Rising from the Last War
Every Thrane child knows the story of Tira Miron. Centuries ago, one of the ancient and powerful demons chained within the world broke free from its bonds, unleashing terrible suffering on the people of Thrane. The nation would have been destroyed if not for Tira Miron. This paladin was called by the Silver Flame and battled the mighty fiend. When it became clear that the overlord couldn’t be destroyed, Tira gave her life, combining her spirit with the light of the Silver Flame to bind the demon once more. Now Tira serves as the Voice of the Flame, helping others find the light. Anyone who seeks to protect the innocent and battle evil can draw on the power of the Silver Flame to aid them, but they must beware of the Shadow in the Flame, the demon that still lingers and yearns to trick good people into evil.
A pillar of argent fire marks the point of Tira’s sacrifice, the center of the modern church. This pillar, located in Flamekeep, is a manifestation of the Silver Flame, not the source of its power.
The Last War had a serious impact on the church. Leaders still respected the Keeper’s authority over spiritual matters, but the war wasn’t about good or evil. Templars of all nations still joined together to fight demons, but if no supernatural threat was present, they fought for their own nations. This division allowed cracks to form in the foundation. In Breland, some priests fell prey to greed or forged ties to criminal organizations. In Aundair, a zealous faction known as the Pure Flame advocates using violence rather than compassion as the primary tool for rooting out evil. And in Thrane, the church has become the ruling body. While still driven by Tira’s principles of redemption and sacrifice, the intrusion of politics means that some come to the faith seeking power rather than purely to do good.
Eberron Campaign Guide
Thrane became a theocracy ruled by the Keeper of the Flame and the Council of Cardinals in 914 YK, when the last Wynarn heir, King Thalin, died.
The Church of the Silver Flame was born in 299 YK, forming what is now modern Flamekeep. Tira is the immortal Voice of the Flame, an intermediary between the mortal world and the divine Flame.
In 832 YK, the Church of the Silver Flame launched a crusade against lycanthropes that lasted for fifty years. The crusade brought lycanthropes to the brink of extinction in Khorvaire. When the Church targets a problem, it seeks to completely eliminate it. The templars act with ruthless efficiency.
Although the Church of the Silver Flame is a relatively young institution, other religions in various parts of the world have sprung up around worship of the couatls that bind demons in Khyber. In Xen’drik, giants, elves, drow, goliaths, and other races all developed serpent cults in their early histories, and the yuan-ti of Krezent in the Talenta Plains are a surviving example of a similar religion. In addition, the religion of the Ghaash’kala orcs of the Demon Wastes is similar to the faith of the Silver Flame—similar enough that some consider them to be the same religion.
Five Nations
In 299 YK, the Silver Flame was born. One year later, the newly christened Church of the Silver Flame appointed its fi rst Keeper of the Flame—a spiritual leader of the nation who could commune directly with the Flame and pass its will onto the people.
In 914 YK, amid the turmoil of the Last War, the people of Thrane abandoned the monarchy and invested the Keeper of the Flame with temporal as well as spiritual governorship of the nation. Thrane became the fi rst theocracy of Khorvaire.
Past Keepers of the Flame
Date |
Keeper of the Flame |
300-320 |
Maliah Sharavaci |
320-389 |
Traelyn Ghelios |
389-461 |
Darmin Avaroth |
461-524 |
Kyra Danth |
524-525 |
Bec Avaroth |
525-578 |
Valiron Silverthorn |
578-610 |
Torah Ariadu |
610-698 |
Saren Rellek |
698-768 |
Jareen Imistil |
768-825 |
Aelyendari Valystar |
825-860 |
Jolan Sol |
860-863 |
Tzandra Corus |
863-903 |
Jovar Daran |
903-936 |
Kaith Serrain |
937-993 |
Lavira Tagor |
993-Present |
Jaela Daran |
Sarhain's Guide to the Silver Flame
The church's history goes back to the early days of Galifar.
The Bane of Thrane
In 22 YK, the rogue red dragon Sarmondelaryx went on a rampage across Thrane and areas of northern Cyre. Prince Thrane rallied an army to deal with the dragon, but the battle was a disaster. Sarmondelaryx slaughtered Prince Thrane and scattered his army, and the conflict devastated the region, now named the Burnt Wood.
