The Luminous Temple of Ivry

The Luminous Temple is a temple of quarried salt dedicated to the God Seira, the Bringer of Order. The temple hosts weekly worship services for whomever desires to attend, a pilgrimage site to honor St Galligher's meditation in the flats, and once a year to perform "the Great Fast." This temple is a central cultural and religious site to all who worship Seira and who reside on the Golshire Plains.     Upkeep   The Luminous temple is kept running by a select few of monks each year; monks who have devoted this time to contemplative meditation and study. Each year, a new group of monks are selected from one of the monasteries that dot the landscape, to replace the group from the year before. This transition happens during the Great Fast.   To be selected as a monastery, the monastery must adhere to the Articles of Community and Piety that created the Halfling Monastic system, must be have been agreed upon as a monastery by a majority of 60% of the monastic communities, and must have been received a 60% majority vote to be the Overseers of the Temple from the Abbot Council in Saltin City. Which monastery is to upkeep the Temple is usually established 10 years in advance.   To be chosen as a monk to upkeep the Temple is one of the highest honors to receive among the monastic communities. When a monastery wins the right to upkeep the Temple the members vie incessantly to win the right, either through acts of great piety, or great advancement.   The Great Fast   The Great Fast occurs at the Winter solstice, when the cold wind blow across the Golshire Plains. It begins with the following years monastic Overseers arriving at dawn of the Solstice. Both the old and new overseers will then progress to the Central chamber, drink communally from the well, and then the new overseers will each sprinkle the ground with a handful of the most fertile soil from their fields.   The group will then fast for the entire day, until the sunsets, at which point they will all meditate until the fall asleep in the central garden. The morning after the great feast will see a simple breakfast, at which point the Overseers of the past year will leave and transit back to their homelands.

The ritual held every year at the Great Fast, where the new Overseers sprinkle soil in the new temple has resulted in creation of gardens around the entire property, and the ability to grow large trees in an impossible climate.

The Luminous Temple is a large dome of Quarried Salt that sits on a square plinth of quarried limestone. When is rains in this area, the bowl that the Luminous Temple sits in fills with water, almost to the top of the plinth, making the water level with the temple floor.   The Luminous Temple is simple in and of itself, just a large dome, from the outside, with a large, intricately carved opening facing west. Surrounding the dome in limestone bordered raised bed are intricate gardens of trees and fruiting plants, all fed by water from the aquifer below.   Inside is a matrix on several floors of rooms, resting area, gardens, and chapels lit by light filtering through the semi-transparent salt stone and oil lanterns. Every column and beam are carved delicately. Ornamentation caved from the salt adorns every surface to some degree or another. In rooms meant for habitation, brightly spun rugs are placed on the ground, and the rooms are adorned with simple wooden furniture.   All of these surround a vast octagonal space wherein a richly carved well stands centrally. Columns divide the octagonal space into great triangular bays around a single octagon. A garden, full of large evergreen trees grows here from the light percolating from the light above. In its entirety, the golden filtered light drenches the interior of the building.

St Galligher first started meditating in the Salt Flats at some point in the beginning of the Second Age shortly after the Great Exodus that forced the Halflings of Golren to move south to the Golshire Plains.   2000 B.I. (Approximately) A shrine was built on the site to commemorate the meditations of St Galligher.   1535 B.I. Construction began on the Luminous Temple.   1524 B.I. A great flood destroyed the entire temple. Construction began again, this time with a plinth   1194 B.I. The Luminous Temple, as it currently stands, was completed.   956 B.I. The Articles of Community and Piety were established in the central temple of the Luminous Temple.