Overview
The wardens' library: long stacks furred with frost, a reading room of lecterns, a barred alcove of books the wardens did not want read, and the study where Exethanter, the last warden, tries to remember what he is for. A scholar named Vosk reads here too.
It is very quiet, and very cold, and the books smell of ice instead of dust.
Resting: Risky: a rest here can be interrupted.
Getting here
Ways in
- From The Amber Temple: Hall of the Faceless God: The library passage
Ways out
| # | Exit | Leads to | Only when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The passage back to the great hall |  The Amber Temple: Hall of the Faceless God |
Map
Key: gold, people; red, containers; purple, hidden finds; teal, skill checks; white, exits; orange, traps. The numbers match the lists on this page.
Close up
a chained case, Books in chains, a chained book that isn't what its spine says
the warden's cabinet
People
Who turns up at points in the story (2)
- Exethanter, The warden's study (#2): when not exethanter destroyed and not exethanter hostile and not ((vosk fate or vosk destroyed) and not amber seal decided and exethanter met and exethanter phylactery isn't “smashed”)
- Master Vosk, The stacks (#3): when not vosk met
What to find
| # | Where | What | How |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | a chained case | Spell Scroll (Level 1) ×2, Book, 150 gp | open it |
| 5 | the warden's cabinet | Ink ×2, Paper ×10, Candle ×5 | open it |
| 6 | a lectern cupboard | Map or Scroll Case, Parchment ×5, 15 gp | open it |
| 8 | a chained book that isn't what its spine says (hidden) | Tome of Clear Thought | Search: Investigation DC 18 |
The containers here also get random magic items and potions, rolled for a party of level 10 the first time you come (Random Treasure). Hidden finds need a Search (F) nearby; the party's best roll counts.
Skill checks
| # | Where | Check | Try | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Books in chains | Arcana 17 | Read the chained titles | finds Tome of Clear Thought |
Locked and secret doors
- An iron gate: lock DC 18
Fights
- Four skulls rise from the top shelves, each wearing a crown of green fire. They were wardens once, and they…, in The Amber Temple: the Library: Flameskull. Scales with your level.
By party level (the first line your party fits is the fight you get)
- The Amber Temple: the Library, when not library wardens cleared and level ≥ 10: 4 × Warden's skull (Flameskull) (4400 XP)
- The Amber Temple: the Library, when not library wardens cleared: 3 × Warden's skull (Flameskull) (3300 XP)
- The sparks in Exethanter's eyes go from candle to forge. Somewhere in the shelves, two skulls catch fire., in The Amber Temple: the Library: Exethanter, Flameskull.
Quests and lore
- Aurel's Last Chapter: Silvain Aster's colleague Aurel Mirescu went into the mists after a book written in a vampire's own hand, and wrote home exactly once: He…
- Something with a Lid: Exethanter, the forgetful lich of the Amber Temple, has lost his phylactery. He hid it very cleverly.
- The Amber Debt: Exethanter has an old note pinned under all the others, in his own hand: DO NOT GO BELOW THE VAULT. YOU SEALED IT. YOU DO NOT REMEMBER WHY.…
- The Amber Temple: High above the Tsolenka Pass, a temple of amber where dead powers talk and bargain, and where the lord of the valley once made his.
- The Fine Print: Kip Smudgewick signed a devil's contract to save his family's apricot orchard. The devil has offered him one way out: a signature from the…
The wardens' charter
We who keep this house have gathered here what the world was right to forget: the last embers of dead powers, each sealed in amber, which alone will hold them. We do not worship them. We do not bargain with them. We do not answer when they call our names. We are wardens, and the door we guard opens inward only. Whoever reads this after us: keep the rule, or burn the house down around you. There is no third way.
The visitors' ledger
A ledger of everyone the wardens admitted, in a dozen hands over three centuries. The entries grow rarer and stranger. Near the end: 'A prince of the western wars, on foot, alone, very courteous. Asked to read. Admitted.' Below it, in a different ink: 'He asked for the deep vault. God help us, I showed him.' Both entries are signed with the same name: Exethanter.
A treatise on amber
Notes on why amber holds what iron, salt and silver cannot. Amber was once alive, the author argues, and remembers it: a living cage for a thing that wishes it were. The last page is a list of sarcophagi, each with a name, and a column headed 'Speaks?' Every answer is yes.