TheNexusProject/ShrineOfTheForgotten
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Shrine of the Forgotten
by Moxiane
- "No, I don't think we should tell them about the thief. ... Well, of course you do, but you're not stuck out here."
- - Gen, the Minister of Ways, to an empty corner of the Council of Entities' headquarters
- "Tihon! Tihon, are you in there? There's a guard patrol coming. Tihon!"
- - last words of Karo, lookout for the Celebrants' Circle
On a hilltop at the edge of Bastion, overlooking the property of one Delos Ferrano, stands a small, tumbledown temple of simple wooden beam construction, built long ago on a plot of land on which the vegetation has been left to overgrow and run riot. For most of the year it stands empty, with no priest or caretaker to hold back the inevitable ravages of time, and so with every season that passes the building succumbs slightly more to rot and the trees and bushes that surround it cover it a little more. The Shrine would long since have passed from the memory of the city were it not for an enigmatic edict recorded in an early part of the Incunabulum, one of the few given by the Emissary, “The Shrine of the Forgotten that stands within Bastion shall be left without acolyte or warden, save for the specific rituals carried out within.” Those twenty-three words have been the subject of much speculation within the tea-rooms of the Tower Barracks, but neither the Council of Entities in general, nor the Emissary in particular, have ever elaborated on the meaning behind them.
The Celebrants’ Circle has made petitions to various members of the Council of Entities several times within the last fifty years to be allowed to enter the grounds of the Shrine and to return the temple to its original state. These requests have always been rebuffed, the individuals of the Council being apparently unwilling to cross the Emissary on this matter, and they have taken to stationing mercenary guards outside it on the days leading up to important religious observances, as a precautionary measure against overzealous caretakers.
Over the years many curious people have visited it, seen its tarnished idols and faded tapestries. Some few have even uttered prayers to whatever being the Shrine of the Forgotten was dedicated to, but no records of any rituals or ceremonies taking place inside its cramped walls exist, in apparent defiance of the Incunabulum.
Rumours
- The Shrine of the Forgotten is the source of the wealth and power of the Guild, and its merchant-princes conduct black ceremonies there. The rituals actually take place in a cave within the hill, to which the Shrine is merely a carefully concealed entrance.
- Sometimes the people who visit the Shrine disappear, and everyone forgets that they ever existed.
Secret
- Any who visit the Shrine and make a prayer within it will lose the most valuable thing on their person that could easily be lost, such as a ring, ceremonial dagger or pendant. This loss will go unnoticed for at least a week, and should the character not need the item for a full month then they will forget that they had ever owned it at all.
