Church of the Silver Flame
| Church of the Silver Flame | ||
|---|---|---|
 A flame drawn on silver, or carved into a silver object |
||
| Alignment | Lawful Good | |
| Pantheon | Eberron | |
| Portfolio | Purity, light, redemption, self-sacrifice, just war. | |
| Domains | 3E: Exorcism, Good, Inquisition, Law, Protection, Purification 4E: Hope, Justice, Protection 5E: Life, Light, War |
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| Worshippers | Paladins, most inhabitants of Thrane | |
| Favoured Weapon | Longbow | |
The Church of the Silver Flame is the "youngest" religion of Khorvaire in the Dungeons & Dragons setting of Eberron. Whilst it's been around for many years, with the deity-like force it worships - the actual Silver Flame - have been forged by the couatls during the Age of Demons, it's still younger as an organization than the Sovereign Host, but far more organized than the splinter-prone Host. Whilst the Purified, as its adherents call themselves, are a powerful force for good, the church has been wracked with controversy, due to a tendency towards very Lawful Stupid behavior among their Audairian branch. Whatever the case, there's no argument that the Flame itself genuinely exists and can be visited, something that isn't true of the Host.
Worshipers join the flame, strengthening it, upon death. This doesn't sound great, but it's superior to everyone else on Eberron who go to the realm of the dead, Dolurrh, to lose themselves and gradually fade from existence. This makes the church reluctant to resurrect worshipers and all recorded resurrection of non-worshipers has been a result of bribery.
History of the Silver Flame
The Silver Flame was created during the Age of Demons, when the couatl race collectively pooled their souls to create an abstract entity of goodness and law powerful enough to bind away any demon, even the mighty Overlords who ruled the world at that time. It was used to imprison Bel Shalor. When the prison eventually started to crack open, in 229 YK, Paladin Tira Miron joined with the flame upon her death to strengthen it and contain overlord now known as the Shadow in the Flame. This would create the modern Church 70 years later.
History of the Church
The Church of the Silver Flame was founded in the year 299 YK, when a female human paladin named Tira Miron gave her life to merge with the Silver Flame and, by doing so, seal away one of those Overlords named Bel Shalor, who still tries to subvert his prison as "The Shadow in the Flame". After this act, Tira became able to communicate with mortals as "The Voice of the Silver Flame", and mortals began worshiping the Silver Flame.
They famously purged just about all the lycanthropes on Eberron, on the grounds that something was causing them all to turn evil, even the ones that're traditionally okay like werebears, and there are like twelve moons orbiting the planet so there’s a full one every few days. Also, the spells that cure lycanthropy all require the subject to pass a save, which the lycanthrope can always choose to fail. This led to the Church not realizing there were ways to cure lycanthropy for much of the Purge, to say nothing of the many shifters that got accidentally killed in the process. And, lest you feel too sorry for them, let there be no bones about the fact that these were lycanthropes, very few of them were helpless victims unable to defend themselves, and lycanthropy is legitimately a disease that destroys the morals and personality of the infected (the situation was, officially if out of universe, likened to a zombie apocalypse). The lycanthropes were a major threat to civilization, and devastated Audair. The purge was a very close run thing - the Templars had the numbers, but each were creature was more than a match for several Templars and could sow division throughout communities. It was the lycanthropes that tricked the Templars into attacking shifters, because they recognized the shifters could help the Templars recognize who was a lycanthrope and who wasn't. As the purge went on, the Templars got the upper hand and managed to break the lycanthropes' power. This is where things really got nasty. Seeing that the rest of the purge would just be mop up crews, the Templars from other nations let the converts from Audair handle mopping up the remaining lycanthropes and went home. These converts were fanatical, and hellbent on revenge. They viewed their faith as a weapon, not a defense, and set to work killing every single lycanthrope and everything that looked like one. Cue shifters dying in droves. To this day, the Audair branch of the faith is infamous for its zeal and penchant for burning people alive.
It definitely did more good than harm, especially since at the tail end they did start curing the remorseful instead of killing them, but it's still seen as a big black mark on the church's history. The festival celebrating their win is traditionally tempered with sermons about the ways in which they went too far and did things they shouldn't.
Their current leader is Jaela Daran, the Keeper of the Flame, a.k.a. the Lolipope. She is basically a mixture of the Pope and the Dalai Llama, and she is a genuinely kind-but-forceful and talented ruler, despite also being eleven years old. She is the highest-level person in the world at the start of any given campaign (Vol technically beats her for pure CR and there's Oalian the tree-druid, but Vol has templates and Oalian is literally a tree) so long as she is actually within the confines of her seat of power. She is also defended by the lovably-ugly dragonhound Skarajoven, who is basically her cuddly family dog right down to suddenly turning murderously protective if someone threatens her safety.
While many of her counselors are not the same kind of saintly heroine she is, Jaela is presently leading her church in the right direction, barring any adventure paths or party shenanigans.
Dogma
Burn the corruption and taint of evil from all Eberron. Other gods have begun the creation, but it is the Silver Flame, by searing wickedness and darkness from their imperfect world, that must complete it.
Just from the outset of this quote, your first impression would be to assume that these guys are a bunch of smite-everything self-righteous fanatics who see everything else, from twisted monstrosities like the Quori to some orcs whose only crime is just not being human, as bad and wrong for not being as pure as they are. This particular stereotype doesn't earn the Church many favors, though those disenfranchised with the Host's interest in upholding monotony over making waves do find interest.
However it should also be known that just purging things for no reason won't help a society from repeating those mistakes. It also requires building a foundation upon which fosters the growth of the coveted purity. This is the sort of reasoning that allows non-combatant followers of the Silver Flame to operate without mandating that they take a side-job in committing genocides.
