Athenaeum for Spiritual Harmony

Part library, part conference center, part sanctuary, and part crossroads, the Athenaeum for Spiritual Harmony exists to promote Harmony between the nations of the land of Crescent.

Creators

The Athenaeum was created by Sir Jericho Templar and Baelwren SummerStorm, who used Words of Creation to build it in extra-dimensional space. The day-to-day management of this place has been handed off to their daughter, Borealis Dawn SummerStorm, who runs a tight ship.

Description

The Athenaeum has several primary areas; this stone facility is decorated with deep-toned wood paneling and luxurious carpets and tapestries. Curiously, the views from the windows seem to be unrelated to each other, as though each window looks out into a different space.

The most important aspect of ASH is its safety: It is filled, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, with an epically powerful Sanctuary spell, which forbids the use of weapons, spell attacks, summoning, teleportation, and scrying. It rivals the defenses of the Jade Tower while being virtually impervious to outside attack due to its location.

This also serves to guarantee the visitors' safety, an important consideration given its mission as an international diplomatic meeting spot.

Foyer

This large room has multiple doors to the outside world - each one leading to a different city. The four biggest doors lead to The Spire, Everlight, the City-State of Haven, and Maxaen, with small hallways leading to doors in Mt. Daneasus, Luminaux, Ferrodyne, Velora, Luzern, and a few other locations.

A curious power resides in each of these doors - anyone can open them from the inside and exit the Athenaeum, but only a select few may open them from the outside and grant entry.

Library

A mid-sized library exists here, which doubles as Borealis' office. The texts are mostly historical, and include many copies of books and scrolls thought to have been purged completely during the Church of Pelor's Rising of the Sun and the Scarlet War.

A highlight of the collection includes a delicate-looking set of scrolls made of desert parchment resting in a glass case and labeled The Chronicles of Esomelech.

After the establishment of the Athenaeum, Aurora the Insightful donated many copies of histories from the archives of the Jade Tower, as did V'raag of Haven.

It also includes all the books to be found on the Books page, donated by the Companions of the Rising Sun.

The section of religious holy books contains multiple editions of the Librera for Pelor, as well as holy texts for Mehana, Crustan, Phealas, and Nevari. Interestingly, not all of them line up with the current 'official' litanies, for the God of the Sun in particular.

Though Borealis' record-keeping is flawless, many of these books seem to have no known mortal provenance. It's like they just appeared on the shelves one day. However, in-depth research bears out the validity of most of the texts. The remaining ones are marked "potentially apocryphal".

Research into Historical matters using this Library grants advantage on the skill check.

Conference Center

The Athenaeum contains a large-ish conference center, with a meeting room and many smaller offices and break-out rooms. The idea behind this space is that it can be used as a safe, neutral meeting place for representatives of various nations to meet, negotiate, and exchange information.

Jericho and Baelwren each have an office in this space. Jericho's is almost empty, save for a collection of musical instruments and an armor stand holding a chain shirt and a worn-looking shield. His office adjoins a smaller one belonging to Evensong, his assistant and bodyguard. Evensong's office is supernaturally organized with cabinets, compartments, shelves, and pigeonholes filled neatly with sheet music, diplomatic paperwork, and religious texts.

Baelwren's is a chaotic mess of paperwork, sheet music, shiny baubles, artwork, and correspondence from all over Crescent. She's been promising to organize it since shortly after the Athenaeum opened.

Due to the diplomatic restrictions of their respective positions within different governments, both Jericho and Baelwren's offices are mystically locked and heavily warded. Even though they are married, they are not allowed entrance into each other's sanctums (this includes Evensong's as well).

There is also a grand dining room and kitchen here, which is capable of magically producing up to three meals/week, each equivalent to the Heroes' Feast spell, but capable of feeding several dozen.

Living Quarters

The permanent residents of the Athenaeum - The Templar/SummerStorm family - have living quarters here, with a well-appointed kitchen and other common areas. There are also a few rooms available for temporary guests.

Also located here is a small vault, for the storage of personal treasure and family heirlooms.