The seat of Imperial power in Vedycaer, set behind its own walls in the city’s eastern corner. This is where the Borderlands are governed: the Prefect’s palace, the courts, the guard barracks, and the villas of the patricians, bureaucrats, and officers who serve the administration. Alone among the districts — the rest bend to follow the Darkwater — the Palace District is laid out on a strict Imperial grid of square blocks and compass streets. The Old Walls close it off to the west, where the Patrician’s Gate leads to the Old District; the Capital Gate lets out through the Imperial Walls to the east. See Vedycaer Districts for the other seven.
Headings are numbered to the map.
78. The Prefectural Palace
The residence and seat of Prefect Basilio, the Imperial officer who governs the whole of the Borderlands from Vedycaer. It is the grandest secular building in the city, and the business of the realm — taxes, edicts, appointments, the raising of legions — runs through its halls. Common folk have no cause to enter, and less to want to.
The Prefectural complex
The fortified government quarter around the palace, held by the Prefectural Guard — the elite cataphracts and legionaries who answer to the Prefect alone and stand as the vanguard of his legions in war:
- 79. The Prefectural Gate — the guarded way into the complex.
- 80. The Prefectural Bastion — the strongpoint of the district’s defenses.
- 81. The Prefectural Guard Barracks — quarters of the Guard.
82. The Imperial Courthouse
The city’s civil court, which hears disputes between citizens — property, contracts, debts, and injuries of person and property. As with the religious Temple of Justice, there are no public prosecutors: it falls to private citizens to bring an accusation and make their own case.
76. The Capital Gate
The gate through the Imperial Walls on the district’s eastern side, and the road out toward the capital. Open sunup to sundown.