Temple to the Seasons
The Temple to the Seasons... Hard to believe that it's a place we can actually visit now when not so long ago it was just another myth from just another group of people. But I guess the Shardscape has its perks. Even if it brings with it a lot of troubles, too. It's just such a shame that the whole place is a shambles. Whoever was here last certainly did a number the building. I doubt it's even structurally sound. But then again, when has that ever stopped my adventurer's spirit? Tomorrow, my friends and I will go in. We'll see if we can do anything to help the temple along in its recovery. Our druid is pretty excited, but also a lot nervous. We can all see the steelscale and the crystalblight from out here, and if what we were told is true, it's going to be so much worse on the inside. Luckily we have experience clearing out Shardscape corruption. The only problem is that it's going to take a lot of time. Luckily, the patron god of the temple is on the mend, and we won't have to worry about getting interrupted by creatures with too many legs and too many teeth. It's going to be a lot of work, but it might well be worth it. According to the stories, this place was supposed to be one of the grandest temples ever built. You wouldn't know it, looking at the dull and weathered stone from the outside, but hopefully once we manage to fix it up a bit, once Sköln recovers enough to flood the temple with his power again, it'll be back to looking like it once was.Once a place that existed solely in the mythology and folklore of the Beradien, the Temple to the Seasons has taken on a physical form in the Wyldrysc, one of the infinite myriad realms of the Shardscape. Built and dedicated by the Moonchaser, the wolf-god Hath for and to his twin brother, the Sunchaser Sköln, the Temple to the Seasons is an homage to the sun's mighty influence on the world.
Purpose / Function
According to beradienil tradition, the Temple to the Seasons was built and consecrated by Hath for his brother Sköln as a symbol of their everlasting bond as twin brothers. It was meant to pay homage to the seasons which, as the beradiena understood at the time, were driven by the sun's place in the sky. Furthermore, in later myths, the Temple to the Seasons was also said to house a grand library in its basement, where all the knowledge of the world could be found in tomes and scrolls compiled by the urkadal god Valathir, also known as the Gentleman of Twilight, or the Wanderer, who was known to be good friends with both brothers. This underground library was said to contain a copy of every book that had ever been written, and a transcription of every word to have ever been uttered in the interest of instructing another person.
When the temple became manifest in the Shardscape, it took on both these aspects of being. The surface temple closely resembled the way that many people had envisioned the structure, as evidenced by works of art produced by the beradiena. Underneath the temple, in a hidden archive, Valathir's library also manifested, ostensibly containing a copy of every work of literature ever produced. At this time, the temple came under the protection of the ösk, stewards of the Wyldrysc.
Alterations
A beradien extremist who would come to be known as "the Fleshweaver," in seeking revenge for crimes committed against his people centuries prior to his birth, came to the Temple to the Seasons after making a pact with a dark shardborn deity in search of knowledge that he could use to further his plots. Once he found the knowledge, he decided to commandeer the temple as his own base of operations and made the necessary alterations, wounding Sköln to usurp the god's control over the realm and paving the way for the corruption necessary for him to carry out his deeds.
The underground library was destroyed. Only the most important tomes were saved, placed in the Fleshweaver's personal collection before the rest of the documents were torched. Then, the vaults of the underground archive were repurposed into spawning grounds for the menagerie of chimeric creatures that the Fleshweaver would proceed to create using the knowledge that he'd obtained from the records in the library.
Few alterations, if any, were made to the aboveground part of the temple, as the Fleshweaver preferred to keep his activities largely secret. Using the blood of the ösk that guarded the temple, the Fleshweaver constructed a barrier against unwelcome entry around the temple, though a small gap in this barrier was held open by the last two ösk in the hope that a solution could come from outside of the temple.
Architecture
Although consecrated to a god associated with the sun and despite being built in honor of the sun and its power, the exterior of the Temple to the Seasons is built out of a slightly-translucent kind of marble that looks better in the light of the ever-present moon in the sky of the Wyldrysc where the temple is located. The interior of the temple is made out of a glossy, grey-white stone and is decorated with furniture made out of what seems to be pale white wood.
Although the motif of the seasons is repeated throughout the structure, particularly through carvings set into the four quadrants of every set of double doors around the structure, the most important iconography that is displayed prominently both on the front door of the structure as well as behind the altar at the heart of the temple, is that of an enormous tree with branches reaching up into the sky, with the sun and moon tangled in its branches. This is believed to be an homage to Oakencrown, the Elder Tree, who is the de facto ruler of the Wyldrysc.
History
The myth of the Temple to the Seasons is said to predate the First Beradien-Eristur War making it one of the oldest myths in urkadal culture. Although at the time the beradiena had obtained the art of the written word from their interactions with the eristur, their oldest myths and folklore remained part of their oral tradition until well after the First Beradien-Eristur War.
Ostensibly, the first time that the Temple to the Seasons became a physical location was approximately in 082.30 NL, around the same time that the Shardscape was created. It is unknown whether the temple itself emerged at the same time as the Shardscape or if it came into being later on after the Wyldrysc became an established realm in the Shardscape. At some unknown time afterwards, the ösk, shardborn guardians of the Wyldrysc, took over stewardship of the temple.
In the year 327.30 NL, a beradien extremist who had entered into a dark bargain with a shardborn deity, seeking revenge for crimes that transpired centuries ago in the territory of the city IldDaryn, sought out the Temple to the Seasons. Finding secrets of blood magic that had been sealed away many millennia ago under the now-lost Temple to the Pale God by the Prophetess Llyrileýwa, he commandeered the temple and struck a mortal blow against Sköln, beginning the process of corrupting the temple for his agenda.
In 329.30 NL, the Fleshweaver was ousted from the Temple to the Seasons by a group of adventurers that had been present at the Caolthide Manor during the Fleshweaver's first assault on the city of IldDaryn. At the time, however, the Fleshweaver had managed to move on to the next step of his plans and no longer needed the temple, so after the departure of the adventurers, it was left in a half-ruined state of limbo as Sköln slowly recovered from the corruption that he'd suffered as a result of the wound that the Fleshweaver dealt to him.
The ruined state of the Temple to the Seasons as of 401.30 NL is attributed solely to the actions of the Fleshweaver, as the beradien extremist would come to be known. Recovery efforts are ongoing, although progress is slow. Entirely at random, the temple can spontaneously regress several days or weeks of work, a phenomenon attributed to temporal anomalies caused by the twisted strands of eldritch energy permeating the entire structure. Much effort has been poured into remedying the situation, but as far as estimates go, even shardborn experts think that restoration might yet take the better part of half a century.
RUINED STRUCTURE
327.30 NL
327.30 NL
Type
Cathedral / Great temple
Great article, love the Glossary of Terms and History sections.