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Landmarks of Windymoor
Information in parentheses is available only to characters who have Knowledge: Coeur d'Ennui.
The Burned Temple
Near the town's center, not far from the mayor's home and the Gilded Lily Inn, there is a ghastly burned-out shell of a building that was once Windymoor's leading temple. All that stands there now is a blackened skeleton of beams and charred rafters that still sheds a remaining tile or two when strong winds blow through town. Just a few months past, this site held a flourishing Temple of Athyria. Its priest, a well-liked man named Aberan, had served Windymoor for close to fifty years and was perhaps the most respected person in the entire town. He perished in the fire that destroyed his temple, and as yet, no one has come from Athyria's Keep to replace him or rebuild their outpost in Windymoor. Without Aberan or his temple, many of the town's faithful are at a loss for spiritual guidance and physical healing.
(The cause of the fire that destroyed Aberan's temple and the neighboring bookshop remains unknown. Local rumor insists that it was deliberately set, however, and some of those who tried to rescue Aberan from the conflagration of his temple say that the doors and windows were sealed as if by magic, so that no one could get inside to save the priest. Others, however, say that this is a story made up by cowards looking for an excuse to justify why no one was brave enough to go inside the burning building and save him.)
The Burned Bookshop
Next to the ruins of Aberan's temple is the smokestained, partially blackened building that houses The Paper Palace, a bookshop and stationery store run by a tall, elegant redhead named Varda Whitewood. Varda was on a business trip to Coeur d'Ennui when the fire happened, so she was not personally in danger, but she returned to find her livelihood nearly destroyed. Many of her books and papers, although not burnt, were so damaged by heat and smoke that they could not be salvaged, and the physical structure of her shop was rendered unusable. Presently the shop stands closed while Varda assesses whether to repair, rebuild, or just give up on the location.
(Some say that the fire which destroyed Aberan's temple was not only deliberate arson, but was magical. As evidence, they point to the fact that the temple was virtually burned to the ground, whereas Varda's shop -- full of highly flammable books and papers -- was only moderately damaged. Any normal fire, they insist, would surely have taken the bookshop up in flames with it, especially as Varda was away from town when it happened and the fire was not caught until several hours later.)
The Shrine of the Silver Willow
At the end of Willows Lane, a small side street that leads north of the town's center, there is an ancient weeping willow that hangs over a tiny shrine of white marble. The willow's leaves have a fine dusting of white fuzz on one side, which at dawn and twilight catches the faint and slanting light in such a way that the tree appears to be painted in liquid silver. The shrine holds innumerable stubs of burnt-out white candles, some fresh and some ancient, and a wisp of sweet incense clings to it, trapped by the willow's shrouding branches.
According to local legend, the willow was an ordinary, though large, tree for as far back as memory stretches. A little over five years ago, a distraught mother who had recently lost her only daughter collapsed beneath its branches, exhausted by grief. An hour later, she woke, greatly calmed, and claimed that she had heard the voice of her dead child whispering to her through the rustling of the willow's branches. Several other people reported being able to communicate with the shades of their dearly departed through the willow's whispering breezes, and before long someone added the small shrine that stands there today.
A number of priests and wizards passing through Windymoor have investigated the willow and its shrine, and have been able to find nothing magical about it. All divinations have turned up negative, and skeptics who have attempted to commune with the dead beneath the willow have had no success. Most now accept that tales of the willow's purported powers are, at best, the triumph of hope over reason, but the bereft and desperate continue to visit the shrine.
Presently, the shrine is owned and maintained by a reclusive woman named Tanivelle, who claims to be a priestess of the Wandering Woman, a minor deva of Rathenor who represents the guide of wayward souls back to the lands of the dead. Tanivelle has a small but devoted following of local widows, parents who have lost their children, and other grieving souls in Windymoor.
The Shrine of Good Harvests
This small, simple building is distinguished by the Phaeran oak wreath that hangs over its door and the wooden boxes of healing herbs and flowers that flourish beneath every window. The keeper of this small shrine is Amladi Greenbough, a soft-spoken young half-elf recently assigned to relieve the previous Phaeran priest, who was getting on in years and wanted to retire.
Amladi's arrival in Windymoor coincided with the fire that destroyed the Athyrian temple. No sooner did she unpack her bags than she was deluged with the needs of an entire town that had lost their main spiritual advisor. While the inexperienced priestess is trying to meet their demands for healing, advice, and mediation as best she can, she is more than a little overwhelmed.
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