Sarmondelaryx’s rampage caused horrific loss of life in Thrane, and much of the fledgling nation had to be rebuilt. The dragon mysteriously disappeared several weeks after her murder of Prince Thrane. Though this took place several hundred years before the birth of the Church of the Silver Flame, Sarmondelaryx’s rampage nevertheless played a crucial part in preparing the Thranes for the mission the Silver Flame would eventually call them to.
Sarmondelaryx was in many ways the first great evil that the people of Thrane had to fight on their own. This was the reason that Thranes began to adopt the use of the longbow within their communities; humanoids cannot reasonably stand against the might of a dragon in close quarters, and the utter catastrophe of Prince Thrane’s army was further proof. The only hope for dealing with such a foe is to overwhelm it with missiles before it reaches you.
THE YEAR OF BLOOD AND FIRE
Every child in Thrane knows the story of Tira Miron. In 299 YK, a terrible eruption split the ground in the Tamor Hills, and a great pillar of crimson fire emerged from the chasm. The significance of this pillar of flame would not be known by the people of Thrane for some time, but the effects of its influence were immediate.
A paladin of Dol Arrah, Tira Miron, received a vision of a great rainbow-winged serpent, warning her that a terrible fire had welled up from the depths of Khyber into Thrane, and that this flame represented the partial release of the overlord, Bel Shalor.
Tira spent the next year gathering her forces. The first to join her quest was the human cleric of Arawai, Maliah Sharavaci. As word of their actions spread, they would soon be joined by the elven paladin, Samyr Kes, the dwarven bard and archer, Turanank Noldrun, and the gnomish monk, Cassia Canatar Clebdecher. Together, this group rallied the people of Thrane, recruited the wyverns of the Tamor Hills, and even ventured into the planes to get the weapons they needed to fight the demon. This year would come to be known as the Year of Blood and Fire.
After a year of adventuring, gathering allies and artifacts to give them the means to vanquish the overlord, they were ready. Before the final confrontation, Tira took each of her companions aside and discussed her vision of what would follow this conflict. During these discussions, a threat to Tira and Maliah’s families was uncovered. Though it hurt him deeply to do so, Samyr Kes left the party to intercept the scheme and allow the others to confront the overlord unburdened.
Wielding the sword Kloinjer and riding the elder wyvern Ashtarax, Tira went to fight the overlord as the couatl from her vision came to her aid. Tira faced the emerging demon as the great serpent dove headfirst into the crimson fire. Tira watched the demon and the couatl struggle in the flame. When it became clear that Bel Shalor was winning, the serpent coiled around the demon and sunk its teeth into its neck. At the same time, the couatl sent a mental plea to Tira, who leapt into the flame and plunged Kloinjer through the struggling immortals.
According to legend, a powerful explosion erupted, and the hot crimson fire of Bel Shalor became a cool silver flame. Tira had joined with the pillar of argent fire and become the Voice of the Silver Flame. Thereafter she appointed her first follower, Maliah, as the first Keeper of the Flame.
Samyr Kes did not survive his mission, but Tira's other companions would become the founding members of the modern Church of the Silver Flame. A pillar of argent fire marks the point of Tira’s sacrifice, now in Flamekeep. Many assume this manifestation to be the Silver Flame itself, but this pillar is only part of the greater celestial force.
SKARAVOJEN
In 321 YK, an assassination attempt came particularly close to killing the Keeper of the Flame, Traelyn Ghelios. At the behest of High Speaker Syketel, House Vadalis magebred a special guardian to protect Traelyn and all future Keepers.
This special guardian was named Skaravojen, and is known as a dragonhound. As a six-legged hound with draconic features, Skaravojen is completely unique, the only creature of its kind. The secrets of its creation have been kept secret by House Vadalis since it was brought into the world.
THE TIME OF TWO KEEPERS
In 497 YK, Keeper Kyra Danth was challenged for leadership of the Church of the Silver Flame by a peasant woman going by the name of Melysse Miron. Melysse claimed to have received a vision from Tira Miron, who had told her that she was a direct descendant and the true Keeper of the Silver Flame.
