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Thousand Flower Temple

by FlowsLikeBits

"Ssssh! Be quiet! We're hunting Anathema!"

- Immaculate Ayeva and a small, stealthy Wyld Hunt, creeping through the streets of Nexus

"I take the boiled Durian and do WHAT with it!?"

- new resident to the acolyte with the language barrier

"The Temple is nice. The flowers are pretty, it's clean, quiet and the monks are nice and polite. Mostly they keep to themselves."

- Dohna Silkloom, local governess

Standing at the center of Interwoven Avenue, the Thousand Flower Temple is one of the few Immaculate temples in Nexus. It's a moderately powerful Manse, and consists of a white stone building surrounded by a high white stone wall that can keep out floodwaters. The outer barricade is actually double-walled and filled with dirt, with a flowerbed in between. At almost all times, there is at least one bloom per ten feet of wall, although at times the entire temple can be ringed by floral growth. Monks performing various impressive feats of balance and caring for the beds are a common sight. Most of these will not talk to outsiders, instead motioning them toward the front door of the temple. The Wood-Aspected Immaculate Ayeva is the head of the temple; although she is seldom seen, she was transferred in about two years after the loss of the Scarlet Empress.

While the Immaculates worship the Elemental Dragons, a certain amount of respect must also be paid to the lesser members of the Celestial Hierarchy. Tracking the proper amount of respect due to the large number of local gods and balancing that with the worship due to the Dragons is no simple feat in a place like Nexus, especially without a local Dragon-Blooded class to act as proper intermediaries.

Embedded into the outer wall are large slates, which the monks of the temple keep filled out with the details of the proper respects due to the various gods at various times. These are kept up to date for a week into the future, although ceremonies that require long preparation will be announced a week before the preparation time (all these relate to the Elemental Dragons). These boards are the source of their conflict with the Cinnabar Chalk Initiative.

Local residents who cannot read can go into the temple and have the customs and Immaculate Philosophy explained to them politely by an acolyte. The temple also provides all the standard temple services to the few in Nexus who require them.

The temple is quick to lend aid against Anathema that the public perceives as a threat, and a known Anathema would probably not want to brazenly walk right in, but mostly they have taken the long view. The Anathema will eventually reveal their true faces, and then the monks will be ready.

Rumors

• The Realm fears any one entity gaining control of all of Interwoven Avenue, which has enough magical power to be dangerous in the wrong hands (i.e., not theirs). The temple prevents this from happening.
• The monks of the temple are incredibly devout and fervent in order to put up with living in Nexus, striving against terrible odds.
• The temple is a punishment assignment; only problem cases are assigned to it. A few strict monks terrorize most of the acolytes into an external semblance of piety.
• Many of the flowers in the outer wall have been cross-bred with the Blood Star Lily and or the Blue Tongue Orchid, or actually are those flowers. Thus, most of the monks are a little... enlightened.
• Due to funding problems the temple has been taking bribes to funnel a little more respect to some gods than they would technically deserve.
• Every previous caretaker of this temple has been killed, disgraced, executed or banished. The post is jinxed.
• The temple is actually a training center for Immaculate assassins, who are sent against Anathema in the city. They also send out stealthy Wyld Hunts.
• None of the monks there are true Immaculates; all the actual ones were recalled soon after the disappearance of the Empress. The temple was sealed and guards were assigned, but a local cult took it over immediately and has been using it as its headquarters.
• Ayeva is an Anathema in disguise! The rest of the monks don't know this, or are too scared to do anything.
• Secret passages connect all the Immaculate Temples in the city to each other and both public libraries.
• The temple is a covert base for operations against Lookshy. The pattern of flowers blooming at any one time is a coded message to their operatives.
• Ayeva is actually the Scarlet Empress in disguise; she wanted to retire to someplace more fun than the Imperial City.
• Ayeva is actually a scion of House Cynis; she secretly smuggles selected 'products' that are easier to get in Nexus to her family.
• Ayeva is actually a member of House Iselsi; she took this assignment after her cover almost got blown.
• Ayeva was a God-Blood before Exaltation; her mother was Puffy Cheeks, goddess of hamsters. She had very few God-Blooded traits, and large amounts of talent, but a glass-ceiling effect kept her from rising very high in the Immaculate Order. She was eventually transferred to the Thousand Flowers Temple with the idea that she'd either screw up or meet the wrong end of an Anathema.
• The temple has been hiring people to impersonate Anathema to raise awareness and increase the fear of the Anathema. Once they hired a real one by mistake, but it got away. (Usually a reference to The Forsaken's Bastards.)
• Actually, Ayeva is a Sid... what was I talking about again?
• The temple secretly spreads rumors about itself to hide its true purpose. There are probably more rumors about it than actual facts.

