Suriat Temples
Located in high elevation in numerous regions throughout Hysal, Suriats are large religious buidling that serve at the site for numerous magic and religious ceremonies, such as the The Dusastryka ceremony and other rites primarily concerning Soulbound Mages.
Purpose / Function
The primary purpose of these buildings is to provide a secure and secluded location for Soulbound Mages to have the chance to atune their spiritual tether, which links them to The Ether. The atunement ceremonies, like the The Dusastryka ceremony, have a much higher chance of sucess when they are done in higher altitude.
The second purpose of these buildings is actualy the reason many of them were built in the first place. That is to serve as a place of pilgrimage for Choranian people, seeking to fufill their duty to honour Laris Choran. Suriats also welcome all Soulmages, regardless of religion, as to the temple master, the mage's connection to the Ether already makes them a Choranian, even if they dont acknowledge it.
Architecture
While the architectural style of each suriat is generaly similar due to having been built following the same floorplans and dimension, they were also built across many varied locations and by many different cultures, which inevitably lead to some differences in key architectural features. However, most of them are replicated nearly identicaly across all Suriats. These features are listed below:
General building Placement
The area chosen to build a Suriat must be do so following strict rules. The location must be high enough for the effects of altitudes on the spiritual tether, while still being accessible from the lower lands. It must also receive much sunlight and moonlight, during the whole year. The entrance of the building itself must face towards the North, while the back faces towards the south. The northern face doesn't need to have a open view of the sky, but the southern face absolutly must.
Inner Sanctum
The Inner Sactum is a large prayer room located at the back, or southern side of the Suriat. It is a multi-story room, composed of tall rounded walls, which come together to form a large and high domed roof. The interior of the dome is usualy painted to depict scenes of Choran and his pilgrimages, images of the Ether or icons of Halin, such as portaits depecting him as a human or various animals. On its south side, a series of narrow opening, less than a metre wide and stretching about 180° along the southern facing side of the dome lets the light of the sun and Veos pass through, which floods the room below with abundant light, day and night. The top of the dome is adorned with a short and thin spire made of wood and metal, on top of which rests a large metal ornament, shaped like a crescent moon, always positioned with its horns upwards.
Central Atrium
This large room, usualy located at or near the centre of the building and connects to all main hallways and rooms of the building. It is usualy reffered to as the Common Prayer Room. It consists of a large, rectangular shaped, open-air, multi leveled room that may or may not be covered by a roof of any kind and might instead be left open to the outside. Galeries are commonly found on along the sides of the room, offering a view down into the atrium from the halls of the upper levels. Some Atriums can take the form of an arcade, in which the roof is composed of a series of archways supported by a number of stone collums. Common ornaments within include a couple of brasiers, large plants, carpets, benches and small water fountains. All visitors to the suriats are invited to pray in this room, regardless of fate, social status or age.
Mage Quarters
The mage quarters are private quarters located either inside the main temple building or build nearby it, and housing mages who come to complete an attunement ritual. The proceadure is intensive, so most mages need 1 or 2 weeks of recovery before being ready to leave. If intergrated within the main building, these quarters, usualy located on either side of the inner sanctum, and thus they benefits from the same exposure to natural light, which is let inside by large windows, one for each private rooms. These small rooms aren't at all luxurious, containing only the bear minimum they'll need during their stay, such as a single or bunk beds and a desk to put away extra clothes they may have brought with them. Communal toilets are located nearby within the private quarters. Some suriats even have Essanian style bathhouses. Each of the 4 types of Soulmages get their own section within the private quarters. Toilets and bathhouse are seperated by type too.
Capacity
Usualy, a temple can house up to 300 mages at capacity, which is a relatively low number vis-a-vis the total mage population that visit the Suriats annualy. However, most of them only stay a week or two, and peak traffic occurs in predictable cycle every month, with peaks around when Veos is full. The section reserved for Shapeshifters occupies up to half of the available private quarters as they are by far the largest group. Despite the extra space, it isn't uncommon for 2-3 of them to be housed in the same room and sleeping in bunk beds during that time, as space is limited. The rest of the building can welcome up to a few thousands visitors every day, but only about 100 over-night visitors. They are usualy housed outside the temple, in what is simply called the common quarters.
Outside facades and surrounding land
The exterior architectural style varies from one suriat to the other, as they weren't all built at the same time, and with the same materials, not by the same culture of people or in the same location. Gardens can surround the building or buildings of the Suriat, though these then to be small because of the usual lack of available space in those locations. These gardens can be public, available to anyone, or private, reserved for the clergy and mages.
General building Placement
The area chosen to build a Suriat must be do so following strict rules. The location must be high enough for the effects of altitudes on the spiritual tether, while still being accessible from the lower lands. It must also receive much sunlight and moonlight, during the whole year. The entrance of the building itself must face towards the North, while the back faces towards the south. The northern face doesn't need to have a open view of the sky, but the southern face absolutly must.
Inner Sanctum
The Inner Sactum is a large prayer room located at the back, or southern side of the Suriat. It is a multi-story room, composed of tall rounded walls, which come together to form a large and high domed roof. The interior of the dome is usualy painted to depict scenes of Choran and his pilgrimages, images of the Ether or icons of Halin, such as portaits depecting him as a human or various animals. On its south side, a series of narrow opening, less than a metre wide and stretching about 180° along the southern facing side of the dome lets the light of the sun and Veos pass through, which floods the room below with abundant light, day and night. The top of the dome is adorned with a short and thin spire made of wood and metal, on top of which rests a large metal ornament, shaped like a crescent moon, always positioned with its horns upwards.
