Background: Athenaeum Scholar

"You do not publish. You file. The distinction matters more than most people understand."

Overview

You work for the Interplanar Athenaeum — or you did, until circumstances deposited you somewhere more interesting. The Athenaeum is not a place so much as a network: archivists, correspondents, and translators spread across multiple planes, collecting and cataloguing what the multiverse would prefer to forget. You were trained to observe, to document, and above all, to file things correctly.

"Correctly" is doing significant work in that sentence. The Athenaeum's filing system is immense, arcane, and deeply bureaucratic. You know how to navigate it. More usefully, you know what is in it — or at least, what has been cleared for scholars of your level.

You may have joined the Athenaeum fresh from an academy, inherited the position from a mentor, or stumbled into a regional reading room at a desperate moment and impressed someone. The institution does not discriminate in its recruitment. It cares about what you notice and whether you write it down accurately.

Proficiencies

Skill Proficiencies: History and Investigation.

Tool Proficiencies: Calligrapher's Supplies — field documentation is its own discipline, and an Athenaeum report submitted in poor handwriting is an Athenaeum report returned for revision.

Languages: Two of your choice, with preference for scholarly or planar languages. The Athenaeum's active catalogues span six confirmed planes and several suspected ones.

Equipment

A traveling case of calligrapher's supplies, three journals (one blank, two annotated in your own shorthand), a brass seal stamped with the Athenaeum sigil, a letter of introduction in formal High Common, a set of traveling clothes cut to look professionally appropriate in several cultural contexts, and 10 gp in mixed denominations.

Feature: Correspondent's Clearance

You hold an active correspondent's credential from the Interplanar Athenaeum. This grants you access to Athenaeum reading rooms and field offices across the planes you have visited — institutions generally staffed by people who find it useful to stay on good terms with the Athenaeum, and by extension, with you.

When you need access to written records, historical archives, or scholarly collections, your credential typically opens the door, or at minimum gets you a meeting with someone who can. The information may be classified above your current clearance level. In that case, you will usually be told what category of classified it is, which is more than most people get.

Additionally, you have a named contact within the Athenaeum — a senior archivist, a regional liaison, or a field correspondent whose territory overlaps yours — who passes along information when their work and yours converge. They do not owe you favors. They know who you are, and they know your file. Whether that is an advantage depends on what is in it.

Suggested Characteristics

Athenaeum scholars vary widely in temperament. The institution attracts everyone from quiet archivists who have not left their reading room in a decade to seasoned field correspondents who have been shot at on three planes. What unites them is a particular relationship with documentation: an instinct to notice what is significant, and a deep need to write it down.

Personality Trait (d6)

d6	Trait
1	I take notes during conversations. People find this either flattering or alarming.
2	I have strong opinions about the correct way to organize information, and I will share them whether or not anyone asked.
3	I find almost everything potentially interesting. This is not always convenient.
4	I quote primary sources. I know how irritating this is. I do it anyway.
5	I am far more comfortable with written correspondence than with face-to-face conversation.
6	I categorize people the way I categorize documents — by subject matter, reliability, and access level.

Ideal (d6)

d6	Ideal
1	Record. If it is not written down, it did not happen — and too many things have not happened. (Neutral)
2	Access. Knowledge belongs to everyone. The Athenaeum's classification system is a necessary compromise, not an ideal. (Good)
3	Accuracy. I do not file reports I cannot verify. I would rather file nothing than file something wrong. (Lawful)
4	Understanding. I am not interested in knowledge as power. I am interested in knowledge as knowledge. (Any)
5	Preservation. Things are being lost all the time. Someone has to stop that. (Any Good)
6	Discovery. There are entries in the Athenaeum catalogue that have never been confirmed. I intend to confirm them. (Chaotic)

Bond (d6)

d6	Bond
1	I am in the middle of a report I cannot finish until I resolve something I encountered in the field.
2	A colleague filed a report I believe is wrong, and the error has real consequences I cannot ignore.
3	The Athenaeum classified something I discovered in a way I find deeply wrong. I have not decided what to do about it.
4	I owe my position to a senior correspondent who vouched for me. I do not intend to embarrass them.
5	There is an entry in the restricted archive with my name on it. I have never been cleared to read it.
6	Vel Asharen reviewed my work once and said something that has been bothering me ever since.

Flaw (d6)

d6	Flaw
1	I am constitutionally incapable of letting an inaccuracy pass uncorrected, even when correcting it makes things worse.
2	I will go to unreasonable lengths to verify something I only partially understand.
3	I have a habit of sharing information that was, technically, not mine to share.
4	I trust the Athenaeum's assessments more than my own eyes, even when I shouldn't.
5	I keep detailed records of other people's business, and I would be embarrassed if anyone knew.
6	I find it genuinely difficult to act without documenting first. In urgent situations, this is a problem.

Variant: The Field Correspondent

Some Athenaeum scholars do not work in reading rooms. They are dispatched to specific locations — a newly discovered planar rift, a nation in the middle of a succession crisis, a divine creature who agreed to an interview — to file primary-source reports that no archive visit could produce. Field correspondents are the ones the other scholars send careful letters to when they want the real version of events.

Replace Feature with — On Assignment: You carry a current field assignment from the Athenaeum, which functions as a letter of passage with unusual credibility. Officials, scholars, and public figures in the planes you have access to will often grant you an audience on the assumption that what you file will be accurate, and that appearing cooperative in an Athenaeum report is worth considerably more than appearing difficult. You may request an interview from anyone short of a head of state and reasonably expect a reply — though the reply may be no.

See Also

• _Backgrounds Index
• The Interplanar Athenaeum
• Vel Asharen
• Yggdrasil World System