Miedvied/ShinzuiTemple
This order of warrior-monks was local to the area roughly two hundred miles south of Diamond Hearth long before the first settler had thought to make a home in the ice-blasted wilderness. The monks have long venerated death and carnage; and, in the pattern of cycles and polar opposites, life and peace. The Shinzui temple itself is a small Shadowland that does not extend outside the boundaries of the temple itself; both a disquieting presence and a blessing to the small village based around the temple.
The village grew due to the tradition of temple leaders to demand that initiates hone their endurance and martial skill by engaging on lone hunts in the blasted icelands; and as the monks themselves learn to eat nothing but ice and drink nothing but water, the meat was given over to anyone nearby. This allowed for the formation of a group of sedentary villagers, as the monks fulfilled their need to roam for food.
The village itself is mostly a three-story affair; the lowest is two levels below ground, which is used during the heavy snow months for travel.The second lowest is also below ground, but usually overgrown with stalactites formed by what little ice manages to trickle through with time. It is here that villagers often gather their water and, in some places, hold the larger shrines to their ancestors. The top-most level is almost always buried in snow, and is used primarily for house altars, storage, and the smoking and salting of meats. The village is extremely dedicated to ancestor worship, helped along in no small amount by how many ancestors end up as ghosts in the temple.
Shinzui Temple is the only element of the village to remain aboveground; several stories above ground, supported on a massive fibonacci spiral of ice; massive stalagmites of ice with crafted skulls mounted atop them punctuating the walkways every so often. The temple itself is a several-story affair itself, appearing with fluted tiles and ornate smaller-roofs-on-larger-roofs. For one moment during each dawn and each sunset the temple becomes entirely transparent, revealing every warrior and initiate within bowing in the large central altar. The remainder of the day finds the temple walls a forbidding blue-white that defies spying (those attempting to use occult spying of less than Solar circle potency, or without first using celestial circle countermagic, are most pitied by Heaven, for their eyes quickly turn to ice, and then melt down their cheeks before refreezing in permanent tears marring the scryer's cheeks.)
Though housing a small shadowland, and being and cultivating a powerful death cult, Shinzui Temple is not yet affiliated with any Deathlords. Those that have tried to find purchase there have been rebuffed - violently - since time immemorial (leadership of Shinzui Temple has only changed hands once; it was only two hundred years before the disappearance of the Empress that the First Age lunar that founded the temple was lost in battle with the Fae; it is said that nine hundred and ninety nine Fair Folk Nobles were slain by the great Ice Lord, before the very last two standing on the field of battle each stabbed him together, piercing both his hearts at once, and felling him.) It is said that the great Ice Lord was he that first created the race of Horned Snow Hunters, by breeding with the snow leopards naturally found in the area. He founded the Snow Hunter Form martial art.
The current leadership is the great Ice Lord's student. He currently possesses no goals for the temple except that which his mentor had always instilled in him; the cultivation of enlightenment through adversity, the protection of the village based around the temple, and the prevention of the growth of the Deathlord's power (while the temple venerates death, and indeed many of its members are ghosts, none of those affiliated with the temple believe that the Deathlords belong in Creation itself; the temple contains members of both the living and the dead as an attempt at to show that even the worst trial - death - is overcome. It is not itself encouraging the spread of death into the living world.) This leader is a No-Moon known simply as Icefoe. His appearance is that of a horned snow hunter (see Creatures of the Wyld) roughly fifteen feet from head to tail, and twelve feet in height at his shoulder. He has not been seen in non-animal form in several decades. His pelt is so bright a white as to cause blindness in those that do not come prepared for it.
Icefoe's prominent student, and second-in-command of the temple is known as Thrashing Snowtooth. A man that stands almost eight feet in height, with skin the purple-black of dusk, he is a full moon that follows in his teacher's (and unbeknownst to him, father's) totem of the Horned Snow Hunter. Though he lacks his father's overwhelming potency in charms and skills and experience, he is unquestionably the most tenacious and raging member of the temple. He long ago failed to find enlightenment and the path to it - a failure of his father's. His father trained him from birth to be the angriest, hardest, roughest member of the village. It was done from love; to prove to Luna that this boy should, too, be Exalted. His father succeeded in this, but in this bloody-minded training he deeply scarred his son's soul and psyche. It is said that the only peace brought to him is when he meditates over his many memories of the First Age (it is suspected that he may have recieved the great Ice Lord's own spark, but this is highly unlikely) while crafting the many sculptures of ice that form the firmament of the temple.
Thrashing Snowtooth, too, has an acolyte; a newly exalted changing moon, the girl has not yet picked up her full name of adulthood, and still goes by the name of Kylie. It is suspected she will lead the temple far sooner than Thrashing Snowtooth; and not through physical means. She has a wit sharper than any Snow Hunter's horn, and a mind as keen as the Abyssals' own blades. She is probably the most manipulative member of the temple, and often arranges to find herself in a life of something like comfort, at least relative to her surroundings (there is no end of men in the village that have attempted to court her; none have yet succeeded.)
Every member of the temple initiates as a mortal; no ghosts are accepted unless they were born and raised in the Shinzui village. Mortals are trained to venerate death, and to prepare their souls for ritual suicide once they become too old to serve - and continue serving as ghosts. None are encouraged to die before their time in mortal life has ended, however; this would be an affront to the celestial order. It is through this ritual suicide and potent sorcery that the leaders of the temple have consistently gauranteed a large production of ghosts from the initiates of the temple - and ghosts of outstanding power at that.
The temple is, save for the times that it is called upon to go to war in defense of the village around it (most often from fair folk or barbarian incursions), dedicated truly to enlightenment, meditation, and a philosophical life. This in no way prevents it from being staffed by warriors of immense power. The Sidereals overseeing this part of Creation have expressed interest in infiltrating the temple, but have not yet succeeded - the great Ice Lord has always thwarted their attempts. With the changing of hands to Icefoe, and the possible chaos that Kylie may wreak, there is a chance that the sidereals will indeed infiltrate the temple within the coming days - though it is just as likely that a solar may find himself here, the most promising warrior of the temple.
Figures of Note:\\
Sayn is the temple artificer (a heroic ghost). He has been with the temple several hundred years, having been the student of the great Ice Lord himself. He is quite possibly the most keen-minded member of the temple; and the least spiritual. He, of all members, is the least brainwashed; he often finds much pleasure outside of the temple, often doing his best to take a lady or three to bed before returning to the temple. He gets his fill of drink and music and pathos; he lives it up as best he can (something he did not get to do in life; his own father was the Ice Lord, and as such, he found his own life to be most miserable and hard.)
He alone forges the many artifacts handed to the ghost-monks, and indeed some of the artifacts given to the living, though most of those are produced by Icefoe. He has no political ambitions, per se; being a member of the temple gives him great veneration from the ancestor cult of the area, temporal power of a sort, and a most extensive forge with which to indulge his life's joy - crafting.
