< Old City | City Of Glass | The Guild In Chiaroscuro? >
After Tamas Khan claimed the city of Chiaroscuro from the Jinn-Fin Sultanate?, he claimed one of the cities few fully intact glass towers as his own. This tall majestic building became known as the Palace of the Tri-Khan and is arguably one of the most visually impressive seats of power in the South: dominating the first five floors of the building, with an extensive under-level, the Tri-Khan's Palace is also one of the largest and most opulent of such locations.
The entirety of the Ground Floor of the Tower is known as "the Gardens," and is a colorful blend of imperishable glass and lush vegetation, positively infested with nearly-feral cats. Most of the Gardens are composed of Flowering Trees, Flower Beds, with Statuary, well-trimmed Hedges of Greenry, and the dull color of the armor worn by the Palace Guard serving to offset the otherwise riotous display of color. The harsh /loud/ colors of the glass paneling that makes up the interior provides an even greater contrast to the more natural colors, giving the entire floor an almost surreal feel that can be a bit overwhelming to those not used to the display. This sometimes leads foreigners to retreat into one of the Garden's many shadowy niches, sometimes resting for a time on a bench or just leaning against a darkened glass wall to close their eyes for a moment. Others duck away into such secluded spots for... other reasons.
The Garden itself opens up into the The Great Market and much of it is open to the public for most hours of the day: shoppers often pass through the Gardens to escape the heat of the late afternoon. Some little understood mechanism ensures that the Garden's, and indeed the Palace, are always pleasant throughout the day. Others are lured into the Gardens to visit one of the few Merchant Stalls or fully-stocked Shoppes that the Tri-Khan has allowed to fill some of the available space on the first floor. Three public fountains also draw no few visitors throughout the day.
There are a total of five fountains on the first floor, but the last two,-- and the most opulent,-- are restricted to the Garden's private sections. Only accessible by those able to get past the dour Palace Guard, whose heavy armor and halberds are not at all ceremonial, or those descending from higher up the Tower, the private sections of the Gardens aren't much different from the rest of the first floor. The statuary is slightly more impressive, the visitors somewhat more refined (or at least self-important), and the areas a bit more 'open' and 'broad.' The largest difference is the lack of any 'Shoppes'; instead there are three suites. These spaces tend to be a bit small (largely identical in layout to the shoppes, in fact,) but are still highly contested living spaces amongst the Courtiers, many of whom find living in the Garden to be highly desirable.
The second and third floor are given over to matters of governance.
The stairs up from the Garden lead into the Hall of the Kha-Khan, the very center of which is dominated by a massive finely-carved statue of Tamas Khan seated atop his legendary mount. It's not a sight that one can easily overlook, anyone descending from the higher levels or climbing up from the Gardens finds themselves is greeted by the imposing figure of the Kha-Khan upon the landing. Some say that, in the dead of night, the Statue comes alive-- but these are commonly accepted as rumors. The Hall itself is otherwise quite barren, marked in places by urns containing the ashes of past Khan's and the odd bust of a great Delzahn hero or legendary beauty. The stairs themselves, up or down, deposit one in the center of the hall-- each end of the hall, after a long walk, contains a shrine to one of the Delzahn's sibling Gods. Dah'rakkan?, Lord of the Horde, upon the North Face, and his Sister-Wife, Mehinna?, tucked away on the South Face. Each God looks upon a different section of the City,-- Deh'rakkan looking out onto much of Old Chiaroscuro, the Harbor, and the Plaza, while Mehinna's Shrine provides an awe-inspiring view of most of the New City and the Foreigner's Quarter.
The other thing contained in the hall is doors: many, many doors.
The parts of the Tower off from the main hall are voluminous and labyrinthine, a maze of rooms and corridors that one could wander in for hours without seeing another soul. The largest rooms closest to the hall itself often serve some official purpose,-- the barracks, armory, and training halls of the Palace Guards tucked away behind this door, while another door further down the Hall leads instead to a grand dining hall, and yet another door just outside Mehinna's Shrine is instead given over to an opulent series of Chambers where Courtiers can take their rest. Other places, some of them less important, are... less easily reached.. such the complicated route one must take to reach the Court Astrologer's Office or the even more maze-like passage that leads to the Cells where Political Prisoners are kept or to the Tri-Khan's pantry. The entire system is even more complicated by the fact that sloping halls and secret stairs often take one up to the Third Floor, back down to the Second, before finally leading one to the tiny office given over to the Master of Coin.
Most Courtiers who have lived at Court for longer than a few years know most of the routes that they themselves frequent, and have their bearings enough that they don't usually get too turned around. Those less familiar with the paths, or those who never learned, are not-uncommonly lost for hours at a time. In one case, a Courtier finally made his way back to the Hall days after wandering off drunk one evening, and claimed to have somehow ended up on the buildings top floor!
Stryck Wiki