(Lord of All Glyphs and Images, the Scribe of Oghma)

Lesser Power of the Happy Hunting Grounds, NG

PORTFOLIO: Glyphs, images, literature, literacy, scribes, pictorial and literary art, cartography
ALIASES: None
DOMAIN NAME: Brux/Library of All Knowledge
SUPERIOR: Oghma
ALLIES: Oghma, Azuth, Milil, Mystra, Lliira, Lathander
FOES: Cyric, Bane (now dead), Malar, Talos, Mask
SYMBOL: A single candle set above a staring purple human eye with a triangular pupil, or a single lit candle
WOR. ALIGN.: Any

Deneir (Deh-NEER) is the patron of the artist, the illuminator, the scribe, and the cartographer. His is the power to accurately render and describe, the write and to read, and to pass on information. He counts as his foes all who destroy, hide, or distort knowledge. He works for Oghma making sure that all that is known and true is accurately recorded in the Great Library. He is portrayed in religious art as a balding old sage with a huge, flared beard whose eyes are in some way peculiar: Sometimes they are a vibrant violet with triangular pupils, at other times they are a brilliant ice blue, and at yet others they are blazing orbs of blue fire. He is always shown holding a quill pen and carrying or writing in or on a book, scroll, or parchment.

Deneir is caught up in the recording, filing, indexing, and maintaining of all that was every written or depicted. He can appear very absent-minded, and often trails off in midsentence because his mind is racing along other trails of thought even as he speaks. For all his acquaintance with book knowledge, he can be out of touch with the world as it is now—in particular, human customs in practice: He tends to use mannerisms of speech and hold to points of etiquette that disappeared long ago from Faerûn—or he may (unintentionally humorously) mix his slang terms or try to sound in vogue and actually sound profoundly dated. When he gets going on a story, he can cat up immense ammounts of his listeners' time as he diverges seemingly endlessly in parenthetical substories. For all their length, his tales always convey some vital piece of knowledge to those who wait them out.

Deneir's Avatar (Mage 28, Cleric 27)

Deneir most often appears as an old, balding sage with a huge flaring white beard and eyes of intense blue or violet (though he has been known to appear younger, especially when in disguise). His voluminous robes are covered in glyphs and symbols that seem to serve as some sort of code to remind him in glyphs and symbols that seem to serve as some sort of code to remind him of events and pieces of information, but which cause random effects (some as standard glyphs and symbols, some bizarre miscellaneous spell effects or just odd happenings) to any who touch them. He usually carries quill pens, scrolls, and tomes, and may let some of thse fall and be left behind. (This appears to happen accidentally, but in fact always occurs on purpose.) Mortals who recover some things find them to be enchanted pens, spell scrolls, tomes of magical power, or instructions for creating magical items or constructs. He can draw his spells from any school or sphere of magic, but out of long habit he tries never to use fire magic because valuable writings might be destroyed.

AC -3; MV 15; HP 171; THAC0 4; #AT 1
Dmg 1d10
MR 70%; SZ L (10 feet)
STR 15, DEX 19, CON 21, INT 24, WIS 22, CHA 16
Spells P: 12/12/12/12/11/9/5, W: 6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6
Saves PPDM 2, RSW 3, PP 5, BW 7, Sp 4

Special Att/Def: When attacked, Deneir's first action is usually to leave by the most expeditious means. If forced into a situation where he cannot leave, Deneir can employ any one priest spell and any one wizard spell in the same round, or he can summon a scroll from thin air with whatever spell he desires written on it and then read the spell as his action for a round. Those who have seen him agree that he lacks the wariness, ruthlessness, and strategic sense of one used to battle, and in fact seems absentminded even when attacked. His touch causes confusion as the 4th-level wizard spell when he so desires (no saving throw).

Instead of casting spells or summoning a scroll, Deneir can choose to make a being once more experience the worst glyph or symbol damage that it ever experienced. The same saving throw modifers that applied when the glyph or symbol was originally encountered apply again.

