Téter Táhh

General introduction

The Téter Táhh refers to the Duiniken king's palace in Kérduin, Nuat Duinis Talou's capital. The name means 'The White House' and stems from the light sandstone and the whitened plaster used in the construction of the building.

The Téter Táhh is at the same time the seat of the government, the living quarters of the king of the Duiniken and the citadel of Kérduin. This renders it an extraordinarily well defended palace, a fact that might stem from the Duiniken's trauma of being expelled from their ancestral homelands.

Structure and housed facilities and institutions

The complex is made up of three walled rings, with the one on the outside, albeit high, being the lowest of the three. The second one is slightly higher and the third one only protects a relatively small area, almost appearing like a singular massive tower in the center of the whole construction. Another noticable feature is a moat surrounding it. This moat also keeps the residential buildings, markets and shops off the Téter Táhh as to not enable their use as a ramp to cross the outer wall.

Around the palace lies the Kérduin, which is protected by a city wall, as all Duiniken cities are. This makes the Téter Táhh a defense building within an already well defended place. The only weak point of the Téter Táhh and all of Kérduin would be an extended siege, as the city houses a big number of people and only has supplies for a limited period of time. Water on the other hand is less of an issue with Kérduin having two natural springs within its city walls.

The outer ring of the Téter Táhh surrounds a larger area, that is home to the defensive troops of the castle as well as a more luxurious quarter for the residencies of the different council members of the Duiniken king's political host. The second ring houses the ministries and council buildings as well as research facilities for those who need it. Especially noteworthy is a library with dozens of texts saved from the Mdûlûn and Tarrabaenians by the time the Duiniken were driven out of their homeland, hundreds of contemporary texts about the Duiniken thereafter, spanning a wide variety of topics, but mainly laws, politics and research and thousands of other texts collected from different sources, mainly of the people of Andaperna and the Madini.

High above all lies, in the third ring, the palace building. It is not exceedingly big, only having a main audience room, a dining room, four representative rooms, the king's and his family's quarters as well as guest quarters for foreign visitors of the king as well as for high Duiniken aristocrats, who couldn't be appropiately housed with the political host of the capital. The palace building takes the shape of an H with the lower - or front - legs being shorter. The sides are the wings, framing the reception courtyard, while in the back the wings flank the king's pleasure garden.

Furthermore a small building, adjacent to, but not connected to the main building houses the immediate staff and facilities like storage rooms or the kitchen.

One of the most important parts of the palace lies underneath it, cradled deeply into the socket the palace is placed on: The treasure chamber. While of course the riches of the royal family are kept here, more importantly the Regalia of the Kings of the Duiniken are housed here - priceless treasures to all of the Duiniken.

Type

Palace