Hammerhall
Hammerhalls are the central government and administrative building in Tetran Under-Cities. Beginning as guild workshops and offices, with places to show workers skills, they changed over time to be permanent bases for the guild leaderships, and places where the Council of Masters could meet to make decisions for the whole city.
Tetran Under-Cities are, officially, wholly economic enterprises - concerned only with extraction, processing, and manufacture. As such, every resident is assumed to be a member of one of the five traditional guilds. From this, it follows that the Under-City is managed not by a separate administrative structure, but by the guild leaderships themselves.
Each guild elects a Hammer Master, the leader of the guild and (supposedly) the most skilled smith and crafter. In reality, these are now an explicitly political position on the ruling Council. The Hammerhall is the meeting point and workplace of these Masters, and the guild bureaucrats who they use to administer the city.
Purpose / Function
Initially, the Hammerhalls began as meeting places, fora, and exhibition halls. A large hall would be carved out - three or five stories high - and paved. At the near end (nearest the entrance from the main city tunnels) a dias would be raised, and five workshops would be carved out along the walls. These would not be used for day-to-day crafting, but for exhibition competitions, the hosting (and public crafting of gifts for) dignitaries, and celebratory feasting.
Increasingly - as the guilds grew in administrative size - the messy business of smelting and forging was increasingly excluded from the Hammerhall, and the goods were instead ceremonially processed in, from the guilds own foundries. Instead, guilds established offices, and dias was often covered over to create a council meeting space. Now, almost all Hammerhalls have been remodelled - five large guild palaces line the walls, with the council chamber sitting above the entrance gates. There is frequently still a open plaza, often with a ceremonial anvil, important in civic ceremonies - particularly the creation of new Hammer Masters.
Instead of industry, however, the purpose of the halls is administration - the guild offices housing clerks who manage the city's law and order, trade, infrastructure, and agree on the monthly mining - to keep the Under-City both stable and prosperous.
Type
Guildhall
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