now that you have awakened, you have a gruelling climb ahead of you to reach the apex of the food chain. Make the climb, Scion. Climb, or you will be put in your rightful place.
Although you feel that you have lost your way, it is not so. The cards are not for them: they are for you. They receive only what you give to them, and if the cards have shown you what not to say, is that any worse than the alternative? In truth, the role of the guide is always to tell people what they need to hear. You must trust your heart. If you are lost, then seek guidance from others, rather than yourself.
A hundred myths and more have passed before your eyes and ears. What entities of legend may still walk the land, and what new stories may be ripe for the making? Wind-blown wanderer, ancient curses and their undoings alike may be found in the tale of the Unfinished Tome. Which shall you favour in the end?