Overview

From the heart of the city, Castle Korvosa looms over every other structure and even rises above nearby Citadel Hill. It consists of two basic parts: the ancient Grand Mastaba and the great keep itself. Only the reigning monarch, their immediate family, the seneschal of the castle, and their family may live within its walls. Each may invite long-term guests, but the other can expel them (except in times of war).

Castle Korvosa has been subject to constant renovation and expansion in the 250 years since its main walls were first raised, creating a patchwork of wall, stairs, and towers. Nonetheless, it has managed to maintain a relatively constant neo-Chelaxian architecture, all done in the black marble shipped down from Janderhoff.

The Grand Mastaba

An immense four-sided pyramid, a set of human-scale stairs is cut into the center of the southwestern face, allowing access to the top. The southern corner of the structure appears to have collapsed, but in fact the damage was caused by centuries of scavenging by lazy stone masons, a practice now illegal.

The Grand Mastaba was once a Shoanti holy site and fortification, with a semi-permanent camp at its base and a palisade on its flat top. When the Chelaxian colonists drove out the Shoanti, they immediately began building their own fortification on the pyramid top, which evolved into the castle.

Korvosan scholars believe that the Grand Mastaba was a monument of ancient Thassilon, one of many such ruins of that lost empire which dot the city’s landscape.

The Keep

Multiple towers rise from the roofed keep, including the Epochal Tower which keeps the city’s time and the frighteningly tall Seawatch Tower. Dozens of Korvosan Guards patrol the keep at all times, while the Sable Company marines maintain a hippogriff aerie in one of the towers. The Crimson Throne, the seat of royal power, stands on the second floor of the keep. It is the only chair on the entire floor.

Other Points of Interest

• Public Courtyard: Separating the gates of the Keep proper from the pyramid staircase is a large terrace that is left open to the public for festivals and celebrations. It was the site of Trinia’s botched execution.

• Gardened Terraces: Mature green areas of small size but remarkable beauty on the southeastern edge of the pyramid, they were commissioned by the late Queen Domina.

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