Deneir cannot be harmed by any spell read from a scroll or any magical effect created by the use of a book or tome. He is immune to charm or illusion/phantasm spells, spell-like effects, and abilities.

Other Manifestations

Deneir prefers to manifest as a glowing nimbus of light around a book. If a mortal opens the book, Deneir may move the radiance about to indicate things. He may telekinese the book and other nearby objects about or extend a glowing, humanlike hand out of the light to cast spells, to wield or carry things, or to point and gesture. When appearing as this nimbus, Deneir rarely speaks, though he sometimes writes with silent letters of fire in midair or in a mortal's mind, causing actual letters to be written on nothingness. Deneir also manifests his approval or disapproval or aids his followers through the actions or appearance of baku holy ones, einheriar formed from the essences of great sages (and thus as warriors a rather fumbling lot—but great storehouses of knowledge), light aasimons, movanic devas, planetars, wisdom incarnates, calico cats, white dogs with golden eyes, pinto and piebald horses, candles, quill pens and writing brushes, gold- or yellow-colored flowers, topazes, iolites, tourmalines, and star sapphires.

The Church

CLERGY: Clerics, specialty priests, monks
CLERGY'S ALIGN.: LG, NG, CG, LN, N, CN
TURN UNDEAD: C: Yes, SP: Yes, Mon: No
CMND. UNDEAD: C: No, SP: No, Mon: No

All clerics, specialty priests, and monks of Deneir receive religion (Faerûnian) as a bonus nonweapon proficiency. All these priests of Deneir must take reading/writing (any languages) as a nonweapon proficiency and are encouraged to learn to read and write more than just one tongue.

Priests of Deneir are found throughout Faerûn, as are shrines and temples in Deneir's name. Most of the temples of Deneir could best be described as libraries with attached sanctuaries and living quarters, for the preservation of written knowledge is the focus of Deneir's faith.

Clergy members are known as Deneirrath. Only about 15% of clergy members are specialty priests. However, specialty priests occupy all the high positions within the church hierarchy. Clerics and monks are welcome, but even if they attain high levels, they are not usually awarded the leadership of temples. Monks may be promoted to the head of an abbey or monastery; however, they are always attached to a temple and rank beneath its high priest. As a result, there is some grumbling among nonspecialty clergy members of the faith, and many turn to adventuring to give them advancement in other areas.

Though females are as welcome as males in the Deneirrath hierarchy, the title "Priest" is used regardless of the gender of its holder. (The word "priestess" is something for other faiths.) The color of the cloaks priests of Deneir wear denotes their ranks, which are (in ascending order): Applicant, Underpriest, Aspirant Priest, Full Priest, Priest Illuminator, Priest Calligrapher, Priest Editor, Priest Secretary, Priest Librarian, Aspirant Scrivener, Full Scrivener, and High Scrivener (the leader of a temple). The only higher ranks than these are granted personally by Deneir and consist of Writer Inquisitor (used by the most powerful and accomplished traveling adventuers of the faith), Librarian, and High Librarian.

Dogma: Followers of Deneir believe that information that is not recorded and saved to be used later is information that is lost. Anyone who defaces or destroys a book should be punished in proportion to the value of the information lost unless she or he makes full replacement of it. Deneirrath must write everything down and let copying what is written fill every otherwise idle hour. They are to bring copies of every writing they gather to every temple of Deneir they arrive in (or make the copies there) so that knowledge may spread and nothing be lost.

Information should be free to all and all should be able to read it, so that lying tongues cannot distort things all out of proportion. Deneirrath are to write down all that people say, believe, and observe, leaving others to judge what is true, of value, and proper—for that which is not written is lost, and there must be room for all tastes, all tongues, and all expression. Information that does not harm should be made free to all.

Literacy is an important gift of Deneir and should be spread and taught. Deneirrath must learn to read and write and teach at least 10 mortals who do not venerate Deneir to do so also, so that such learning spreads.

