Citadel Thay

The Great Earthquake

Main article: The Great Earthquake of Eltabbar

On 13 Alturiak, 1367 DR, the Great Seal of Eltabbar ruptured, causing an earthquake that inflicted catastrophic damage on the entire city. Thousands died in the earthquake, and tens of thousands of citizens fled the ruins, bereft of home and livelihood.

Tharchioness Dmitra Flass and Zulkir Szass Tam took it upon themselves to organize an unprecedented rebuilding effort. The first stage, cleaning up the debris and destroying defunct structures, was completed in less than a month, a preposterous pace made possible only by judicious use of magic. In particular, the Collegium of Necromancy, under Tam, raised thousands of dead slaves and foreigners as undead, who worked tirelessly, without need of food or drink.

By the breaking of spring, the city was clear, and the rubble had been gathered into neat piles--the larger stones, intact beams of lumber, and other reusable materials were separated from lesser debris. Tam's intention was to use the laborers to rebuild the city as it was.

An Ambitious Plan

Instead, the Tharchioness hired, at personal expense, thousands of masons and engineers from across the world, and called upon the world's finest architects to design a grand square, capped by a bold new palace, along the south bank of the lake. Not only would she rebuild the city, but she would enlarge it by over 50%.

For months, the architects competed, growing exasperated as she insisted that their designs were too humble, too old-fashioned, and unworthy of her beautiful city. Finally, the young apprentice of a master dwarven builder came to her in secret with a plan his master wouldn't allow him to show. She fell in love with the design, and hired him on the spot. Master Bronn Ironcrest would become a very rich dwarf.

The other architects had insisted that the site she had chosen was made of poor, wet soil. The very reason Eltabbar had been set back from the lake in the first place was to avoid the pitfalls of building on shifting, muddy land. That close to the lake, the bedrock is over 100 feet below the surface, much too deep to serve as a foundation. Too deep, that is, for those without ambition.

The plan called for the excavation of millions of tons of soil, kept dry by a great stone wall in the lake. Once the excavation had reached bare stone, they would sink great pillars into it, forming a stupendous vault, upon which would rest the square, the palace, and the marketplace that would connect this new construction to the rest of the city. With the vault constructed, the palace and the square would be relatively simple to complete. The dam used to dry the bedrock could be used as a seawall to complete Eltabbar's walls, as they would now extend to the lake.

Initial estimates called for over 6,000 workers, toiling for almost 50 years, at a cost of approximately 1.4 million CGP, for construction alone. The raw materials would cost untold millions more. The Tharchioness' personal fortune was vast, but not vast enough.

However, the Tharchioness was able to procure rights to several quarries along the escarpment, and matching funds from Tam's personal fortune to cover the costs of quarrying, lumbering, and toolmaking. Over the next few months, she managed to procure loans and grants, most chiefly of magical aid, from various Red Wizards and fellow Tharchions.

By Eleint of 1367, construction began.

The Big Dig

Builder Ironcrest had forecasted a period of 12 years to excavate the land needed to build the vault, including 3 years just to erect the necessary seawall and pump system to keep the area dry. The Tharchioness was not satisfied with his timetable.

She called upon the Collegium of Transmutation to provide an alternate plan. She was presented with several viable options; in the end, she chose Druxus Rhym's approach: the most extravagant, expensive, and by far the fastest. A team of Red Wizards, led by himself, would construct a ring of towers around the dig site, which would contain arrays of magical symbols. To save time, the towers would be specially-crafted Instant Fortresses, at a cost of about 1000 CGP each. The symbols within would repel water, with such ferocious strength that they would literally form a wall of standing water several hundred feet off the coast.

Once the water was clear, a task force of mages armed with Staves of Earth and Stone would excavate the area, one Move Earth spell at a time. The mages would be chosen from among those transmuters most skilled with earth magic, and most knowledgeable in the ways of architecture and engineering.

All in all, the plan would cost over 250,000 CGP and would take 3 months to complete. In lieu of paying, Rhym offered Flass an equity deal: he would have rights to 15% of the tax and tariff revenues generated by the new marketplace. She new those revenues would easily eclipse the cost of construction, but she didn't have the cash on hand to say no. And thus, the deal was made.

Work continued through winter, at the Tharchioness' insistence, slowing the process. However, by Alturiak of 1368, the excavation was complete. A massive hole, over a square mile in area, and 100 feet deep at its base, now stood just north of Eltabbar.

Erecting a Vault

Ironcrest wanted six years to build the pillars, which would be erected in the standard dwarven style, though using masonry instead of carving the stone directly from a mountain. Again, the Tharchioness was unwilling to wait that long.

