The Sanctuary of Ellamany, known to most simply as the Sanctuary and earlier as the Hidden Temple, was a mostly underground compound isolated in the dense jungle of southern Bao-Mou.

Temple of the Yamish Dwarves

In 8'100 b. OW, the northern stretch of the southern Baovuldian jungle was inhabited by a sizeable grouping of dwarven tribes which dubbed itself Clan Yamish. They only had a relatively small territory and regularly had border disputes with the elves who surrounded their territory. They prayed to a special polytheistic pantheon of forest-spirits, though they recognized the seven Moradfilki as the greater gods. The dwarves of these clans decided to build a Hidden Temple, a mostly underground complex in the middle of the wildest stretch of jungle where the most pious of dwarves could travel to and remain in monastic tradition, spending some time in humility praying to the gods.

The Hidden Temple, thanks to its relative isolation and its somewhat rare contact with the outside world, functioned well and was often visited by dwarves who wanted to be closer to the spirits. Many future tribal clerics and leaders also spent some years in the Temple as an informal rite of passage.

The Yamish population had been declining for a long time, but by the end of 7'500 b. OW this process accelerated: the forest dwarves lived hard lives on infertile ground, constantly harassed by heartless elves and their beastly war-animals. In contrast, the cities of the Dwarven Empire on Bao-Mou's southern tip had opened their gates wide for any dwarf seeking work. So it came that all the Yamish left, and the priests of the Hidden Temple left as well in 7'489. They took their holy tomes and relics with them, but left the stone structure largely as it was; a lost temple in the middle of the jungle.

Sanctuary of the Wood Elves

Under the care of the wood elven jisha, the Hidden Temple was rebuilt and considerably expanded. The Sanctuary became a large complex home to up to 300 individuals, though it was no less isolated.

Foundation

The two wood elven nobles Leya Ayann and Inienne Mermmeney of the Woodland Greens had a rich history together. Though neither was heir to their house, both had a high status in their families. They met on a two-house hunting expedition, and thereafter began working together in military matters, mostly patrolling the Greens and commanding the houses' small armed forces. They saw many battles together as brethren-in-arms.

One day, they realized that their brave deeds in the Greens were relatively meaningless; nothing actually changed due to them, they didn't create anything new. So they decided to seek the truth of the world and the graces of their gods by striking out on an adventure together. They bravely met fierce monsters and discovered beautiful places, until finally, in the jungles of the Emmanan Reaches (another wood elven region), they came across ancient stone ruins. They were amazed by the natural beauty of the place, with massive but elegant stone halls above which arched the graceful greens of the forest, bathing the open spaces of white rock in gold and green light. Leya and Inienne realized they had finally found their vocation: they would restore these old ruins and establish a sanctuary for wood elven women, where the "soul" of the Baovuldian wood elves could be preserved: this encompassed praying, but also the preservation of any and all knowledge and records, especially those records the houses wouldn't want to keep, and also the individual elves themselves. The Sanctuary would be a safe, peaceful place for ideas, knowledge, and people.

With the help of a small group of women from House Ayann and a few volunteers from Elve'Mythal and other places in the Reaches, the Sanctuary was established in 7'081 b. OW. It became known as the Ellamany Sanctuary only a few centuries later, in 6'500 b. OW, when a great house of the Reaches decided to take the Sanctuary under its protection and the current head jishi, the daugther of Ellamany, had to give it a precise name.

The Jisha

The Sanctuary's three key functions of prayer, knowledge preservation, and the sustainment of life were fulfilled by a sizeable staff called jisha, traditionally the name of special "wild fighters" in House Ayann. Any woman who chose to give up her past and give her life to the Sanctuary could become a jisha in a simple but binding initiation ceremony. Jishis dressed in a characteristic uniform of leather skirts and bodices made out of the skin of a jungle animal killed and processed, traditionally by the jisha herself. Often, because the underground halls were quite cool and because bodices with their combat-oriented boiled leather plates were uncomfortable to wear all day, the jisha instead wore wraps of red cloth around their upper bodies.

In later centuries, as the rituals grew more firmly established, to-be jisha were called "acolytes" until they completed their first five years of service (consisting primarily of guard duty, patrolling, hunting, and cleaning) and were then allowed to don their leathers and become jisha, usually just called "sisters" by their colleagues. Only wood elves were allowed to become acolytes or even seek refuge.

