In the mortal plane, the Grand Pyre of the Phoenix appears as a great flame upon the top of a rugged, rocky mountain, beyond which stretches the Desert of Divine Despair. Nearly a mile in diameter, the great fire, violet in its smokeless flame, defies the human mind with its scale and sheer heat, while the prominances and flares that rise from its core in great arcs and whorls sear the eye with their rainbow brilliance. Within the writhing petals of the flame dance the half-seen figures of another plane, cavorting in exstatic worship of their mighty Lord, the Master of Fire and Flame. Yet, for all their power and brilliance, these pale beyond the daily display of dawn, when the figure of a vast bird, made all of fire, bursts upwards from the volcanic cauldron of the pyre, unfolding mighty wings of golden heat, a full league in length, as it rises into the sky and fades into the distance of the Plane of Fire.

Set in a ring around the Grand Pyre in a ring is the largest temple to the Flame Lord, consisting of little more than pillars of obsidian, molded into daggers that rise and waver like flames. Among those pillars are the altars of the Flame Lord Zevarith, and it is here that the priests of the Flame God sing their eerie songs of fire, of chaos, and of change, while tending the tiny flames of their alters. Surrounding this ring of pillars is the primary defense of the temple, a moat sanctified to be ever-full of blazing lava, crossed by a small handful of black steel drawbridges.

Here, the mortal plane is linked to the metaphysical, to the caldron where the Great Phoenix is reborn daily, for it was here that Zevarith descended to the mortal plane, to assist his wounded sister in returning to her realm after her fight with the Mad One. As gods of Chaos, they could lend a certain amount of power to each other, and thus it was that she was able to return to the Realm of Air, and begin to recover. It is here that the court of Zevarith gathers, to await his command, and they dance in the fire, their figures barely visible through the flame from the other world. Through the cauldron of the Phoenix's Nest, the mortal plane can be seen through a haze of heat,

So associated with the Divine, with destruction and return, the Grand Pyre of the Phoenix is healing and rebirth, made incarnate upon this plane. Should the dead and dying be brought to the pyre, and cast into the flame, before the Lady of Shadow claims their souls, then they may be reborn, usually crawling from the flame as child versions of themselves. The pain of rebirth is great, and not all of the life before is remembered, though large portions may or may not be recalled, as the mind is stimulated. Lesser fragments of the eternal fire, carried on torches or lanterns, may be used in purifying ceremonies that burn away disease and poison from the body, bringing the cleansing flame, provided the cured can survive the burning.

Considered holy beyond belief, those few mortals with the requisite courage and madness to worship the Lord of Flame will defend the pyre to the death, and even beyond, rising in whisps of flame and rage to do their duty. Still, no mere water or weather may extinguish the grand pyre - It will take divine power, and power of the highest order at that. Even the smallest of brands lit directly from the pyre is nearly impossible to extinguish, burning with a strangely tenacious heat, though this is not carried forth to flame lit by the brands.

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