Greetings Name-givers of all shapes and sizes! I am Vardin Silvertongue, Windling of note and Keeper of Histories for the Great Library of Throal. As Keeper of Histories, it is my job to acquire, process, and matriculate all documentation pertaining to a given project undertaken by the Great Library. Regardless of how rare, obscure or trivial a reference, it is up to me to link a given document to a project and forward it along.

STOP RIGHT THERE!

I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking "have the dwarves gone mad?". That’s right. You’re thinking about how Windlings are a bit batty in the head, maybe even being so base as to think our race merely mischievous. You probably think a Windling can’t possibly manage the mountain of paperwork that flows to and fro in the Great Library.

Well, that’s why I’m Keeper of Histories, and you’re not.

In fact, a Windling’s natural mental functions make them ideal candidates for my position. Windlings absorb a lot of information, and as other Name-givers note seem to forget that information a day later. They couldn’t be more wrong. Windlings never lose anything. They merely follow whatever their focus is, and drop whatever is superfluous to that goal. However, should we come across something pertaining to knowledge we picked up long ago, our instincts and memory will lead us right back to that old piece of information. In that way, one Windling can do the work of an entire dwarven (or any other Name-giver race for that matter) team of researchers, with much less effort and considerably much less mess. That is why Merrox himself personally hand-picked me for this post.

Today’s edification, the reason we are all here, is our study on the Bearers of Akasha. For this volume, my job has been to catalog and detail all the documentation that can be found pertaining to the Bearers and members associated with them in their past through their return from Shis’r’tal. Unfortunately, much of the paperwork, especially those generated by the Bearers themselves, has been lost in the course of their travels, the various wars and whatnot. The one area we have been successful in is the preservation of group journals, from the origins of the group in the obsidiman Gort’s journals right through to the present in the diligent and detailed journals of my fellow Windling Garnel.

As a Windling, though, I find journals long and windy, and all too often awash is self-glory. While this wasn’t really the case (with a few exceptions) this time around, the true treasures that come from a study like this is the auxillary documentation - the letters, recovered records, uncovered journals from a lost kaer, troves of materials that shed light not just on the focus of our study, but on many areas of Barsaive. These bits of information are always the keys we find unlocking mysteries left from the multitudes of recovered fragments. From one study can spring the answers to a hundred questions. It can also bear a thousand more questions, but such enigmas are what we leave for.

Apart from the journals, we have recovered other documents pertaining to the group and also included those submitted to us by the Bearers themselves. Most of this is contained in the "History" section of the document. If you are true scholars, though, and of any skill as a researcher, you will know enough to look beyond that one section. Scattered throughout this study, sometimes buried deep within the works within, are many of the documents we have, placed wherever their proper reference point is.

Perhaps you are again cursing the foibles of Windlings, but much work went into the preparation of this study, and it would be unworthy of the Great Library if all the information were just handed outside of context, like separate trays at a lord’s buffet table. If you truly wish to uncover all that this work contains, you too must be like a Windling and follow your instincts toward the knowledge hidden within.

29 Rua, 1511

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Last Updated 06/29/00 by Paul

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