[CanRay]

Books survive time fairly well, but age isn't a good friend to them.

Tablets, now those are some good ways to keep things alive!

[TheNarrator]

Regarding the Books of Harrow...

As part of his banishment, he is dispatched to a small monastery
set in the foothills of what areknown today as the Delaris Mountains,
in southeastern Barsaive.There, along with a cadre of scholars dedicated
to Mynbruje, the Passion of Knowledge, Messias works to recover,
translate, and transcribe volumes of books and scrolls recently recovered
from a nearby mountain cavern. The scholars believe this cache of
knowledge to be thousands upon thousands of years old, dating from
early in the time when the magical aura of our world still lay dormant,
before it rose to become the vibrant energy of our own time. What little
learned men had deciphered of the works prior to Messias' arrival
indicated that the documents spoke of an even older time, when the
world's aura was as strong as it is now.

Messias focuses on a group of six books barely kept intact by the
magic and climate of the cavern where they are stored. The six are a set,
matched in size and style,even down to the odd, blood-inscribed rune
on each of their covers. Messias can tell just by looking at them that
they contain powerful, probably dangerous, information. He also
believes them to be a warning, though against what, he does not know.
He devotes his life to untangling their secrets. In the end, those secrets
eagerly take the life he has offered.

Late one evening, some years later, his fellows discover his body
twisted and wracked with his dying agonies. Messias has torn his eyes
from his head and then thrust his clenched fists and their bloody
contents into the fire raging in the hearth of his quarters. He has also
left a brief note nearby. It says:

These are the Books of Harrow.
They are our doom and our salvation.
Learn from them, or we will all perish.

That night, something horrid stalks the corridors of the monastery,
and six of Messias' brethren die terribly. The next morning, an elder
elven scholar named Kearos Navarim takes the six Books of Harrow,
three of his fellow scholars, and ample provisions, and sets out on a
long journey to the land of his birth far to the south and west of
Barsaive. In that place, in the protection that he knows he can find
there, he intends to continue Messias' work and unlock the secrets of
the Books of Harrow.

So finding them would be good and bad. Good because it would give the Sixth World a heads-up on what's coming and some information on the powerful wards needed to keep them out. Bad because when you learn about Horrors... the Horrors learn about you.

[Sichr]

I always wondered about what that Rites of Passage means. Rites of Protection is clear. but Passage...sounds like building a bridge i.e. 

[Mirikon]

Indeed, Narrator. The Books of Harrow were artifacts left from the 2nd world, apparently, telling of the Horrors and the destruction they caused. And reading the books is apparently bad for your health, unless you've got protection.

There was something called the Book of Scales or something that was apparently made by Horrors, but I've only seen a couple references to it in the books I've read.

[The_Gun_Nut]

Keep in mind that the original books were over 5000 years old by the time Messias found them.  They would, in the 6th world, be well over 12,000 years old.  Very few things survive that long.

[Sichr]

IDN. you know...there is always that "magic" thing

[The_Gun_Nut]

They barely survived the first downcycle.  It is unlikely, given the amount of handling they recieved, that they would survive the second.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Messias works to recover, translate, and transcribe volumes of books and scrolls ...

The originals surviving?  Not likely.  Transcriptions?  Quite possibly, all things considered.

[CanRay]

The originals surviving?  Not likely.  Transcriptions?  Quite possibly, all things considered.

*Chuckles*  I can just bet how some of the mistranslations are. 

[Sichr]

The originals surviving?  Not likely.  Transcriptions?  Quite possibly, all things considered.

*Chuckles*  I can just bet how some of the mistranslations are. 

Funny idea...whole "Namegivers" idea based on lingustics...then some parts of the pattern changed, evolved or "mutateted" while something got lost in the translation...the 6th world for sure never be tha same as the 4th

aven Horrorrs will be slightly different, when they got "translated" in english...you know...our darkest nightmares are hardly comparable with those from dawn of mankind...

[CanRay]

our darkest nightmares are hardly comparable with those from dawn of mankind...

Maybe yours aren't.

[Sichr]

yeah...living in the middle of Europe in the country occupied first by Nazis, who toke my grandfather to slave camp, then by russians, who plundered this country and those who disagree sent to uran mining camps or to russian gulags...two hours from Oświęcim (Auschwitz)...on the other side in the heart of civilized Europe, 23 yers of building some kind of "democracy" with closest real wildernes that took you more than week to pass...hmmm...I dont even know where to find it here...
But maybe living in Canada is a bit different, at least that wilderness is much closer

[CanRay]

I'm trying to get away from politics right now, and I was referring more to my imagination and overactive mind rather than personal history.  My dreams are pretty damned dark and full of monsters as well.

My nightmares...  I'm glad I don't remember.

[Sichr]

OK, politics aside, I was talking about human bestiality and dangers that defines our ordinary days...being hit by car, raped, robbed, assaulted or confronted and threatened by HIV positive junkie wth the needle and his own blood as a weapon...or...if you live in less happy parts of this world, being enslaved, tortured or killed because of your believes, colour, name or just for fun.
Well, most risks and dangers we experience are those of human nature...and our worst enemy is another man. Not the beast, nor the nature...nor the darkness, winter cold, lack of food and water, unknown beasts lurjking in surrounding rainforrests, poisonnous spiders, insects and snakes on every step, lack of shelter.
World changed since 4000BC, it is much more confortable place, and our fears IMO changed with this world
on the other side
Some kind of primal fears encoded in our collective unconscious, archememes of human terror, are still there, unchanged.

[Nath]

It reminds me of discussions in the early days of the Shadowrun-Earthdawn connection. Some were wondering if Horrors and toxic spirits of man weren't the same thing. Horrors feed on pain, suffering, the dark side of humanity. People of the Fourth Age could not know about the other toxic spirits type because they weren't able to generate enough pollution to twist natural environments. Polluting human society, and the other hand, is possible without any technology.

But the idea hardly holds water anylonger (especially since the introduction of shadow spirits).