Temple of Kossuth RP

[Darradarljod]

Kossuth

Title(s) The Lord of Flames, the Firelord
Home plane The Crimson Pillar (Elemental Plane of Fire)
Power level Greater
Alignment True Neutral
Portfolio Elemental fire, purification through fire
Domains Destruction, Fire, Renewal, Suffering, Wrath

Kossuth (/koʊˈsuːθ/ ko-sooth) is the god of Fire.

Kossuth is symbolized by a twining red flame (his holy symbol). His followers and clerics are often of the Neutral or Lawful Neutral alignment. He is the Fire God, the Lord of Flames, the Firelord, the Elemental God of Fire. His portfolio covers elemental fire, and purification through fire; his domains are destruction, fire, renewal, and suffering. His favored weapon is the spiked chain.

Dogma
Those fit to succeed will do so. Kossuth's faith is innately superior to all other faiths, particularly that of Istishia. Fire and purity are one and the same. Smoke is produced by air in its jealousy. The reward of successful ambition is power. Reaching a higher state is inevitably accompanied by difficulty and personal pain of some sort. Kossuth sends his pure fire to temper our souls and allow us to achieve a pure state. Expect to be tested and rise to the challenge no matter what difficulty and pain it brings. Those above you have proven their worth and deserve your service. Guide others to Kossuth's pure light so that he may reforge all life into its essential form.

Clerics of Kossuth divide themselves into two factions, the Tendrils and the Burning Braziers. The Tendrils make up the bulk of the order and hold most of the ecclesiastical power. They see to the affairs of the temple, officiate at holy days and ceremonies, and preach to local Kossuthan communities. The Braziers represent the adventuring and missionary arm of the church, travelling the wilderness to bring new lands into Kossuth's scalding, purifying light.

Both factions subscribe to a strict hierarchy. A temple's high cleric, called an Eternal Flame, represents the highest possible religious authority. All are subservient to the local Eternal Flame; Braziers tend to follow the lead of the nearest such leader during their travels. Below the Eternal Flame are various terraces holding dominance over the ranks below them. Adherents on the lowest terrace deny themselves all worldly goods and pleasures, donating to the higher terraces all but the minimum needed to remain alive. (In the case of adventuring clerics, this minimum includes armour, weapons, and magic items.) As a cleric advances through the terraces, more and more rights and pleasures are granted to him, but only through great hardship and difficult -often fatal- tests of faith.

Kossuth's adherents tend to be fanatical schemers who wish to "cleanse" the world and rebuild it according to the Firelord's dictates. Highly motivated and easily manipulated, clerics of the lower terraces tend to "burn out" quickly (often literally) in their efforts to advance to the next terrace. Senior clerics use their underlings as pawns, frequently sending them on missions for which they are not properly trained or equipped, so that only those of the highest skill and ambition will advance. All clerics of Kossuth share a fiery temper: They are quick to take offense and use violence to enforce the rigidity of their chosen lifestyle. The primary goal of all clerics is to acquire land, wealth, influence, and power, and few church activities involve anything that does not directly contribute to one of these goals.

Monks
The church boasts no fewer than three orders of fighting monks, each corresponding to a different lawful alignment—the Disciples of the Phoenix (good), Brothers and Sisters of the Pure Flame (neutral), and the Disciples of the Salamander (evil). The Kossuthan church has held a place of importance in Thay for generations, in part because it is one of the few agencies by which non-Mulan Thayans can raise their stations in life.

Temples
Temples to Kossuth follow a ziggurat type of architecture that mirrors the structure of the church at large. Often carved from lava, these imposing edifices feature constantly burning braziers and bonfires, with several dozen adherents tasked with keeping the holy flame alive. The largest Faerûnian temple of Kossuth is the Flaming Brazier in Bezantur.

[Darradarljod]

In the arid lands south of Gullykin a lone wanderer in weather blasted robes trudged through the shadowed valleys. Wyverns circle territories in the clear blue skies over this dry and lifeless realm. The traveler lifts his eyes at a draconic screech as two of the beasts swoop one another, battling midair with their cruel barbed tails. He moves on.

By noon he arrives at the doors of the holy temple built into a mound like a great earthen oven. Therein, the pilgrim devotes himself to prayer and fasting before the flaming braziers of the Tyrant King and submits himself to the admonishing of his clergy.