Central Atrium
This large room, usualy located at or near the centre of the building and connects to all main hallways and rooms of the building. It is usualy reffered to as the Common Prayer Room. It consists of a large, rectangular shaped, open-air, multi leveled room that may or may not be covered by a roof of any kind and might instead be left open to the outside. Galeries are commonly found on along the sides of the room, offering a view down into the atrium from the halls of the upper levels. Some Atriums can take the form of an arcade, in which the roof is composed of a series of archways supported by a number of stone collums. Common ornaments within include a couple of brasiers, large plants, carpets, benches and small water fountains. All visitors to the suriats are invited to pray in this room, regardless of fate, social status or age.
Mage Quarters
The mage quarters are private quarters located either inside the main temple building or build nearby it, and housing mages who come to complete an attunement ritual. The proceadure is intensive, so most mages need 1 or 2 weeks of recovery before being ready to leave. If intergrated within the main building, these quarters, usualy located on either side of the inner sanctum, and thus they benefits from the same exposure to natural light, which is let inside by large windows, one for each private rooms. These small rooms aren't at all luxurious, containing only the bear minimum they'll need during their stay, such as a single or bunk beds and a desk to put away extra clothes they may have brought with them. Communal toilets are located nearby within the private quarters. Some suriats even have Essanian style bathhouses. Each of the 4 types of Soulmages get their own section within the private quarters. Toilets and bathhouse are seperated by type too.
Capacity
Usualy, a temple can house up to 300 mages at capacity, which is a relatively low number vis-a-vis the total mage population that visit the Suriats annualy. However, most of them only stay a week or two, and peak traffic occurs in predictable cycle every month, with peaks around when Veos is full. The section reserved for Shapeshifters occupies up to half of the available private quarters as they are by far the largest group. Despite the extra space, it isn't uncommon for 2-3 of them to be housed in the same room and sleeping in bunk beds during that time, as space is limited. The rest of the building can welcome up to a few thousands visitors every day, but only about 100 over-night visitors. They are usualy housed outside the temple, in what is simply called the common quarters.
Outside facades and surrounding land
The exterior architectural style varies from one suriat to the other, as they weren't all built at the same time, and with the same materials, not by the same culture of people or in the same location. Gardens can surround the building or buildings of the Suriat, though these then to be small because of the usual lack of available space in those locations. These gardens can be public, available to anyone, or private, reserved for the clergy and mages.
Defenses
Most Suriats do not have built up defenses beyond a short wall of stone bricks. However, because of their remote locations and large size, attacking and/or beseiging one would be quite hard for any army, especialy since the altitude of these builfing would not allow for Winged ships to be employed.
History
The first Suriat to be built was the The Temple of Choran, located in the Dorroman Mountains, where he passed away during his third pilgrimage in Arros. It was built to honour him, as through his visions and writtings, became the founder of a brand new religion, called Choranism, which grew to now being the largest in both Enask and Arros.
The religion quickly spread eastwards throughout Arros in the following centuries and so many other smaller temples were built within large settlements, while the Temple of Choran became a rallying point for pilgrims wishing to pay homage to Choran.
Sometime during the first half of the Second Age, with the increased flow of people to the Temple, including many soulmages, it was discovered that its location lead to them being able to connect to The Ether much more easely than when they stayed closer to sea level, meaning that they could attune to the Ether more regulary, which has all kinds of benefits for them and their abilities.
Naturaly, word about this spread quickly within the soulmage community. Soon, the temple was unable to welcome all of these new visitors, even as it was subsequently expanded many times to accomodate them. A council of all the most prominent chorani religious leaders conlectively decided that it would be best to fund and commision the construction of new Temples, which they called "Pirsè Suriates", which meaning "Soul palace" in Paxolian. The name was adopted outside of the Kingdom of Paxolia, but shortened to just "Suriat."
These Suriats were all built in similar locations, high up in the mountains, just like the temple of Choran. After many years of construction, 2 other suriats were completed in Arros, both of them in the east of the continent, while 2 others were built in Enask and 1 was built in Mahador.
All of them only loosely followed the original plan of the temple of Choran in favor of a more efficient design, making them pretty distinct from it, at least on the inside. Upon completion, all of them quickly became popular, though never as much as the Temple of Choran, which still receives tens of thousands of visitors each year. A couple other suriats were built after the first few.
The Fall put a stop to any further construction of Suriat and of most expansion of existing ones because of the sharp decrease of the population of Soulmage across Enask and Arros. In the last century or so, some of the old Suriats have had major expansions done o accomodade a newly rising amount of visitors, mostly in the continent of Arros.
Tourism
Most Suriat temples do not get a large volume of visitors, but are still regulary visited throughout the year, with the amount of people fluctuating in time with the lunar phases of Veos. Peak attendance coincides with Veos's full moon phase. Most of these visitors are Choranian pilgrims as well as Soulbound Mages.
Alternative Names
Sky Temples; Etherial Temple/Palaces
Type
Temple / Religious complex
Owning Organization
Thank you!