Manse of Eidurr

Owned by Duke Weston Eidurr in Anix as his personal home and the center of his cult the Garden of Babes. He is from an old family, tied a few generations back to the Anisian King. His mansion is jokingly called the Whore's Nursery by the commoners behind his back, as he has many homes for his many mistresses (his Flowers, as he calls them) who are encouraged to sell their bodies when he isn't using them. The mansion is home to many children as a result, some disputably his, though most are bastards born of their mothers' prostitution. These bastards are often pitted against each other to earn places as servants in the household, some given away as spouses to lower lords if their parentage can be proven as noble, some sent off to join convents or military posts, others sold into slavery or placed in the lord's public brothels.
The mansion is enormous, a jewel in the desert with large greenhouses full of exotic trees, flowers, and foliage. There are man-made ponds and fountains dotting the grounds, rock gardens with colored sand and gravel. There are multiple sections of the mansion ground, including:

• Main Mansion, where the Lord and his official wife and fully legitimate children live.
  • It is an incredibly large home with a vast garden separating it from the other districts. The garden consists of arid plants, large stones both natural and carved, sands colored and arranged into designs, stone and mosaic paths and squares with a fountain here or there, and a few ponds stocked with fish. The mansion lies atop a mesa and mimics that design of ancient pyramids and ziggurats. It has a large hall for receiving guests at the bottom, as well as a huge kitchen, a partially underground granary, brewery, and artisanal food processing areas. There is a glamorous dining room and an array of guest rooms. There are sixty guest rooms on the main floor towards the middle area of the floor, with the servants' utility rooms and storerooms behind them. In the center of the floor is the main stairwell, leading upward to the higher floors in a continuous line of stairwells.
  • The second floor is filled with game rooms, lounges, a library, a few small dance parlors, and some intimate sitting rooms.
  • The third floor has the high ranking house servants rooms and offices, such as the House Steward and personal servants of the Lord, Lady, and children.
  • The fourth floor has the nursery, the bedrooms of the young children, the bedrooms of the nanny and a house tutor, as well as a few rooms for the children's pets.
  • The fifth floor belongs entirely to the Lord and Lady, containing their bedrooms, a few hobby rooms, a reading solar, an office, a lounge, and a couple empty rooms that are sometimes used as storage.
  • The sixth and uppermost floor is a large balcony with a glass ceiling that can be covered with a shade, dedicated to growing beautiful plants that wouldn't otherwise grow in the desert. There is careful moisture control using a magically-driven piping system directly attached to the water farming section of the grounds. The garden is not only home to exotic plants, but also some species of exotic reptile, amphibian, and bird. Only a few mammals live in the garden, mostly to serve as food for some of the other species.
  • The sixth floor also has bridge to the Four Towers of the manse, each at one corner of the pyramid. Three of the towers belong to Mages employed by the manse, with space for them to work and run experiments as well as a generous living quarter. One tower belongs to the Manse Guards, with an armory in the underground part of the tower, barracks and an officer's chamber in the other floors of the tower. The uppermost floor of the guard tower is used as a special cell, only for holding honorary prisoners. Common prisoners are sent out of the manse to be thrown into the city jail. The towers are traveled through by thin stairwells and ladders as an alternative on the opposite end of each tower.
• The Stone Quarter, where the house and grounds servants live.
  • There are about a hundred homes, much smaller and more modest than the Flower Garden and Sand Quarter houses. They often consist of one or two rooms, with a living area and a kitchen consisting of a counter and a soup kettle. There is always a space for a bed and the larger homes in this quarter even have a fully separated bedroom with enough space for a bed, a dresser, and some other furniture. Every five houses shares an outhouse, and every twenty five houses shares a bathhouse.
  • The center of the quarter has a small shop run in shifts by a few servants, which supplies basic supplies, food, and amenities. There are also a few market stalls open to use if a servant has any homemade goods to sell to their community. There is a small greenhouse with a veggie garden that is run by those living in the Quarter. There is also a small field that the servants can use for physical games, small festivals, exercise, etc. Servants are also allowed to use some of the amenities in the Flower Garden, such as their market and temple, in exchange for assistance in certain areas of the district.
