If we think about the Sun Dome Temples as a network of autonomous temples and their affiliated satellites, here’s one way of thinking about the network in Dragon Pass and Prax:
- Sun Dome Temple – Sartar: 2700 initiates. This is an autonomous Sun Dome Temple founded by Monrogh in southwestern Sartar. It has three significant satellites: Alda-Chur (1400 initiates), Runegate (150 initiates), and Boldhome (150 initiates). The satellites all recognize the higher status of the main Sun Dome Temple.
- Sun Dome Temple – Prax: 4300 initiates. This is an autonomous Sun Dome Temple in Sun County, Prax. It has one significant satellite, the Sun Temple in New Pavis with about 500 initiates (including local farmers and some elves).
- Impala Nation: 10,000 initiates. This is a autonomous tribal group with few ties to the Sun Dome Temple.
- Sable Nation: 5800 initiates. This is a autonomous tribal group with few ties to the Sun Dome Temple.
- Sun Dome Temple – Goldedge: 4500 initiates. This is an autonomous Sun Dome Temple. Loose ties with Furthest.
- Furthest: 1550 initiates. This is not a Sun Dome Temple, but a Sun Temple.
- Sun Dome Temple – Ever-New-Glory: 3050 initiates. Satellites include Sun Temple at Talfort. Loose ties with Furthest.
See also:
For the purposes of these notes, Sun Dome Temples are the big autonomous temples that are the central pillars of the surrounding community. They tend to have thousands of initiates and recognise no spiritual authority above their own leaders.
The Sun Temples are short-hand for any smaller temple. They tend to be located in areas dominated by other cults (or where at least the Yelmalio cult does not dominate) and usually recognise the spiritual authority of the Sun Dome Temples as superior.
Aldryami worshippers of Yelmalio in Tarsh, Sartar, and Prax they are definitely a small group. Yelmalio often has shrines in elf forests and is associated with Aldryami so her gets worshipped there but the Sun Dome Temples are key magical and mythological centers.
Elf woods tend to be quite friendly with the local Yelmalio cults. Now in areas like the Redwood, Stinkwood, and Arstola forests we might have a different relationship, but that is beyond the scope of those notes.
Each of these Sun Dome Temples are completely autonomous and make their own alliances and agreements with Orlanthi and Lunar leaders. As a general rule, those in Tarsh tend to ally with whoever rules Furthest, and those in Sartar and Prax tend to ally with whoever rules Boldhome. But not always.
Meanwhile the Praxian nations are subject to their tribal leaders, who are usually not of the Yelmalio cult. The Sables are ruled by an Eiritha priestess with support from the Waha cult – in previous years with the Seven Mothers cultists as well, but now with the Yelmalio cult as allies. The Impalas have a condominium of Waha, Orlanth, and Yelmalio leaders assisting the Eiritha priestesses. In both tribes, the Yelmalio cult is fully integrated into the tribal structure.
Yelmalio is described as an invader deity in Cults of Prax. Did his cult take over pre-existing solar spirit traditions?
Not quite. When Pavis fell in 1200 ST and civilisation as-they-knew-it thus ended on the River of Cradles, the Sun Domers’ struggle to survive and maintain their identity hinged on convincing the hostile Praxian tribes surrounding them that they, the People of the Sun, deserved to be seen as better than mere Oasis Folk, that the nomads regarded as little more than chattels.
How did they accomplish this? Palishon was Light Captain, and then later Count when the ‘Solitude of Testing’ began. He solemnly told his people, “Things are going to have to change, in order to stay the same.” Like their kin back in Sartar, rigorous military training provided a line of defense. But giving up their cherished horses was a key to the Sun Domer’s survival. Adapting to their fate on foot at least removed the automatic and unthinking antipathy of all the Waha tribes.
Palishon also reestablished closer bonds with the Animal Nomads, which had grown distant in the years of peace and plenty. This came about after he was captured by the Impala Nation (or, it is said, allowed himself to be taken prisoner). The khans were about to inflict terrible punishments on him when Palishon proved to them that their great spirit Sky (Sun) Daughter and Yelmalio were in fact one and the same.
As it happens, their co-religionists in the nomad tribes actually outnumbered the sedentary Sun Domers 2:1. The pacts made between them by Palishon have helped maintain the status quo to this day; the great Sun Dome is a holy place to Praxian and Sun Domer alike.
Count Palishon certainly deserves his epithet “the Clever” in the recitation of the Light List, even if his precise deeds are no longer fully remembered.