Secret

• The true purpose of the temple is to sit on top of a Third Circle demon. After killing its summoner, the best the Immaculates could do was bind and bury it, so that's what they did. Seepage from the ritual powers causes Interwoven Avenue. Sorrow's Rhyme keeps it bound. The rituals the Immaculates do themselves provides about half the essence for said binding, with the Rhyme providing the rest. Using the Rhyme in this way frees up her monks for other duties. Ayeva only tries to suppress the Rhyme when it seems to be getting weaker -- because this increases the popularity of the Rhyme with children, of course.
• A progressive illness is destroying Ayeva's memory, although she doesn't realize this yet. Several of her underlings suspect it, but can't prove it and don't realize she's already forgotten a few important things that nobody else knows. Currently, she's desperately trying to prevent the temple from getting stripped of people, as she doesn't like relying on the Rhyme too much, and many people are required to power the binding properly. She even invented a minor god to insert into the rotation and provide a bit more power, but her ethics prevent more use of that approach. Currently, if she used every monk she had for power, it would be enough, but barely -- and she really needs some for other duties.

Comments

I'm willing to trim the Rumors if it's a problem, the idea behind it was this:

Basicly, since the this is sorta an important location(i.e. Immaculate presence could have far reaching effects), the base info is pretty vanilla, while the rumors are wild and various to allow customization, without commiting to far in any direction. Heck, some are there as a mental reminder to me to throw in some random wacky stuff when giving players rumors so they know not to trust all of them. Anyway, if it's problem, I'll trim it. --FlowsLikeBits

It's not that it's a huge problem (although the PDF will only have 4-5 of them), it's more that, well... Just because something is important it doesn't mean that it can't be mundane. Nexus is a city where down-and-out gods can rub shoulders with thousand-year-old Sidereals, true, but it is also a place where the best part of a million people live and work and have sex and raise children and do all the other day-to-day things that keep Creation ticking over. A large Immaculate temple in the pit of heresy and blasphemy that is Nexus is interesting in and of itself. - expounding Moxiane

Pedant mode: Also, I can't help but notice that a great many of the rumours do not concern the temple so much as Ayeva.

Actually, I agree. I tried to keep the main part fairly mundane, with idea being rumors could be promoted to facts as needed to add more wackyness if that was desired(I.e it could be mundane, or not). I promoted the 5 'base' rumors to the top(IMHO, feel free to choose others of couse), so they can go into any eventual PDF. I was trying to got for about the same total content as the other entries, but with a short top and a long rumor section. I didn't realize there was a specific limitation on rumors. Sorry about that. I wasn't totally happy with the secret, --FlowsLikeBits, yeah, it's hard to make to many interesting rumors about an occupied building with a well defined function, but I didn't want to make another charachter link

Don't suppose you'd be willing to alter this, or have it altered, to better match the standard Nexus format? For example, quotes after the title instead of before, name of original entry-maker under title, that sort of thing? -Okensha

I have a comment on the content, rather than the formatting. Why is the Immaculate temple promoting the Hundred Gods Heresy openly? The Immaculate Order teaches that no gods should ever be worshipped, but the Thousand Flowers Temple is posting a regular update of gods that should be worshipped. -Everyl

Actually the Immaculate Order teaches that gods should be given their due and nothing more. The Hundred God Heresy states that the gods should be worshipped, even above the Dragons, which is seen as heresy. If gods didn't get at least a little respect then the entirety of creation would fall into shambles. - Paladinltd

Wow, nice job coming up with so many rumours. However, I do have to agree with Everyl. I'm pretty sure the Immaculate Order states that only the Dragons should be worshipped. Having the temple worship other gods ... well, it just wouldn't happen. Paladinltd, yes the Immaculate Order teachers that the gods should be given their due, but that does not include worship, just respect. FlowsLikeBits, maybe you should shift this to a more generalized temple and leave the Thousand Flower Temple open for someone else to write; it seems that removing all those gods would wreck the entry a bit.
~ Shataina

My understanding was the Immaculates opposed worshiping one god to the exclusion of others, thus giving the one to much power, and encourging it to activly interfere(to gain worship). They advocate spreading the worship out over all the gods(well all relevant to an area), thus reinforcing the Celestial Hierarchy and reducing corruption(ideally). That was my understanding of it at least. I tweaked the wording a bit to try to convey it better, so Thanks. -FlowsLikeBits

Actually they're right. From the Corebook "Spirits exist, but one must not worhip them as gods. Likewise, individuals of of low spirtual status must not pay them homage." End quote. So technically everyone is right - Paladinltd

You beat me to the punch, Paladinltd. I had a big, long, rambling answer typed up, but you posted that before I could. To summarize my answer, though: check out page 81 of Exalted: the Dragon-Blooded. It describes the Order's teachings regarding the Hundred gods Heresy. Also, I'm pretty sure that "bureaucratic corruption" and "direct worship of gods" are roughly synonymous in the spirit courts. -Everyl

You know, not to nitpick, but I really think you're still going over the line when it comes to worship. Rituals in honour of a god = worship, not "respect"; and Immaculate monks kill spirits that take worship like that. Routinely. It makes sense that the Immaculate temple would keep track of what kind of respect each god is getting, and they might tone down their more murderous activities since it is Nexus and offending powerful people / gods is a bad idea, but there's no way they would perform rituals on behalf of the spirits themselves.
~ Shataina