The Vermissian Vaults

The drow Home Nations are in turmoil, torn apart by civil war and ancient rivalries. There is a cabal of sages, mages and scholars who have taken it upon themselves to preserve what they can of the splintered, violent history of the dark elves by securing it within the walls of the Vermissian.

The Vault is a term for a collection of storage rooms and libraries that the sect has created over the decades, using the unique powers of the Vermissian to hide things just out-of-step with the real world. For those who know the way, there are vast stores of knowledge and culture hidden within the cracks of the tunnels – the Glass Library where information coalesces like dew on leaves; the Locked Stacks, where knowledge is interred if deemed more useful dead than alive; the halls of the Gadoliv, mute and bandaged servants of the Vault; the Great Museum, where artefacts from lost histories and impossible futures sit side-by-side; and the Anastomosis
Device, which leaks lies into the world.

Given their obsession with dark elf history and culture, the Vault is of great interest to the Ministry, and the scholars who tend it are often ministers themselves.