House of Black and Gold

The current purpose of the House of Black and Gold is two-fold, it serves as an institution that educates in the magics of Artifice-craft, Enchantment, Transmutation and Abjuration, as well as dabbling in Advanced Magics that can range from crafting arcane firearms, advanced constructs to potent elixirs to be used by soldiers on the battlefield. In the modern day, it is split in to two wings, the Black Repository and the Golden Peerage; with the former being the operative location of the Speculatores who engage in research considered vital to the continuity of the Empire, with the latter engaging in the front-facing aspect of the House, recruiting able bodied students, operating a functioning university and sponsoring flashes of genius into genuine magical research.    The Black Repository dominates the lower levels of the House, utilising three full floors of the known 7 of the House, with the Golden Peerage utilising the remaining four as a mixture of student accommodations, libraries, lecture halls, demonstration rooms, specimen containment chambers, alchemical areas, advanced smithies and storage. Many speculate as to the exact contents of the Black Repository, but none who enter offer answers willingly.   As its original form, the House was constructed to serve as an observation chamber for Wood and High Elven mothers undergoing pregnancy, to potentially isolate the cause of Elven infertility and to monitor the deterioration of healthy Elven mothers into an unhealthy pregnancy. Moreover, experiments were performed with poultices, elixirs, transmutation magics and others to alter the fatal outcome of most pregnancies or identify the root cause of the issue, however, no cause could be identified or solution reached. The Houses of Nightstar and Serrania placed their seemingly endless silver, gold and platinum reserves behind the finest minds that the dying Republic could muster, but if any progress was made, it was unfortunately not enough to combat the Stillborn Plague that all pureblooded Elven couples find themselves experiencing. During the War of Mer Succession, the original 13 levels of the House were reduced to 5 during the Tide of Orsa, a campaign of warfare waged from the last Orcish city of Orsa to the east of Emerhall. The House held out for many years, utilising a mixture of magic, manpower and trickery to defeat the hordes of Orcs and Drow that beat down their walls and overcame their defenders, but ultimately the fighting left much of it destroyed and ultimately unusable. Due to the unstable nature of the experiments performed in the House, excavation of the ruins is slow and methodical, endeavours that can take decades to see minor progress, but the Archmage is patient and has always governed the house with a steady hand, thus far rediscovering 2 full levels of the House over the past 200 years.

The House is constructed primarily of a concentric ring of Rhemustone as the exterior defending walls, with the upper Golden Peerage being constructed of a magically altered Rhemustone, bearing a faint yellow colour. It is built in the style of Late Republic architecture, featuring large, stained glass windows, colossal archways, numerous fountains and courtyards, rooms detailed with intricate mosaics and paintings of deeds of past House members or other Rozani intellectuals. Where it can be, the construction is open air, however, the construction of the Black Repository is different to the upper levels, constructed of a hybrid metal known as Sorgus that bears a deep black colour bursting with green veins, smooth to the touch and often has a maze-like structure to the construction of the building, seemingly designed to confuse those who do not belong.