The Neutral Archives is the Thalvori institution responsible for maintaining the official historical, diplomatic, and commercial records of Origor. It is based in Mitte and has operated continuously for three centuries.
Function
Diplomatic records: Every treaty, trade agreement, border declaration, and diplomatic correspondence produced between factions since the Urknall exists in the Neutral Archives. Every faction has signed documents there. Every faction has violated documents there. The Archive maintains both.
Nevril certification: The Archives operate the only recognized Nevril quality certification system in Origor. When factions trade Nevril products — weapons, medicines, preservation compounds, agricultural inputs — the quality grading is certified by Thalvori archivists using standardized protocols unchanged for three centuries. Without Archives certification, buyers cannot verify what they're purchasing.
Historical scholarship: The Archives maintain the most comprehensive collection of Origor's history available — oral tradition transcriptions, geological surveys, population records, and the only systematic documentation of the Urknall's aftermath.
Why It Matters
No faction can afford to destroy the Neutral Archives. The loss would make cross-faction Nevril trade unverifiable, diplomatic agreements unenforceable, and historical records inaccessible. The Archives' value to the continental economy exceeds the military cost of protecting it.
Every faction knows this. Every faction resents knowing it. Three assassination attempts on Archivarin Sela Mohr have been documented; one has no attributed source.
The Sealed Vault
In the deepest level of the Archives building, behind a door that requires the current Archivarin's personal authentication, is a single sealed room containing one document.
The document is forty pages. The Archive's management records indicate it was filed three centuries ago, written by seven scholars whose names also appear in the founding myths of seven different factions. Its contents are known only to those who have read it.
Archivarin Sela Mohr has read it four times. She does not sleep well.
Access to the sealed vault is documented in the Archive management records: the date each Archivarin last opened it, the condition of the seals. The most recent opening before Sela Mohr's current tenure was four years ago — opened again six weeks after her meeting with Souverain Lara Schein of the Chromatic Pastures.
Current Leadership
Archivarin Sela Mohr, age 70. Head archivist. The most knowledgeable single individual in Origor about the internal affairs of every faction. Maintains what she calls "context documents" on all significant figures. Has survived three assassination attempts. Has not slept well in fifteen years.
She maintains the fiction of strict neutrality. She is not strictly neutral. She is strategically cautious, which produces similar external behavior.