General Information/Religion/Pythonic Sisters
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The Oracles of Trin, also known as The Pythonic Sisters
[edit] History
The Oracles have maintained the temple at Trin since time immemorial. They are priestesses of the Wind-Master, Pylsephion , to whom all things present, future, and past are of equal knowing. In the ancient Aenean times they predicted the rise of the empire--and advised its leaders. They foretold its stagnation, and the centuries of death that were the Pall Years, and they helped the great ones come to power. When all other temples have risen and been felled by the hammers of men or time, the Oracles have remained.
Their temple is on a sea crag far to the southwest, near Glynnlyn and the ruins of the ancient seat of Westaven civilization, Aenea. As Priest Ulta said, "When a question is unanswerable by human fruits, the priestesses of Pylsephion are the very tree of knowledge itself...They are touched by the winds of Hirth itself, my people. They have knowledge whispered into their midst that mortals shan't hear--would not hear--or cannot bear to hear." (From the Oct. 15, 985 log.)
[edit] Geography of the Trin Temple
[edit] Trin Approach & Ravine Path
The "town" of Trin is really little more than a tourist trap, really; a hostel for Pylsephion's pilgrims. Inns line the road, as well as merchant booths--many of which sell live animal sacrifices for pilgrims to offer at the temple. Entertainers such as jugglers, dancing bears, fire-wearers and such are ever on the job for spare coin. There is also a minor, permanent military presence.
An ancient flagstoned courtyard serves as the town's end and the approach to the temple walk. Situated against cliff walls into which the walk is carved, it is crumbling with age. One oddity arises there: as the wind picks up, the voice of someone muttering in the distance can be heard, like an old man whispering to himself something feverishly; when the wind dies,so does this voice.
The following describes the approach to the temple down the winding mountain ravine-like path (from the Nov. 2 log):
So you cross the crumbling courtyard and walk toward the path into the cliffs. The path past the courtyard becomes a corridor between sheer cliffs that rise high into the cloudy sky above, and the path twists, turns, and begins a descent down worn steps. As you step in, you are hit in the face by a wind rushing through the corridor, making your eyes water. The wind is, oddly, continuous, rather than gusting, and it smells of the salty ocean. Above this is a whisper on the air, a moan or a mumble at times, sometimes a mumbled, chuckling laughter. You cannot tell what it is saying, for it is intermingled with the rush of the wind past your ears; the whispers may be coming from above.
Farther and farther down the path you travel, for five, ten, fifteen minutes. A few times you climb steps rather than descend, and twice the corridor opens onto a walled landing for a moment from which you can see the sea between the crags, but then you must descend more steps. Sometimes the path is only wide enough for a single man to shimmy sideways. You see white scorpions on the dark rock, occasionally, and periodically blackerons perch on scrub outcroppings above your heads, above the wind, silently staring down at you. The wind in your faces grows harsher.
Finally, after about 20 minutes of winding travel, you reach the remains of a stone arch overhead, cracked so half the face of a bearded idol looks up at the sky. In the cliff walls, running up and down either side of this half-arch, are dozens of deep holes the size of masonry bricks. The wind is even mildly painful at this point, and you must keep your head tucked much of the time; you must deliberately struggle against the air to move forward. The whispering is clearest here, but the language is nothing you recognize.
Oddly enough, once you pass through the arch and step foot onto the lawn, both the wind and the whispering instantly stop. You almost fall forward when the press against your chests ends so suddenly. Beyond the arch where you stand spreads a great shelf overlooking the ocean. This is a great ledge some 50 yards from your position to its outermost edge; to your left and right it extends 50 yards in either direction. It is very green here, for upon this shelf is a well-maintained grass lawn, quite out of place due to both the rocky locale and the ancient, unkempt temple directly opposite you, overlooking the Aenean Ocean.
The temple lawn was different on the two occasions the adventurers visited it: On 2 Nov 985 a throng of people waited about the lawn, hoping for entry into the temple--although a man claimed only a select group was allowed to enter. At that time two giants were the only guards. A year later however, on 12 Aug 986, pilgrims were not even allowed to remain on the lawn, for an Aenean military force of about twenty who let no one without "official" business in, by order of the King of Aeneus.
[edit] The Temple
The interiors of both the temple & lower sanctum is described below:
The interior of the temple is drafty with the sea breeze, and it is dark, aside from the many breaches in the crumbling walls. The salt smell, though, mixes with the disgusting smell of rotting vegetation and decay. Much of this stench no doubt comes from the great stacks of rubbish lining the walls, which ranges from fresh produce and other offerings, to items that must be years old. It is a veritable rats treasure horde, and in fact, dozens of very fat rats run among and through the piles.
