Royal Palace of Katrapetch

The Royal Palace of Katrapetch is an ancient complex of buildings in the Punjuki city of Katrapetch which was the home to the Raja and Rani for most of the many thousands of years that the city was ruled by the Court Circle of Katrapetch.
The central building, known as the Palace Heart and shown in the illustration at the head of this article, was completed in 7040 BPC, less than two hundred years after the Sundering had devastated the northern continents, yet left Punjuki relatively little affected.

Alterations

The West Wing of the Palace which extends out from the central courtyard that circles the Palace Heart was constructed between 6791 BPC and 6764 BPC, more than doubling the size of the complex. It includes extensive guest rooms, the Long Dining Room, the Dancing Room and the Royal Harmonic Chapel dedicated to the Way of the Harmonic Path at the far western end, which looks out onto the carefully landscaped space known as the Music Garden.
The East Wing is a shorter extension, built between 4307 BPC and 4281 BPC when Katrapetch was under the control of the Old Pale Empire to house an additional level of bureaucracy associated with greatly expanded phryne trade and taxation.

History

The palace served as the home of the Raja and the Court Circle of Katrapetch for a little more than twelve thousand of years from 7040 BPC until the Court Circle and the last Raja were deposed under the Limit Protectorate in 5155 APC.
In later ages, it was co-opted by a succession of different rulers, from the City Protector and the General Advocate of the Loyalist Thaumatic Army Council down to the Katrapetch lineage of Queens in the age of the Jewelled Queendoms. Now that the city is one of the great centres of power for the Alchemical Alliance, a Grand Alchemist occupies the ancient royal building which is still at the heart of local politics, close to fourteen thousand years after its original construction.

Founding Date

7040 BPC

Type

Palace

Parent Location

Katrapetch

Ruling/Owning Rank

Raja

Interior Spaces

Audience Room

The audience room is a large vaulting space which was used by the Raja to conduct ceremonial functions of state and to host the public Court Circle hearings which were one of the traditional mechanisms of government used in the city.

Magicians' End - Katrapetch Royal Palace Audience Room by DMFW with Leonardo AI

Yellow Summit Chamber

The yellow summit chamber is a room at the top of the Palace Heart, with fine views over the rose gardens. It has been used as an occasional (though not invariable) space for Royal Advisory meetings and is always, by ancient tradition, decorated in the pale yellow pastel colours which give it its name.

Katrapetch Royal Palace - Yellow Summit Chamber by DMFW with Leonardo AI

Undercroft Vaults

The Undercroft Vaults are sunk deep beneath the palace foundations and extend into the slope of the hill to the north. They are magically warded for climate control and they house some of the oldest books and scrolls in the world. Originally assembled from earlier collections, curated and catalogued by the librarian and scholar Albarech Gundhri, when the palace was built, they have grown over the millenia, with extensions to west and east, but the oldest and deepest parts are the Lower City archives, shown below.

Katrapetch Royal Palace - Undercroft Vaults by DMFW with Leonardo AI

Clarise Vabatan found the notorious Crimson Codex here in a hidden recess, during routine cataloging operations in the 31st century APC, as she recounts in her diary.

The Royal Harmonic Chapel

The Royal Harmonic Chapel is at the end of the West Wing which was a later addition to the main body of the Palace. The chapel looks out onto the Music Garden. It is one of the earliest surviving examples of spaces given over to the Way of the Harmonic Path, which was still a relatively young faith at the time the Chapel was built between 6791 BPC and 6764 BPC, but one to which the Raja who authorised the building, personally subscribed.

Katrapetch Royal Palace - Royal Harmonic Chapel by DMFW with Leonardo AI

The Lithic Room

The Lithic Room is a multi-purpose second floor function room on the West Wing, overlooking the Music Gardens. It is sometimes employed for formal occasions such as the reception of foreign dignitaries or delegations of important trading partners, and it can serve as a dining room. On other occasions the central space may be cleared for dancing, with a stage at the east end capable of supporting large groups of musicians.
When it was not required by the Raja or Rani it served as a kind of club house for some of the aging aristocratic members of the Court Circle, who were granted the much sought after rights of membership and spent their days here, contemplating the gardens, reading and drinking.
The room gets its name from a time when it operated as a geological museum for a couple of hundred years in the age of the Old Pale Empire, before the collection was moved outside the Palace and the space was adapted to better suit the more flexible role it still serves today.

Royal Palace of Katrapetch - Lithic Room by DMFW with Midjourney