Location
Aerilon
Deities Housed
Demeter, Kore and Dionysus Iakkhos
Description
At over five hundred square kilometers, the Eleusinian Temenos is one of the largest temenoi (sacred precincts) in the colonies, and the largest single center of worship for Demeter and her daughter Kore. The temenos is surrounded by a rusticated stone wall, and the only buildings on the land inside, including the temple itself, are handmade structures of wood and cloth designed for simple assembly and breakdown. The temenos receives pilgrims year round, but for two weeks every year, starting at the first new moon after the spring equinox, the Mysteries, kept in a cave complex carved into a mountain on the property, are opened up to new initiates, and the whole temenos is packed with people coming to see. Though people may be initiated into the mysteries outside of the temenos, this is where the 'original' orgiastic items are considered to be housed, and so many who are able to do so choose to wait and be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries at the temenos which lends the rites their name. Along with all the pilgrims, priests from across the colonies are hired on for the two weeks prior to the mysteries and the two weeks of the mysteries themselves to learn how to teach the rites and to assist in the indoctrination of all the new initiates. Every priest in the colonies who claims the right to create new initates has done so at Eleusis at least once. As with all orgiastic (mystery) rites, the improper revelation of the rites to the uninitiated is an act of hubris and incurs miasma which must be expiated.
Staff
Madgalia Kassiro: Hierophant. Kassiro has the dubious honor of being the second lead Hierophant at Eleusis from a colony other than Aerilon. The first, three Hierophants ago, Jolesh Majorian, rode a wave of political and financial influence from Tauron and left the temenos and the planet at large with a foul taste in its mouth, and many at Delphi speculated that there would be a backlash against extracolonial applicants for the position. And so there was. Kassiro earned her spot on the permanent temenos staff by a display of piety in a year-long devotion at the temenos from one mystery season to the next. Despite her firmly middle-class Virgon background, she's gained a rough Aerilonian accent and has learned to work the land with her own hands, not afraid of sweat and blood or the dung of beasts of burden. Or at the very least this is the impression she set out to make of herself for the people of Aerilon, gaining popularity for her moral example and good works. She was elected to the position of lead Hierophant on the departure of her predecessor for a hospital facility five years ago.
Students, Residents, and Alumni
Aurora "Rory" Rourke: Acolyte of Demeter