The House of Waking and Sleeping
The House of Waking and Sleeping, the home of the eponymous order of Necromancers, looms over the Imperial city of Ctezibond, a massive and imposing migdol of black marble, surrounded by a walled and neatly arranged compound. The walls of the main compound rise some 200 feet, and sprawl to almost a mile on either side. Few outside of the order are allowed beyond the (relatively) small public areas of the mortuary, although for state funerals, and other important services, the House maintains a large basilica space, called The Hall of Cenotaphy. At the end of the Hall of Cenotaphy are The Black Gates, a pair of tall obelisks that mark the percipitous drop into the Well itself. The one-way traffic through these gates, by which the dead are brought down into the temple for first embalming, and thereafter archival or reanimation, as befits their station in life and the wishes of the deceased.
The Well is a massive pit, which clearly stretches from the top story of the fortress, to somewhere deep inside the earth. None outside the order are known to have seen the bottom, and the Lyctores and students who may know have been sworn to secrecy by binding and powerful magics. Beneath the earth, for some number of stories, it is clear that the well connects both to the House's extensive embalming and preservation facilities, and is lined with coffins, each packed neatly in their caskets, preserved until they need to be called upon. Beyond those, which are observable from the edge of the pit, it's the subject of wild rumor what goes on in the darker levels of The Well. It is known that it also serves as a convenient method of getting between stories of the building, as massive stone pallets are levitated between floors, or bring corpses down for processing, while Lyctores float about on their own business.
The whole complex is not all doom and gloom and secrets, though. While not open to the public, the House contains mostly living quarters for its staff, private temples, archives and libraries, and, most famously, a primary school for children between the ages of 8 and 16. The House, beyond being the center of the official mortuary cult of the eastern empire, is also one of the more prestigious schools for the children of the wealthy. Even those from cultures who abhor the thought of touching the dead find both the status of sending a child to the exorbitantly expensive temple school as well as the high quality of education in letters, numbers, philosophy and arcana to be well justified. While very few of the temple graduates go on to become ordained, and never leave the bounds of The House of Waking and Sleeping, or become the Lyctores that are the grim public face of the House, many do go on to positions of great power in the empire, either returning home or entering into the Thematon. These people look back fondly (or, at least, rarely poorly) upon their time as a temple novice, and tend to both be sympathetic to the house and some of its most generous donors.
Beyond the walls of the fortress, the outbuildings are full of life. Containing dormitories, students quarters, an extensive kitchen complex and even some shops, an arena and a caravanserai, the lives of all of the temple's lay members and living servants for the most part play out here. While they do not, and in the case of the Lyctores, no longer need to, partake in the drinking and festivities, priests of the House are not uncommon sites in the rest of the campus, which is entirely open to the public (although students are strongly discouraged from leaving campus).
Lyctores:
What exactly are the Lyctores? It's not entirely clear. What is known is that, while they are no longer entirely alive, they are neither entirely undead. The Lyctores were, before their transformation, extremely talented necromancers, each a once-in-a-generation talent, and their transition to deathlessness has made them truly terrifying foes. As the most irrevocably inculcated members of the mortuary cult, the Lyctores overwhelmingly, but not universally, make up the leadership of the House. By some bargain that the House of Waking and Sleeping made with the Empress, the Lyctores may be used exclusively at the demand of The Empress to make her will manifest, usually in the form of deathless legions or powerful, necromantic war magic. The mere act of dispatching of a Lyctore to a problem has occasionally quieted revolts and curbed the depredations of bandits. The cult, for their part, accepts this arrangement as an inconvenient reality of staying the hand of imperial power.
The mortuary cults consider Lyctores to be something of a saint, someone who has forestalled freedom from the suffering caused by partaking in the delusion of existence in order to shepherd others and guide their understanding to something closer to the truth. Their existence is, within the cult, considered to be an act of unthinkable sacrifice and incredible mercy. Others, outside the cult, look at the image of a Lyctore guiding a full Legio of the dead as though they were her own limbs and see something rather less comforting.
Type
Acropolis / Citadel
Parent Location
Owning Organization
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