Café de Nuit

I was reading Gazetteer IV yesterday, having purchased it a couple of days ago on DriveThruRPG.com. This gave it the excellent bonus of it having my name on every page.

When I came to the bit about Sithicus, one of the main reasons for buying it (as well as setting an upcoming campaign in Invidia), I was mildly confused about the short bit about the elf librarian eating the books. In retrospect, this preyed on my mind because I am one of those people who find it incredibly revolting for people to eat paper, having feelings that start in your belly, go up to your shoulders as a shudder, before finally releasing itself as an 'Eurgh'. At the time, all I could think about was 'Why on earth was this included in the story?It makes no sense and has no relevance!'. Again, retrospectively, it was just a scene of horror to include in any run of the mill Ravenloft game.

However, not in retrospect, but in the story, I had a dream this morning. In it, I was in my room, back in my parents house, and my mum was asking me from her room to talk to her about fish, and that I might want to write what she said down in a ledger. It was the part of the dream between the interesting bits, where it's all kind of confused and desperately trying to work out what the hell it's about. Interrupting, though, was the sudden thought - the librarian! She was a ledgertarian! Elves are always portrayed as just eating vegetables - this one just ate books! At 9 in the morning today, I was entirely convinced that this pun was the sole reason the elf librarian eating books was included in the Gazetteer.

And thus ends my tale.

So, why was the elf librarian eating books included?

Probably to show that she was bat-wacky.

It might also be a nod to "The Name of the Rose", which ends (SPOILERS!!!) with the bad guy eating the book everyone's been after.

A librarian eating her books is the sort of irony that one would expect of a curse, whether at the words of another or self-induced, and granted in anycase by the Dark Powers.

Now if it was the darkside of some reward from the Dark Powers for dark deeds and dark desires one have the beginning of a hint as to what the otherside of the coin would be. Special access to or relation with knowledge but at the cost of having to physically consume it.

The surrounding text says this is an example of Sithican apathy, and it emphasizes the great tragedy of all that lost knowledge. It's not just that they can't maintain the books. It's that they don't really care, at a deep level, about the books, or themselves, or anything else. That level of apathy is (IMO) truly horrifying.

"Why eat the books? Why not? What else are they good for? You can't read them all, can you, and even if you did, it wouldn't help you or anyone else. You'd be exactly the same person you were when you started!"

I don't think the librarian was really crazy...it's hard to describe. Maybe bored? It sounds strange, but have you ever been so bored that you tried anything to get the slightest mental stimulation--chew on pencils, poke yourself to feel pain, etc? That's what I get from this, and FWIW my heart really went out to the woman who was eating the book. For that matter, my heart went out to S, who was so upset at this treatment of an ancient document.

Yep. You're probably all right about why the ledger-tarian was eating the book. It was a striking enough scene that it stuck with me for that long. Still, the pun will make the image live on at least as long as the horror of the scene in my mind, at the very least.

As a post script, since I got the file from DriveThruRPG.com, I thought it might interest people on this board that Gazetteer V is currently for sale on the same site for $0.00, which in my mind is a bargain.

Thanks!

Important Notice

Please donate any used and unwanted books to the Sithican Trust Fun, these books will be distributed among starving elves to fill the basic nutritional values required by their diet and constitution.

Remember, a copy of War and Peace can feed a family of 5 for 3 months!

You have the power to stop these starving elves from dying and rebuild their lives and all it takes are a few books.

Please join the trust by sending your annual membership fee of 500 platinum coins to Drusilla, c/o the Fos Manoir de Penombre and supply at least 1 book (consitsting of 500 or more pages) each month, your generousity keeps the elves from becoming extinct and Drusilla in new clothes.[/b]

FWIW, when *I* read that bit from Gaz IV, the unrelated but very creepy image of Eugene Tombs -- the freakish "X-Files" killer who could stretch his body to fit through tiny air-ducts and the like -- methodically ripping strips from a newspaper and licking them (to build a saliva/papier-mache 'nest' he could hibernate in), with a soulless, unfeeling expression on his face, sprang to mind.