The Stone Glade, shrine to Tanil in Hollowfaust.

High Priest Mather has renovated this 20 ft by 30 ft house, removing many of the interior walls to create a single 20 ft by 20 ft outer room and a pair of 10 ft by 10 ft back rooms. One serves as his personal quarters, and the other for storage of temple items. He has removed the roof in the outer room, and a single yew tree sprouts from near the back wall, reaching 30 ft high and being almost a yard across at the base. A shelf or ledge has been crafted about 3 ft off the ground, and it holds a reservoir of moist soil and hanging mosses, from which sprout pale flowering vines that cover the entire upper sections of wall. Bees and hummingbirds can be seen around this area, and from the branches of the yew tree hang a few wooden wind-chimes that clatter together in the infrequent breezes, or, more commonly, when a bird alights on one of these branches to reach one of the bird-feeders that have been set along the branches and filled with seed or flavored water.

The entire floor surface has been ripped up and a layer of goat manure has provided a rich bedding for a thick carpet of hardy moss. Anyone entering the shrine is ordered to either stand on the pathway of stones that leads to the altar, or to remove their footwear (and preferably both), so as not to unduly scuff the moss.

The altar itself is a crude block of natural stone, with no carvings or ornamentation of any sort. It appears to have been specifically chosen to not conform to any geometric ideal, and it is oblong and asymmetrical, not in any traditional altar shape. It is quite simply, a rock, and Mather has been known to scandalize those unfamiliar with Tanil’s way by sitting on it cross-legged during his ‘tales.’ He doesn’t call them sermons or speeches or services. They are simply tales and he often speaks openly to specific people and allows them to respond freely, on matters as trivial as restoring the flow of milk from a mastitic goat to as personal as intimate marital difficulties, with no regard to any sort of holy scripture or agenda, speaking of whatever his ‘parishioners’ wish to speak.

The faith of Tanil is a wandering one, with little truck for regulations or schedules of maintenance, and Mather often finds himself away from the shrine for extended periods. When this occurs, he attempts to find a member of the laity, or perhaps a wandering Ranger, Cleric or Adept in Tanils service, to tend the shrine in his absence. On occasion, the person he left as steward also feels a more pressing obligation and the shrine is left untended.

When this happens, the goats are very happy.

Goats wander Hollowfaust. They are all owned, and, more or less, under watchful eye at all times, but sometimes the youthful goatherd finds something, or someone, with which he or she would prefer to spend the afternoon, and the goats find themselves unsupervised for a few hours. The savvy goat immediately whips out her city map and heads to S3, dodging the loud, annoying and clumsy two-legged people swatting her out of their way. Arriving at this heavenly shrine, full of lush and edible things, the goat is promptly discouraged by Mather or any other shrine attendent from entering the sacred space and nibbling on the sacred foliage.

But when the shrine is not attended, the goat then proceeds to feast.

When you return after your two day excursion, you find that the shrine is despoiled. It looks like insane ghosts have been at work, and the moss-bed is pawed up and devoured, only dirt, bits of dried moss and a generous spattering of goat pellets now decorating the stirred up soil. One of the bird-feeders was pulled down, and the entire small branch it hung from has been pulled down with it, as it now hangs broken and denuded of leaf, bud and tender bark, the carved wooden bird-feeder broken open and any seed within it also kicked about and eaten. The yew itself also shows signs that the bark around the base has been nibbled and pawed at, but it seems to have survived the worst of it, as the invaders then decided to take a shot at the hanging wooden shelf. Only on the right wall did a root hang low enough down the ledge for it to be grabbed, but that was enough to yank the shelf down, and once the vines in that area could be reached, and entire section covering about 8 ft of that wall were ripped down and eaten.

There is no sign of the offending animal(s), and Mather has apparently not returned to see the state of his shrine under your stewardship. Your work is cut out for you…