Lost Temple of Kratu
This stone temple was once small but glorious, built stout and intricately decorated. Its bones are thick and rounded, giving the entire building a crouching appearance; the ceilings are low, and the rooms tend to be rounded, but many of them seem to be entirely random in shape, like chunks of ginger root.
The temple looks small from the outside, but it extends in several wings that are half-buried by the forest and in several not-symmetrical-or-matching wings below that, about three full floors and then a bottom chamber where Kratu's sanctum was. When the temple was intact, it housed plenty of naturally-growing flora, from tree roots winding through the walls to entire gardens lit by faerie glow.
The building is primarily stone, sometimes left rough-hewn and other times natural and other times carved in fine reliefs. Not a lot of wood survives in the ruins, but some ancient dry-rotted planks or seemingly petrified chunks of branches or small trunks are scattered around. Lots of broken pottery, painted vases and urns shattered by crumbling stone; lots of artwork in pieces, dull and dried out. Shards of crystal and dirty gems, occasional deposits of coppers in what looks like offering pots. Some metalware in boxes, bowls, coffers - almost always copper, green with age, decorated by pewter strips or plating with more etchings. Most of the art tells part of a story, sometimes lewd and sometimes creepy, but mostly just inane and indecipherable.
There’s still an aura of mystery, uncertainty, and liminality here. It attracts certain creatures that live on the threshold between two realms.
The surface level is completely open to the air, chunks of the walls toppled and roof collapsed. Plenty of holes lead to the second floor, which seems to be more intact in terms of walls and flooring, but has lost most of its doors and has big piles of stone blocking some passageways.
There’s an impassable enchanted door set into the floor of one of the big rooms on the second floor; it seems to be the only way to get to the third floor. The third floor has been protected from the weather and is quiet, dark, and dusty - and radiates a very unnerving atmosphere.
The way down to the sanctum is open, a hole where the staircase has crumbled entirely to ruin; the sanctum itself is a large, dark room with a 15’ ceiling. In the center is a 10’ statue of Kratu in his unnaturally-lanky satyr guise, hooves replaced with root-like extensions, all of him carved life-like from unpainted stone. The statue's horned head and left arm have broken off, lying shattered on the stone floor. The remaining arm is clutching a pregnant rabbit depicted in the throes of death, with three infant rabbits securely tucked between his forearm and his stomach.
There is a still-living presence in the sanctum that lingers...
Dedicated God: Kratu
Status: abandoned
Location: central Feraweth, east of the Warrentop Mountains and northwest of Mashka Sipa, south of Khaima, near Smoking Waters and Tadraban
Biome: temperate deciduous forest
Built circa 550 A.E.S., some 800 years ago.
Became a ruin in 1165 A.E.S. (~290 A.E.), shortly before the current A.A. era, around 190 years ago.
