Taipii Scribes Guild The Taipii Scribes Guild collect books and maps to offer services to copy them. They work closely with the Explorers Guild to acquire new books as they are discovered

The Taipii Scribes Guild dedicates itself to the gathering and cataloging of information for the Taipii. The guild has a history of distinct philosophical phases, and appears to be on the verge of another philosophical shif­t. As part of this effort the Scribes Guild creates and collects books and maps and make them available to the Taipii public.

Origin and Guild History

The formation of the Scribes Guild was largely driven in response to a popular song and story told by members of the  Taipii Bards Guild shortly after the founding of the city of Chalei. The then-popular song "Machiiara's March" gave a humorous but highly inaccurate telling of the Orliian Exodus - one which paints the gods (and especially the Goddess Machiiara) in an unfavorable light as trying to manipulate and deceive the Taipii. This led to the gods insisting on a distinction between "storytellers" and "truthtellers", the formation of a small group known as the Daura au'Mynros (Students of Yesterday), and eventually the formation of the Taipii Scribes Guild.

The Daura au'Mynros

After the Goddess Machiiara made her complaints about the inaccuracies "Machiiara's March" public she also made many of her private journals from after the Exodus available for reading as the "Jaurukel au'Machiiara", but few could read and there were few publicly accessible libraries at the time. Her journals were added to the library at the Sans au'Sul, the small library in the Zul'Akei Pyramid, in Lantros Palace, and the Library of the Taipii Council in Lynnar.

The few who had learned to read Taipiiscript found her journals to be filled with tedious daily activities and speculations. However there was a small group of Taipii who found inspiration in her mundane record of daily events presented in a plain, unembellished way. These Taipii began to call themselves the Daura au'Mynros (Students of Yesterday) and sought to interview Machiiara for more details of her account.

Machiiara initially refused the interview assuming the request came from Storytellers of the Bards Guild hoping for new details to fuel conspiracies by song. When she reluctantly agreed she was surprised and delighted by the serious and well-researched questions the Daura au'Mynros brought her. She encouraged the Daura au'Mynros to continue seeking to separate truth from fiction and documenting what they find, and offered the au'Mynros a generous commission to grow Taipii libraries with fact-based books and references, and purchased for the group a small abandoned house in Chalei to work out of. The Guild Headquarters in Chalei would eventually move to a much larger building in Taliikus, though it still uses the small building in Chalei to store the guild's oldest research work.

Since the guild's founding as the Scribes Guild it has gone through several philosophical eras where the guild's guidelines for establishing fact or the goals of the Scribes Guild changed.

The Golden Era of the Taipii Scribes

With Machiiara's financing and blessing the Daura au'Mynros founded the Taipii Scribes Guild. The early years of the Taipii Scribes Guild are often considered the "Golden Era" for the guild as the new scribes began gathering all the information they could, including from factual and non-factual stories. The guild began cataloging all the information they could find, interviewing more of the Taipii gods, and set about establishing some rules as to what the guild would and wouldn't be considered fact.

The guild's initial guidelines for establishing fact weren't perfect, but the enthusiasm of the early guild members to scrutinize the validity and verifiability of every story resulted in some masterful early works from the guild. Most notable was the Taru au'Etosei which factually summarized the events in Machiiara's Journal (the Jaurukel au'Machiiara) with a narrative style similar to that used by the Taipii bards. While the low literacy of the time still prevented the books from being popular with the general public, they books were well received by the gods, the  Taipii Explorers Guild, and the  Tapii Mages Guild. Most storytellers in the  Taipii Bards Guild ignored the books, though it did inspire a few new songs for Truthsingers.

