+- Thay - Realm of the Red Wizards (https://thaypw.com)
+-- Forum: Realm (https://thaypw.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=7)
+--- Forum: World Background (https://thaypw.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+---- Forum: NPCs of Thay (https://thaypw.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=54)
+---- Thread: Eternal Flame of Kossuth Mythalanir (/showthread.php?tid=187)
Eternal Flame of Kossuth Mythalanir - Balanor - 07-15-2009
Source: Powers & Pantheons (AD&D), circa 1370 DR
Note from The Thayan: Since this sourcebook is 2nd edition (AD&D), stats are not in 3rd edition format
Lawful Evil, Human Male, 16th-level priest [Kossuth]
The Flaming Brazier is home to nearly 300 priests of the Firelord and a veritable menagerie of other creatures. Like all temples of Kossuth, the clergy of the Flaming Brazier is organized into a strict hierarchy of rank. The temple is led by Eternal Flame of Kossuth Mythalanir (LE hm P[Kossuth]16). He is served by three Most Fervid Fires – the Most Fervid Walker of Fires (NE hf P[Kossuth]12), the First Disciple of the Salamander (LE hm Mon14), and the General of the Knights of the Drake (LN hm Cru13) – each of whom commands all the priests of similar class (in other words, firewalkers, monks, and crusaders, respectively).
Eternal Flame of Kossuth Mythalanir is a middle-aged man of pure-blooded Mulan heritage. The high priest of the Flaming Brazier is a petty tyrant and prone to hold grudges over minor slights, but he is a natural leader and a gifted visionary. Mythalanir was born in Tyraturos to two slaves who worked in the kitchens of the city’s most powerful temple, and the future firewalker spent his childhood scampering through the halls of the Burning House of Kossuth in the heart of that unpleasant city. Mythalanir impressed the aging priest who served as slave master with his intelligence and strength of personality, and the child of slaves was freed and inducted into the clergy by the age of eight. (Actually his identity was switched with that of a bumbling merchant’s son, since slaves can never be freed in Thay.)
Mythalanir quickly lost his innocence amidst the convenient piety and raw cruelty of life in Thay, but he never forgot the raw power and beauty of fire. When he reached the rank of Numinous Blaze, Mythalanir volunteered to transfer to the fabled majesty for Kossuth’s first temple (or rather the decrepit building that stood on that site at the time). Within a fortnight nothing was left of the Firelord’s house of worship save for smoldering ashes, and Mythalanir was the highest-ranking surviving priest. Unlike most faiths where the scourge of fire is considered a devastating blow, Kossuthans traditionally view destruction by fire as planting the seeds for rebirth. Mythalanir led the campaign to construct a magnificent edifice on the bones of the old temple, and when the Flaming Brazier was rededicated, there was only a single candidate for the rank of Eternal Flame of Kossuth.
Ever since ascending to his current rank, Mythalanir has striven to lead the entire Kossuthan faith in the Realms. He carefully scouted out the various up-and-coming Red Wizards and hitched his star to Aznar Thrul to great success. With the recent conflagration incinerating the temple of his former superior and chief mentor, Mythalanir has effectively, if not formally, achieved his long-held ambition. In the four and a half centuries of rule by the Red Wizards, no priest in the land of Thay has achieved as much influence and political power as Mythalanir has before his fiftieth birthday. Wisely, the Eternal Flame of Kossuth has recognized the danger of attracting too much attention to his position, and he has taken pains to cultivate alliances with as many tharchions, zulkirs, and other powerful leaders as he can. It remains to be seen if Mythalanir can maintain his current position or if he will be yet another quickly forgotten victim of Thay’s endless internal political machinations.