She challenged many doctrines, claiming that the Church had strayed from the path set out for it by the Voice in the Flame. Her words were reinforced by her ability to wield astonishing divine power. She was seemingly able to call directly on the Flame, much like the Keeper of the Flame. Initially, divination magic failed to confirm or deny her story, and it very much seemed like the Flame had chosen two Keepers.
Melysse's differing opinions to Keeper Danth and the general direction of the church caused the biggest schism in the church's history. Both Keepers were undoubtedly chosen by the Flame, and both wielded its divine power. Both claimed to hear the voice of Tira Miron but had such different views and accounts of what was said that it was impossible to reconcile. Whereas Kyra Danth argued for compassion in the face of evil, saving those that could be saved, Melysse argued that if evil was afforded any space, it would take root and grow. The only solution was to burn it out wherever it was encountered.
Eventually, it was revealed that Melysse was not a true Keeper of the Flame, but that she was channelling the power of the Shadow in the Flame, Bel Shalor. This explained her increased strength when near the pillar of Flame within Flamekeep, much like a true Keeper of the Flame. While the overlord was bound by Tira's sacrifice, it could still whisper to the faithful and lead them astray, and Melysse Miron represented the most brazen and explicit example of this.
This revelation led to a brutal conflict within the Church, as the followers of both Keepers asserted their righteousness. Eventually, the forces of Kyra Danth won out, and Melysse Miron was removed from power and Thrane. The conflict was used as a lesson that founds the doctrine that every person has the potential for evil within them. The faithful must be aware of their own capacity for evil, so they can protect themselves against the whispers of the Shadow in the Flame.
TALONS OF ICE
In 545 YK, a cabal of necromancers calling themselves the Talons of Ice began wreaking havoc in eastern Khorvaire, mostly focused on the Lhazaar Principalities, Karrnath, and the Talenta Plains. Led by the lich Saeria Lantol, a Bloodsail elder of Farlnen, the Talons of Ice carved a bloody path deep into Karrnath.
Entire villages were razed, and then raised, by the necromancers, using the undead villagers to assault neighbouring settlements. Initial attempts by the Church of the Silver Flame and paladins of Dol Arrah to stop the necromancers were met with failure, only adding to the unholy crusade of the Talons of Ice.
However, these early victories made the necromancers overconfident. After months of terror, the Talons of Ice were defeated by a combined force of templars, paladins of Dol Arrah, and the Karrnathi military. Saeria Lantol couldn’t be destroyed without destroying her soul vessel, the location of which was unknown. Realising this, the templars captured her and had her imprisoned in Dreadhold.
Saeria has spent the last 450 years in a dead cell in the Deep Ward of Dreadhold, chained to a wall in an antimagic field. She doesn’t need food or water, so rarely receives visitors and has essentially been left to rot until the end of time or until the church stops paying for her incarceration.
JOLIANA’S CRUSADE
In 558 YK, Queen Joliana ir’Wynarn assumed the throne after being the Regent of Thrane. The Church of the Silver Flame was well established by this time, and temples to the Flame could be found in most major cities in the Kingdom of Galifar. The church’s heart was always in Thrane, however, as it was the Thranes who had really experienced the horror of an overlord and truly understood the stakes.
Joliana was a devoted follower of the Silver Flame, and well-known for being a zealot. She decreed that under her rule, the Silver Flame would become the primary religion of the entirety of the Kingdom of Galifar. Joliana’s zeal almost shattered the Kingdom of Galifar centuries before the Last War, as several bloody clashes with Thrane’s neighbours almost led to a full-blown civil war.
Joliana’s crusade was ended when she died suddenly, under mysterious circumstances, in the second year of her reign.
FOUNDING OF RELLEKOR
Keeper Saren, the longest-serving Keeper of the Flame in the Church’s history, was one of the greatest defenders of the tiefling population of Thrane. He was a fierce advocate for them and many marginalised communities on Khorvaire. In particular, he recognised that tieflings had the potential to be dangerous due to their innate magic, but that this didn’t make them evil.
In 623 YK, Keeper Saren founded the town of Rellekor in what is now western Thrane. The town was to be a sanctuary for tieflings, where they could grow up in safety, surrounded by others who understood their unique struggles and could help them to control their powers. The Church of the Silver Flame would fund and maintain the town for as long as it was needed, and a school was constructed to educate the population and train them how to control their unique gifts.
