Sanctuary of Pythian Apollo

Location

Delphi (Caprica)

Deities Housed

Apollo, Dionysus

Description

The Sanctuary of Pythian Apollo at Delphi is the single most important religious site in the colonies. Here the Pythia, the high priestess of Apollo, makes her home with her quorum of interpreters (known as the Amphictyony). She takes visits and questions from pilgrims from all over the colonies who can afford to offer the appropriate presents and sacrifices. All of her legitimized responses are recorded in the sacred scrolls, which contain all the utterances that the Amphictyony has ever approved as the True Word of the Lord Apollo Uttering the Will of Zeus. Every four years the Pythian games are held in the vast athletic compounds housed in the sanctuary (timed such that every two years is either the Pythian or the Olympic games), and the victors strive as much to pay for grand parades and parties and to put up expensive monuments to their victories as for the victories themselves. The Amphictyony is the final say on the word of the Pythia, and the Pythia is final say on the establishment of all new colonies and all new sacred precincts, making her the single most important religious figure in Colonial religion.

Positions on the Amphictyony are highly politicized, and implications of corruption and graft, back-room deals in the Pythian Sanctuary have done much to turn modern-thinking Colonists away from 'organized religion.'

The Pythian Sanctuary is also highly tied to the Seminary division of the University of Delphi, easily the University's most thriving division. Delphi Seminary produces cream of the crop priests, and ordination by that Seminary is the equivalent of a golden ticket to work at most of the most prominent temples and sanctuaries in the worlds. Furthermore, it has become almost a de facto requirement to ever become involved with the Amphictyony, increasing that body's reputation as the worst sort of Old Boys' Club.

The sanctuary offers students at Delphi Seminary excellent training in both interpreting Pythian utterances and (optionally, for women) channeling the voice of the god.

Staff

The bombs fell in the seventh year of the Annointing of the One Hundred and Seventy Eighth Incarnation of the Pythia of Delphi, during the Six Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Fifth Session of the Lord's True Amphictyon.

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