The Temple of the Fallen

...And I asked, of the gods, what happens to those of them that fall. Life had no words to say and Death too many, none with truth behind them and no effort to conceal it. The wolf said simply fallen god were just dead, the vulture their time had passed unto newer ones, and silence also met from the fox, all looking over the sea. ...The fish, said however, there are no words to be said when one could see.

-Script of Priest Unala Haverik's last journal

Purpose / Function

Followers of the gods believe that fallen gods should not be remembered, as their visage removes power from their successors. Even speaking the name of the fallen gods, to many, is an insult worthy of the new divine striking a person down without mercy, but there is history behind the old gods. The old gods had just as much fervor for life and compassion as their replacements, their heirs, their lineages. Their names are to be remembered, their actions held to as much honor and scrutiny as the living gods. Their mistakes and victors hold as much to be learned from as the divines still walking the earth. Their temples will all be gone but they will find home in one, built for them alone and in time, all.

The Temple of the Fallen is a structure built to honor long dead and fallen gods by housing and protecting records of them, their artifacts, and their imagery. More of a museum and archive than a temple, the building is thought to house thousands of written records from the eras of the Fallen Gods, and also thousands more of reconstructions such as timelines and reordered analysis of those gods' reigns. Artifacts from the fallen not passed to their successors are housed there, to preserve their history and power.

Architecture

Its location is a closely guarded secret, so secret that many of the pantheon themselves do not believe it to actually exist, as descriptions of where it is change frequently. Records from those who have visited it are sparse, some describing it as hellish, surrounded by volcanic vents to deter visitors and choke out one's sight with smoke from ever seeing the temple and that one wrong step would lead one to roasting to death. Other accounts describe the temple as cold and constructed of ice, wearing away at visitor's very souls.
It is likely the temple is not one place but many, to house and protect its artifacts from those who would seek to destroy them, even the gods themselves.

Defenses

Defenses within the temple are but rumor, as even the temple's own existence is based in myth rather than fact. Claims of dangerous volcanic vents, priest trained in forbidden magic, and beasts that could swallow the largest of creatures are thought to reside there all in name of protecting the temple. It is thought by some that the temple may even have the aid of dragons and cults outside of the pantheon, in the form of mercenaries who have given themselves body and soul to its protection, never again allowed to leave once conscripted.

Type

Temple / Religious complex