There was a very rudimentary hierarchy in the Sanctuary. The head jisha, a title used synonymously with "headmistress", made nearly all executive decisions. She was supported by a small group of ayya jisha, each of which had an area of responsibility; there was notably an ayya jisha for the temple, one for the ammanimaya, one each for the Open, Golden and Lower libraries, and one for the guards. The exact role distribution and number of ayya jisha varied. In order to become an ayya jisha, a jisha had to have long years of proven service behind her and be recognised by virtually everyone as the best candidate for the job, though in the end the current ayya jisha decided who joined their ranks and who didn't. Aside from their authority, the head and ayya jisha only differed from their subordinates in their right to wear a golden circlet, though they did not always do so.

Otherwise, the social structure of the Sanctuary was very flat. Jisha served according to their ammanimaya, often in relatively large groups, and distributed their tasks as much by experience and common acquiescence as by top-down orders. Seniority and experience always took precedence, so in a sense the ayya jisha were simply the most experienced, whom everyone listened to anyway.

The Ammaniyama

The day-to-day life of a jisha was dictated by the ammanimaya, sometimes explained as "the god-ordained schedule and purpose". Usually, a given schedule for a day or sequence of days was attributed to an individual jisha, and she stuck to it until she was attributed a new one by the responsible ayya jisha. Jishas could have an impact on their ammanimaya, by requesting to be allowed to pray and then spending some time in a trance in the special Imane Ammanimaya prayer hall. If she received visions about some task she should fulfill, then the ayya jisha would incorporate that into her new schedule. These "schedules" were not formal, written-down schedules, but verbal instructions. The following ammanimaya was once assigned to a jisha:

Due to the devoted nature of the jisha - all jishas chose to become one - disobedience was rare. However, it could occur that a jisha did not ply her trade with sufficient fervor, or that she even skipped some of her tasks (since only a jisha herself usually knew her ammanimaya). There were different disciplinary measures in place for such transgressions; usually, being insufficiently attentive on guard duty or slacking off on garden duty resulted in an ammanimaya of long hours of garden work. Skipping an agenda point was worse, and usually meant the jisha would be locked for several days in the Underhall to seek forgiveness from the gods. One of the worst trangressions was eating outside of schedule, visiting the baths or the steam grove outside of schedule, or not doing fitness training. In such cases, the guilty jisha would be assigned to another, sometimes even an ayya jisha for specifically that task, who would drive her for several tendays in an exhaustive training programme. If a jisha did even worse transgressions, or attempted to leave but was caught, she would be forced to go into "penitence", in which she was stripped of her leathers and had to wear sackcloth, and served intermittently either as a personal attendant for ayya jisha's menial tasks or in the fields, and spent the rest of her time in solitude to pray or in the Underhall. After a pentience was over, which typically lasted up to a decade, the jisha had to go through an exhausting training programme so she would be back up to shape.

Outsiders

The Sanctuary's operation was geared for up to 300 jisha who knew exactly what they were doing, where everything function like clockwork. However, the possibility existed for outsiders to come to the Sanctuary and seek shelter, knowledge, and communion with the gods. The jisha were selective in who they let approach; the guards patrolling in a large radius around the Sanctuary would fire at anyone who was not clearly a wood elven woman; often, they fired some warning shots first.

If a woman managed to reach the Sanctuary without seeing any arrows, she would find herself befor an ominously silent, stone gate opening in the jungle floor. She would be given outsider's clothes - a simple green dress - and a small, sparsely furnished room in the Open Cloister. Visitors were allowed to peruse the open areas of the temple however and whenever they pleased, though they were expected to attend morning prayers, midday and evening dinners in the mess, and to stay out of the way. A respectable visitor would also seek to meet the head jisha in the first days of her stay, to receive her blessing in a one-hour prayer session.

Visitors were allowed to stay for up to six years. Upon the sixth year, if she had not yet left, she would be given a choice: become an acolyte jisha, or leave.

Layout

The dwarves' Hidden Temple had had space for three score clerics and about the same number of pilgrim visitors, and was already a sizeable compound in two floors: a larger upper floor with numerous open-sky rooms, and a lower floor built into the stone. The wood elves preserved the old temple, doing only minor restorations and adding some greenery to embellish the mix, but they even kept most of the stone furniture and decorations. They did however considerably expand the complex.

Prayer Halls. The jewel of the temple complex, located towards the rear (opposite the main gate), were the temple's three primary prayer halls. The main prayer hall (called Open Prayer Hall), located directly in the center, was a large open space with a webbing of vines and small trees forming a canopy above. It was a large marble space surrounded by a collonade and criss-crossed by knee-deep waterbeds in an intricate pattern. Aside from the roof and the removal of an altar to the Moradfilki, this prayer hall was directly adopted from the dwarves; there was enough space for 400 kneeling elves, though usually only a good half of the jisha gathered for morning prayers. The two other main halls were the Prayer Hall of Illifane Jisha, also adopted from the dwarves, was much smaller and mostly consisted of square ponds. Some large vines were also allowed to grow down from above, and a stone altar to Illrune Illifane Jisha, the patron deity of the jisha, was built. Jisha would come here in small groups, often during downtime. Finally, the third prayer hall, the Imane Ammaniyama, was completely bare except for mossy flowerbeds of red orchids; this was built by the elves. The special offices, consecration rooms, and isolated chambers of the ayya jisha (though the ayya jisha slept in the barracks like everyone else) were located in the complex, off-limit net of closed-roof hallways and rooms around the prayer halls. Reputedly, this is also where the ayya jisha hid their great private wealth.

