16.1.1 GREAT LIBRARIES

The Legendary Great Libraries of Lusternia are the greatest mortal centres of learning found in the Basin of Life. Their aim is to outgrow the Libraries of rivalling cities and communes, obtain knowledge that will give the organisation an edge over their rivals and draw scholars and bards like a flame draws moths. Maybe someday, the Greatest of the Great shall rival the Elder Libraries of the Gods.

Each city and commune has one Great Library that is unique to that organisation, no additional Great Libraries can be constructed by Mortals without the aid of an entire city or commune behind them. They hold the conglomeration of all knowledge and wisdom of that particular city or commune and function as the pinnacle of Literature and Scholarship to the outside world. The Great Libraries are such great institutes of learning that they draw students from all over the basin who spend time in order to increase their knowledge of the world. As a service to the library they study in, these scholars and bards pay tithes to the city in the form of Power to their nexus, and the bigger and more cultural the library is, the more students they will draw to their majestic halls.

Great libraries behave exactly the same as regular libraries with a few differences and upgrades. First of all, all great libraries have a public section, this section of the library holds all published books of the realm, and this means that all public sections in all great libraries hold the same books. Books cannot simply be added to the public section, instead they must be published. In order to publish a book, this work must already be in the library from where it can be selected from publication.

Unlike bookshelves and regular libraries, city librarians are a ministry, meaning that the librarian is appointed directly by the city leader and the librarian directly appoints his own aides. The position is an important one in that the librarian is responsible for the books in his library, the books that get published and acquiring books for the library, in a sense, if you have a bad librarian, your library is not going to be generating any power.

For authors only: Once your book has been placed in a great library, all fees will be waived whenever you checkout your book. Further, you will always be given the original of the book. This is done to allow you to edit books and to allow you to give your book to a bookbinder to be copied into a second original, which can then be copied further in order to sell them in shops or just spread them through the basin.

For purposes of determining the weight of a published book in regards to library cultural ranking, this is determined by the total number of words and whether or not the book won a prestige contest. Every 200 words will confer one weight to the book, up to 50. Winning a prestige contest will add another 100 weight (or if the work is submitted and did not win, it will only add another 25 weight).

See also: HELP LIBRARIAN, CRITIQUING, CULTURE, PLAGIARISM, PRESTIGECONTESTS