⚔ Aᴅᴠᴇɴᴛᴜʀᴇ ⚔

The Sun Dome Temple stands prominently within Athkatla’s Temple District, a gleaming edifice dedicated—publicly—to Lathander, god of renewal and light. On the surface, it serves as a place of sunrise devotion, offering alms, healing, and guidance to the city’s faithful. However, beneath the veneer of dawn-lit sermons and immaculate marble, the Sun Dome hides a darker truth. The temple is infiltrated—and quietly controlled—by a heretical cult of arcanists devoted to the shattered legacy of Netheril. Disillusioned by Mystra’s control over magic and reverent of the raw, unfettered arcana once wielded by the archwizards of old, they preach a doctrine that sees the Weave as a cage. Their rituals, performed in hidden catacombs beneath the dome, invoke ancient Netherese spellcraft, siphoned from forbidden tomes smuggled into the city. The cult walks a razor’s edge, hiding in plain sight amid Athkatla’s labyrinthine politics and magically regulated society.

The Sun Dome Temple radiates opulence and serenity to the untrained eye. Its sun-bleached marble columns rise in circular symmetry, culminating in a massive gilded dome that catches the light at dawn and reflects it across the Temple District in a blaze of gold. Inside, warm mosaics depict stylized sunrises and Lathanderian imagery, while the scent of myrrh and burning saffron fills the air. Choristers chant in soft harmony beneath glowing stained-glass panels. But a closer look reveals inconsistencies—the iconography subtly twisted, the murals hiding archaic glyphs that predate Lathander’s modern faith. A hush pervades the lower chambers, where the air is colder, the echoes longer. In the shadows below the dome, the polished corridors give way to hidden stone vaults lit by violet flame, where doctrine and devotion turn toward a far older sun.