Followers of Deneir have taken an oath of charity as well, such that they cannot turn down the request of another to write letters and transcribe information. If the one making the request is needy, they can take no payment for doing such duties, though they may charge those who can afford such services a fair rate. Deneirrath are to keep secrets they are exposed to in their charitable duties when bound to by oath or by their moral code.

Day-to-Day Activities: The primary task of priests of Deneir is to gather and write down—or copy out if it is already written—knowledge and creative things (fiction, poems, song lyrics, witticisms, and diaries) so that nothing written is lost. Some priests never leave the copying cloisters of large temples, while others wander among cottages and hill farms copying out old half-remembered ballads that they can pay some toothless gray-hair to try to sing. Still others operate wealthy lending libraries in the bustling cities of Sembia or ride into danger all over Faerûn breaking into old tombs and delving into ruins in search of lost and forgotten writings before such things crumble away forever. These are the sort of deeds that have earned Deneir his nickname "Scribe of Oghma."

Many common folk through the Realms, however, see Deneirrath as the scribes of the people because they take a special vow of charity upon becoming priests: to write letters and transcribe information for anyone who asks them to as long as they do not have to copy out anything magical (mainly for their own safety) or write down anything from their own knowledge that would reveal the secrets of others. (A priest of Deneir imprisoned and ordred to list all the literate people in his town or list all those for whom he's drafted letters on matters of finance in the last decade would refuse to do so.) The poor receive such services for free, the average commoner in return for the price of the paper and inks plus a single silver piece, and wealthier petitioners pay the going rates. These rates are as much as 4 gp a page for simple text and double that and more for fairly simple illuminated writings. Large projects must be negotiated, but in slow times, priests of Deneir can be found in the local commons and bars, writing letters for those unable to do so.

Real wealth can be gained, however, by a priest asked to write something in strictest confidence—for the Price of the Silent Scribe can be steep, with a third going to the priest and two-thirds to the nearest temple of Deneir. "Strictest confidence" means that no one outside the faith ever hears or reads of what the priest has been enjoined to silence on. The rumors of secret writings being written down and kept in secret libraries kept by the Deneirrath are true. These secret libraries may be anything from secret passages in temple offices and hollow pillars in shrines to great vaults and even "forbidden towers" in the larger abbeys and monasteries. Deneirrath caches of secret writings are always guarded by spells and usually also by monsters that range from watchspiders to watchghosts. Magical writings are always kept secret from outsiders. Deneirrath never admit that their senior priests do, in fact, copy out spells and make some of the scrolls that temples have been known to sell to adventurers, nobles, and wealthy merchants.

Educating others to read and write is another important task for the clergy of Deneir for which only nominal fees are charged. The temples and abbeys of the faith, however, charge stiff fees to train nonbelievers to be skilled scribes, limners (artists), illuminators, bookbinders, and parchment-makers.

Holy Days/Important Ceremonies: The only holy day that sees special ceremonies in the church of Deneir is the Shieldmeet, wherein copies of old contracts are taken out for public viewing and any mortal may ask to see a copy of any (nonmagical) writing in any temple of Deneir to which she or he can travel. Such records and writings must be specifically requested, however (not "every contract written by Duke Teranzan"), and must not violate the vows of confidentiality of the temple. Shieldmeet is the day on which the Gilding is observed: a rite in which priests gather in a great circle around a levitated manuscript and cast special spells, each of which impresses a single golden letter onto the page, to set forth the Words of Deneir in large letters for public display in days to come. (It is the duty of junior Deneirrath to hunt down and punish thieves who tear off or scrape at letters trying to get the meager gold.)

This is not to say that Deneirrath do not observe complex rituals. They do so on a daily basis. These many ceremonies include chants, sung prayers, and responsive readings as well as private, personal prayers. Certain old priests utter a pryaer with every illuminated letter they commence and again when they complete it—or whenever they first make a mark upon a virgin page. Most Deneirrath pray to their deity when they undertake a major task such as copying out a noble family tree, making a map, or copying out a minstrel's chapbook of ballads for sale in the larger, more sophisticated cities of the Realms.

