> [!success] Integrated > This lore drop has been processed and integrated into the vault. > See: [[Location - The Beacon (Pilgrim's Shelter)]] ***LOCATION OR STRUCTURE - The Beacon / Pilgrim's Shelter - A holy site in a sea of ice...*** The Beacon is a holy site owned and operated by the Salen Republic, built upon the island of Pilgrim's Shelter over a thousand years ago. It is an internationally renowned place of learning and worship that has strong ties to the Salenian Church. It is not however, directly operated by the church, after it was granted a degree of autonomous independence in a series of ancient laws, which allows for more religious liberties than would be found in the republic. The Beacon itself is a large megastructure in the form of a great tower over 3000 feet tall. It is perhaps most well known for housing the Grand Edwin Library, one of the largest libraries by number of works to be found on Gryth. The library contains thousands of scrolls and tomes that can be found nowhere else, and is a holy site not only for religious individuals, but scholars and wizards also. The Beacon contains a small but permanent access point for higher members of the Legendarium. Pilgrims Rest was uninhabited until around 1200 years ago, when a contingency of Elvish Monks settled there. These monks declared a series of important tenets, most concerning the free flow of information and the outlawing of religious oppression. As such, the Selenian Church has decreed the site a place of potential heresy, even though they are technically the ones who own the land through the government of the Salen Republic. This strange position has left the Beacon in a kind of political limbo, wherein they receive minimal support from Salen, but are still technically part of the Republic, along with the Salenian Hold in Norn. The Beacon itself is not only a library, but a series of vaults containing priceless artifacts, rooms of worship, halls for initiates to the Silent Order etc. It is a truly enormous building, with a great tower atop which a winter blue flame burns eternally. The direct ships to Pilgrims Rest from the Salen Republic are controlled strictly by the church, and only high ranking officials may travel without a direct seal and order. A ship service from Bonedagger is unregulated, but costly, bringing religious wanderers and pilgrims from across the continents to the frozen island. Over one hundred years ago, the final tenet at The Beacon was made, to allow the free dissemination of all written materials within the library, without fail to anyone who asked. After this, the monks and scholars found here reorganized themselves into a new group, The Silent Order, and took an oath of complete silence. They still refuse to speak to this day. In recent years, to help with costs, the island has opened itself up to a fishing company, and a mining company, who use the island to collect natural resources. Other than these two resources, pilgrims Rest is a desolate and frozen hunk of ice and rock, adrift in the Salenian Ocean. Though not the most northern island of Edaria, the freezing winds which blow down from Norn keep the island around ten degrees colder than lands at a similar latitude. Travellers here are warned to keep themselves guarded as the island does not benefit from the enormously strong security and military forces of the Republic, and the small port village of Silverdocks which receives guests is known to be raided by pirates and rogues in particularly cold months. ![[Pasted image 20260114000435.png]]