Bronzeguard Watch Headquarters
Straddling the Lordsbridge to Castle Whiteport, the Bronzeguard Watch headquarters serves not only to secure entry to the Castle Whiteport, but also serves as the central hub for law and order in the city of Whiteport. It hosts a sizable garrison of Bronzecloak watchmen and officers at virtually all hours of the day, as well as serving as a site for the civil and criminal courts of the city and a high security prison and jail.
Purpose / Function
The Bronzeguard Watch Headquarters serves as the central complex for law and order in the city of Whiteport, functioning as a gatehouse, keep, jail, courthouse, barracks, mustering grounds, scaffold, and public gathering place. The building replaced the previous gatehouse, destroyed during a devastating attack during the very beginning of the Drakehoff Terror.
In its capacity as a living space for the Bronzeguard, the Watch headquarters serves as the largest barracks of Bronzeguard in the city, as it hosts two outer keeps which serve as the barracks and living space for roughly a seven-hundred and twenty watchmen, officers, and senior administrators all told. Only about a third this number are present in the complex any given time, as the rest are occupied elsewhere in the city. The living quarters in the Watch Headquarters for the rank and file is fairly spartan, typically limited to bunked beds and chests for personal belongings, typically sleeping entire watch sections of ten men to a room in massive dormitories of ten sections to a floor. As tradition, all members of the watch undergoing basic training are billeted on the top floors, while more veteran members of the watch live with their sections on the lower floors, or live elsewhere in the city. Officers are billeted on the lowest floors in more private quarters which offer better access to the mustering grounds and rest of the keep.
In its capacity as a mustering grounds, the Watch Headquarters (and the public square beyond) are large enough to host the entire watch on parade, though typically only the inner enclosed courtyard is used for drill, and is where prospective recruits are put through their paces. It contains a number of practice dummies, archery targets, and an obstacle course.
The Watch Headquarters is also notable as it hosts the apparatus of most of Whiteport's criminal justice system within the central keep. Magistrates oversee a number of courts on the lower floors (from civil to criminal matters), while the middle floors are typically used as a more temporary holding and processing as prisoners await sentencing as well as handling staging and , and the highest floors being used as a high security prison. The central keep also contains the Watch's armory and storerooms.
Alterations
The Watch Headquarters is largely unchanged from its original construction, as the building is still fairly young by contemporary standards and careful attention to detail was given in its original construction, replacing the more makeshift Watch Headquarters destroyed during the terror. Scaffolding exists on the far side of the central keep, apparently preforming maintenance or construction on one of the higher cell windows in the central keep. Otherwise, the masonry and stonework seems consistent, and the building is well maintained.
Architecture
The Bronzeguard Watch Headquarters is an austere looking building, made out of large blocks of stone, clearly constructed for function over form. It overlooks a large empty square, paved with cobblestones, in which a scaffold is erected with a set of stocks and a gallows. Approaching the building, a rectangular construction (with a set of guard-posts mounted atop the flying buttresses of the keep, studded with arrow slits along the covered battlements), three rectangular keeps rise out of the central walled bailey. The outer two keeps each serve as barracks for the Watch, and include a mess hall and extensive storerooms, while the central, taller keep acts as the administrative building and prison. At higher levels, the arrows evolve into barred windows, demarcating the transition from civil affairs to the criminal penitentiary.
History
The Bronzeguard Watch headquarters is a relatively new construction, as the old building was destroyed in a devastating attack early in the terror, killing a number of Bronzecloaks and shattering the city watch in the early days of the terror. Since those dark days, the city (and especially the Bronzecourts) invested heavily in the reconstruction and reorganization of the city watch. The Watch Headquarters was subsequently rebuilt with an increased focus on defensibility and fortification. Since construction was completed, the headquarters has built a reputation of impregnability. This reputation has mostly held as a result of its in depth fortifications and security, as well as the constant presence of numerous guards- although a recent escape could call this reputation into question.
Founding Date
1510
Type
Government complex
Parent Location
Owner
Ruling/Owning Rank
Owning Organization
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