Major Cities of Worship: Iron Dragon Mountain, a hidden, legendary peak in the Earthfast Mountains, is the site of the Master's Library in Faerûn, a complex of many caverns where more books than anywhere can be found—even Candlekeep, the Library of Curna in the Curna Mountains, and the great libraries of Shou Lung—are stored. Here can be found the High Librarians, who have samples of all known written tongues and can read them (even dragon writings). Sixty or so High Librarians—said to all be bearded, balding, shuffling men of great age—are said to live here. Their leader is the Librarian Supreme Haliduth Orspriir, a vigorous man who has lived some 600 years by the grace of Deneir. He can call on eight mature adult to great wyrm mist dragons who lair in various nearby peaks to defend the Library from attack. All devout Deneirrath undertake a pilgrimate to the Master's Library at least once in their lives, but most never get beyond the Reading Room, a small fastness well to the south of the true temple, where a kindly old female Keeper (assisted and guarded by loyal watchghosts) makes use of a secret gate (usable only by nonliving matter) to send notes to the Master's Library requesting specific texts and to receive copies of the requested writings to hand to the faithful.

The treasured collections of Silverymoon, the artifact museums of Calimshan, and Twilight Hall in Berdusk are all important regional centers of Deneir's worship. The Edificant Library, administered jointly by the clergy of Deneir and Oghma and located in the Snowflake Mountains northwest of Carradoon, was another prominent regional temple before its destruction in the Year of the Helm (1362 DR). A magnificent cathedral to Deneir known as the Soaring Spirit has since been built on the spot by High Scrivener Cadderly and is quickly becoming the premier center of learning and worship of the Lord of Glyphs and Images in western Faerûn.

Affiliated Orders: Deneir, with Mystra and other powers, has influence on the mysterious group known as the Harpers, and one of Deneir's largest churches, the Inner Chamber in Berdusk, is the front for an extensive Harper organization known as Twilight Hall. While Deneir has no militant knightly orders, his faith does number an order of scribes and several orders of monks. All temple scribes certified by the church of Deneir as skilled and trustworthy belong to the Literate Brotherhood and wear a pin or badge depicting a qhite quill with a gold nib. The monastic orders include the Preservers of the Ordered Way, who tend to remain cloistered and perform copying and illuminating work; the Disciples of the Free Word (known derisively as the "Pens of the Poor"), who pursue the church mission of offering scribe duties to the indigent with great vigor; and the Zealots of the Written Word (usually just called "Zealots" or Carmendines, after their founder), an adventuring order that accompanies priests of the faith on holy quests and pursues money-making efforst for the church.

Priestly Vestments: Deneirrath always wear the badge of the god upon their person—if nowhere else, on a gold circlet worn about their brows. They are also never without their most important identifiers, their ubiquitous writing kits: triangular leather pouches belted to their right hips containing paper, inks, and pens. There is a saying about Deneirrath and their kits: "If a Deneirrath is naked in the bath and the ceiling above him catches fire, he will grab any books in the room first, his writing kit second, and the door third, leaving clothes behind for more modest men."

The standard dress of priests of Deneir, both in normal daily use and for ceremony, is a tan, off-white, or white tunic with a stiff, circular collar, breeches, and a medium-length ornamental cloak of the sort known as a swirl cloak in the cities of the Sword Coast (because it covers nothing against winter winds and bad wather, but merely swirls out grandly behind the wearer). The color of the cloak denotes the rank of the cleric, from diagonally black-and-white striped for Applicants, to black for Underpriests, black with a maroon collar for Aspirant Priests, black with a gray central strip for Full Priests, gray with black trim for Priest Illuminators, all gray for Priest Calligraphers, indigo for Priest Editors, sepia for Priest Secretaries, turquoise for Priest Librarians, royal blue for Aspirant Scriveners, white with gold trim for Full Scriveners, and pure white for High Scriveners.