She spoke to a master builder from Chessenta, one Argos of Threskel, who said he was willing to share an ancient secret of Chessen architecture, for the right price. He would construct the pillars from Opus Caementicium, an amazing substance made from quicklime, pozzolana, and an aggregate of pumice, that took liquid form when mixed with water, but would solidify into stone when allowed to dry. With this, he could create the mighty columns of the vault in mere months.

Ironcrest's main objection was that the material, while it had excellent compressive strength, had sub-par tensile strength. His concern was that, given the tendency of the land to shift, both due to earthquakes and constant, slight pressure of the tides of the lake, the columns might experience a sideways force that could easily compromise them, with disastrous results. When given a chance to experiment with the material, he also found that it needed time to properly cure; if poured into a massive column, it might take years, defeating the purpose.

A compromise was reached, which was ultimately a better solution than either approach. The columns would be poured simultaneously, in great rings about 10 feet thick, with empty cores. Great lattices of iron would fill the cores, resisting the tendency of the pillars to curve or buckle, and allowing the rings to slide against one another slightly without cracking.

And so, the pillars were raised, ring by ring, over the next 9 months. When they were completed, arches were formed between them, using more of the miraculous "concrete", bolstered by bars of iron set within the stone itself.

Atop the latticework of arches, a great floor was laid. Massive tiles of stone, painstakingly dragged from the Thaymount, were carved to fit the lattices. The stones were 20 feet thick, more than thick enough to resist the buckling pressure of what would be built atop them. They were cut to masonic perfection, and cemented together to form a solid surface.

Pouring the Foundation

By 1368 DR, the vault was complete, and the surface was ready for building. Dry earth was piled atop the stone floor, packed evenly, and smoothed to perfection. Work began on the roads and canals that would connect the old city to the new, even as a separate and massive team began on the Citadel itself.

The Citadel's general plan is, in essence, a combination of a pyramid with a castle. Surrounded by outer walls, their towers decorated by onion-domed spires, the structure rises to dizzying heights, its own drums and spires dominating the northern cityscape of Eltabbar.

The effect is achieved by building the palace atop another structure. The foundation of the palace is essentially a pyramid elongated along one axis. The pyramid itself is heavily stepped, as it is merely the foundation.

Originally, the foundation was to be made of quarried stone, like the Mulhorandi pyramids, and was to take 6-8 years to complete. However, the use of concrete could speed that up immensely. Initially, the Tharchioness balked, preferring the prestige of building atop fine quarried stone, but was delighted to hear just how many hundreds of thousands of gold pieces would be saved. She opted for a compromise.

The masons poured concrete on-site to form huge blocks, which were expertly shaped and pushed into place to resemble a proper step pyramid. All in all, the process would take 15 months, though after half that time, the southern half of the foundation was ready for building, so work could continue in parallel.

A Citadel Rises

Using standard, if expertly-conducted construction techniques, the Citadel's rose over the next 4 years. The outer walls, forty feet high, were built more for show than for defense, but still boasted a lavish thickness owed to the miracle of concrete. The gates and towers of the wall are more lavish affairs, and construction would not be entirely complete on their intricate detail until the year of the coronation.

Within the walls of the Citadel is a great verdant expanse, a testament to the natural beauty of Thayan landscape. Visitors will follow a brick road from the front gate, through the Imperial Garden, and ultimately to the base of a massive, stepped-foundation palace, rising in tier upon tier of great stone drums, topped with onion domes, glazed in beautiful, intricate, and vibrant color patterns.

The structure of the palace is essential a combination of drums and halls, easy enough to build. Their cores were made of cement, with quarried stone facades, cutting construction time and expense considerably. The Tharchioness would later put the money saved to good use.

The palace was constructed in layers, with the foremost facade being completed even as the rearmost foundation was just drying. By 1376, the entire core structure was laid, bricked, and domed, with the signature many-colored domes that would define the Citadel for years to come.

Around the Citadel, the Civic Square had come to life, with hundreds of buildings lining the edge of the expansive approach to the palace, decorated as it was by great statues, heroes of Thayan lore, and dedications to the gods.

By the time of the coronation, a new temple was being built on the edge of the square, one intended to recapture the glory of Kossuth, and serve as the faith's new headquarters. Other magnificent structures were being planned and erected all around the square, as the nobility of Thay rushed to establish themselves in the new heart of the land.

Future Expansion

In the coming decades, the Empress intends to add wings to the Citadel, expanding it dramatically. Each wing will be twice as massive as the central structure, and will allow for more consolidation of governmental offices, as well as simply expounding upon the glory of the Empire.