A little more than 3km from Alda-Chur is the active cinder cone of Firetop, which rises some 250 meters above the surrounding plains. My mental image for this is Sunset Crater in Arizona.
Long inactive, Firetop erupted in 1602, days before the fall of Alda-Chur to the Lunar Army. Since then, it has fumed and fretted and occasionally sends out blasts of incandescent cinders and lapilli.
Firetop is sacred to the local Yelmalio cult, who view it as a torch held high, a shining Light against the Darkness. There is a shrine to Lodril on the side of the mountain.
It’s a good reminder to remember that Dragon Pass is seismically and volcanically active. Firetop is the smallest of four active volcanoes on the map, and of course the Shaker Goddess lives right in the center of Dragon Pass.
Are the Agimori/Men-and-a-half of Prax aware of this shrine? Not particularly. They’d recognize it is sacred to Lodril if they came here, but there are maybe 5000 Men-and-a-Half in all of Prax. As Lodril is followed by about 5% of the Men-and-a-Half, we are talking maybe 250 people.
Much more likely the shrine is tended by a Lodril priest from the Provinces.
What are relations between the cults of Yelmalio and Lodril like? One theory I heard at the Knowledge Temple is that Firetop is somehow connected to the underground forest at Dwarf Mine. The sage claimed that it is a vent, and that the eruption in 1602 indicates that the Dwarf is ready for war.
Personally, I think that theory is nuts. Dwarf Mine is some 25 km away from Firetop and that would be one LONG vent! Then again, who knows how big his underground workshops extend. Rumor says that one can get from Dwarf Mine to Greatway, more than 120 km away.