Adventuring Garb: Adventuring clerics of Deneir wear whatever is most suitable for their particular mission, but they wear both their writing kits and badges bearing the symbol of Deneir somewhere on their persons.

Specialty Priests (Glyphscribes)

REQUIREMENTS: Intelligence 15, Wisdom 15
PRIME REQ.: Intelligence, Wisdom
ALIGNMENT: NG
WEAPONS: Any one-handed bludgeoning (wholly Type B) weapons
ARMOR: All armor types up to and including banded mail: no shields
MAJOR SPHERES: All, astral, combat, creation, divination, elemental, guardian, healing, protection, summoning, thought
MINOR SPHERES: Animal, plant, sun, time, weather
MAGICAL ITEMS: Same as clerics
REQ. PROFS: Reading/writing (Common)
BONUS PROFS: Reading/writing (any)

• Glyphscribes gain a +4 bonus on all saving throws vs. damage and malicious effects caused from reading, touching, or walking near books, scrolls, runes, and other magical writing, including the effects of curses and magical tomes handled by the wrong class. In situations where the reader gets no saving throw (such as reading explosive runes), than a normal saving throw is allowed without modification. The DM may determine the extent of this benefit, but it should be confined to written works or those using specific, definable images. Note that the glyphscribe also receives this benefit against spells or similar effects cast upon him or her by being read from a scroll.
• Glyphscribes can speak any languages that are spoken by natives of Abeir-Toril and the crystal sphere that immediately surrounds it (Realmspace). This does not mean that glyphscribes have any special gift for teaching languages, and a glyphscribe does not have free and constant access to all those languages.

  Basically, a glyphscribe can actually keep in mind constantly as many spoken tongues as he has points of Intelligence. The languages a glyphscribe is going to permanently learn must be kept track of by the glyphscribe's player. Once a language is made one of the permanent tongues, it cannot be changed. If glyphscribes want to learn to read and write languages that have spoken tongues, they must take those tongues as one of their permanent languages.

  Nonpermanent languages become usable only on an as-needed basis. For instance, Faerûnians do not speak Nexalan, the language of Maztica. Only when face to face with someone or something speaking that tongue does a glyphscribe know how to speak and understand it. When the Nexalan speaker leaves, the glyphscribe loses access to that language, although all things discussed are remembered in a form the glyphscribe understands to the extent that any conversation is normally able to be recalled.

• Glyphscribes, when confronted with a ward or runic symbol can try to identify the symbol. Make two Intelligence checks. If the first succeeds, the glyphscribe determines the type of person (Harper, merchant, ranger, orc, etc.) who left the rune. A second Intelligence ability check allows the glyphscribe to determine the general meaning of the rune (warning, good food, ambush, ancient magic), though not the exact details of the message.
• At 3rd level, glyphscribes are able to create a glyph of revealing (as the 2nd-level priest spell) or cast erase (as the 1st-level wizard spell) once a day.
• At 5th level, glyphscribes have the ability to create a glyph of warding (as the 3rd-level priest spell) once a day. It takes them five rounds to do so, no matter what the size of the area to be warded is. They may not ward any area of more than 50 square feet with this ability.
• At 7th level, glyphscribes are able to cast amanuensis or dispel magic (as the 3rd-level priest spells) once a day.
• At 10th level, glyphscribes are able to speak with dead (as the 3rd-level priest spell), speak with plants (as the 4th-level priest spell), or speak with monsters (as the 6th-level priest spell) up to four times a day.
• At 15th level, glyphscribes have the ability to create a symbol (as either the 7th-level priest spell or the 8th-level wizard spell) once a day.

