The Solarites
The Worshippers of the Warm Sun · The Old Adversary
The Solarites are the great warm rival of the Cold faith — worshippers of the Sun and of heat, light, and burning life. From the building of the Tower of Solmar onward, Solarism is the recurring temptation of the The Rimefolk: to forsake the keeping Cold for the warm gods who promise harvest, pleasure, and power. Where Frostianity preaches preservation, the Solarites preach increase; where the Cold keeps, the Sun consumes.
In Scripture and History
- In the The Elder Rime, the prophets — above all Elgar the Stormcaller — wage war against the Solarite priests who creep into the northern court (see Book of the Seven Winters, the Chronicle of the Kings of the North).
- The Solarite priests of Wintermere are confounded by the boy Connor Frost in the Frosthall; later their party conspires in the Whitening.
- The warm Calorian Empire adopts an imperial Solar cult, making refusal to burn incense to the Sun the test that produced the martyrs.
Doctrine and Symbol
Solarism is condemned not merely as a rival faith but as the religion of the Kindling — the worship of the Stolen Ember itself, the cult of the Thaw. Its sign is the blazing disc; its spirit is named in Melt the Dripping One. The faithful are warned that Solarism’s deepest form is inward: the love of one’s own warmth above the Cold.