Rellekor means “Sanctuary” in Infernal, and Keeper Saren was given the title “Rellek” by the people of Rellekor, naming him their protector. Keeper Saren was honoured and used the title as his surname until his death in 698 YK.
THE SILVER CRUSADE
Lycanthropes have always existed in Eberron, though their origin is unknown and up for debate. However, they rarely act in any sort of coordinated fashion. For most of the history of the Kingdom of Galifar, it seemed that only those born with lycanthropy could spread the affliction to others, and those ‘natural’ lycanthropes would generally avoid doing so. They were considered monsters and often dangerous, but nothing that couldn’t be handled by templars or the odd paladin of Dol Arrah.
This changed in the ninth century. Lycanthropes began banding together and terrorising communities in the Eldeen Reaches and western Aundair, leaving their victims alive and somehow spreading the curse. The nature of lycanthropy had shifted, which was confirmed by the Church of the Silver Flame’s diviners. It seemed that the raids being committed had a logic to them. The lycanthropes were recruiting, targeting lightly defended population centres and leaving more victims alive and afflicted than dead.
In 832 YK, Keeper Jolan Sol announced the beginning of the Silver Crusade. They decreed that lycanthropy was a curse of the soul, and that those afflicted were beyond all help. They called for the immediate extermination of all lycanthropes in Khorvaire, calling on all followers of the Flame to take up arms. As the lycanthrope activity seemed to be coming from the Eldeen Reaches, most of the initial lycanthropes were shifters, which led to a belief among the templars that shifters and lycanthropes were one and the same.
What followed was a brutal guerrilla war, localised mostly in the west of Khorvaire. The forces of the Church had numbers and discipline, and they were fighting for their lives and the lives of their communities. They were up against an unpredictable foe, a threat that could hide in plain sight and recruit more soldiers for the cause with a scratch. Thousands died in the conflict, on all sides, and the lycanthropes were organised and clever enough to deliberately sow suspicion between the templars and shifters.
In 835 YK, Keeper Jolan Sol clarified that shifters weren’t the same as lycanthropes and instructed the templars to hunt only the evil lycanthropes. The damage was done, however, and thousands of innocent shifters had already lost their lives to both the lycanthropes and the templars.
Nevertheless, shifter communities in the Eldeen Reaches were instrumental in the war against the lycanthropes, acting as staging areas for the templars and facilitating cooperation between the templars and the druidic sects of the Reaches, namely the Wardens of the Wood. The lycanthropes threatened everyone in the region, and so disparate forces were forced into uneasy alliances against a greater foe that they couldn’t face alone. The templars had discipline and numbers, but they also needed the shifters’ knowledge of the local area and experience with the lycanthropes, they had been dealing with them the longest.
The lycanthropic threat was insidious, and there were several moments of reprieve where it seemed that the curse had broken. This was often proven to be false security, however, as the lycanthropes resurged. It was in these later years of the crusade that zeal overtook communities and allowed the Pure Flame to take root.
While the threat eventually did pass, it had seemingly done so many times before only to resurge and cause more damage, take more lives. So, when the power of the curse did truly break and lycanthropes were no longer able to spread their affliction, nobody knew for sure if it was real. It was here that the Crusade began to shift from a genuinely heroic effort to save the world from certain destruction into something that sought vengeance. Mobs of Aundairians began roaming the Reaches and western communities, trying to find any hidden lycanthropes. Tensions still grew with shifter communities, who were an easy outlet for the mob’s anger and fear.
At this point, most of the violence wasn’t being committed by templars from Thrane, but by Aundairians that had taken up the Silver Flame over the course of the Crusade. For these new followers, the Silver Flame was not just a shield against the darkness, but a weapon to be used to root out and destroy evil. These became what is now known as the Pure Flame, an extremist sect of the church.
In 880 YK, Keeper Jovor Daran announced an end to the Silver Crusade, and the church pulled all its forces out of the Eldeen Reaches. Schools in Thrane teach children of the Crusade, both the heroic struggle against a seemingly unstoppable evil, and the gradual fall to the evil within and the atrocities committed by the faithful in the later years. Thrane has taken the approach that the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past is to learn from them, while the faithful of Aundair continue to assert their actions were justified.
