Temple of Yuan-Lumusi (yahn loo-moo-see)
In the heart of the Caladreme jungle lies a massive temple complex devoted to the snake god Yuan-Lumusi. It is surrounded by a sprawling city that is home to the snake people of the yuan-ti. The temple and the yuan-ti society keep a tight veil of secrecy on their culture and traditions so that outsiders cannot discover their plans or the machinations of their deity.
Purpose / Function
The massive pyramid in the middle of the jungle is a monument to the deity Yuan-Lumusi, displaying his people's devotion to his cause and his worship. Sacrifices are carried out atop the pyramid, and other rites and rituals take place in various unknown rooms within the structure. Other than Yuan-Lumusi's most zealous followers and whatever prisoners or slaves they keep, no one is allowed inside the pyramid's rooms on a day-by-day basis. Even the High Priest has his normal offices in the ground complex surrounding the pyramid. In all aspects and areas, this gigantic pyramid serves to venerate the Snake God and provide a grandiose location for his people to worship him and his ways.
Architecture
The specific architecture of the building is unknown, and all accounts come from the lone yuan-ti scholar, Shasstisss. Travelers and scholars are working to gain more access to the city presently, and those who have returned to other parts of the world have reported on what they could see from the distance at which they were kept.
According to Shasstisss, the pyramid rises some two hundred feet in the air, with around 15-20 different tiers and a footprint of at least 600 feet on each side. Three sides of the pyramid have staircases that climb their entire height, leading to the structure's apex where a crown temple can be seen from miles away. More modern travelers have confirmed that they could see the crown temple looming above the city's buildings from the edge of the jungle clearing that serves as the city's borders - though due to strict access limitations, no one is quite sure how far it is from the outskirts to the central temple.
Because Shasstisss was somewhat of a pariah in her time, she was never allowed to see the insides of the temple, which play host to a variety of rituals and house certain anointed members of the faith. She did recount that in as many places as possible were set stone statues of serpents, many of generic snakes but some of their chief deity Yuan-Lumusi, who is depicted as having a serpentine head and body but muscular humanoid arms. The largest of the statues of Yuan-Lumusi sat atop the crown temple, looking out across the city and the jungle. Shasstisss estimated this principle statue to be around 50 feet tall, on top of what is already a monumental pyramid and crown temple.
History
No one is quite sure exactly when the pyramid was built, though the yuan-ti scholar Shasstisss reported it was less than a century old when she was growing up in the city - which puts its construction around 2250 or later. There was a smaller temple in this location before which had stood for many centuries as a monument to Yuan-Lumusi and his people. Shasstisss was not sure if there was any specific impetus that pushed the yuan-ti to build this massive pyramid, but she speculated that there must have been some decree from their deity to make the population undertake such a task.
Shasstisss described the temple as a place of zealotry and religious hyper-devotion, or at least for those who lived within the temple. Certain rituals - namely the sacrificing of outsiders and captives - took place in the crown temple and were witnessed by the few hundred who could fit in that structure. Mages used illusion spells to transmit the images of the rituals to those waiting on the steps and in the great square surrounding the pyramid, allowing all yuan-ti to see the holy rites. By all accounts, the ritual sacrifice of prisoners still continues today, though most captives come into yuan-ti custody on the high seas instead of overland raids as had been tradition for several millennia.
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