Libraries. The Open Library, a large circular room adopted from the dwarves located to the right of the main gate, was a place where scrolls containing various records from the recent centuries about surrounding elven peoples as well as religious treatises and legends were kept. There were numerous small rooms around the Open Library, where jisha wrote down new information or transcribed and compiled old scrolls, where jisha and visitors could sit on wooden benches or large pillows to read in silence, and a larger room was where jisha processed tree bark into paper, and a mix of a fruit and animal parts into ink. In a stuffy, closed-off room built by the elves was the Holy Library, where all kinds of manuscripts, old legends, and treatises were kept. Underground, in a sizeable walled-off part of the Hidden Temple's lower floor behind two sets of heavy bronze doors, was the huge Closed Library, where all kinds of scrolls either too niche, too valuable, or too problematic to keep in the Open Library were preserved.

Underhall. The rest of the lower floor was condemned, but could be accessed through a hole near the Open Prayer Hall which was six meters above the floor beneath. The lower floor was dark, damp, and inhabited by various small animals. It was only used to punish jisha, and rarely as a detainment cell.

Barracks. In the initial decades, the jisha lived inside the old clerics' rooms; what would become the Open Cloister. However, they relatively quickly dug out a new compound consisting of six different-sized cells opening onto an open-ceilinged hallway covered in translucent, bioluminescent moss. These cells, filled with bunks, became the barracks for the jisha, where they slept shoulder-to-shoulder. The smallest of the six cells was where the head and ayya jisha slept. The barracks were way off to the left of the main entrance.

Golden Flower Pond. This was the centerpiece of the entire complex, a vast hexagon in the center of which stood a natural-looking pond strewn with boulders, from which one could easily reach the armoury, the main gate, the Open Court, the Open Library, the prayer halls, the Grove of Steam, the barracks and the Cloister. The boulders were covered in mulitcolored moss and many different plants, but at the center, on the largest stone, was a large golden flower. This flower rotated throughout the day, taking one of six positions; it did one rotation for the day, and one rotation for the night. The flower's cycle served as the timekeeping device for the jisha.

Open Cloister. The Cloister was a large compound to the left of the main gate. Along the length of one long corridor with characteristic dwarven columns, surrounded by creeping vines growing down, was a long row of bare rooms, the first few of which contained a wooden bunk bed, a copper chamber pot, and a small crate where visitors put all their belongings from the outside world until they left. The Cloister was only used by visitors, and thus this large area was often mostly empty.

The Grove and Baths. The libraries and reading rooms were serious affairs, and were unsuited for relaxation; however, the jisha could enjoy some calm relaxation now and again. Between the barracks and the prayer halls, covering a relatively large space and mostly built in dwarven times, was a large water network which supplied both the baths and the Open Grove of Steam. The Grove of Steam could be reached directly from the Flower Pond or through the changing rooms, and initially appeared like a fog-covered forest of boulders and dwarf trees. However, there were many smaller rooms around it, and some ponds and basins in the middle, where one could rest on wooden chairs or mossy beds, enjoying steam and water of varied temperatures. Visitors were allowed to peruse the grove, and often reported that this was an enchanted place where the Sanctuary's wondrous nature was the most visible, and where the nude jisha seemed to radiate with otherworldly splendor. The baths were a small cluster of large marble rooms with pools filled with water of varying temperatures, towards the rear of the grove, which were reserved to jisha. Sometimes, visitors heard splashing water and giggles from deep within the baths; it was the only time they heard jisha, normally icy serious and deathly silent, laughing.

Open Court. The Open Court was constructed over many years, as the jisha adapted a small valley next to the Hidden Temple complex by shoring up the walls and digging some arenas on one side. It was a sports area, including a small jogging circle, an archery range, a sand arena for fighting training, various bars and weights for strength exercise, and the like. Jisha would train here, the older ones instructing the younger ones; usually around five experienced jisha had at any given time the ammaniyama of supervising the training in the Open Court.

Circuit of Life. A thin footpath marking an approximate circle wide around the Sanctuary complex, interspersed with obstacles such as a small stream, boulders, felled trees, and even one section where the trail passes above an open hallway from below, was called the Circuit of Life. Jisha train their endurance by running along the path.

