Foreword - A Drowned Book

# What is this? ![[drowned book.webp|20]]Welcome to A Drowned Book, my notes about the video game [Book of Hours.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1028310/BOOK_OF_HOURS/). This is a fan project by me, Eldra Echo. My favorite game, of all time, hands down, is [Book of Hours.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1028310/BOOK_OF_HOURS/) Book of Hours is the sidequel? to[ Cultist Simulator](https://store.steampowered.com/app/718670/Cultist_Simulator/), a top-down card single player card game about, as one might guess, simulating a cult and its management. Compared to Cultist Simulator: - Cultist Simulator, Book of Hours, and the upcoming Travelling at Night are all set in the same fictional IP universe, the Secret Histories. - Book of Hours is a lot more forgiving than Cultist Simulator. There are still ways to softlock yourself from a win, but it's a lot harder. - The RNG is more forgiving. The main RNG element has to do with what books spawn into the library when you make a new game. - Book of Hours utilizes a doll-house style cross-section view for many areas of its map. - I have a blog post about why you can just skip Cultist Simulator and jump right into Book of Hours [here](https://www.eldraecho.com/blogofhours/just-play-boh). I still like Cultist Simulator and recommend it as a game, I just recommend Book of Hours as your first foray into the world of the Secret Histories. **Please note:** - You do not have to play Cultist Simulator or have any knowledge about the world of Cultist Simulator to jump right into Book of Hours or watch my streams. - My notes are a way for me to share my progress and personal opinions about game events with the audience. I'll have a section on each page called "Eldra's Notes" and those notes are obviously based on my personal opinion and are not necessarily canon or aligned with the canon. - I'm utilizing a single-user Obsidian vault for my notes, so you won't be seeing notes from any other contributors (so that means I can't blame anyone else for my typos...) If you're looking for more objective, more complete, community-editable resources, you can check out the following websites: - [Secret Histories Wiki](https://secret-histories.fandom.com/): This website is focused on lore from across the Secret Histories universe, - [Book of Hours Wiki](https://book-of-hours.fandom.com/): This website is focused entirely on Book of Hours and is mostly focused on gameplay mechanics (things like complete lists of recipes makeable with each skill, secrets in the game, etc.) - [Cultist Simulator Wiki](https://cultistsimulator.fandom.com/wiki/Cultist_Simulator_Wiki): This wiki is focused entirely on Cultist Simulator and is mostly focused on gameplay mechanics but I think there are some lore pages [Frangiclave](https://uadaf.theevilroot.xyz/frangiclave) is a database searching tool for Cultist Simulator. [Rowenarium](https://uadaf.theevilroot.xyz/rowenarium/) is a database searching tool for Book of Hours. # Frequently Asked Questions ## What's the point of this project? ![[bookofhours.png|25]] [[Book of Hours|Book of Hours]] is my favorite game of all time. I have to take heavy notes when I play it and I thought it could be fun to let viewers follow along with my notes live while I stream. I last played Book of Hours in 2023, on launch, multiple computers ago, and have lost the Obsidian file I had before. So, I'm remaking it from scratch, with improvements: namely, more inline triggers that link to pages. ## Why are the icons so small? I didn't want to use the full-size art because 1.) It would be way too big for an inline icon 2.) It didn't really feel like it fell under fair use 3.) I want to encourage people to buy and play the full game themselves. ## Why do some page numbers/folders have numbers or random letters attached? By default, Obsidian organizes things alphabetically. By starting a folder or file with a number, I can force the order to stay a certain way. ## What's the text coloring logic? **Principles:** color of their icon. I include ![[secrethistories.png|25]] [[Secret Histories|Secret Histories]] as well as ![[rose.png|25]] [[Rose|Rose]]. **Skills:** color of their primary principle. For example, ![[anbarylapidary.png|25]] [[Anbary & Lapidary|Anbary & Lapidary]] has a major Principle of ![[sky.png|25]] [[Sky|Sky]] and a minor Principle of ![[forge.png|25]] [[Forge|Forge]], so it's colored blue to match the ![[sky.png|25]] [[Sky|Sky]] principle. **Memories:** color of the strongest principle they have, and if it was a tie for top, I