Imperial Palace of Ryseum

The Imperial Palace of Ryseum is the royal residence and seat of government of the Sura Empire, an ancient and winding structure, set within the Arcus District of Sura City. It was first built somewhere around 1000 YSB, but the details of its earliest form have been obscured. The Palace has been modified and expanded by nearly every ruler of Sura in the following two thousand years.
Today it is not just the royal residence, but center of court life, and home of many upper bureaucrats within the Imperial government. The complex includes over 2000 buildings and 500 acres of grounds, intersected by a variety of fortifications built over its lifespan. This includes sixteen sets of walls, many of them partially demolished or integrated into new buildings as the palace expanded beyond the constraints of earlier fortifications.
An artificial lake and fifty acres of gardens are part of the complex. It also includes the primary Imperial Residence, which covers nearly a hundred acres on its own, including the earliest core of the palace. Due to the Imperial tradition of closing off rooms of the deceased Imperial family members, much of the Imperial Residence is unoccupied and parts have not been entered for centuries. Some of the oldest segments are structurally unsound.
The second largest building within the complex is the Imperial Senate, housing not only the meeting chambers of the Senate but the Great Priests chambers and the bulk of the High Ministries of the Suran government, except for the High Ministry of Arcane - which is located in Asekara.
Other buildings in the complex include the Palace Temple rebuilt in 2800 YSB, barracks for the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Treasury, a summer villa, embassies of foreign nations, the High Library of Sura and a number of ancient shrines to the Two Gods Innumerable, now disused. The palace further has a number of internal spaces, some caused by conflicting angles of new buildings and entirely inaccessible, and some planted as courtyards.

Architecture

The Imperial Palace is a fusion of numerous architectural styles popular over the length of the complexes life. The majority of the buildings are faced in Midnightstone, a extremely dark limestone that is polished to a midnight black colour, lending a gloomy visage to the entire complex.
The earliest part of the palace was a traditional Suran ziggurat upon an acropolis, with a large raised platform and small palace on the height. This building has long been subsumed inside later additions. Expansions after the fortification of Sura City did away with use of ziggurats and adopted a terraced structure, clinging to the side of the acropolis and rising up several stories.
The earliest sections of the palace are characterised by their lack of decoration and angular shapes, influenced by Wa'Senet architecture. Following the fall of the Wa'Senet monarchy, Suran style diverged and the palace features many colonnades and balconies from this period, as well as open galleries - though many of these were later walled in.
Late Ryseum Style additions added a vaulted Throne Room and use of carved figures as columns instead of classic cylinders, and assimilated Bakieh monumental facades post 1450 YSB. The facade of part of the palace was rebuilt by Dexsius Cassius to copy the square towered walls of the Blue Palace, including geometrical carvings.
The Palace was added to only incrementally following the end of major works c.1800 YSB that included a display of trophies from Lissimo - the royal regalia of the disposed Imilico kingdoms, various oddities sent as gifts by the governors of Lissimo, and housing for the Emperor's collection of exotic animals. Sura entered a slow decline by 2170 YSB, and the palace fell into disrepair as much of the Empire's resources were directed towards the war with Liang and then the colonial rebellion.
The slow decline of the palace mirrored the decline of the position of Emperor from then on. The Imperial Collection's last animals died in 2250 YSB, and that wing was demolished to build the Royal Treasury in 2311 YSB. The Treasury was the first building built in modern Suran style, a two story building in a large E shape with an overhanging angular roof supported by simple fluted columns, with a balcony overlooking the central courtyards. This return to simple facades that relied largely on dimensions alone for their aesthetic beauty proved both popular and more economical to build.
A large section of the palace was progressively internally renovated to follow this philosophy of design. The Palace Chapel was subsequently rebuilt this way in 2451 YSB, and then doubled in size again in 2800 YSB. The style of buildings in the Palace has largely not changed since, as much a mirror of the cultural conservatism that has since settled in as the economic stagnation.

Type

Acropolis / Citadel

Owning Organization

Sura Empire