House of Plenty

The House of Plenty was a low-lying temple of Chauntea in the Shadowdale region.

Location
This temple was situated upon an area once known by locals as the Bog.

Description
The House of Plenty consisted of a natural amphitheater, which was comprised of three buildings linked together in a wide, C-shaped pattern by columned porticoes. An arrangement similar to the menhirs of Druid's Grove. The grounds of the temple, known locally as The Garden, encircled this structure.

The Garden was an ordered series of flower gardens, vegetable patches, and topiaries, as well as a small orchard and a garden maze.

Activities
The House of Plenty grew a variety of food, tending to its plants during the day. They not only made enough to feed both themselves and their neighbors, but experimented with raising new breeds of plants that could withstand the cold winters of the Dalelands.

In addition, the temple's lay followers provided aid to the injured. And they helped with the crops of poor farmers in the more distant freeholds of Shadowdale.

History
Members of the Church of Chauntea founded this Shadowdale branch of their faith immediately following the event known as the Time of Troubles, operating their services out of the barn of Beregon Hillstar. With many in the Dalelands uprooted by the Time of Troubles, a number of refugees traveled to Shadowdale and took up service as lay followers of this Chauntean branch. Before long, the Chaunteans gained sufficient enough support and charitable donations to construct a proper temple complex.

They chose an area of swampy marshland to build what would become the House of Plenty, which they drained most of with the help of the Circle. With the help of this group they also slayed the undead that inhabited ruins in the bog and plugged up the natural spring beneath it.

Much later, in the year, when Scyllua Darkhope and her Zhentish forces invaded Shadowdale the House of Plenty was left largely untouched. However, it did suffer significant vandalism towards its topiaries and garden maze. Some time after this vandalism Eregul the Freestave, the most high-ranking wizard in the Zhentarim Occupation Army, would inform the clergy that the House of Plenty's continued survival in the months to come was contingent upon them successfully growing a bumper crop to feed the Zhentish forces.

Inhabitants
In the mid-14 century DR, the High Harvestmistress of this temple was Glamerie Windbough. In 1367 DR, her clergy consisted of sixteen other clerics of low rank, two of which were assistants, and thirty-six men and women who served as lay followers and worked in the temple's garden.

By 1375 DR, the clergy had grown to a size of fifty-three members, seventeen of them clerics and forty-seven of them lay followers.

Reputation
The House of Plenty was not a greatly popular option for healing among most adventurers, due to the clergy's frequent discussion of gardening.