The Citadel

[Matalina]

Is there a written description of what the Citadel looks like?

[Taymist]

This is the best mash up of a description I could do based on Quibby's posts when other people asked, Kael's descriptions of the original building work starting / continuing and how Owen described it to me when I first joined. There is actually a picture.

 

Location

 

The Citadel lies in the Two Rivers at the base of the Mountains of Mist. It's 90 miles north east of the Wolfkin Stedding, lying between the Stedding and Emonds Field.

 

The Citadel 

 

The stone used to build the Citadel is grey granite mined from the mountains.  Its construction began shortly after the Battle of Bandar Eban (DM's version of Falme).  The Ogier were contracted to do the construction, and everything that the Band could afford was put into the project, making it a speedy process.  A process made faster with the Band's subsequent alliance with the Black Tower.  

 

At the top point of the triangle formed by the massive, thick, outer walls, stands The Keep. The Keep houses the offices of the highest ranking Officers in the Band, as well as several rooms for visiting dignitaries. It's an extremely imposing building.

 

The Citadel is a vast place. There is a proper city within its walls where much of the merchant and financial support that an army needs resides.

 

Also inside the walls are large fields for training in formation or on horseback, sparring rings, horse tracks, an archery range and a host of other similar facilities.

 

There's at least one smithy, multiple barracks, Guilds, the Commander's HQ, a mess hall, an armoury, a jail, separate medics' barracks, a hospital, several inns. One inn in particular, The Gap Inn, is so large it rivals those in Tar Valon. 

 

There are stables one street over from the main entrance gates.

 

There is a large cemetery, the Field of the Fallen. It's probably the cleanest and best looked after area of the Citadel with beautiful wrought iron gates giving entry to view its haunting rows of engraved white crosses.  This is where members of the Band who have died in the Band's service are memorialised.

 

Exterior Details

 

Outside the walls you have a mock up of a village for the archers to practice in.

 

The area around the Citadel is heavily patrolled.  Nobody approaches the Citadel without being seen and, if not recognised, confronted. Guard houses were set up in or near each of the local villages so that patrols wouldn't always have to ride all the way to the Citadel. The post at Taren Ferry is the strongest, as that's pretty much the only way in for your average Joe Brigand. A permanent guard stands at the Waygate. A training programme was originally run for the villages to establish their own "sheriff's department" so they could handle what needed to be done by themselves. 

 

The Band has an agreement with a miners' village in the Mountains of Mist to provide protection to their carts when moving ores down to Baerlon. This was following the Wolfkin (and Band?) saving the miners from brigands. There's a separate agreement in place between the Wolfkin Rangers and the miners to keep the area around the village secure.

 

 

ETA: And of course there's a large building right outside the gates that's the Embassy of the Black Tower, housing between 10 and 20 Asha'man at any given time, along with an area of ground reserved specifically for creating Gateways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matalina]

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/Quibby/media/cGF0aDovdGhlY2l0YWRlbGFtOS5qcGc=/?ref=1 here is one

 

And another: http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/Quibby/media/cGF0aDovQ2l0YWRlbC5qcGc=/?ref=1

[Taymist]

Awesome! Thank you, Mat. I did try clicking through the links but I couldn't get past the pop up blockers on PB.

 

Those are so great. Always helps having a visual. The Queen's residence and Manetheren obviously no longer apply since we decided not to move forward with that plotline but otherwise, looks good.

[Matalina]

you have to open the image in a new tab and it'll redirect you to the page the image is hosted on.  A lot of time you'll get the hot link image but if you are luck the profile is open and you can browse for the image you are looking for which is what I did.  Then you can open the image again in a new tab and download it.  I then uploaded them here to Dragonmount.  Normally I'd host them on my own site but it seemed to work here so it's all good.

[Taymist]

Much appreciated. 

 

Cass, maybe you could put both pictures along with my description into a pinned reference post? Make life easier for everyone won't it? And it should probably go on the Wikia at some point too for back up if one of us gets round to it.

[Cass]

 Awesome! 

 

*adds to list*