  • The district is overseen by an appointed servant labeled Stone Overseer, who solves disputes in the area, ensures that public spaces are kept up, assigns volunteer shifts to servants living in the area, and makes sure that work is doled out fairly. The Overseer is also in charge of ordering supplies for the store.
• The Flower Garden, where the Mistresses and their children live. Also houses the Flower Garden School, which educates all children on the property, including the Lord's legitimate children and even the children of servants if they wish to bring them. Some of the 'mistresses' are not women, though this is rare. Some also belong to the Lady, but this is a guarded secret. There are at least fifty houses, not all of them occupied at a time.
  • The mistress houses surround a great fountain inside of a large desert garden filled with cacti, succulents, and arid trees. They are beautiful buildings with exquisite architecture and decor. Behind the rows of houses are a series of buildings to serve the neighborhood, all run by the mistresses in turns:
    1. A small shop with goods imported from town that the mistresses can use to stock their homes. Anything not typically carried in the shop is written down and given to a courier, who gets the list approved by the Lord's steward before retrieving the items for whoever ordered them. Most days, a servant is entrusted to run the shop, though a mistress may take shifts there if she wishes. Some older children may also volunteer to work alongside the person running the shop to learn skills there.
    2. The Flower School, a place for the children within the entire Manse grounds to learn, including the children of servants and the Lord's legitimate children. The school teaches basic educational skills such as reading and math, as well as courtly skills such as dancing, etiquette, court practices and fashion, noble houses, and history. There are also vocational classes and hobby skill classes that usually elective such as needlework, painting, music, swordplay, religion, gardening, etc. Evening classes are offered to the adult children of the Sand Quarter as well as some of the older children and even some servants. These classes teach specific vocational skills and usually are offered by traveling professionals in exchange for a place to stay for a week or two, or by the more well learned mistresses and servants that have spare time.
    3. Training Grounds, a place for children to practice physical skills and exercise during most hours. Certain times are reserved for a member of the guard to train some of the children on grounds how to use various weapons, fight in various styles, and how to perform other military skills.
    4. A small market area where anyone living on and employed on the grounds can open a stall in their spare time to sell homemade goods.
    5. The Desert Rose, a small temple for worship.
    6. The Garden's Lounge, a building near the entrance to the Flower Garden where men and women looking to solicit the services of the mistresses are asked to wait for the mistress of their choosing to arrive and take them to her pleasure lounge for entertainment.
    7. The Desert's Bounty, a tiny greenhouse with vegetable, fruits, and other edible plants that acts as a community garden. There is also an animal pen for raising fowl and livestock.
    8. The Library, a sandstone tower filled with books. Many are educational in purpose and bought for the library, and some are recreational novels that were rejected by the Lord's legitimate wife and children. Some were brought in by or written by mistresses and donated to the library after their household stopped reading them regularly enough. The library is primarily used by the families in the Flower Garden, but some of the literate servants also read there.
  • Each one is multi-story, with a staircase leading to the top story balcony where the front door is accessed. Each woman can decorate or use her balcony however she pleases, as long as it remains presentable for clientele. The main floor directly behind the front door presents a large lounge room with a bed, small lounging area, decorative plants and objects. The mistress takes her clients there. The main floor is separated from the rest of the house by a locked door so that the personal home of the mistress is fully separate and secure. A small stairwell leads down into the rest of the house, otherwise a back door is used by the mistress' children to access the main house. These homes are spacious and well decorated with rich furnishings as a reward for the mistress' service in the Lord's household. The mistress often has a personal bedroom just for sleeping in, a large closet, and a full room for a personal hobby. This space is often below the Main Floor, and the door to the stairwell that connects the House to the Main Floor is also in this room. The rest of the house is accessed by another stairwell, leading below the mistress' personal chambers. This stairwell is beside the back door, and in a room separated from the mistress' personal chambers. The stairwell also has a lockable trapdoor with a rug to hide and secure it against any attackers.