The Waning Era

After an initial initial surge of new books written by a guild mostly comprised the founding Daura au'Mynros members, the guild saw interest begin to wane as they continued producing books. While the more accurate accounts of the Orliian Exodus was popular among the more curious and skeptical Taipii, accounts of other events involving the nomadic Taipii before the exodus were not. Machiiara commissioned numerous historical research projects which although paid for, were of little to no interest to the Taipii outside the Sans au'Sul. The library in the small Chalei Scribes Guild grew quickly - but few were interested in reading from it.

The Reflection Era

The waning public interest in the guild's work frustrated leadership of the Scribes Guild. They became worried that the guild would only serve as a research arm for the Daura au'Lii. As more of the scribes became concerned of the waning interest their historical writings they started to write instead about the guild itself - its mission and philosophy, and what the individual scribes perceived to be working or not working.

This "reflection era" resulted in a growing number of philosophical writings and opinionated works as the guild started to venture away from historical fact-finding. These philosophical books were even more unpopular, and learning of reading and writing also began to wane among the Taipii.

The News Resurgence Era

Just as the Scribes Guild was starting to lose the public's interest and guild members started to leave the guild in frustration a large number of Taipii in Lynnar started to become sick after a boating competition. Rumors and speculation spread quickly as to what was causing the illness, and the Taipii started to become paranoid and superstitious to the point that some started refusing to leave their homes.

An entrepreneurial member of the Scribes Guild began writing on the topic of the illness, and even traveled to Lynnar and risked interviewing those who were sick. The idea came to them that there was an opportunity here for the Scribes Guild to return to its roots in sorting fact from fiction and then reporting the findings to the public. The scribe followed many clues, interviewing the sick, members of the Healers Guild who treated them, and Goddess Fujika who was desperately seeking a cure for the Taipii growing ill in Lynnar.

As the Scribe carefully interviewed those who had fallen ill gathering as many details as they could they noticed a pattern - everyone who had gotten sick had eaten seafood skewers in the past few days. The scribe wrote their findings in a single-page report which he had copied, spread, and asked a few other scribes to repeatedly read the page loudly in the streets of Lynnar. The Goddess Fujika praised the scribe and the "life saving news on paper" they spread.

The Scribes Guild was showered with praise for saving the city, and other scribes in the guild immediately set out to find similar success writing on current events. Less than a year later numerous scribes had ventured out of Chalei and written and distributed their own "news on paper" articles, and interest quickly grew within the Scribes Guild for a regular distribution of recently gathered articles to be called the "Jaurukel au'Kachepii" (Journal of Scribes). The journal was extremely popular, as it gathered news and events from all across Antilia and made it regularly available to all to hear. Interest in the Scribes Guild and Taipiiscript started growing quickly after that.

The Scribes Guild is now one of the largest of the Taipii guilds and rivals the Merchant's Guild with the number of villages with a guild presence.

Guild Products and Services

Newspapers

The most popular product of the Scribes Guild is the Jaurukel au'Kachepii, a newspaper produced by the guild. News from all across Forra is delivered to the Guild Hall in Chalei to appear in the next edition of the Journal of Scribes. The Guild in Chalei prepares the primary journal content which is then painted as Taipiiscript calligraphy onto large thin sheets of spider silk, and then those silk sheets are distributed to the smaller Guild Halls across Antilia. Each local guild hall will often create additional sheets with their own articles of local interest.

To make copies of the latest edition of the Jaurukel au'Kachepii each of the Scribes Guild Halls carefully paint the Taipiiscript calligraphy of each page onto a large think cloth of spider silk.

Paper Production

The Guild has a proud tradition of producing it's own paper for it's books and news journals. Most of the guild halls have some basic paper production facilities (the few that don't buy their paper from the Artisans Guild). Ink relies on specific resources that may not be available in all areas, and so it tends to be bought from the Alchemists or Merchants Guild.

Duplication and Book Binding

The scribes guild can make copies of books and scrolls. Single copies are made by hand (which can be expensive and time consuming), where as to produce multiple copies a silk screening process is used.

