The existence of a Silvanus shrine in town

[CustardPie]

Hello guys!

So, something has been bothering me a bit lately, and that would be the existance of a shrine of Silvanus in town. I hate to be this kind of lore paladin fo sorts, but Silvanus, as depicted in the books and FR lore, is a god of wild, pure nature, it's shrines are crafted with druidic magic from living plants and are always in the wild, never in an occupied civilized land, to which he is very much against , as the more civilization there is, the less wild life there is (Chauntea covers this "tamed" aspect of nature, I think, as Silvanus covers the untamed, wild Nature). Unless there is an in-game reason for this, I don't think the depiction of a Silvanus druid as a merchant working in a stone masoned shrine inside a town's wall, no matter how small a town, does the god Justice, really. Again, just a thought, and forgive me if I'm wrong.

[DM Escape]

I agree with you, really I think it should just be a giant tree and a place to tithe. This village has been around a very long time mechanically as well as in game so it probably just an oversight.

There's another shrine to Silvanus elsewhere which you will find, in time(spoilers), which is not like the one in Greatgaunt.

[dwarvenkoff]

Well if you look at the pricing he's kind of a con artist, 1 kit costs 48 but ten costs 496...I pointed this out among other things but he contractually obligated Mistle to shut up about his schemes when I had to carry my whole party back at near death from the Gnolls. Also the bigger issue is the fact we have a mortuary more designed to keep people out then in right next to said shrine. Another thing to look at is the whole Gaunt used to belong to elves and they can get a bit snippy about that fact. So my thoughts in a quick summary. The place used to be a druidic holy site under elven care but then humans came along and built towns and culture around it as they are prone to do. A canny sort of merchant saw a chance to exploit the local farmers and named himself caretaker of the shrine and thus folks just assumed he was a druid despite being more of a shrewd ranger or something. Further more, Said 'Druid' got in over his head when he was looked at for guidance as the local holy man and his only solution was to employ ranger traps and ask the local magic woman to create that barrier that blocks high HD creatures from crossing it; Keeps the undead inside a tomb with holy traps to vanquish them and the barrier keeps the looters out. It just leaves us all guessing how much of Gaunt is aware of his scheme and how many Gauntians care...Food for Plot...or thought

[DM Sauron]

The Silvanus shrine probably looks that way, because whoever built it saw the "good exterior temple" group of tiles and used it for the shrine.

A grove and/or a large tree can be put in its place of course, but then the old temple structure can be made more overgrown too, with more trees and plants, as in nature taking back from civilization.

I prefer to have it overgrown than to be replaced by a tree or relocated elsewhere. Replacing it would the too drastic of a change, then the low level adventurers need easy to find healing and this provides it.

[malclave]

I guess I've always rationalized it as having been originally built by clerics of Silvanus, and only relatively recently been staffed by druids.

[Animayhem]

Actually there are more druids than clerics. I agree making it more of nature than it is. Over grown would signify age and history.  The graveyard in my opinion should be moved.  maybe a graveyard outside of the west gate

[DM Sauron]

Sept 7, 2021 21:12:26 GMT -5 Animayhem said:

Actually there are more druids than clerics. I agree making it more of nature than it is. Over grown would signify age and history.  The graveyard in my opinion should be moved.  maybe a graveyard outside of the west gate

The graveyard is not going to be moved.

[Animayhem]

all good I look forward to the more woodsy shrine

[Munroe]

Greatgaunt is built on top of older communities going back hundreds of years. The catacombs, in particular, are very very old, perhaps pre-dating the founding of Cormyr.

The druids probably appropriated a building that was already there and just cleaned it up. They may have initially settled into it as a staging area to deal with the local undead of the catacombs and the location developed into a "temple" simply by their regular use of it, which led to it being consecrated as such later.

That's my off-the-cuff rationale anyway. It could probably do with a bit more greenery at the site to make it feel a bit more homey to the faith, but I'd guess they're squatters and have claimed the equivalent of squatters' rights as justification to adapt the site to a worship site of Silvanus.