The Golden City

The most the common people of Tyr will ever hope to see of the almost mythical Golden City are it's walls and, of course, the golden granite edifice that is Kalak's Golden Tower looming over the arena. If anything that only spurs on the whispers of wondrous gardens, pools of water, and elaborate feasts that spread among the downtrodden.

— The Wanderer

The Grand Gate

While technically one of the 'main' entrances to the city, the Grand Gate enters into the section of the Golden City that houses the High Bureaus of the templars. As such, traffic passing through it is heavily restricted with only shipments from the iron mines or travelers on official government business are allowed passage. Additionally, due to it being an entrance into such a sensitive area of the city significant efforts are taken to secure it with the most common guard including a mid-level templar overseer, several half-giant guards, and a practitioner of the way as the main force with support from a beast handler and a small contingent from the royal guard.
Architecturally the gate is designed, like much of the Golden City, to impress. In order to enter the city a huge block of granite, easily 30 feet tall and carved with a terrifying, intricate image of the Dragon, must be pushed aside (or locked into place in times of war) on wooden rollers by at least three half-giants to reveal two great, agafari wood doors that together stand twenty-five feet tall and fifteen wide. Once opened the doors reveal a thirty-foot long tunnel through the Golden City's walls lit with torches illuminating frescoes glorifying Kalak. On the other end of the tunnel a similarly secure, if less imposing setup exists although except for in times of war it remains open.

The High Bureaus

After passing through the Grand Gate, one would find themselves in the warren of near-perpetual templar activity that is the High Bureaus. These buildings are staffed by templars from dawn until past sundown in order to conduct most of the day-to-day business of the city. You'll find the bureaus of: Administration, the Arena, Defense, Fields, Finance, the Gardens, State, Trade, and Water within these buildings.

The King's Gardens

To either side of the High Bureaus lie the King's Gardens with an additional garden encircling the Golden Tower like a small park. The amount of effort expended to maintain these lush areas of greenery is immense. Gardeners work nearly round the clock to maintain the grounds, an effort that requires a massive amount of water in addition to the man-hours involved.
Aside from the garden templars, Senior Templar Timor, and Kalak himself nobody's allowed entrance to the gardens without permission from the king. Anyone else caught inside their walls faces a life of hard labor working on the ziggurat. While part of the reasoning behind this severe penalty is the fact that the grounds serve as fuel for the king's powerful defiling magic rumors persist that they also contain a vast array of magical fruit trees as well as several near-mythical trees of life.

Templar's Quarters

The Observation Tower

The Golden Tower

Type

Government complex

Owning Organization

The City-State of Tyr