House of Seven Faces
Soaring cathedrals and sprawling temples have never been a significant part of Desnan tradition, whose faithful prefer smaller shrines at crossroads or locations of secluded beauty, yet in an urban sprawl like Absalom where worshippers need a place to visit and pray, the presence of a temple is a necessity. The House of Seven Faces serves as Absalom’s temple of Desna, a place where those who worship the Song of the Spheres can rest weary feet, enjoy fine companionship and conversation, or simply offer prayer in peace.
Many have wondered at the nature of the seven faces that adorn the temple’s facade, decorations that manifested mysteriously when none were watching during the first night after the temple opened to the public many centuries ago. Even from the start, the faces seemed badly weathered and eroded, as if they’d been carved thousands of years before Absalom itself came to be. None have ever been able to definitively identify the ancestries of the seven, although they bear similarities to humans and elves, dwarves and halflings, gnomes and even goblins depending on the angle from which they are viewed. Much has been made of the fact that the faces number seven, prompting philosophers to suggest connections to ancient Thassilon’s seven nations (where worship of Desna was known), a symbolic nod to the passage of time in the form of the seven days in a week, or even that the faces represent the seven incarnations of the goddess Sivanah and thus suggest that she and Desna are one and the same (a claim favored by certain crackpots that both the churches of Desna and Sivanah alike regard with bemusement and a bit of annoyance), but the most compelling theory points to the nature of Desna’s planar realm—Sevenfold Cynosure. Desnan holy texts claim that she created Sevenfold Cynosure to honor the first seven planets devoured by Rovagug, and thus suggest that the seven faces represent seven cultures who never had the chance to form, allowing the House of Seven Faces to serve a similar role as Sevenfold Cynosure itself—a memorial to an ancient loss.
Many have wondered at the nature of the seven faces that adorn the temple’s facade, decorations that manifested mysteriously when none were watching during the first night after the temple opened to the public many centuries ago. Even from the start, the faces seemed badly weathered and eroded, as if they’d been carved thousands of years before Absalom itself came to be. None have ever been able to definitively identify the ancestries of the seven, although they bear similarities to humans and elves, dwarves and halflings, gnomes and even goblins depending on the angle from which they are viewed. Much has been made of the fact that the faces number seven, prompting philosophers to suggest connections to ancient Thassilon’s seven nations (where worship of Desna was known), a symbolic nod to the passage of time in the form of the seven days in a week, or even that the faces represent the seven incarnations of the goddess Sivanah and thus suggest that she and Desna are one and the same (a claim favored by certain crackpots that both the churches of Desna and Sivanah alike regard with bemusement and a bit of annoyance), but the most compelling theory points to the nature of Desna’s planar realm—Sevenfold Cynosure. Desnan holy texts claim that she created Sevenfold Cynosure to honor the first seven planets devoured by Rovagug, and thus suggest that the seven faces represent seven cultures who never had the chance to form, allowing the House of Seven Faces to serve a similar role as Sevenfold Cynosure itself—a memorial to an ancient loss.
Type
Temple / Church
Parent Location
Owner
Ruling/Owning Rank
Owning Organization
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