Rellekor - Locations

The town of Rellekor, in the south of Thrane, is an unusual settlement primarily consisting of tieflings and other outcasts. Founded by Keeper Saren Rellek in the seventh century, Rellekor is a haven where planetouched can learn to safely harness their talents. The region around Rellekor is sparsely populated; while Keeper Saren’s proclamation removed tieflings from scrutiny as a matter of dogma, even relatively tolerant farmers have concerns about making a home near a village of natural sorcerers who are learning to control themselves.

This sparse population made the city a target for an Aundairian invasion during the Last War. While the bishop’s priority was the safety of the residents, many of the older tieflings chose to make a stand and defend their home. A Mabaran-touched tiefling named Hope (they/them) led this contingent, ultimately giving their life in an act of astonishing sorcery to drive the Knights Arcane back. Hope’s sacrifice has been memorialized in one of the stained-glass windows that decorates the town’s central church.

Besides the rising threat of the Pure Flame, one current controversy with Rellekor is whether it has become too strong of an expectation that all Thranish tieflings will go there. The average age of arrival has steadily dropped over the last two and a half centuries, and today most tieflings arrive as infants never knowing their birth parents.

Source: Cultures of Thrane

Rellekor was established as a haven for planetouched tieflings. When Thrane families give birth to a tiefling (due to planar influences), they will usually turn the child over to the church, who will in turn deliver it to Rellekor. Thus, the population of Rellekor is made up of planetouched tieflings with ties to many different planes. It’s not a prison; it’s a place where tieflings can be with their own kind without dealing with the fear of others. Priests of the Flame seek to help tieflings come to terms with their planetouched nature and any gifts or powers associated with it, and help them find a path to the light… while Templars stand ready to deal with those who prove dangerous or irredeemably sociopathic. Note that most of these priests and templars are themselves tieflings.

People of Thrane thus have some concept of tieflings, but bear in mind that part of the point of Rellekor is to keep tieflings from mingling with the general population. The basic attitude is thus that tieflings are dangerous, much like people with aberrant dragonmarks.

Source: Dragonmarks: Tieflings

Most people know that the longest reigning Keeper of the Flame—Keeper Saren Rellek—was a khoravar. Fewer know that Saren was also a planetouched aasimar of Irian. Saren felt a great kinship with the heavily stigmatized tieflings, and he rose to become their greatest defender upon becoming the Keeper. During his tenure, he advocated fiercely on behalf of many marginalized individuals in the Five Nations, eventually declaring that tieflings were not considered creatures of innate evil.

Still, Saren knew this would not be enough to protect the tieflings of the Five Nations. After consulting with other influential tieflings within Thrane, he proposed a solution. The Church of the Silver Flame would maintain a town for tieflings. A school would be provided for young planetouched to grow and develop their innate magic in peace. It would be their safe haven, and the church would maintain the town for as long as it was needed to protect the vulnerable population.

The tieflings agreed and named the town 'Rellekor', meaning ‘town of protection’ or ‘sanctuary’ in Infernal. As part of their gratitude, they in turn honored Seran with a name: Rellek, ‘Protector’. The Keeper used it as a surname until the end of his days.

Rellekor Today

Today, Rellekor is a small but thriving town. It is built around a large central church, flanked by dozens of houses for the children who attend the school. While Rellekor is a space intended for tieflings, genasi and planetouched aasimar have a strong presence in town. The town welcomes outcasts of all kinds, and there is a rapidly growing community of changelings, shifters, and even those possessing aberrant dragonmarks.

Over time, the Church of the Silver Flame has accepted increasingly younger applicants, and most tieflings today arrive at Rellekor as infants. Rellekor’s children are assigned a team of caregivers to see them as they grow. This includes a wet nurse for the very young, teachers, magical tutors, and priests. Many of these mentors went through Rellekor’s tutoring program as children and see their charges as younger siblings.

As part of Rellekor’s program—unless a child has been orphaned—the church mandates that parents maintain contact with their children. This includes both consistent communication through letters and attendance of at least one visiting day a year. These visiting days are special events, often falling on important holidays for the Silver Flame so that families can celebrate together.

Students graduate at the age of 16. Some head back to their families and hometowns, taking their place as heirs to farms, businesses, or artisan trades. An equal number stay in Rellekor, opening stores of their own or working with Rellekor’s mentorship program.

Curiously, however, the majority of Rellekor’s students become missionaries, priests, and templars of the Silver Flame. Some theorize that because tieflings are influenced by evil at birth, they better understand the necessity to fight it. Others take a more pragmatic view, seeing the Rellekor clergy as wanting to repay a perceived debt to the church.

Source: Tiefling Treatise

Virtue Names

When Rellekor opened its doors for the first time, many of the children attending had been all but abandoned. Wanting to instill a sense of pride in the young tieflings—and give them a fresh start—the priests asked the students a question: what name do you want to go by?

Surprising everyone, the assignment turned into days of debate throughout the student body. While some kept their birth names, most students chose words that centered their desires and hopes for the future: Clarity, Faith, Melody, Peace, Zeal.

Ever since that first class, the tieflings of Rellekor have been known for taking ‘virtue names’, or names that distill their goals, ambitions, and desires into a single word. Taking a virtue name is a serious affair, and Rellekor’s tieflings spend months if not years in careful deliberation.

Over the years, the idea of virtue names permeated throughout a unified Galifar. The people of Khorvaire associate tieflings with taken names, and even tieflings who have never set foot in Rellekor know of virtue names. Outside of Thrane, many tieflings will use virtue names as professional calling cards. Few people in Breland know the tiefling Seralin Fellhorn; nearly everyone has heard of Sweet, the famous tiefling dessert chef.

Source: Tiefling Treatise

September 23rd, 2023

A Town Secluded

Rellekor is considered a success story within the Church of the Silver Flame. Tieflings who go through the program come out with control of their powers and a strong network of mentors and friends. The town is a haven for those who are ostracized or considered foreign in the rest of Thrane, and many tieflings consider Rellekor their true home.

Even with the good, however, tieflings are still not fully integrated into Thrane society. Young tieflings outside of Rellekor are pressured to attend the school, and there is little support for systems that would keep young planetouched in their home communities. Some tieflings now consider Rellekor a stopgap to true change, effectively keeping them from being full participants in their home country.

There is also growing concern about the age of Rellekor’s students. Even with visiting days, tieflings are increasingly separated from their families just months after birth. Many students don’t know their birth families well. There have been many calls for reform from within Rellekor, asking the Church to mandate that children must be of school age before attending and living in the sanctuary.

So far, the Council of Cardinals sees no reason to act on these proposed reforms. Rellekor continues to produce good results, both for the individuals within the program and for Thrane as a whole. Without more support, Rellekor will continue as it has for years: a sanctuary in a nation that considers it better for tieflings to be apart.

Source: Tiefling Treatise

September 23rd, 2023

Story Hooks

While Rellekor is primarily a school, the town also hosts Thrane’s largest library on extraplanar threats. Someone has been stealing documents, though the missing papers do not correspond to any one creature or plane. The librarians are offering a reward for anyone who can catch the thief.
Rumors swirl through Rellekor at the arrival of a new student. They have hair that looks like Eberron’s night sky, dappled with stars and bright streaks, and their eyes glow when they cry. No one can identify which plane has influenced the child—until someone brings up the possibility of Dal Quor.
Zombies have crawled out of the Imistil Forest, surrounding and besieging the town. The priests and templars can hold off the undead, but they are running out of stamina. They need someone to destroy the source of these undead within the woods.

Source: Tiefling Treatise

September 23rd, 2023