Tallblaze

Tallblaze stands on the mountain Gleamtooth, near the south shore of Bearrake, a lake simmering from intense, eternal geothermal stewing. Dire bears mark the many-pebbled gravel fields on their trips to the boiling spring, though the bears stay clear of the temple for the tremendous Shaman Fire within it.

Tallblaze houses high priests, monks, emissaries, alchemists, knights and counselors in the service of the priests.

High priests of Prime Flame perform burning rituals in the name of the Shaman Fire, a 30' continual flame monolith in its own chamber. The high priests tell the rest of the fire cultists the will of the Shaman Fire's soul. They issue orders to monks as to what to burn down in the world. The high priests require wizards to keep their minds from breaking in insanity, and if the priests break doctrine or blaspheme, their counselors are held liable.

Emissaries make deals with neighboring nations, tribes, and organizations. They set up trade in favors, services and goods. They ensure a steady stream of excellent wooden crafts is brought in to feed to the Shaman Fire, and they find outlets for their exports. They find ways to unload fine ashes, used to make soaps, colored glass, and to fertilize fields. They trade off charcoals and gems extracted from the remains of powerful magical fires. The finest gems are kept for the temple's own components, as well as some glass-making materials to support creation and expansion of their laboratories.

The temple's alchemists study scientific aftereffects of extreme, drastically hot temperatures. The alchemists utilize intricate chambers and domes, uniform lenses, prisms, and weights to measure and master thermodynamic and magical truths. The alchemists and their scribes record and publish semiregular spellbooks and tomes regarding their work. They are always working to recreate the flame that created worlds, but their laboratories are often destroyed due to the unstable nature of the experiments, requiring occasional rebuilding and resurrections.

Fire Knights dutifully enforce the presence and doctrines of the Prime Flame. Their purpose is to engineer war and permit the orders of the high priests. They also monitor motives of the priests' counselors to affirm that the temple does all its deeds for the sake of fires, for the burning of the good, and burning of the wretched.

The temple maintains a large enclosure of fire creatures on the northern shore of Bearrake. Fire elementals and hellhounds wander the pebbled fields, and monsters such as firebats and magmen live in the deep caves of Gleamtooth.

The rooms of the temple are split into a campus of multiple buildings.

Temple brothers and sisters are stationed in living quarters according to duty and rank. Monks and neophytes retire to dormitories. Knights are stationed in large barracks, and important scholars, priests, and knight commanders maintain private bedrooms and studies.

The temple's cremation chamber is a shrine built around a pipe of magma extending miles into the planet. It is accessed by a heavily stoneworked tunnel connecting the temple's basements with a cavern deep within Gleamtooth. Bodies are disposed of by hurling them down a tall sacrificial well built over the magma.

The earth-heat from the pipes and the strong-tasting and rich water from the boiling lake are used in the temple's kitchens for the creation of alcoholic spirits and occasional meals which are not conjured or fabricated. Dorms and sleeping areas are kept warm with similar engineering.

Priests and mages use their sorcerous capacities to fire the temple's forges, worked by craftsmen to shape alchemists' glass and knights' iron. Masterful works of art are occasionally forged by the faithful and fed to the Shaman Fire.

Martial implements from the forge are carted to the temple's armory, where they are maintained by aspiring knights under supervision of actual knights. Weapons are wielded to defend the temple and assert the correctness of Prime Flame dogma.

Much of the monkish training and meditation, with related physical and arcane exercises take place on the obsidian courtyard. It is a large glassy ground with a 45' radius. Absolute smoothness of the obsidian is spoiled where apprentices practice magic by melting small areas of obsidian back to lava, to sculpt new eddies, depictions, and patterns into the ebon rink. When there is a long rain, two groups of monks compete in contests of strength and wisdom. The losing group trains outside in the rain, and the winning group moves their training to an indoor dojo. The dojos are sooty stone structures containing things to punch and places to do pushups and flame bursts until the monks' techniques are perfected.

There are a few common halls for meeting. Detailed statues are arranged in the spacious, airy meeting rooms designated for high priests, archmages and knight commanders. The statues are regularly moved out to be burned and melted, and new statues are brought in.