Strategion

Scholar's Quarter

Along the northeastern ramparts of the Golden Gates, a castle stands watch over the Royal Harbor. Known as the Strategion, this mighty fortification boasts seven rectangular towers set along five concave walls. The walls measure some forty meters high and three meters thick. Considered the safest place in the city, it bristles with archer ducts and anti-siege equipment both practical and arcane in nature.

—Wyford of Heathford "A Tour of Old Palladia"

Purpose / Function

The towers of the Strategion house the barracks of the Imperial Legion’s officers within the city as well as the office and residence of their supreme commander, the Strategos. The Strategion also acts as the city's dungeons for high status prisoners before they are brought before the Throne of Glass for trial. The Strategion's most unique purpose is housing Repository, a large library of military texts, field manuals, and maps of much of the known world.

Architecture

The Strategion is a squat stone castle with seven rectangular towers along five concave walls.

• One tower holds an emergency residence for the emperor and his family.

• The second tower houses the Strategoi, his family, and his senior staff.

• The third and forth towers house quarters for the Imperial Legion, though since the fall of the Palladian Empire, the Legion is generally quartered across Hook's Bay in the Kastelion.

• The fifth and sixth towers house the Upper Stacks of the Repository. Many joke there are more books in the Strategion than there are soldiers and they are correct—however, it is also said that within the Strategion there is a book on how to defeat any enemy, how to slay any beast, and how to train one’s body into becoming a fearsome fighter. Hidden diagrams and plans for the city’s defenses are kept within its walls and have come to rescue of the city many times over its long history. This Repository is obviously off-limits to the public and is only accessible to those within the chain of command

.

• The seventh tower houses the dungeons for high-level prisoners. These dungeons are less dungeons and more small, locked rooms in the tower. They are designed to provide both security and a modicum of comfort. However, the dungeons do have a dark side. Those the government wants to make an example of are brought from their miserable cells in the Kastelion to the walls of the Strategion and hung from gibbets for the crows to pick at until they fall into the sea.

History

During the unrest of the Sundering Arcana, the castle was the residence of the Imperial Family. It has since retained its reputation of being the safest place in all of Iskendra.

Type

Castle

Parent Location

Iskendra

Owner

Orestes Emmanuel Dardanos III

Owning Organization

Legion of Kanesh