Shattered Temple

The tilted skeleton of a temple looms over the courtyard, shadowing the lesser ruins of the area, Razorvine curtains its ragged walls, Listing buttresses and cracked towers. The structure is sound, but not restored to its former glory. The faction headquarters of The Athar stand at the heart of a zone of destruction several blocks across. They've only repaired what little they had to in order to make the temple useable, preferring the broken look of the place. (They are the Lost, after all.) The area's been a ruin for a long time, as anyone who knows anything about Sigil can testify, but there's no clear hint as to what caused it. The best guess is that it involved the Lady of Pain and a conflict with a rival power. That would explain the broken temple, once belonging to the power Aoskar, which is now the Athars' home. Whatever the cause, the area's considered ill-omened by most, and nobody has ever built there since. Only a bunch like the Lost would ignore these superstitions. Still, even they can't overcome other folks' fears. The few Athar merchants who've tried rebuilding in the blasted zone have all gone out of business for lack of customers — only other Athar'd even consider dealing with the berks. Wagoner's stop at the very edge of the ruins, porters with sedan chairs won't enter, and moneylenders refuse to give out loans to those foolish enough to ignore the tradition. While all this makes good security for the Athar, it's lousy for business. Yet there's always a way to turn trouble into profit, folks figure. Packed at the outer edges of the ruin are a whole host of shops and inns catering to the Lost and their visitors. These form a ring of gaudy nightlife around the ruin. Over the years, the reputation of the area's grown enough to attract even wealthy lords looking for a little low-life fun.
The streets around the Shattered Temple are freshly cobbled, and the buildings nearby are made of old beams and rock salvaged from the ruin, but the construction looks new and tidy.
Near one of the entrances to the court stands a decrepit outbuilding made of worn, moss covered stones. Two guards bearing the Athar’s insignia watch the entrance [and similar faction guards wait at three other crumbling guardhouses at the edge of terraces around the temple’s perimeter). They’ll likely seem surprised at a visitor’s approach at first, then recover enough to remember to put their hands to their weapons and demand to know the berk‘s business. If they’re in a good mood, one of the guards’ll summon a guide from the temple, signalling with a shrill l i e of notes from a little reed pipe. One of the regular guides, Factotum Caylean, is a lad with intense eyes, a thin face, and a grin that accords strangely with his lethal, wiry frame.

Leaving the guardhouse with your guide, you emerge upon an expanse of rough grasses humped by mole tunnels and pocked with thistle and dock. A careless berk could lose his footing on the uneven walkways that lead from the peripheral outbuildings toward the incredible pile of stone that is the temple. Guards patrol the grounds, from the four overgrown terraces to the decrepit temple itself. The Lost didn’t break much of a sweat fixing the place up, but visitors can see why the faction members like the place so: Its ragged heights suggest the irregular battlements of a mountain fortress. When it rains, a body can tell that every stone in the Piebald Tower on the left seems a slightly different colour. A quick walk across the grass leads a party to the Scriptorium, where the Defiers create their books and, of course, the propaganda tracts that always seem to be blowing like leaves in the streets of the Cage.
Upon entering this detached Old Temple Wing you first notice the gaping, glassless windows in its upper floors and its distinct lack of a roof. The ground floor seems sound enough, though.
Beyond the anteroom is a light-filled chamber where nearly 50 scribes sit at tables stacked high with paper. The scratch of quills and the murmur of lowered voices sounds as long as light lasts. Makeshift shelves and old tables hold pots of ink - scarlet, cobalt, Verdigris, and gold for the books that become part of the faction’s library. The tracts get only black. Seems the Athar know how to spend their jink.
Back outside and over into the other side of this building, you step into another anteroom. The long oak tables in the chamber beyond suggest the room’s purpose: the refectory. The Lost don’t eat too bad, goes the chant. The kitchen beyond has the same tall but glassless windows as this dining area. The clearest path up to the most sound Shattered Temple entrance winds left around the central building. Heading up the path and into the buttressed bulk of the temple itself, the curious pass under a massive arch. Some say going in there feels like entering a tomb. In the vaulted entry hall, ornate portals stand to the left and the right, and a light shines through an opening at the far end. A quick look into the room on the right reveals nothing but a maze of falling-down shelves holding boxes of papers and piles of ledgers. The left portal leads to what was once a shrine. Now, books and more books fill the shelves lining the walls. A ladder (attached to a rail that encircles the room at head height) gets a body up to a narrow balcony, from which yet another tier of shelves springs upward. A visitor’s likely to encounter a thin blood in hooded robes flipping through the pages of some thick tome at one of the tables in the centre of the floor. This is Factotum Hobard, a grouch of a mage who’ll spare a moment to grumble at strangers under his breath before poking his nose back in his book.
Your eyes suddenly find themselves drawn to the light at the end of the entry hall. From some 20 feet away, a body can see something glistening in the chamber beyond, like water or dew. Passing through the opening, one suddenly emerges into the daylight again. This is no courtyard, but the old sanctuary of the temple, its elaborate vaulting lost long ago. Cracked ivory and lime tiles cover the vast expanse of floor, punctuated in the exact centre of the huge room by a great tree. Its dark green leaves shine so, they reflect the light like a mirror. Or does the tree itself glow? Deep red fruits nestle among the foliage along with pale silver blossoms. A scent of citrus blended with sweetness rises from this living fountain. This is the Bois Verdurous, the pride of the Athar. (And the reason for the guards patrolling the grounds. For more on this magical tree, see “The DMs Dark, ” page 15. - Ed.) After laying eyes on the enchanted tree, visitors leave the temple thinking that maybe the Defiers have something to believe in after all.

Maps

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  Shattered Temple