TheHoverpope/TheMountainsRegret
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The Mountain's Regret
The mountains of Wavecrest are known throughout the west as a boneyard for sacrifices, where many have been hurled into the gaping mouths of volcanoes such that the lava turns them to ash and their bones bubble and flow as the living stone. Almost all of these are great places of power, where fire essence has ruptured through the flesh of the world, and in most of these places, the spirits of the volcanoes ravenously accept the sacrifices that they have been offered.
Not all spirits are, however, so bloodthirsty. In a small province of Wavecrest, there was a volcano inhabited not by hungry spirits of fire, but by one imprisoned spirit of wood. A follower of the court of compassion, she was imprisoned for refusing to strike down an enemy of Yu-Shan, and sentenced to seven score years bound in the volcano. Her compassion ached her all the more when sacrifices began to pour into her home's mouth, and she was unable to stop them. Dozens of souls have fallen to their deaths in her presence, some lucky ones falling straight into lava, others not so fortunate falling onto a hardened part of the flow where they baked more slowly.
TheHoverpope/Anesca came to her, and offered her an agreement; he would end the sacrifices, he would release her bindings, and they would work together. She agreed; he lied. Anesca, with her unwitting cooperation, has built a manse of flame and wood; deep in the center of the caldera. The liquid fire of the volcano pools as a moat around a baroque palace of tuff and obsidian chased with inscriptions in magma. The center of the manse is enshrined in a life-preserving casement of mahogany and bamboo. That central area was and is the flesh of the spirit of the mountain, twisted and reworked into the shape that Anesca has desired. She is still alive, and she is furious, howling her pain and regret, a faint cracking of branches always audible in the manse. But she can do nothing about it, and her pain only serves to reinforce the poisonous geomancy that he sought. Since one brave local villager looked over the edge, straining his eyes against the sulfurous smoke, and managed to barely make out the shape of a structure inside, several villagers have died trying to climb into the volcano to reach their patron spirit. This idea was abandoned, and now sacrifices are simply more common than before, usually every few months.
Accessing the manse is almost invariably lethal without some supernatural method to avoid the scorching heat of hundreds of degrees celsius. The manse has been designed to use the spirit's ability to take in prayer and sacrifice and use it to produce power; if the manse is damaged, a human sacrifice can restore one level of damage that the manse has suffered.
Olivine Flame
Rating: 3, Aspect: fire
Trigger: concentration
This stone channels the power of the great volcano in which the manse stands, forcing that mighty flame through a perfect crystal of olivine the colour of Ligier's light. When active, the stone is deeply unsettling to those of creation, but reminds demons of home. It shines brightly as a torch, and all is lit as if on the brightest days in the demon city, when Ligier's light is reflected and focused by the glass body of Gyali, the Warder of A Thousand Rays. Within fifty yards of the bearer, everything is brighter than a hideous daylight. Creation-born creatures are partially blinded by the unnatural intensity of the light, taking a -2 internal penalty to physical actions, and demons are at -2 MDV against the bearer.
