The Old School (Hyperborean) Renaissance

Are these poorly-masked adventure hooks? Yes, yes they are. 

For the last century a peculiar fever has gripped the learned societies of Marlinko, Kezmarok, Revoca, and even distant Nur.

Book fever.

Across the Cantons, wealthy patrons sponsor expeditions into abandoned undercities, collapsed fortress-libraries, frozen tombs, and cyclopean vaults in search of lost Hyperborean manuscripts: Classical, Latter-States, early Pahr Revival, even Neo-Hyborian. Every month some scholar announces the discovery of a forgotten work by a legendary author. Every month another expedition disappears entirely.

The movement began innocently enough with the rediscovery of On the Harmonious Arrangement of Municipal Sewers by the philosopher-engineer Vek Ult. The text was so surprisingly practical that several cities immediately adopted its recommendations, reducing outbreaks of sewer-ghouls by nearly a third.

Soon every collector wanted their own discovery.

Today entire fortunes are spent hunting texts known only by title: The Forty-Ninth Dialogue of Sir Eld, The Seven Thousand Insults of Jaasher, The Lost Commentaries of Zakzz the Exhausting.

Some scholars pursue wisdom. Others seek prestige. Most simply wish to become famous. The reality is considerably less romantic. Hyperborean books rarely remain where they were left.

 Entire collections migrate through dimensions according to principles understood only by librarians and certain mollusks. One famous expedition located a complete set of the Annals of the Fifth Dynasty after 15 years of searching. Upon opening the volumes, the scholars discovered the books consisted entirely of corrections and other errata to an earlier edition which has never been found.

Another party recovered a pristine copy of The Invisible Republic of Wizards from a submerged archive beneath the Rubicand Caverns. The manuscript immediately began revising itself and now contains six mutually contradictory versions, each claiming to be authentic.

The greatest prize remains the legendary Esurient Library of Ur-Commoriom. According to surviving sources, the final necromancer-kings and aspiring Kirbyesque space-god kings of Hyperborea gathered copies of every important work produced during the empire's 13,000 years of history before sealing the collection beneath the long-forgotten capital. The library has never been located.