just picked one. For special memories and the numina, I went with cyan because we've seen that used as an indicator of something special before in the Secret Histories games and it isn't tied to a principle. Plus, every numen has a cyan color palette. **Portraits:** If an Assistant or Visitor was associated with a Principle that matched their Portrait color, I used that. Some portraits didn't match up to a Principle associated with an Assistant or Visitor, e.g. ![[mrzacharywakefield.png|25]] [[Mr Zachary Wakefield|Mr Zachary Wakefield]] has a cyan portrait but he is associated with ![[winter.png|25]] [[Winter|Winter]], the ![[consultingengineer.png|25]] [[Consulting Engineer|Consulting Engineer]] has a ![[rose.png|25]] [[Rose|Rose]] portrait but she's associated equally with ![[forge.png|25]] [[Forge|Forge]], ![[sky.png|25]] [[Sky|Sky]], and ![[lantern.png|25]] [[Lantern|Lantern]]. **Affairs and Incidents**: Most have two Principles but one isn't given more weight than the other, so I just chose the Principle based on what best matched the icon and themes (e.g. for ![[theaffairofapolloandmarsyas.png|25]] [[The Affair of 'Apollo and Marsyas'|The Affair of 'Apollo and Marsyas']], I went with ![[grail.png|25]] [[Grail|Grail]], because it's similar in color to ![[heart.png|25]] [[Heart|Heart]] and the in-game book ![[apolloandmarsyas.png|25]] [[Apollo and Marsyas|Apollo and Marsyas]] is a ![[heart.png|25]] [[Heart|Heart]] book.) Some, like ![[amatterofthesofterfrost.png|25]] [[A Matter of the Softer Frost|A Matter of the Softer Frost]], only have one Principle, which made it easier. **Hours:** Everyone gets cyan names, and I used the tarot cards when available, the memories from Cultist Sim for ![[theeggunhatching.png|25]] [[The Egg Unhatching|The Egg Unhatching]] and other dead Hours, and a nowhere symbol for Hours-from-Nowhere and an inspired symbol for the leaked Hours. **Aspects and other triggers:** I tinted them in bronze so I could tell that I had used an inline trigger and for testing. **Other:** For things I wanted to track that didn't have a built-in icon (e.g. the present day timeline) I just picked an icon I wasn't using elsewhere. ## Why are some pages blank? If a page is blank, it means I haven't discovered information about that topic in my new playthroughs of Book of Hours. When I set up my inline triggers, I wanted to make sure they were set up with linked pages out the gate so I made the pages to ensure that everything worked. It's not really a spoiler for me because I had already put a few hundred hours into the game when it launched. ## How is this organized? Lore & Mechanics contains information about the underpinnings of the Secret Histories world, like the various Principles, Hours, and Wisdoms. People contains sections for Assistants, Visitors, and people that don't fit into those categories. An Assistant is somebody who can help you open a room in Hush House. A Visitor is a patron to the library who is visiting to check out a book. Places contains both places we explore in the game as well as places mentioned in the game. Workstations and Verbs contains information on various workstations, organized by a mix of canonical function type (e.g. the Beds are special work stations that can be used for healing Maladies affect Elements of the Soul) as well as my own categorizations (e.g. Media Viewing stations are for looking at ![[phonographrecord.png|25]] Phonograph Records and ;;film, Gardening, Farming, and Foraging is for workstations that are sometimes seasonal, usually do not take ingredients other than a Skill and an Element of the Soul, and that clearly relate to...gardening, farming, and foraging.) y_Video Diary and Transcripts are for stream VOD (video on demand) transcripts so if a viewer wanted to see a specific video, they could find it easily. z_Appendices is mostly Obsidian testing stuff, e.g. testing that the inline triggers work correctly. ## Why isn't this a wiki? I want this to be a personal log of my own progress, my own theories, etc. # Sixth History Community License Disclosure If I set this up right, you should be seeing this disclosure on every page in A Drowned Book. ![[Sixth History Community License.png|288]] A Drowned Book is an independent work by Eldra Echo and is not affiliated with Weather Factory Ltd, Secret Histories or any related official content. It is published under Weather Factory’s Sixth History Community Licence. Read the full license details here: [https://weatherfactory.biz/sixth-history-community-licence/](https://weatherfactory.biz/sixth-history-community-licence/)