Temple of Eternal Whispers

The Temple of Eternal Whispers is the Communal Haven of the Montreal Sabbat. It was originally built as a small necropolis inside the cemetery, but today the area around and above the communal haven became a park called Dorchester Square.

Overview
Since Montreal’s inception, the Sword of Caine have scuttled into the city’s grave sites for shelter from the daylit world. As the graveyards multiplied and swelled with the dead, there soon became little room for the undead. In the 1790s, under the then Archbishop Strathcona’s help, a larger cemetery designed as a communal haven was to be built. With Montreal’s cholera epidemic in 1832, Strathcona was able to ferret much of the money put towards a larger graveyard into finishing the site, which became one of the largest underground cemeteries in North America.

By the 1850's, homes and churches began surrounding the graveyard, and in an effort to make more room for urban expansion, plans were made to move the graves to Mount Royale. But, due to fear of another cholera outbreak and the defiling of the dead, the site was only half moved. The area in and around the communal haven became a public park, once called Dominion Square but now called Dorchester Square. Now, in the heart of the city, The Temple of Eternal Whispers is completely hidden, and gives Montreal’s Cainites access to the whole town.

Designed by the captured Camarilla Toreador Francois Dumas, the Temple is a masterwork of genius under the threat of Final Death. The Librarians still keep his original plans for the building, written on his own flesh in his own blood due to lack of resources. A stunning blend of Gothic and Classical architecture, the building is designed for both functionality and haunting beauty. Each hallway is adorned with imaged from the Book of Nod and Sabbat history, high ceilings are guarded by devils and vampires. An elaborate series of networked tunnels also connect to the Underground City. During the cholera outbreak, many fearful doctors sentenced potential carriers to being buried alive. The Sabbat underneath them loved the screams they made as they awoke in their own graves, and when the Temple was fully created the acoustics were designed to carry, amplify and echo the sounds of their screams. To keep it going, every Halloween the Sabbat kidnaps children and buries them alive to renew the sounds. That’s how the Temple got it’s name.

Electric lights have been added recently, though candlelight still is the lighting of choice for Sabbat.

Haunting Echoes
The Temple is named for the soft, almost inaudible moans and bellows that echo through its halls. Many cholera victims were buried alived after being declared officially dead by frightened doctors. Those poor souls awoke to discover that their bodies have been sealed into crypts or dumped into mass graves. Their screams echoed through the night, much to the enjoyment of the Sabbat. Thanks to the design of the mausoleum, with its high, vaulted ceilings, these haunting sounds can be heard to this night.

The Sabbat of Montreal, having developed a love for the soothing whispers, conduct a ceremony every Halloween during which they kidnap children and buried them alive so that their cries can also be heard for centuries to come. Little do the Sabbat realize that the cholera victims whisper about the demon who has possessed their souls, Indeed, the Sabbat's cerimonies keep Metathiax's voice echoing through the haven. It slowly drives more Sabbat to the Path of Evil Revelations.

Main Areas
THE MAUSOLEUM

Central chamber with a 30 ft high ceiling. Large enough to accommodate over 500 vampires and usually is packed during the Opening of the Litany. The chamber is crowned by an intricate glass depiction of Gehenna. Under this sits the Archbishop’s throne, made from human bone. The mausoleum is lined by two levels of crypts along three of it’s four walls. The upper crypts are accessible by two spiralling staircases and they form a balcony that overlooks the Mausoleum. The entrance to the lair of the Lost Angels, Archbishop Valez’s coven, is at the rear of the mausoleum.

CAINE’S CHAPEL

Located a short distance from the mausoleum is one of the most beautiful chambers in the Temple. This small chapel is dedicated to Caine and has small altars where followers may pray and meditate, one for each of the Sabbat’s recognized Paths of Enlightenment (Each one in the Guide to the Sabbat except Lilith, and Evil Revelations). The former Altar of Harmony was clawed apart by the followers of the Path of Feral Heart. It has not been rebuilt. The Path of Nocturnal Redemption, though not a widely followed Path, also has an altar here. Caine’s Chapel is also the location of the Gates of Eternity, the elaborate bronze entrance to the Alexandrium Library (a collection of Sabbat lore that’s guarded by the Librarians coven)

THE CRYPTS

The Mausoleum and many of the temple’s hallways and smaller chambers are lined with the crypts of the 1853 cholera epidemic victims. A majority of the crypts were emptied long ago of their inhabitants and are now used as meeting places and hangouts. A number of tombs have been adopted and personalized by individual packs. Not every pack has a lair in the Temple of Eternal Whispers, but each has at least one crypt that it can call home should the need arise.

CHURCH OF THE FORSAKEN

Actually located above ground, sandwiched between two buildings and shielded from Sherbrooke Street by a wooden wall, is the Church of the Forsaken. The burned out church is connected to the have by twisting stone lined halls. It houses Montreal’s “black grove”. Long ago, the Shepherds of Caine developed a Thaumaturgical ritual that slowly transformed mortals into distended black trees that moaned in agony. In general, the Inquisition used the ritual to punish mortal infernalist and to discourage Sabbat who were curious about the Path of Evil Revelations. In Montreal the ritual is used to punish mortal servants of enemies. The nave of the church is crowded by the tortured grove. The trees were once the followers of the infernalist Cecilia the Tongue and Sangris the Serpent. Thralls of the Setite leader Jerar and the ghouls of the former Prince Jonah of Ottawa also stand here. Scattered on the soil of the grove are the Camarilla Kindred who were foolish enough to be caught in Montreal. There are also the ashes of packmembers who earned an archbishop’s ire.

DUMAS’ TOMB

Deep within the temple’s winding tunnels, long forgotten by most Sabbat, lies Dumas tomb. Every few decades, the Toreador architect who built the temple and was sealed in it as a reward awakes from torpor, his form swirling with undead cholera. All he can do is throw himself against the tomb walls and mingle his screams with the screams he helped preserve in this Temple until he falls into slumber again.