An ancient temple complex built into a cliff face of [[The Celesthorn Range]], threaded through and held together by the roots of [[Náuva the Root Mother]]. It is the destination of the [[Day-Crows and Night Crows|Day-Crows']] sacred mission, a legendary library said to hold all knowledge, long thought lost. # Access Reached via a narrow pass through the mountains, the Ring sits across a deep chasm from the only approach. The bridge that once crossed it collapsed long ago; only a riddle, carved into the rock in the old Hillmen tongue, can raise it again. Spoken aloud, the correct answer 'Knowledge' draws the broken stones up from the river below, bound back into place by rising roots. There is no door. Roots have grown through the cliff face itself, parting to form a living entrance. The air beyond is warm, and smells of earth. # The Roots Always warm to the touch, even through winter, never iced over. They reach far deeper into the mountain than even the priests who tend the library have ever traced. Not intelligent, but aware in a slow, vegetative way, they stir and deepen in warmth when a heart is placed within the library. # The Gnoll Scholars The library has been tended for generations by [[Gnoll]] scholars, said to have given up their own beating hearts to preserve the memory of [[Locations/The Waste/The Waste|The Waste]]'s peoples within [[Náuva's Hearts]]. Their duty is both sacred and cultural, the library is, in effect, their homeland. As of [[1354-01-14]] the last living scholar is [[Gneris]] # The Heart Chamber At the center of the Ring stands a cathedral-tall chamber, its walls and vaulted ceiling wholly claimed by roots, lit by hundreds of candles burning in carved alcoves. Five stone pedestals stand arranged in a ring at its center, each meant to hold one of [[Náuva's Hearts]]. A slow, deep heartbeat can be felt here before it is heard. # The Hearts Five great hearts, each preserved in glass and slowly beating, form the library's true memory: the [[Náuva's Heart of Light]], [[Náuva's Heart of Shadow]], [[Náuva's Heart of Storm]], [[Náuva's Heart of Stone]], and [[Náuva's Heart of Ash]]. Each one draws in the green spirit released at the moment of death, holding the departed within the library's memory. Scattered across [[Locations/The Waste/The Waste|The Waste]], all five must be found and returned to the Ring before its knowledge is whole. # Accessing the Library To draw on the memory held within [[Náuva's Hearts]], a gnoll priest wields a [[Ring Knife|ring knife]] (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/11499602-ring-knife) — a blade that heals as it cuts, sealing each wound the instant it is made. With it, the priest opens the ribcage of a living person and draws the beating heart free of the body, whole and unbroken. The heart is then pressed into the roots at the base of one of the great Hearts, and the roots draw it in, joining it to the vast store of memory within. While joined this way, the living heart's owner has access to every sole held within that Hearts of Náuva — the accumulated dead of generations, their memories and lives laid open to be walked through. When the roots release the heart, it is returned to the chest it came from and sealed shut by the same magic that removed it, beating on as though nothing happened. # The Umbar Hulk Infestation On [[1281-06-22]], the library's long peace ended. [[Umber Hulks]] broke up through the deep roots beneath the Heart Chamber and fell upon the scholars without warning, chitinous claws tearing through stone and root alike. The sanctuary that had sheltered generations of [[Gnoll]]s offered it no defense. Many scholars died where they stood, and in the dark beneath the chamber the hulks laid their eggs, turning centuries of quiet study into a breeding nest. [[Gneris]] alone saw what was coming in time to act. With the order falling around him and no hope of holding the chamber, he cast a spell to slow time itself, sealing himself and [[Náuva's Heart of Stone]] inside a bubble where moments passed like years beyond its edge. To [[Gneris]], only minutes have gone by since that night. To the rest of the world, seventy-three years have passed — years in which the hulks bred on, undisturbed, in the roots below.