The Astrodia Campaign

Temple of Venus

4 min read

The Temple of Venus is a temple of Venus, the Agent of Creation, in the crafting city of Pentamarone — a city whose faith runs almost entirely to Venus. The Fallen visited it in Session 12 to learn whether Venus has enemies who might build something to mock her, and came away with the fullest account yet of the Dark Lords’ rebellion, the religions of the neighboring powers, and a fringe legend: She Who Fell Before the First Fall.

The Statue

Out front stands a statue of Venus with her three orbs, the muses of creation — matching the Venus statue on the roof of Morgana’s Tower. Red has been seeing those orbs in his dreams.

The Entry Hall

The entry hall holds books of scripture, which Red and Aren read (the investigation roll survived disadvantage):

  • The Solemn created the world, made the Agents to govern its domains, and then receded into the ether (see Solemn Pantheon).
  • Below the Agents were the angels. Some of them, the Dark Lords, rebelled and fell; the first was the Morning Star.
  • What caused the rebellion is disputed.
  • Venus lets those who pray to her thrive and manifest what they desire.

The Priest’s Office

A commoner pointed the party to the priest’s office. The priest (unnamed) was happy to talk, and the party presented themselves as “students of life” doing anthropology. Nobody joined the church. His account:

  • Venus watches over all artistic expression and the making of goods and services, working through her three muses, usually shown as spheres orbiting her.
  • No documented ill will between the Agents. The Dark Lords, the Morning Star most of all, do hold ill will toward Venus as one of the hands they felt had overreached.
  • The Moon is thought to be a disputed tenth Agent, or the protector of the Agents who “makes sure that everything stays as it should.” On Red’s dream of three spheres orbiting the moon, he suggested the divine may be inspiring Red to create something with animals.
  • The Church of Dogmatika claims a new deity separate from the Solemn, rejects the Pantheon, and has miracle-working saints. It has grown exponentially in recent decades and was founded about a century or more ago, possibly around the Great Cataclysm. See God of Dogmatika.
  • Back in the office after the party saw the mural, he explained the meteor: the sect belief in She Who Fell Before the First Fall, which he does not share.

The Basement Mural

At the priest’s recommendation, the party went down to the basement to see the temple’s prize artwork: the Solemn and his host against the Morning Star and his armies, at the moment the rebels were cast down to earth.

  • Asha (History): old, probably a couple of centuries, well preserved, and unsigned. It wasn’t painted here but brought from the South, in a style from cultures that revere the higher beings (the oceanic kingdoms, Fire King Island, the Phoenix worshippers).
  • Drolta (Religion) sensed something in the depiction didn’t belong, and Red found it: a small flaming meteor in the middle of the scene, a deliberate addition. The sect behind it identifies it as She Who Fell.
  • Drolta communed with Nephthys here, who said the battle was “even before my time” and that she “cannot speak of this freely” about a portal to another world.

The Library and Classroom

Downstairs is a Sunday-school classroom and library. It had no books on She Who Fell, but:

  • Aren read about Pluto’s enemies, and found The Prophecy Destroyer (as heard).
  • The Endymion Empire enforces worship of Mars, the Agent of Force; Pentamarone worships Venus.
  • Illustrations identified Uranus (blue hair, red eyes, yellow beneath) and confirmed Neptune as the water-themed Agent.
  • No record of any conflict between Agents.

First Appeared

Mentioned in Session 10 (August 26, 2026), when Aren overheard a passerby praising “the service at the Temple of Venus yesterday”; its prominence was confirmed by the WitchCrafters in Session 11. Visited in Session 12 (September 23, 2026).

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