magics being at work on this threshold. The door-
guard's fellows watch closely for any trouble, and other
monks peer from the high towers that flank the gates,
ready to summon help or lend magical support in case
of attack.
Those who are admitted are referred to as "seeker,"
but also addressed by name if the monk knows it, or
by "goodsir" or "goodlady" otherwise. Once a visitor is
admitted, the monks at the gate part ranks to allow the
seeker inside to the Court of Air. Visitors are instructed
to cross that area and stand before the Emerald Door,
where another monk receives them, offers them food,
bath, and sleeping quarters, and arranges for each to
meet a monk who will help to plan and then supervise
the seeker's visit to the library.
THE COURT OF AIR
The Court of Air is aptly named. This cobbled courtyard
is empty, containing neither tree nor well. Its southern
wall is the southern wall of Candlekeep itself, with a
number of fieldstone-wrought buildings intended for
visitors' use built along it. Nearest the western wall of
the courtyard stand two buildings: the House of the
Binder, a large temple of Oghma with plenty of space to
allow his faithful to camp and socialize, and the Baths, a
public facility that draws water from the natural spring
beneath the keep.
On the other side of the baths is the Hearth, a great
eating-place and social hall for seekers, which has
shrines to Deneir, Gond, and Milil built into it. The
Hearth connects to the House of Rest, a structure with
four-bunk rooms where seekers are assigned quar-
ters upon their acceptance. Finally, next to the House
of Rest, and built up against the eastern wall of the
courtyard, are the stables, where mounts are housed
and provisioned for the length of a seeker's stay, and
the granary.
The northern edge of the Court of Air is made up of
a wall into which are set twelve towers. These are the
towers within which visitors are allowed to study.
The famous Emerald Door stands in the western wall.
Here a Keeper of the Emerald Door stands at all times,
assisted by a small group of under-monks who act as
messengers and runners. It is the Keeper who officially
welcomes newly arrived seekers, and makes arrange-
ments for their stay. Only this door leads deeper into
the inner ward; the other towers have entrances onto
the Court of Air, but don't have points of egress into the
inner ward and thus the rest of the library.
These court-facing towers in the north wall, called
the "necessariums" by the monks, are the main places
in which visitors interact with the treasures of Candle-
keep. They are honeycombed with reading rooms and
small gathering chambers, where monks may bring
individual tomes to seekers to be read, and where seek-
ers may consult with monks on further materials to
enable their research. Despite being adjacent to other
towers and having bridges to more distant ones, the
chambers that guests can reach in the necessariums
don't allow access to the rest of the keep.
WITHIN THE KEEP
Unfortunately, the foregoing is the extent of the infor-
mation I have about the interior of Candlekeep. My
personal experience is limited (as is the case with most
visitors) to the Court of Air. Though the stories fly fast
and thick in the Hearth about what lies beyond the nec-
essariums, it is almost all conjecture and hearsay, with
a heavy dose of fable, you can wager safely.
From the Court of Air, one can see that the tall towers
that rise up above the northern court wall are intercon-
nected by covered walkways. Many of these are roofed,
but not walled, and monks-some of them under quite
prodigious burdens of books-scramble to and fro along
them. The passages are sometimes interrupted by small
spiral staircases that provide access to higher and lower
levels, and some of the larger walkways slope gently
from one floor in a given tower to the different level
in another.
The only other fact I know about Candlekeep's interior
is that it extends even beneath the level of the court-
yards, with staircases in the cellars of certain of the
towers that lead down into the very bedrock of the pillar
upon which the keep is built. A monk once confided to
me that these caverns store emergency supplies and
provide access to great wells, all of which would enable
the great fortification to survive entire seasons- if not
years- of siege.THE AVOWED
The monks of Candlekeep are all cloistered scholars.
Most of them have no magical power to speak of (though
many of them are trained to know about such things); a
notable handful, though, are spellcasters-either cler-
ics of gods that represent the pursuit of knowledge or
wizards. Even warrior-monks and paladins have been
known among the Avowed, though never many at once.
The Avowed are the sworn servants of the great
keep, each rigorously tested to weed out any deceit
before being permitted to take the oaths of the order.
The monks' first priority is the defense of the library's
knowledge against those who would steal or destroy it,
but also against natural effects that might do likewise,
such as mold, wet, and decay. Many of the monks wield
various kinds of magic items to aid in these endeavors,
and Candlekeep's facilities include more than a few
scriptoria to facilitate the copying of books becoming
worn, binderies to repair the same, and even magical
storage that preserve rare books from any further decay
or damage.
I've never made a detailed study of the Avowed, as it's
never been terribly needful for me to do so, but from my
time spent in Candlekeep's Court of Air, as well as my
conversations with Waldrop, I've picked up a few things.
The rank-and-file of the Avowed are divided into aco-
lytes, who are newcomers to the order, and scribes, who
tend to the majority of the work in the keep. Acolytes
provide labor, doing the cleaning, lifting, and general
sweating that a place of such size requires, and work
at their studies, hoping to prove themselves and be
accepted into the ranks of the scribes. The scribes do
most of the archival labor required of the Avowed, and