Am-Xitha, Parts I & II (Past Chronicle 2013-2014)

Duchy of Am-Xitha - by T.A. Saunders ©2013 v1.5

Auryn (Capital) District

Am-Xitha Banking House

Before the reconstruction in 1351 AC, Am-Xitha did not have a banking house of any kind. The Shei simply used coins fashioned from the resin of Hirsalas trees to purchase items and services, content to store whatever they earned within basement vaults. With its return to prominence, a need for a place to exchange and store currency, and cash in bank writs became a strong necessity, especially with the influx of new businesses wanting to invest in the rebirth of the city.

The banking house is two floors and a basement, with architecture that matches the surrounding buildings, with stone-shaped marble and Jilthari vines draped

from the roof, down. The vault is located on the basement level and has six guards at all times, protecting a six inch thick Vocorium door. The overall interior is spacious, with bank representatives on the first floor and offices for sums tabulation and management on the second. By and large, most will only ever see the first floor.

Am-Xitha Ibji-Yimir (Am-Xitha Youth School)

While there was a record of a remedial school existing in Am-Xitha, it had been so completely obliterated by the Shar'Vaire bombardment that it was impossible to tell where it had initially stood and the original city designs didn't have one drawn in. Duke Blackthorne took this as an omen to simply build it elsewhere. He chose the Auryn Distict because it allowed for a centralized location that all the other quarters of the city could bring their children without discrimination or favoritism to one particular race.

The school has been constructed by a several wood-shaped trees, molded into a multi-classroom, multi-level structure, much in the same fashion as the Library of the Enlightened Trinity (formally the Am-Xitha Royal Library). The windows of the building are actually fashioned from shaped amber, sorcerously turned translucent enough that the tincture of the light through it is only very slight. The school contains enough classrooms for a full remedial education (ten grades) and has a small library on the second floor.

Am-Xitha Infirmary

During the initial bombardment of the city in 351 BC, the Infirmary was one of the first structures the Shar'Vaire destroyed. While city records gave a clear enough idea where it had been in the city previously, it, like the school, was moved to the Auryn District for the same reasons.

Learning the lessons of the destruction of the city, Duke Blackthorne commissioned that the infirmary be made a hardened structure, able to withstand even the heaviest of bombardments from Ether Charges, Radiance blasts and any number of other horrors that could be thrown at it. The result was a single level structure that was walled with white marble and Jilthari vines on the outside, but was reinforced with six inch plate Vocorium, followed by another six inches of Ohratite.

Because the building is a single level, it's also a sprawling structure constructed in the shape of a hexagon, to accommodate various ‘wings' of care; a wing for children and infants, a wing for the elderly, one for the mentally troubled, one for addiction recovery, a wing for research, a wing for botany and biomancy research, one for general injury and care, and one for trauma cases that require immediate attention.

Am-Xitha Irisa Kran'ah (Am-Xitha Royal Cemetery)

The royal cemetery was one of the most difficult projects of the restoration of Am-Xitha; with most of the headstones either utterly destroyed or weather-worn beyond recognition, it was impossible to tell who was buried where. After extensive research through recovered city records, Gregory George and his ‘Flatcaps' were able to find and replace every headstone in the cemetery of 1,247 permanent residents. Each replacement was fashioned from Orhatite and in many cases had the original inscriptions replaced upon them. Because of the Peasant's Rebellion of 1345 and the Second Godswar, the cemetery also had to be expanded to include burial sites for refugee solders and Shatah Viyn warriors.

Sprawling over several miles of hilly landscape enclosed by trees of various sorts, grown and shaped in a way that they serve as the fence of the property, a single Divinium and gold gate bids entry within the final resting place of many of Am-Xitha's greatest heroes, citizens and politicians. Two city watch guards are always posted as an honor guard at all times.

Pohif Dorna ri Am-Xitha (Great Hall of Am-Xitha)

The first building constructed in Am-Xitha when founded in 3241 BF, the Great Hall was meant as a place of meeting for the world's dignitaries to discuss the matters of the day and maintain peace between the three primary races of Imarel: Elves, Humans and Asyndi. And for several thousand years since the Great Exodus that brought the Elves to Imarel, from Ishaela it served that purpose well. Constructed of marble, Forgora wood and hammered gold, the Great Hall could sit over 30,000 people in a oval-shaped auditorium-like setting with the conference tables at the very center. It was a widely kept tradition that the people of the kingdom and travelers from elsewhere should see the politics of the day in action so that there would be transparency between the government and the people.

Despite being one of the structures that actually survived the bombardment of Am-Xitha, the Great Hall was moved, brick by surviving brick from its previous location (in what would become the Shei Quarter), to the Auryn District. The reason for this choice was a simple one; Duke Blackthorne wanted all government offices to be in the center of the city, where each quarter would have equal ease of travel and opportunity to reach the Hall. While perhaps not exactly a short walk, geographically speaking, its at the heart of Am-Xitha.

Reconstructed to its previous glory, the Great Hall serves as a meeting place of all the local councilpersons to discuss issues of the city and surrounding territories under Am-Xitha's protection, like Lakeview and the surrounding Murkwhisper Lake and Mire areas. The Duke almost always tends to these meetings himself, though on occasion he does have his Hand see to them, if he has important business elsewhere.