Ferin
In the north of the continent of Cyrenos, Ferin is a huge, flat, colourful metropolis spread across countless islands by bridges, large and small. Grand, ornate buildings are plentiful, and every street corner bursts with life. Citizens travel on gondolas through the city, with the wealthier residents owning opulent pleasure boats. The canals of Ferin teem with swordfighting, masquerades, fireworks and gambling, lending the city to an equally exotic and seedy reputation.
During the age of the Great Hazeran Empire, Ferin was a sister city to Kallantium, the heart of imperial power in the Realms. It was the seat of Hazeran's eldest son, Anaxandros, and established itself as one of the world's leading powers. Since the empire's fall, the city has become a political hotbed, and crime has risen significantly under the negligent eye of the Masked Queen.
Ferin is the principal setting of The Darkened Temple.
Nobility
Queen Cassia Malidora di Vespa
- Race: Human
The high queen of Ferin, infamous worldwide for her mad vanity. Born with a facial disfigurement, she is never seen without one of her many porcelain masks.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Her unhinged insecurity has turned to cruelty. She would be a vile tyrant if she wasn't severely limited by the Doge and Most Eminent Council of Ferin.
- Bad Boss: Implied by the murdered handmaiden in the mortuary.
- Evil Is Petty: Is implied to have ordered her handmaid killed simply for the crime of being more beautiful than her.
- Green-Eyed Monster: To the extreme. She is insanely insecure about her own disfigurement, to the extent that she has ordered every statue in Ferin beheaded. It's even suggested that she had a handmaiden mutilated and drowned because she couldn't bear to look at her beauty.
- The Ghost: Though an important figure on the international stage, she has not yet appeared in-person.
Island of Sol
A mysterious island a few days' travel from Ferin, harbouring a long-lost temple to Haelion. Built by God-Emperor Hazeran, the temple later belonged to the Sol Ecclesia, a splinter sect of the Lucent Church. However, unbeknownst to the priests, Hazeran imprisoned an Eldritch Abomination named Abrohan in the bowels of the temple, which transformed the Sol Ecclesia into mindless puppets of black ooze and infested the temple with alien tendrils.
- Race: Human (undead)
Once High Priest of the Sol Ecclesia, now Abrohan's primary lieutenant.
- Body Horror: Courtesy of his Outer Horror master. Abrohan's corruption has turned Ilvanter's eyes to hollow sockets, and his body has become one with the fleshy tendrils that cover the Darkened Temple.
- The Dragon: To Abrohan, the extradimensional horror responsible for the temple's state.
- The Heretic: Was seen as this by the Lucent Church for leading the Sol Ecclesia away from the mainline teachings of the faith. After the schism, the Church wiped all trace of the temple and the Ecclesia from their records to prevent anyone else from following them.
- High Priest: Of the Sol Ecclesia, a faction that splintered from the Lucent Church due to ideological differences.
- Madness Mantra: Like the other worshippers of the Sol Ecclesia, he resisted the psychic pull of Abrohan with the refrain 'I will not submit.' He did.
- Possessing a Dead Body: Implied. It's unclear if there's much of Ilvanter left, or if he's just a meat puppet operated by Abrohan's tentacles.
- Religion of Evil: Not originally, but the followers of the Sol Ecclesia have since been converted (by force) to the worship of Abrohan, a terrifying Eldritch Abomination.
- Sinister Minister: As High Priest of Abrohan, he has become a disturbing flesh puppet in a symbiotic relationship with the tendrils that infest his library.
- Tragic Villain: His sect split from the Lucent Church in order to pursue their own understanding of the Haelian faith. However, like his fellow acolytes, he was slowly corrupted by the will of Abrohan until he became nothing but a hollow puppet.
- Was Once a Man: He was once a normal human priest of Haelion before being transformed by the influence of an Outer Horror.