  • The main house is often a level underground, keeping it cool and assisting in keeping the children safe if the Manse is ever attacked, as merely blocking or hiding the stairwell that leads between the Mistress's personal quarters and the home level will keep most attackers at bay. The main house is mostly open, with a large room containing a large kitchen and dining room for the family to use. There is a nook for clothes laundering beside a spacious bathroom with multiple tubs. The children's nursery and bedrooms are accessed through a hallway by the kitchen which can also be hidden away with a number of tactics. The nursery is a large room with toys, desks, an area for drawing, and multiple beds and bassinets. Some mothers choose to keep their young babies in their bedroom with them instead, and others will sleep downstairs to be close to the nursery during the first years. There is a small bedroom designed for this, with nothing but a small bed, a chair, and a table meant for the mother to use when she has an infant at the very least for taking a nap or breastfeeding. Next to the nursery is the playroom, a room where children of all ages may play together if they wish with toys meant for older children. Next to this is a series of bedrooms meant for children to move into when they grow past the age of five, so they can have privacy and space to entertain personal hobbies. Across the hall and beside the mother's small room is a study room, where older children can read, practice schoolwork, practice trade skills that they might use as adults, etc.
  • The children share a nursery room for the first five years of their lives before they can claim one of the five children's rooms as their own. They are raised in the house by their mother to the age of twelve before they are brought before their father to decide their future. Some remain at home to await a proper marriage or for their father to make a plan for them if he doesn't already have an idea in mind. Others are placed in a workforce, given apprenticeship or training as a house servant, sent to the military, etc. Some children are not given a place even into adulthood and are given temporary residence in the Sand Quarter. The mistresses spend their days doing a list of occupations:
    • Entertaining the Lord
    • Raising and teaching the children in the quarter (including those of other mistresses, as each one will at times be engaged with some other task)
    • Accepting clients for prostitution, and entertaining these guests for a fee even if no sex is purchased.
    • Practicing courtly skills, and teaching these skills in the School to all the children on the property.
    • Teaching in the Flower Garden School, usually hosting at least two classes each week depending on their skills.
    • Performing basic cleaning and maintenance tasks in the Flower Garden, with assistance from the servants on the grounds.
• The Greenhouse, where the large greenhouse and its surrounding gardens lie.
  • The greenhouse is a third the size of the manse itself, certainly high enough to plant full trees within, so long as they aren't especially tall ones. Each section is dedicated to mimicking different biomes that the Lord has visited and enjoyed, if they are possible to replicate in a desert greenhouse. Some magic is used to keep these biomes under control and within the right conditions to grow the various plant varieties. Skilled gardeners are hired specifically to maintain and design the greenhouse, and are even paid to visit the biomes they are meant to replicate if they haven't yet seen them themselves.
  • One garden area is dedicated to flowers and bees, a small set to the production of edible plants.
  • Some of the gardens produce fruit-bearing trees, berry bushes, etc. Some of them are also populated with moths and butterflies that the Lord likes.
  • The surrounding gardens are all of arid plant varieties, and they are open air. Like many of the other gardens, they have statues, stones, raked gravel, colored sand designs, small gazebos, etc.
• The Sand Quarter, where the adult children of the Flower Garden live until the Lord decides a life path for them.
  • There are a hundred modestly sized homes, with a main room consisting of a living space, kitchen and dining area, and some empty space for personal use. There is a small bathroom and an upstairs bedroom.
  • The homes are placed in sub-districts, with small sand gardens in between. There is a well for every twenty five homes, and two small shops at either end of the Quarter run by members of the district. There is a fair sized temple of worship and a field/training grounds with a small armory. In the center of the Quarter is a building called the Sand Hall run by the Quarter Overseer, a position assigned by the Lord to oversee the business of the district.
