Palace of Oluz

The Palace of Oluz is a substantial walled compound in the hill regions of Oluz, one of the two far-flung northern outposts of the Eleven Cities based around the Sea of Jars. Once the palace of the kings of Oluz, it is now the main seat of government and aministration in the mercantile city.

History

The Palace of Oluz once contained a king roll carved into the left-hand column of the front gate, though this record was effaced after the Oluzian Revolution and little can be said of its contents except that it clearly contains seven names. The Oluzian historian Phynon Rannon Qyl states that the Palace was initially built by the fourth of the kings on the roll, Talqo Nypos Hayl, though his history contains numerous fanciful episodes and is notoriously difficult to substantiate, so this need not be taken as authoritative.
The Palace was the scene of extensive fighting during the Oluzian Revolution, though over the subsequent two centuries much of the resulting damage was repaired or replaced. The general notion is that these alterations carefully replicate the pre-Revolutionary state of the complex, although much of the extensive ornamentation, particularly that produced in the last century or so, is in fact constructed in line with contemporary impressions of what pre-Revolutionary Oluz "should" look like. This has led to a hodgepodge of styles and priorities which frequently strike foreign visitors as garish and discordant and contributes significantly to Oluz's reputation for an ostentatious material culture.
For example, the double-height main entrance of the main building is supported by effigies of two Sea dragons, sigmoid in pose, both facing the door. Sea dragons are never depicted as sigmoid in pre-Wesmodian art, and the design is thus almost certainly a post-Wesmodian imposition. Similarly the wing of the Palace given over as the local offices of the Commercial Guilds boasts an interesting mural of the myth of Zargyod and the Sailors, but this mural is less than a century old and thus was not painted until two hundred years after the faith in Zargyod atrophied. Whether and how this diminishes what thaumatologists can learn from it is an ongoing debate.

Institutional culture, facilities and purpose

The Palace of Oluz is a walled compound in which most of the business of running Oluz is conducted. The bulk of its floor space is given over to the complex bureaucracy of clerks, secretaries and magistrates who administer the legal code of the city. That code is famed for its convoluted nature and numerous redundancies and the agents charged with upholding it are similarly many and subject to a complex pattern of shifting and overlapping responsibilities which only initiates particularly understand. These derive from the Code of Oluz which, very significantly, divides the year not into twelve moons but into eight phases related to the level of the high tide on the docks of Oluz. Each phase shift in this annual cycle slightly alters the relationship between the various offices and officers of the Palace, and only the indigo-robed initiates to the system fully understand exactly how it works. Outsiders are often flummoxed by seasonal changes to which clerk or secretary they must speak to in order to get anything done, hence the reputation of the Palace as "The Place That Sends You Mad." 
In fact, the tidal origins of the system makes it of considerable interest to thaumatologists, who speculate that it had something to do with the extensive influence of the cult of Zargyod, specifically in his capacity as a god of the sea, in Oluz in the pre-Wesmodian era. This general notion is widely accepted in Oluz; the city had no monumental temple to the god but small shrines to him proliferated along the waterfront and a few are still recognisable, most having been repurposed as impluvia of various sorts. In the depths of these a number of brass curse tablets, some written in languages never spoken in Oluz (and some indeed wholly untranslatable), have been retrieved, illustrating that the city was a hotbed of the cult of Zargyod among Sailors on the Sea of Jars. It is speculated that the complex system of shifting responsibilities may have some ritual significance to the cult and therefore potential to Zargyod's other roles as a god of both metalworking and chance.
One point that might equally further or detract from this possibility is that the Commercial Guilds, an institution very explicitly descended from the pre-Wesmodian clerisy of Zargyod, run their Oluzian affairs from a suite of offices inside the Palace of Oluz. This bureau follows the organisational pattern laid out in The Book of Favour, a Chogyan document laying out the case for Zargyod as a god of good fortune, with the exception of their recognition of a rank of "Brass" Guilders who serve as diplomats and attaches between the guild customhouses in other cities. The Guilders do not follow the Code of Oluz, but centuries of cohabitation in the same complex have given them an institutional understanding of its complexities and they seem to be able to follow it far more easily than most others.
Also represented in the Palace of Oluz are the Red Guard of Oluz, who have a small suite of offices there coordinating their activities. 
The Palace of Oluz is also the headquarters of the Oluzian judiciary and, subject to the demands of the Code of Oluz, the venue for criminal trials of sufficient gravity - generally those having some influence on the conduct of maritime trade in and around the city.