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- "The temple of the Lord of Light in Volantis is said to be the greatest in all the world, larger even than the Great Sept of Baelor. All who serve within this mighty temple are slaves, bought as children and trained to become priests, temple prostitutes or warriors."
- ―Varys
The Red Temple of Volantis[1] is a place of religious worship for followers of the Lord of Light, located in Volantis. It is said to be the greatest of such temples in the known world, being even larger than the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing. All who serve within the temple are slaves who were bought as children, who were trained to become red priests, temple prostitutes and warriors.[2]
In the books[]
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Temple of the Lord of Light is built on a site that was once a great plaza in the half of Volantis east of the Rhoyne, near the Black Walls. It was constructed on an unknown date.
The temple is an enormous structure consisting of pillars, steps, buttresses, domes, bridges and towers flowing into one another, as if chiseled from one colossal rock. The temple walls are covered with a hundred hues of red, yellow, gold and orange. It is written to be three times the size of the Great Sept of Baelor. It is protected by a private army of slave soldiers known as the Fiery Hand.
Benerro is the High Priest, though the Golden Company were once hired by the triarch Malaquo Maegyr to clean out the temple and put him to the sword. Thousands of slaves and freedmen (among them Tyrion Lannister and Jorah Mormont) gather in the temple plaza, where he shrieks that bleeding stars and a sword of fire will cleanse the world. Benerro's shouting causes women to weep and men to shake their fists, which reminds Tyrion of when the riots in King's Landing erupted on the day that Myrcella Baratheon sailed for Dorne.
