The Silver Flame, often just the Flame, is the holy fire at the heart of Argentum, and the faith devoted to it. In the teaching of the Synod of the Silver Flame, it is what Bahamut became when he gave up his life and consciousness to become lasting protection for the city. The Synod keeps it, and all divine magic in the Silver Vale flows from it.
Origin
In the Synod’s teaching, a creeping blight called the Sorrow spread across the land after the Starfall and killed or corrupted everything in its path, including the gods. Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon, was the last god remaining. He gathered as many survivors as he could into a walled city in the Silver Vale, and there performed the Covenant of the Silver Flame.
Argentum’s history holds that Bahamut reached the place that would become the city with the refugees ten years after the Starfall, and stewarded it for about two hundred years. In 211 PSF he chose to sacrifice himself and become the Silver Flame.1 The city was officially recognized under the name Argentum the next year.1 Hazel supposes it had another name before it was named for the Silver Flame.2
The Flame
The Silver Flame is kept in the Cathedral of the Silver Flame, where anyone can go and see it.1 The cathedral’s southern tower has huge stained glass windows whose central glass is clear, and the silver light that comes through looked to the party like the light of the Silver Flame itself.3
Its emblem is a mote of fire. The Synod uses it as its own emblem, and the Vaultsmiths set it above an anvil on theirs.3 The Censors of the Inquisition wear it inside a palm.4 The regalia of the Order of the Lantern is a lantern holding a mote of it, and the silver ember coin is stamped with it.
The Light
The Light of the Silver Flame protects the floor of the Silver Vale. It keeps the air warm enough for farming and pushes back the gloom of the Sorrow, and only within its reach does the Sorrow’s advance halt. Hecate, whose coven lives near the edge of the Vale, told the party that the protection granted by the essence of the dead god is weaker there, always has been, and seems to grow weaker year over year.5 Hazel reckoned that, as with much magic, enough rock could dilute the Flame’s light before it reached far underground.1
The Blessing
Divine casters receive their power through the Blessing of the Silver Flame, which the Synod grants once they have proved their faith and dedication. Magic is illegal in the Vale unless it is the magic of the Silver Flame.4 Both roles of the Inquisition require the blessing.4 Its purifiers wield it against Sorrowsworn, and it gets past their corrupted regeneration.6 The Dragoons of Bahamut receive something called the blessing of Bahamut in its place.7
The lanterns the Order carries are blessed, and give the cold light of silver flame rather than the warm light of a candle or a fire.5 Iva offered the lantern she had kept from her years as a Light Warden as the item blessed by the Silver Flame that the Sisters of the Shattered Mother’s warding ritual called for.5 Luma later pointed out that it was now incredibly illegal for her to have.4 Sun-Glass is made by a mix of alchemical tempering and the blessing of the Silver Flame.4
Worship
Argentum keeps the Calendar of the Silver Flame, which sets five annual festivals between its months. The Vigil of Remembrance is a holy day of the Silver Flame honoring the dead and the sacrifices they made to build Argentum.1 Wellby Emberthumb says a prayer to the Silver Flame at meals, and raised Temerity to do the same.8 As far as Luma knew, there has been no miracle since Bahamut’s death beyond people being blessed by the Silver Flame.1 Temerity counts community and friendship among the core tenets of her faith.9
History
Session 2
Temerity told the party that she had died and been brought back, and that the Silver Flame blessed her. Blessed by it, she said, she has no reason to fear death.10
Session 3
Temerity told Hazel that the silver fire that consumes her in a crisis is another blessing of the Silver Flame. She has been able to let it take her since she was young, and remembers little of what happens while it does.11
Session 4
To show Temerity what her magic was, Luma wrote “Pa” on the back of Temerity’s hand, and it turned silver and faded. It did not look or feel like what Temerity had imagined magic to be. It looked and felt like the Silver Flame.12
Session 5
At Crick's Bend, Wellby Emberthumb told Hazel that he had meant it literally when he spoke of beholding the miracle of the Silver Flame.8
Session 6
Hazel could not find the item blessed by the Silver Flame that Hecate had asked her for, and Iva offered her lantern.5 When a corrupted dire wolf landed on Temerity at the Standing Stone, the Silver Flame came up in her eyes and spread over her body, and she smashed its head in with one blow.5
Session 7
Hecate told Hazel that the blessed item had been a test she failed. All Hazel had to do was find a believer and ask for something blessed by the Silver Flame, trusting in another person’s faith.13 Harwick Stoll, a Light Warden, accused the party of breaking the tenets of the Silver Flame and religious law, and said he would die to protect the light that protects them all.13
Session 11
The party saw Censors of the Inquisition guarding the basement of the Silver Archives, with the Silver Flame’s mote of fire inside a palm on their armor.4
Session 12
Hazel told Temerity that the Silver Flame merely keeps the Sorrow back, and that the being who reportedly created it is dead.9
Session 13
In the mineshaft about a mile beneath the cathedral, the party passed through a stretch of pressure that none of them had heard of the Silver Flame causing, and they had been much closer to it in the Silver Archives.1 Hazel argued that the Silver Flame is magic too, and is controlled and handed out by the state.1
Session 16
When Amber Deepdraft began to explain her doubts about the Synod, Hazel told Temerity it was her chance to choose whether she wanted answers. If she would not do it for her friends, she should do it for her flame and what it represents.14
Session 17
Temerity told Rhea Larnas that the Flame had given her a second chance, and that her duty with it was to fight the Sorrow.6
Session 18
Praying for guidance, Temerity had a vision of a towering winged figure, the Divine Messenger, which she took to be the embodiment of the Silver Flame. It told her that the flame within her was her birthright, and that ere all comes to end the Silver Flame will be her blade.15 She woke to find her holy emblem burning.15