  • The Sand Hall is where the Overseer works, and where the people in the quarter go to discuss issues within the community, apply for volunteer shifts, working positions, and classes within the Manse grounds, etc.
  • Citizens of the Sand Quarter are encouraged to seek out education, vocational skills, and apprenticeship with the servants and other workers on the grounds or in the city outside the manor. They are also encouraged during times of celebration to entertain, assist, and get to know visitors in hopes of finding marriage candidates. Some of them are children of the Lord, and will be prioritized in marriage betrothals. Many of them are bastards of the mistresses and their clients, and are awaiting an assigned life path from their father. Some will be married off, most will be trained as grounds servants, some will be given into military or religious service, and a few will be sold into slavery. No one lives in the Sand Quarter past the age of 25, and anyone that reaches that age in the Sand Quarter is sold into slavery as a default unless they can find a job before their sale date is scheduled and leave the grounds of their own volition. The only children exempt from this fate are those that are known to be bastards of the Lord.
• The Water Garden, where the main oasis lies, as well as the water farming equipment and storage.
  • The water garden in a series of ponds and fountains that collect, clean, and recycle water through natural means. The waste of the outhouses, bathrooms. and bathhouses goes into a deep underground reservoir that is cleaned and filtered first by the earth and sand before passing into the reservoir used by the Greenhouses. This reservoir is given a treatment with a magically enhanced herbal potion that partly detoxifies the water and bolsters the nutrients in it to enrich the soil of the greenhouse in a very mild way. After it is used to water the plants, the plants release it back into the air of the enclosed greenhouse where excess moisture is taken from the air and funneled into the underground drinking reservoir. This reservoir is used to fill the wells and the pipes of the plumbing system that brings water to the Manse, the better quality homes, and the bathhouses. A barrel a week of this water is stored in the Manse in case of droughts, and another whole barrel is used for food production in the artisanal kitchens.
  • There are numerous rainwater collecting devices as well, and a vast underground network of magically controlled and root-like ropes that suck excess water from the sand to place it into the ponds and fountains. Much of the time, these devices lay dormant as the rains don't come often to the region. However, the few times rain does hit, it is always incredibly heavy and these devices will usually collect enough water during these rare storms to last a few years.
  • There are also a few water vapor collecting devices placed outside, but there is rarely moist enough air to make them work.
  • The water garden also has the underground energy dome, a place where servants and volunteer workers spin a series of large wheels to produce physical energy that can be stored in crude batteries or harnessed by the Manse's mages to operate various things on the grounds. Some of the more commonplace things, such as the bathhouses, wells, fountains, artisanal kitchen equipment, Greenhouse tech, and much of the water garden tech is powered by the Energy Dome.

The Manse is largely self-sufficient, with a much smaller import of food than most people would expect of a place of its size and population. The Manse is more like a town within the city, with multiple tiers of minor government and multiple districts with their own citizens, commerce, and societal roles within the grounds. If ever there was an event where the Manse would be completely cut off from the outside world, everyone within would be able to survive with only a few minor changes to daily life. Much of the staple foods eaten by its citizens are traded for in exchange for artisanal foods and goods produced within its walls, however, so the balanced diets of those within the Manse would certainly become unbalanced in such events.
The servants and citizens within the grounds can even sell homemade goods to each other or to the Lord's trade caravan, which goes out to sell everything made within the grounds and buy basic supplies and anything extra the Lord or citizens need. These goods include cheese, wine, mead, pickled vegetables, tapestries, hand-spun thread, patterned cloth, knit or sewn garments and goods, herbal remedies and poultices, dried meat and berries, art, carvings, etc. This bolsters the Lord's coffers as well, helping him maintain the costs and even improve upon the living conditions of those that live on his property.

Type

Mansion / Villa

Parent Location

Eidurr

Owner

Duke Weston Eidurr