Mechanically, I really love this faction. The gameplay feels simple, highly interactive, and genuinely interesting to play. And the artwork is gorgeous (no burning books reflected in the owl's eyes, though? 🙃)

My only slight critique would be regarding the tokens. While "Bookshops" absolutely works mechanically, the concept feels a little flat compared to the rest of the theme. I feel like the faction would gain even more narrative depth with a slightly punchier or more evocative name for them. But that might just be my personal taste!

The way the library is defended is so cool and thematic, honestly their gameplay and actions are also really creative and well thought out. Love the artwork and background too!

I like this a lot, clean and simple while still providing plenty of interaction with the other players using the vip.

I like this faction! My major feedback would be to clarify when cards in the archive are face up or face down. If it’s always face up I would love to see that, perhaps in the archive box on the player board as reminder text. As it currently reads, you reveal the archive progressively and presumably you keep those face up but as you add cards do you ad them face down until you reveal them and then that’s the point at which people can swap from them? The faction centering around that zone and the rules being foggy around it was a bit of a downside for me but overall cool concept.

It also seems like the faction would draw a lot of cards. Only needing to build one bookshop in each suit to get your first extra card seems kind of insane since you can build your first one before your first draw step, and I imagine that starts to get out of hand quickly. I also wonder if the bookshops should need to be adjacent to the library or other bookshops when being built instead of just being airdropped into anywhere on the map (as is my interpretation of the current wording). These are both questions for playtest but they’re worries I have about the overall balance of the faction. Maybe this is all offset by how hard it is to get warriors on the board, I’m interested in your feedback.

Nice work!  I like the puzzle of managing the Archives: what should I keep, what should I spend?  And how do I make this "information" attractive to others?  Reminds me a bit of the Otters (in terms of action economy), but solely card-focused.

It seems like it would be difficult to establish a lot of board presence with this faction (you only recruit by giving away a Bird card for a Book Drive?).   But maybe I just need to try it out!