Ghryilth is the Temple of the Golden Goat. A vast towering structure of elegant turreted spires constructed around the island's tallest mountain, its architecture perfectly entwined with the network of colossal tentacles that spread outward from its foundation. It is from this holy site that the lifegiving nectar is pumped across the entire landmass and into the oceans beyond, seeding them with life where before there existed only barren rock.

While the temple's exterior is impressive, it fails to do justice to the infinite labyrinth that lies within. Hewn from the finest marble, the floors are black and polished to the point of mirror-like reflectiveness, contrasting with walls of sculpted ivory wrought by the hand of a mad visionary. Frescoes detailing the history of countless lost civilizations are painted on the walls in otherworldly pigments that shift and transform before the eyes of the viewer. While lifelike statues stand sentinel over stone arches leading to sanctums that contain the archived wisdom of cultures from different places in time and reality. The fruits of a thousand golden ages preserved so that their wisdom might age and ripen.

The keepers of this wisdom are the cultists who dwell upon Yulareil. To whom Ghryilth is the central nexus of all worship and learning. In their exploration of other realities and cultures, they are constantly gathering new secrets and returning back with them. Like bees collecting pollen and bringing it back to the hive. Naturally, such service allows them to be the first ones to taste the honey resulting from their efforts. A metaphor that takes on a literal twist as Canthus takes the accumulated knowledge and converts it into drinkable forms. Madness and delirium being the acceptable price for immediate access to inspiration and understanding packed into something so small as a humble drinking flask.

Though the Golden Goat walks the halls of his own home and mingles with those he has recruited, this is not his true form. Merely an avatar of himself split from his own flesh and bone. His real body, the one the plane of Yulareil was created to imprison, lies buried deep within the heart of the island. An immense slumbering nightmare that is the reason rivers of nectar flow and life can flourish. As beautiful as Ghryilth may be, it is still at the end of the day a cage. One decorated by its captive to make it a more appealing place for him to live out eternity, but a cage nonetheless. If he were left to spend the centuries there alone as intended, then surely by now Canthus would've become as bitter and aloof as his Great Old One relatives. Apathetic to the lives of anything deemed "lesser" than his dark kin.

Instead however... the cavernous halls still echo with the voices of cultists to this day. Individuals willing to volunteer their time and in some cases even their lives to live with him and serve him. Whatever dark gifts and corruption he may bestow upon them in exchange, in the end such offerings pale when compared with the companionship they provide to Canthus. Their presence grounds him and keeps him relatively stable in spite of his eternal imprisonment. Bringing out the best in the trapped Great Old One and keeping him from slipping too deeply into despair at his inescapable situation.

*****

Have I mentioned enough that  Irbeus is amazing? Well, here we are again. Irbeus is AMAZING.

These worldbuilding projects are a lot of fun for me too. Yulareil is growing slowly more detailed over time, and a lot of that is thanks to the encouragement and interest of some very dear friends. Pretty sure you know who you are... and thank you, each and every one of you. ^^