2nd Level

Glyph of Revealing (Alteration, Evocation)

Sphere: Divination
Range: 0
Components: V, S, M
Duration: 1 hour/level
Casting Time: 5
Area of Effect: 120-foot-diameter sphere
Saving Throw: None

To enact this magic, the priest draws a special glyph on any relatively horizontal surface (including a shield held out horizontally or the instep of a boot) with a special ink. When the glyph of revealing is complete, it glows and then vanishes, but it subsequently causes all dweomers within a 120-foot-diameter sphere of itself to glow with a clear white radiance the same brightness as faerie fire. The outlines of magically hidden inscriptions, invisible wizard marks, magically concealed secret pages, runes, glyphs, symbols, and the like within its area of effect are clearly shown so that they can be read or identified without being triggered. The glyph of revealing may be moved without damaging it once it is complete.

The material component of this spell is an ink made of the juice of crushed eyebright, white chalk, and crushed quartz.

3rd Level

Amanuensis (Alteration, Evocation)

Sphere: Creation
Range: 10 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: 1 turn/level
Casting Time: 6
Area of Effect: Special
Saving Throw: None

When cast, this spell generates its own ink and animates a quill pen as if it were in an invisible scribe's hand (thought there is in fact nothing tangible or sentient present) to precisely duplicate nonmagical writing. The animated quill writes as fast as the caster can and copies as much of any writing the caster assigns it to copy as can be duplicated before the spell expires. The quill vanishes when the spell is done or earlier of the caster wills the magic to end.

Though the ink created by amanuensis is unique and does not duplicate the copied work, the penmanship of the copy is exacting. Perfect forgeries can be made by means of this spell.

Once the quill is set to its task, the caster need not be present or in range for it to continue; only destruction of the writing surface or the casting of dispel magic upon the quill prevents the writing from being completed. If necessary to complete its assigned task, the quill becomes intangible and follows the writing surface if it is moved; it cannot be grasped or struck asside in an effort to make it cease. No being except the caster can control on influence the moving quill. If the quill finishes its copying and some time remains before the spell ends, the caster must be within range, however, to direct it do begin copying a second writing or making a second copy of the same writing.

An amanuensis spell cannot copy any magical writing or markings. If directed to do so, the quill hangs motionless. A diary, grimoire, or other work containing passages of text interspersed with spells and magical symbols is copied as text with gaps where the original displays magical markings. Many powerful priests have pleaded with Deneir to allow this spell to be modified so that their prayers would allow them to copy spells, but Deneir has steadfastly refused to grant this power.

The material components of this spell are a quill pen and a blank sheet or sheets of parchment, some vellum scrip, a chapbook, or another writing surface onto which the writing will be copied. The quill is consumed at the end of the spell's duration, the writing surface is not.

Shift Glyph (Alteration, Evocation)

Sphere: Creation, Divination
Range: 5 yards/level
Components: V, S
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: 6
Area of Effect: One magical glyph, rune, symbol, or inscription
Saving Throw: Special

This spell allows the casting priest to move an unknown or hostile magical glyph, rune, symbol, or magical inscription (defined as a message of many characters all written at the same time and intended to be read together) from the surface on which it is found to another surface of the priest's choosing within spell range. If no suitable surface (presumably one similar to the original surface, or failing that, a relatively smooth horizontal or vertical surface large enough to hold the writing) exists within range, the spell does not work, but it is not wasted.

When a shift glyph is cast, all magical symbols within range of the caster that the spell can affect glow with a dim white radiance. The caster has until the end of the round to choose which one to move; beings familiar with certain glyphs can identify them at this time. Once a glyph is chosen, the other magical markings cease to glow, fading back into their former state. Note that the chosen glyph may be one that the caster did not know of before the spell illuminated it.

The caster of a shift glyph must then make a saving throw vs. spell; if this saving throw fails, the chosen glyph takes effect (discharges) in its original location and does not move. If the saving throw succeeds, the glyph is successfully moved to its new location. If the glyph or writing is moved successfully but remains linked to something on, under, behind, or beneath its former location (suggesting that its former area remains trapped or dangerous) the magic makes the caster aware of this, but revels nothing about the nature of the not-yet-triggered magic.