[TarnishedSoul]

Subject: Candlekeep Role-Play

On the sixth day of the month a Goliath of a man dressed in a loose fit of earth hued robes arrived at the libraries of Candlekeep. He might have been mistaken for a common pilgrim had not so fierce a blade been hanging from his sword belt.

As the hooded wanderer made for the inner sanctum he would have ignored the guard stationed on the door, but was promptly halted for trying. The door warden, after refusing the man entry, commanded that this stranger remove his scarf to show his face. Despite the fear in the Watcher's voice (automatic intimidate rolls DC 25 & DC 40 to allow refusal to remove face covering were passed by Boris), the stranger obeyed and drew down his scarf to reveal a distinctly Mulanese countenance. Kohl-lined eyes, a bulldog jaw, a broken nose and magical symbols of Pain and Fear carved with ink into his cheeks.

After a brief discussion of how the library may be entered, the man was re-directed to the message box. With a large but letter learned hand he scribbled a brief letter, submitted it, and departed.

((PM Sent))

A sealed missive addressed to "Mister Boris Vyacheslav" arrives at the Temple of Kossuth.
The point of origin is listed as "Guide's Office, Candlekeep."

[Darradarljod]

The iron temple doors sighed on their hinges as they were drawn inward. Sunlight spilled into the fire-lit interiors around the silhouette of an imposing man - a warrior - standing in the entrance.

He entered the sanctuary-furnace stiff jointed, staggering, but relieved. The dark jungles of Chuult, the long roads of Amn, the monster infested Cloudpeaks - these were behind him.

While rejecting the offer from an acolyte to disarm him the wanderer's kohl-lined eyes pierced the blurring waves of heat radiating from the central pit of burning coals to fix on the priest ministering at the altar.

Making directly toward that shrine Boris staggered on, like a drunken aurochs, through the bed of flaming coals. The glowing lumps were crushed beneath his blackened steel heels and spat flecks of red and gold drifting up around his terrible form on fiery winds.

Magical flames whipped and licked around his armored legs as if to entangle him, threatening to restrain him and boil his flesh like meat in a pot. Despite the commands of pain the Kossuthian pressed on under the apathetic gaze of the clergy.

When the champion arrived before the priest and altar he collapsed to one knee. Eyes lift beyond the priest to the terrible idol perched above him.

Blisters immediately spread like a plague over what was bare of Boris' tattooed skin. The Thayvian male roasted as the intensity of the heat radiated even through the stubborn Fire Salamander scales of his armor.

While Boris' gaze was fixed, trace-like, on the representation of his deity the priest at the altar had approached his side. Wordlessly, the man lay a bare hand on Boris' patchy, unshaved scalp and began to mutter.

The Knight's powerful body had already began to tremble involuntary from the pain. Suddenly, at the touch of the priest, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his muscles began to spasm uncontrollably, rattling the interlocking plates of his terrible armor.

Energy flooded through the kneeling zealot. At first it felt not unlike the heat of natural fire - but after a moment, Boris discerned this was something else. Something harmless. Something otherly.

Miraculously, by the seldom grace of Kossuth, when the priest had removed his hand the man's flesh was purged. Healed. Not only had the blisters of the flame vanished, but of the filth of the road, and numerous other bruises and wounds incurred in his travel to this holy shrine. Boris had arrived at the shrine shattered from his inter-planar ordeal. He would leave whole.

After making an offering of Chuultan and Amnish gold to support the work of the church Boris disarmed himself and donned the robes of an acolyte. He had dwelt secretly within the temple some days giving himself to prayer and fasting, and the reading of scripture.

Mended in body and spirit the pilgrim resumed the road north to the city-state of Baldur's Gate. Yet he did not seek the city for its own sake. Rather, his affections begged for something nestled within it. Like a fish on a hook he was drawn toward what is "holy ground" for every red-blooded Thayvian at large in Faerûn; the Thayan Enclave.

[Darradarljod]

In the smoldering temple of the Tyrant King, amidst the holy fire and the din of orisons, a lone cultist observed the traditions.

The devout had arrived from the north on a great black Ma'u warhorse in plate barding. He came accompanied by two orc soldiers of red skin - infamous blood orcs of Thay, wearing the Vyacheslav heraldry on their aillettes and carrying wyvern tail clubs.

While the orcs loitered in the Kossuthian courts their lord gave himself to the study of doctrine and to the teachings of the elders.

In the night hours of his pilgrimage while others slept, the giant was waking. Before the altar he would yield his supplications to the god of hierarchy for power, prestige and lands - and, of course, for the prosperity of Thay and her Enclaves...