A Treatise on Pre-Dream Architecture
By Marcel Soleil

This scholarly text is a very dry and detailed analysis of buildings constructed before Paraceln's Dream. As very few pre-Dream buildings remain, it principally focuses on extrapolating buildings from heavily-decayed ruins scattered throughout Komaru. However, it contains an excellent chapter on the ancestral home of the Touraine family.

Possession of this tome is worth **** Research Point per session. If delivered to the Church, this tome is worth **** Church Prestige Point. With a year of study and **** Research Points, this tome will provide information on the topic of Pre-Dream Architecture.

The inside cover of this treatise contains the following hand-written dedication:

To my dear Verity,

Simple words cannot convey the joy I have taken in the time we have spent together. Were I a scholar alone, I would owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude because you allowed me into your home, one of the few remaining examples of the creations I am dedicated to. Were I a man alone, my heart would swell with love for you for the tender affections we have shared. Were I an artist alone, I would exult at having had the opportunity to capture such perfection in the heart of stone. Because of you, I am all of these things, and more. You have taught me to see beauty where I only sought an ocean of death.

Your most sincere lover,
Marcel Soleil

As a result of the Church of Inner Light's stringent information controls, the architectural theories of pre-Dream Komaru are difficult to discern. Based on fragmentary records, however, there seem to be several schools of masonry popular within Komaru during that time period. One school seems to have concerned itself primarily with utilitarian buildings, which are designed in a style roughly congruent with modern architecture. Another seems to have built castles based on some other principle. It is this school that produced the graceful, organic constructs with which this text principally concerns itself.

...

Pre-Dream architecture is characterized by a style and form very different from the modern castle. Whereas today's castle is modeled on providing defense against a conventional siege, pre-Dream architects appear to have constructed their edifices with simple aesthetic concerns as the foremost guide. Because of their ability to transcend the mundane concerns of war and defense, they have created structures of beauty and grace far surpassing any work of the modern man.

...

Whereas the modern castle uses brick, stone, and mortar to build walls, the pre-Dream edifice seems to be constructed of a single, seamless material, as though shaped out of the very earth. Many individuals have described these structures as formed from "Mourn's Bones", but in their lines I see more evidence of seashells than skeletons. Extensive research went into locating these "bones", which appear to actually have been some sort of subterranean deposits. The presence of some obscure mineral could well account for the unique construction of these castles, but the mineral's exact nature is unclear, and will perhaps never be rediscovered.

...

In the Castle by the Sea, there is a stairway that rises into the central tower in a slow, graceful spire. Before it reaches its pinnacle, it creates no less than six discrete rooms with no obvious access. With the gracious aid of the Duchess Touraine, I was able to open three of these strange chambers, discovering a variety of curios and heirlooms of the ancient Touraine family. The other three, however, remained sealed, their secrets locked away for all time.

Every hall within the Castle by the Sea shows that much attention to construction.