Indeed, the best thing a follower of the Flame can do is live a good, moral life, doing their best to make the world a better place and refine themselves into their best selves, so that upon death, all that is best in them merges with and strengthens the Flame, hastening the day when the Shadow is not merely caged but banished and the great work of remaking Eberron can begin.
Notably, it is not an explicitly racist religion. The mixed orc, human, and half-orc tribes that defend the Demon Wastes worship the Silver Flame, and there is evidence that the ancient civilization of scalykind also once revered something very like the modern Flame.
One important point that must be made is that the Purified don't deny the existence of The Host, or even truely oppose them. The Church of the Silver Flame is, technically, a splinter faith of the Host after all. The Purified honor, but don’t worship, the Nine and prefer followers of the Host that are truly led to good over members of their own congregation who are morally impure and only giving lip-service to the Flame. Their relation to the Druid faiths is largely the same, viewing them as having accomplished heroic deeds, but feeling they could do more in service to the Flame, especially with the knowledge the Druids hold, and disapprove of the Druids preference to keep the world in the present instead of improving it.
The Shadow in the Flame
The Overlord, Bel Shalor, whom the Flame seals away, is not idle in his prison.
There are the subtle plots: the work of the Lords of Dust, the equivalent of the Keeper of the Flame the church locks up in Magic Alcatraz, the Tarnished cults of those who give into temptations of lust and power. And then, there are the even subtler plots.
The thing is, Bel Shalor can speak through the flame just like the paladin Tira Miron and the coatl can. It's not something the higher ups in the church communicate to everyone, though they do warn that the Flame's guidance can be hard to understand, but just as the paladin and the coatl speak to their worshippers, so too can he whisper lies and half-truths into their ears. Maybe it was even his plan all along.
When he was free, Bel Shalor's greatest strength and skillset was corrupting good people into doing horrible things, tempting them with the idea that they were acting for the greater good, that the ends justify the means, that it'll all turn out alright in the end, and hey, better to betray the whole world than the whole world betray you, right? And he presently uses those skills to try to destroy his prison and spread his influence over all of Eberron. He embodies the paranoid fear of others and the inability to trust, and pushes the idea that in a cruel world where no one can be trusted, the first and only loyalty you can have is to yourself, at their expense.
Variant Sects and Heresies
As the Church of the Silver Flame is just the most recent incarnation of the faith in the Silver Flame, there are many faiths that actually worship the flame, though these are often just categorized as sects of the church.
Ghaash'kala
The Ghost Guardian orcs of the Demon Wastes see it as a duty to keep the horrors within away from the outside world, and worship the Kalok Shash, the Binding Flame, that draws the souls of the dead to keep darkness and evil at bay. Many of course see the similarities between their beliefs and those of the church and the orcs, though the purified say that they just have a skewed and inaccurate view of it. Others refuse to accept that a screaming orc barbarian and human paladin in shining armor technically worship the same deity.
Knights Militant
An order of knights known for their strict standards on purity and morality, and an emphasis on self-sacrifice.
Order of the Radiant Flame
An order of mystics, seeking to spiritually become one with the flame while still alive. Mainly spend their time contemplating the mysteries of the cosmos in their monasteries and shrines.
Penitent Brethren
The order for the self-loathing. Mainly made of shifters and warforged, they believe themselves to have some innate sin they must atone for either through injury or death.
Pure Flame
Formed by Aundairians who lost family and loved ones in the Purge, the Pure Flame is what people think the Silver Flame is like: bigoted, intolerant, obsessed to the point of fanaticism with the destruction of evil, and rejecting the compassion that's supposed to be a cornerstone of their church as weakness that allows evil to flourish. They theoretically revere the Keeper, but in practice (and thanks to conspiracy theories about the Cardinals they all believe), Purists tend to attribute anything they don't like her saying to the Cardinals and are hoping to try to "liberate" her.
Serpent Cults
The umbrella term for all the faiths based on couatls and the Silver Flame that predate the church. Their name comes from the fact that they and the church have a shared serpent/couatl theme. Currently the only known serpent cult is active within the shulassakar city of Krezent.
Servants of the Pure Flame
The "Puritans" are your standard extremists/fundamentalists with emphasis on the letter of the law, forced conversion, and purging heretics and enemies of the faith. Mainly centered in Aundair, they actually have some political power in Thrane and the College of Cardinals. Their leader is also a Lawful Evil powermonger who has a passion for burning witches at the stake.
The Stormreach Church
The result of failed missionary expeditions to Xen'drik. They were declared heretics because they opposed the theocracy in Thrane, and changed their teachings from the mainline due to exposure to the local legends and unconventional worshippers of the Silver Flame joining the church. One of their members is also a member of the shulassakar serpent cult, and even one of their Inquisitors was a Lord of Dust, not to mention they failed to stop said Lord of Dust from punching a hole into Khyber and releasing one of the Demon Overlords from their imprisonment!
The accusations of heresy were not wholly exaggerated is what we're getting at here.
The Tarnished
The biggest of heresies in the church, these are those who worship the overlord trapped within the Silver Flame. Sometimes they do this intentionally, but mainly they get corrupted by the Shadow in the Flame, as it promises them riches and immortality in exchange for services rendered, or lures them into doing great evil while making them think they're following the Greater Good. They actually almost gained control over the church in 497 YK, before other sects found out they were demon worshipers.
Meta-History
The Church first appeared in the original Eberron campaign setting splatbook for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. It was subsequently fleshed out in the splatbook "Faiths of Eberron" for the same edition, and the vast repository of its lore comes from that book. It then reappeared in the Eberron player's campaign guides for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, and was mentioned in brief in the Player's Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition as well as earning a mention in the pseudo-official Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron before appearing in the official Rising From the Last War.