Urban Locale: Roadside Shrine
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1: The Roadside Shrine
The Grey Shrine: Clad in mottled light and dark grey stone, this small shrine is positioned to catch the rising sun. During the morning, its front facade glows with a warm light that slowly dims as the sun passes overhead.
House of Cold Comfort: This shrine has no outer door and, at night, is often used by beggars and the like to shelter. Any valuables the shrine once possessed have long since been stolen.
Hall of Song: Architecturally impressive and built by a master architect and mason, this shrine has impressive acoustics. Voices raised in song within are amplified and beautified. Some say the shrine is blessed and that the gods hear the songs sung within.
Water Hall: This shrine lies above a natural spring. After heavy rains, it sometimes floods. There is staining on the floor around the iron grill over the spring.
2: Major Locale Features
The shrine is old—its external scrollwork and decoration are worn and eroded by the rain of countless years, and the roof and walls are dashed with bird excrement.
The shrine has recently undergone extensive repairs and has an air of newness about it. Its old brickwork has been repointed, and a new wooden bench stands by the flower-decked entrance.
Constant magical light fills the shrine. The light blazes from a carving of the patron deity’s holy sigil adorning the ceiling.
The shrine has no walls, but four columns hold the ceiling aloft. Beautiful paintings glorifying the shrine’s patron deity decorate the underside of the roof.
3: Minor Locale Features
A small slitted lockbox—a collection box—fills the space below an iron grill set into the floor by the altar. The grill is sturdy and padlocked.
Graffiti—some weathered and some new—decorates the shrine’s interior walls.
Small statuettes of the shrine’s patron deity and important members of the faith fill niches cut into the wall behind the altar.
Windblown rubbish—leaves, scraps of cloth and the like—cover the floor.
4: What’s Going On?
A street trader loiters outside the shrine, trying to sell meat pies. They also know several rumours they are willing to sell to the characters. They are happy to make up more rumours if the characters seem wealthy.
Several candles burn in front of the shrine’s altar, and the faint smell of incense hangs in the air. However, the place is devoid of worshippers.
A worshipper kneels before the altar deep in prayer. They are oblivious to the characters until they have finished their prayer and get up to leave.
A lay worshipper is busy sweeping out the shrine. A bucket of flowers, ready to be arranged on the altar, stands nearby.
5: Other Folk
Tiina Ilakka (middle-aged female human) diligently cleans the shrine—she is a lay worshipper of the faith, and it is her turn. She is enthusiastic and happy to answer questions about the faith and the shrine. She wishes a proper priest would lead services here.
Maunu Kalamies (young male human) loiters near the shrine. He’s heard someone made a big donation to the collection box yesterday and is here to steal it. The teenager radiates nervous energy and nefarious intent. If he manages to get the collection box, he runs out at top speed—he isn’t a subtle thief.
Maunu Kuutamo (middle-aged male human) sleeps on the streets and has virtually nothing to his name. He has come here to offer a prayer to the shrine’s patron in hopes of getting just a little bit of good luck. Maunu is skinny, filthy and clearly at his wit’s end.
Noora Osma (female human) prays at the altar for a dead relative who often came here. In the shrine, she feels at peace and connected to her faith and her dead relative. This well-dressed woman is polite but wants to be left alone to pray.Credit
This is a short system-neutral extract from Urban Locale #31: Roadside Shrine: Smithy Robert Manson
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