Guild Roles

Guild Halls

Talikus (Guild Headquarters)

With the rise in popularity of the guild's newspaper the Scribes Guild faced some challenges when operating inland out of Chalei. The guild headquarters was first moved to Nyla to be nearer to the sea, then to Lantros to be near the Spider silk, and finally to Taliikus which had the best port and could serve as the guild's primary information hub. In Talikus information and submitted articles are gathered and considered, and the Taipiiscript calligraphy is painted onto a silk "master". The master is then carried via the Talikus-Lantros Gondola to the guild hall in Lantros where additional silk copies are made for distribution to all guild halls.

Chalei

The guild hall in Chalei is the oldest Scribes Guild Hall. This guild hall has transformed over time to specialize in reporting on the activities of the mages, the Daura au'Lii and of things on Forra of a magical nature.

The guild hall in Chalei also owns a small house in which the guild started and still stores some of it's oldest original research work. This building is only open to other members of the guild.

Lantros

The Guild Hall in Lantros is unique in that it can produce its own special silks, and has special responsibilities producing silk screen duplicates from the silk master produced in Talikus. The Lantros guild hall includes many of the most skilled Taipiiscript calligraphers, as the silkscreen pages they paint will be seen by Taipii across Antilia.

Nyla

The guild hall in Nyla served as the guild's second headquarters, after the small house in Chalei. This second location was favored over a new chapter in Lynnar as the guild desperately needed better access to the sea. As most of the Taipii cities are along the coast news traveled quickest between the ports, and the Scribes Guild found they needed informants constantly moving between Chalei and the port of Nyla. Eventually headquarters was moved to Lantros in favor of it's access to both the sea and inexpensive silk for silk screening, and then moved again to Talikus later.

Gajoi's Claw

As it is the only village with access to the sea, the guild hall in Gajoi's Claw serves as the Scribes primary information hub on the Isle of Kasau.

Guild Relationships

Alchemists Guild

The Scribes Guild is dependent upon the Alchemists Guild who produce the dyes, inks, and paints they use for writing, silk screening, and binding books.

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Taipii Alchemists Guild

Members of the Alchemists guild spend time in the wilderness searching for ingredients with alchemedic properties, and combine them into salves and potions.

Artisans Guild

A small number of the Scribes Guild Halls are dependent upon the Artisians Guild to produce paper for them.

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Taipii Artisans Guild

The Artisans Guild teach the production of basic tools, furniture, candles, soaps, and other household goods. The guild teaches a variety of disciplines including blacksmithing, carpentry, and alchemy, but does not cover any of those disciplines fully.

The Bards Guild

For a time the Scribes Guild were encouraged by Machiiara to work with truthtellers and truthsingers of the Bards Guild in authoring more accurate historical stories and songs, but in modern times it is left up to the truthteller/singer to seek contact with the guild.

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Taipii Bards Guild

A guild for Taipii musicians and storytellers.

Explorers Guild

The Scribes guilds is keenly interested in new information from the explorers guild especially with regards to new caches of information on ancient civilizations on Forra.

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Taipii Explorers Guild

The Taipii Explorers Guild (or possibly Historical or Archeologist Guild) is an adventurous guild which sets out to explore the world of Forra

The Lumberjack Guild

At scribe guild halls that produce their own paper they will often seek a relationship with the nearest Lumberjacks Guild to source wood chips and sawdust to make the paper from.

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Taipii Lumberjack Guild

The Taipii Lumberjack Guild organizes teams to fell trees and large mushrooms, and processes the raw wood into lumber

Weavers Guild

While most of the Scribes Guild Halls can produce their own paper only the Guild Hall in Lantros produces its own silk for silk screening. The majority of the guilds buy their silk indirectly from the Weavers Guild through the Merchants Guild.

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Taipii Weavers Guild

The Weavers Guild teaches members how to spin thread, weave fabrics, and soften chitin for forming. The weavers guild also creates clothing, sails, ropes, and nets.