Between the left and right walls piles of trash, a great statue as tall as two men stands at the far wall; it is a vague form of a man, but either intentionally or not, the sculpting is so poor that it is more humanoid than human. Its legs seem to meld into a mass of stone, so no features may be beheld. At this rough bottom your eye pick out either fish, snakes, water, shells, or all (or none) of these. The arms of the figure are outstretched into a y-shape, but the hands are also masses of seemingly unfinished rock. Birds nests are on either hand mass and on the head, and the birds eyes peer at your from the shadows; bird droppings sloppily smear the entire figure.
[edit] The Sisters' Cavern
Before this statue is a narrow stairway leading down, through which a putrid breeze rises. The steps are slippery with a wet, green moss or molds as well as shells and seaweed. It is as if the steps were only recently lifted from the sea. After a fairly long flight of steps--the equivalent of two stories, at least, which bends twice... The chamber below is cramped consisting of a ledge around an open hole some 12in in diameter. The walls are unfinished, more like sea-cave than the once well-constructed temple above. Some of you grow dizzy looking down, over the ledge, for the drop is farther than two ships' masts are tall, and directly into the frothy Ocean. It appears the room is on an outcropping over the constantly moving water below. A periodic wind furrows up through the hole, swirls about the room, and rushes past you up to the temple above.
[edit] The Sisters
The Oracles themselves--also known as the "pythonic sisters" for their renowned soothsaying abilities--are described as they would have appeared as of early 986 AE:
Upon the ledge surrounding the room, evenly spaced at each of the compass points, stand women, who you assume are the Oracles:
- The woman at the north (which may be another direction, you cannot tell) is deformed disgustingly. Her right arm stops at the elbow in strips of ribbon-like flesh; she is crooked in stature, as if the weight of her on her great hunchback, big as a sack of grain, is too heavy for her spine. Her filthy hair hangs over her face, and her skin seems bubbled like a boiling cauldron with bumps, lumps, and pocks. She is largely naked, and she has but one breast, the location of the other being a scar. Her voice is the only of the sisters' that comes from her mouth, unassociated with the wind; it is a cackle eruption of such madness as: "Heeheehee! The Wind Master, ohhhhh-ho-ho-ho! How long has it been since he has lain with me! is he dead? Has his spirit dove down, drowned to the afterworld?"
- Opposite the deformed woman, the south Oracle is completely naked, and you immediately wish she were not, for she is in the advanced stages of leprosy. Her skin is peeling off her body like the bark of a tree, or as if she were waterlogged to it was falling away. Much of her diseased body is also dripping pus. Part of her face has rotted away, so a great mouth gaped from her cheek; she seems almost a skeleton. Her voice--if "voice" is what it is--arises with the wind rushing up through the floor hole, and dies when that rush is over (all the sisters other than the hag's are such); she slurs her speech, such as: "You are the end, the ennd...This sspells the ennd."
- The eastern woman stands out from the others, for she is proud and aloof in demeanor, her hands folded nobly across her chest. Her imperious face is very manly, aged, and topped by grey hair; she is perhaps faintly handsome. She is entirely naked aside from a thin purplish cloak on her back, and her form demonstrates the sexual organs of both genders--although, oddly, her genitalia appears more primitive and animalistic than human. Her sagging belly reveals she is well into the final stages of pregnancy. Her wind-made voice is shrill, brutal, and ever angry: "ROT YOURSELF AWAY! LET THEM JUMP INTO THE SWIRL FOR ANSWERS!"
- The final Oracle, the only one not standing, sits to the west. She is completely veiled, much like the figure at the temple doorway, who now stands beside you, although the woman in the chambers gauze is thin enough that you can see a vague figure within. Oddly enough, you would guess she is young and beautiful, though her complexion seems too white, like a fish belly (though this may be an illusion from her gauzy veil). She lies on a couch in an odd posture, as if volition was beyond her, either due to sickness or perhaps unconsciousness. Or death. Her voice is an alluring whisper, and she is ever obsessed with death and with her sisters, whom she calls "my loves": "Hush, my loves, let us die. My loves, be still. Westaveners: your fate is windswept. Go to your own loves, and die"
As a final oddity, a fifth Oracle--or, at least, an acolyte to the other Oracles--dwells in the temple, and even walks outside it to Trin (although this unusual event causes much commotion): a human form covered in robes from head to foot. The robes are the color of parchment, mainly, but stained brown and black, and loosely spun like gauze or muslin; once the robes were white, perhaps, but now they are yellowed and dingy with brown/dark spots. So completely covered is this acolyte that one cannot see if it is a man or woman within the robes, and the face is completely hidden even when the wind flaps the material around it; it appeared to be "swimming" in its robes.
This figure did reveal its face once (Nov. 2, 985), and the face within was a woman's face...sickly white....with large, sad eyes that appeared to have no whites... the same face as the western Oracle who had laid on the couch and appeared to be either unconscious or dead. Her lips barely move as she spoke, and yet the whisper is close in the listeners’ ears. She claimed to speak “with the words of my loves, my wives, my kin.”