THEOCRACY IN THRANE
When the Last War ignited in 894 YK, Thrane broke from the Kingdom of Galifar and declared itself an independent monarchy under the rule of King Thalin. Thalin was a devoted follower of the Silver Flame, perhaps even zealously so, and broke from the tradition of ascension in Galifar to pursue his beliefs. With the entire Kingdom of Galifar under his rule, he could elevate the Church of the Silver Flame, and in doing so bolster its ability to respond to threats anywhere in Khorvaire.
In 914 YK, well into the Last War, King Thalin met his end. By this point, the Council of Flamekeep were well entrenched and had steadily grown in power and influence since the Year of Blood and Fire. People trusted the Church to keep them safe, and Thalin’s heir, Prince Daslin, was unpopular. To make matters worse, the nation was embroiled in the Last War and couldn’t afford to hand the reins over to a weak ruler.
Many in Thrane felt that the monarchy had failed them, so in 914 YK, the people of Thrane put the Church above the throne. Prince Daslin accepted this without a struggle and faded into the political background. Thrane had become the first theocracy in Khorvaire. The Speakers and ministers of the church now held the spiritual and administrative reins of the nation, with the Keeper Kaith Serrain the head of state.
Most of the Speakers genuinely believe that the theocracy is what is best for Thrane, and some even extend this belief to the whole of Khorvaire. Regardless of the suitability of the government, the church and its templars allowed Thrane to survive the Last War despite being set upon by enemies on all sides.
They aren’t all in agreement, however. The current Keeper of the Flame, Jaela Daran, has criticised the theocracy. Jaela believes that the Last War has saddened the Flame (or more likely the Voice in the Flame), and that the establishment of the Church as a governing body has confused its mission and made it more difficult to combat evil across Khorvaire.
The rise of the theocracy brought with it an apparent rise in corruption in the Church in Breland, and it certainly allowed space for the zeal in Aundair to burn to its current heights. Who is Thrane to tell the faithful of Aundair or Breland what they can or cannot do?
THE DAY OF MOURNING
On the 20th of Olarune, 994 YK, Thrane and Breland were leading a joint offensive on southwestern Cyre. Cyre was being attacked from all directions, with Karrnath hitting them from the north in retaliation for the Cyran sacking of Atur.
Thrane’s forces were led by Knight-Commander Grodan, a close friend of High Speaker Krozen. It had been an exhausting few days of pursuing the Cyran forces through hills. Cyre had cleverly used untiring warforged troops to delay the incoming armies. Even so, the Cyrans were heavily outnumbered and wouldn’t stand any real chance of victory once the combined Brelish-Thrane forces reached them.
Not even the Keeper of the Flame could have predicted exactly what was to come. At around 11am on the 20th of Olarune, the nation of Cyre was obliterated in a magical cataclysm that was said to be visible even in Aundair. Stories tell of the skies burning so brightly that those looking upon the disaster in Thrane were blinded, and the forces of Breland, Thrane and Cyre all perished in what has now been named the Field of Ruins.
Initially, Krozen declared that Thrane was to deny entry to refugees fleeing from this cataclysm. This is one of the only times that Jaela has ever overturned the Cardinal. She proclaimed that the Voice in the Flame demanded they help. Rumours tell of a heated argument between the two, perhaps the first time Jaela had raised her voice to him in such a manner.
Krozen was concerned that this was some trick to let enemies into their border, that Jaela was too trusting. Jaela argued that the Silver Flame protects all of us, and the Church should follow in its example. Jaela had only been Keeper of the Flame for a year and hadn’t yet developed a sense for politics. She knew that if they denied assistance to these people who had lost everything, if they did nothing in the face of such evil, they were no better than the demons they fought.
Thrane opened its borders to the refugees from Cyre, but didn’t relegate them to ghettos or their own communities like Breland. Initially, they constructed refugee camps to temporarily house those fleeing the disaster, but these were only a temporary measure to allow time to relocate people and find them permanent homes in Thrane communities. Krozen ensured that families stayed together, but otherwise communities from Cyre were split up to mitigate the risk of uprisings, a controversial decision.