Silk Room. The Silk Room, located behind a hidden, foliage-covered wall in the Grove of Steam, was off-limits except on rare occasions. Sometimes, the head jisha, the ammaniyama ayya jisha, or an ayya jisha appointed specifically for the task would decide it was necessary to produce new offspring for the Sanctuary. It was the rare moment when male elves were allowed into the temple; usually either specially selected individuals cordially invited for a visit, or trespassers forced to approach rather than scared away. Chosen Jisha would couple with the men in the warm, soft, intoxicating fumes of the Silk Room, after which the men would find themselves outside the gates and feeling somewhat misused. These rare children of jisha would be raised up from a young age to serve in the temple; however, there was never an issue of boys or unwilling girls in the Sanctuary.

History

Humans in the Sanctuary

In 6'869 b. OW, two ships of humans - whole families with men, women, and children - landed on the forested southwestern coast of Bao-Mou, in the forests of the Woodland Greens. They were on the run, and lost themselves deep inside the jungle before they attempted to settle down and built a small village. They did not however know how to live in the jungle, and despite its abundance of game and fruit, after one year, some men were forced to strike out on an expedition, traveling to a nearby elven village and raiding it, stealing food and tools. Three elves and four humans died in the attack. Soon after, a small unit of the elven house to which the raided village belonged arrived in the human settlement - these were jisha warriors, of House Ayann. They killed every man older than a child, including a grandparent, and warned the terrified women not to offend any more elves, and to leave Ayann land quickly. The group of two dozen hastily left, traveling through hostile lands and fearing death all the time. Following vague instructions, and mostly by chance, this group finally happened upon the Sanctuary.

At first, the jisha intended to shoot down the intruders, but they felt animated by some amount of compassion. In addition, the Sanctuary was very low in staff, being currently antagonized to all the noble houses of the Reaches because it wanted to maintain its autonomy and was even plunged in a skirmish-war against its neighbors. After much deliberation, the ayya jisha agreed to take in the humans, nearly all of which had brown-tainted skin and dark hair, quite similar to a wood elf's complexion. So the women were taken in as novices, though those mothers who had male children had to stay in the Open Cloister rather than the barracks.

So it came that, eight years after their arrival and having proven their loyalty to the Sanctuary on multiple occasions by fighting against aggressors, and though the humans were weaker in endurance, fighting, magic, and both intellectual ability in knowledge, they had a large amount of innate strength and short-burn energy which amazed even veteran jisha; so the devoted novices were allowed to don the leathers and join the Sanctuary. The young men, now grown up, who resided in the Cloister also became the genetic source of a sizeable new generation of half-elven jisha.

Though few were aware of it, and the Sanctuary took care to keep knowledge of this inside its walls, nearly half of the jisha were thereafter at least in part human. Despite their numbers, the humans never truly got anything resembling a major voice in the complex; they were too short-lived, and unsuited to some of the finer jisha arts, to ever have a chance of becoming ayya jisha, and their blood gradually thinned out over the centuries. By 5'000 b. OW, only a fifth of the jisha had markedly rounded ears.

Stay of the Mainelachs

In 4'515, two terrified-looking young high elven nobles, dressed in flowing green-and-gold robes, appeared at the main gate to the Sanctuary. Despite their race, they were allowed in, because a jisha had had a prophetic vision; the gods willed it so. These visitors were the sisters Mainelach, daughters of Arainne, the co-ruler of House Inelafae of the Illuminated Trust. They had fled their ancestral home and the lands of the Trust because of a struggle between Inelafae and its neighboring house Eldenaar, and feared either being forcibly brought into the Eldenaar family or being stripped of their rights. They had initially simply fled south in a hope of getting away, but now they wanted to leave their past behind, and the Sanctuary was the right place.

They donned the green robes of visitors and spent six years without leaving the Sanctuary, participating in the daily tasks of the jisha, resting with them in the Grove of Steam, and praying with them each morning. The ayya jisha even informally gave them ammaniyamas of their own. In long prayers to Illrune and Callobar, they managed to put their past behind them and become new, pure, individuals.

Shortly before the end of their sixth year, the head jisha made sure news reached the Mainelach sisters about the fate of their house, about its continuing struggle with Eldenaar, and that old friends of Inelafae had come to Elve'Mythal seeking the daughters of Arainne, in an effort of saving the family. The younger sister Emuinie, cleansed and reborn with a clear pious head, decided to leave the temple and pursue her birthright. She left the Sanctuary with the well-wishes of many jisha. Her elder sister, however, instead had chosen to forget her troubled past and devoted herself to Illrune and the Sanctuary, picking up her leathers soon after.^[1]