Sourced from the Ruins & Rogues Adventurer’s Guidebook, 5th Edition

Class Description: Works of obscure scholars publishing in dead tongues centuries ago, tales so popular they are stolen over and over again by jealous cheapskates, statistics of obscure government agencies beyond mortal control…these arcane secrets and many more are a siren song to people with little ambition, an obsessive-compulsive’s eye for detail, and an intellect that absorbs trivia like an organic sponge. This is the path trod by Librarians. These canny scholars gather, catalog, and occasionally deign to answer questions regarding arcane information. While they are generally incapable of acting on the information so gathered to work wonders like a Wizard or touch the immortal divine like a Cleric, the Librarian is not to be underestimated. Or so they say. Some Librarians specialize in particular areas, devoting decades to schools of bibliomancy like cataloging, circulation, or reference, others dabble in all of the above with knitting and felinomancy to boot. Whatever their particular knack, Librarians are a force to be reckoned with whenever the campaign includes a library, archive, bookstore, or similar agglutination of books and information.

Role: Librarians are masters (and mistresses) of lore and learning, capable of finding books and information to at least sort of meet every conceivable need. While their offensive, defensive, magic, and healing skills are generally nil, a skillfully employed librarian can often mean the difference between spending three hours or seven lifetimes in the Great World Library dungeon.

NOTE: Unlike the previous editions, the 5th edition of Ruins & Rogues now classifies Archivists as a separate class rather than a subclass as in the 3rd edition or a prestige class as in the 4th edition. No Librarian skills can be learned by Archivists or vice-versa without dual- or multi-classing. For more information on the more focused, more intuitive, but less open and share-y Archivist class, please see pg. 488.

Alignment: Generally Lawful Liberal, Chaotic Liberal, or Neutral Liberal. Lawful Conservative, Chaotic Conservative, and Neutral Conservative Librarians suffer -1 to all rolls and saving throws versus Peer Pressure, Unspoken Assumptions, and Ivory Tower.

Hit Die: 1d4 -1

Starting Wealth: 1d4 x -100 gold pieces (average -250 gold pieces) to represent crippling student loans and low pay in general.

Starting Equipment: Each Librarian character begins play with an outfit worth 10 gold pieces, a library worth 100 gold pieces, and a cat worth -100 gold pieces (to cover the cost of vaccinations, spaying/neutering, and damage to real property). A Librarian character may forego the cat to increase the value of their starting library to 200 gold pieces but will suffer a -1 penalty on all bibliomancy rolls against other librarians.

Primary Class Statistics: Intelligence (INT), Obsession (OBS)

Secondary Class Statistics: Dexterity (DEX), Cats (CATS)

Class Skills: A Librarian’s class skills are Appraise (INT), Bibliomancy (see below), Cataloging (OBS), Circulation (DEX), Evaluate (INT), Felinomancy (CATS), Knowledge (INT), Linguistics (INT), Research (OBS), and Repair Book (OBS).

NOTE: A Librarian character’s bibliomancy skill is equal to: (size of their library)/100 + Intelligence

Skill Ranks/Level: 1 + INT modifier + OBS modifier

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