The Book of Knots - Jags

Book of Knots - The Caretakers
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powerful Caretaker whose favor she wishes to curry. Her library is full of
useful information, but the risks involved in getting it are quite high.
Visitors to her library are subject to her rules, and she has elaborate
punishments for those who break them.
• Speaking unnecessarily or ever speaking above a whisper: She has
a pair of brass tongs decorated with jade that she uses to rip the
tongue out. Tongues are pressed into a special book; as you turn
through the pages they wag, repeating whatever the offending
sentence was.
• Touching a book with unwashed hands: She has a pair of (blunt)
scissors that she uses to cut the hands of the offender off.
Walking with unwashed feet will result in the same thing. This
punishment often results in screaming which is, unfortunately,
talking above a whisper…
• Late books: Flesh from the offender is cut into paper dolls—
one doll per day the book is late. This produces a row of
tiny, screaming figures (that look like the offender) made of
compressed flesh linked at their hands and feet. The ‘paper dolls’
live in terrible agony for a few days (they scream and writhe
constantly in soft, very, very high-pitched voices). The offender
suffers not only being partially (or completely) flayed, but the
dying figures still transmit the pain of their deaths (although at a
greatly reduced rate, or the subject would go mad).
• Reading something you’re not allowed to read: She plucks your
eyes out.
• Damaging a book: Death by pressing.
• Misplacing a book: She’ll snatch away a feature (eye, nose, mouth,
etc.) or limb and just as quickly replace it in the wrong place
(“See how you’d like to be mis-placed!”).
• And so on…
For those who encounter her outside of the Library, there is still a risk:
a risk that she will become honestly fond of certain you (she likes those
who appreciate literature and are a little bit… shy in social settings).
People whom she takes a liking to will be delivered to the Red Queen for
translation and binding so that she can enjoy their company whenever
she desires (she sees this as a great compliment, but understands that
most people are a “tad squeamish” about such a fate, so she’s unlikely to
give them much advanced warning).
Domain
The Liebrarian’s House was created to oversee the Encyclopedia—the
development of a canon of all knowledge. The Encyclopedia would be a
set of books that record every fact in the universe. It would, by itself, be
a perfect model (in text form) of the universe.