Dragonchess Court

The Mesa of Judgment

The realm is anchored on a vast, windswept mesa of platinum-veined stone that rises from the ever-shifting flux of Buxenus like a bastion of absolute order. Its cliffs are sheer and smooth, as though planed by divine precision, and its plateau surface is laid out in mathematically perfect tessellations. The mesa itself is an immovable landmark in a plane where much drifts, making it both a fortress and a beacon of stability.  

The Equilibrion Spire

At the mesa’s heart soars the Equilibrion, a spire of stone streaked with veins of glowing platinum. Its silhouette is impossibly slender, like a needle balancing heaven and earth, capped with the famous balanced beam that never tilts no matter what weight is placed upon it. At its base spread the outer courts, practice fields, and banner-halls; its middle chambers are filled with archives, training wards, and offices of judgment; and its crown houses the Chamber of Sentence where the weightiest rulings are passed.  

The Dragonchess Terrace

A broad terrace juts from the mesa’s eastern rim, paved as a colossal chessboard of alternating black basalt and white steel. Each square is a mutable platform that can rise into walls, sink into trenches, or unfurl into forests or siegeworks for the proving of strategies. From above, the terrace resembles a dragonchess board set upon a titan’s table, its games enacted with living troops.  

The Strategium District

On the western edge lies the Strategium: a precinct of tiered amphitheaters and domed halls filled with sand-tables, sky-charts, and psionic simulacra. Here commanders and cadets alike test campaigns, modeling the march of armies on landscapes that shift beneath their hands. The Strategium is also a place of silent thought; in its psionic chambers, the mindboards let generals play out entire campaigns in the space of a single bell, while curators record and preserve the results for precedent.  

Bridges and Balances

The mesa’s perimeter is ringed by causeways, bridges, and courtyards where justice is weighed against necessity. The most famous of these is the Weighing Bridge, a suspended span whose rails are lined with golden scales that sway in time with a traveler’s honesty. Other bridges link to ally realms: the Banner-Bridge to Mount Angradd, the Accord Arch to Mandible, and the White-Steel Door to the Bibliotheca of Sophia. Each is a channel of disciplined movement, opened only when the right rites or formations are observed.  

The Vaulted Undercroft

Beneath the mesa lies a labyrinth of galleries known as the Undercroft. Here the Ledger Crucible is housed, a records hall where every compact, treaty, and command is witnessed and sealed. The Undercroft also contains training caverns where Juriswyrms and inevitables drill new petitioners, echoing like the belly of a drum. The deepest vaults are sealed save for moments of great judgment, for it is said the Hollow Crown, seat of the dracolich curse, rests below.  

Skies of Balance

Above the mesa, the sky is dominated by the Orb of Day and Night, which swings its binary flip across the realm with sudden clarity. There is no dawn or dusk here, only day that becomes night in a heartbeat, and night that breaks into noon without warning. Generals drill their soldiers to act with precision at the very instant of change, making the rhythm of the Orb part of the land’s identity.  

The Marchfields

Beyond the mesa’s edge stretch orderly marchfields, expanses of level ground striped with roads, canals, and orchards that serve both as supply lines and training arenas. These lands are tended by mortal petitioners and inevitables in equal measure, ensuring that harvests, drills, and logistics run with flawless regularity. The marchfields are not permanent; they shift and reorient themselves after each campaign cycle, reorganizing like a chessboard cleared for a new match.  

Notable Locations

While most of the Draxal'thul have an embassy here, Bane is reluctant.  

The Grand Bench

Lendys’ circular court; sentences are spoken on the Weighing Bridge.

The Hunter’s Lattice

Solonor's gallery of wind-mapped kill lanes and long-range proofs.

The Tide Table

Bailshar's pavilion for naval war-games; currents and wind can be “played” like instruments.

The Silent Vault

Repository of recorded sentences against dragons; entry is granted to jurisswyrms and appointed arbiters only.    

Travel

Access to the Court is granted through the Needle Gate, a sword balanced on a needle that opens only when a lawful commission is presented, linking directly to the wayroads of Buxenus.   The Accord Arch to Mandible stands as the treaty gate to the formian city, maintaining logistics and musters. The White-Steel Door is a fixed portal to the Bibliotheca of Sophia, allowing direct access to citations, rulings, and precedent.   A disciplined column that marches in perfect step across the Dragonchess Floor opens the Banner-Bridge, a supply passage to Mount Angradd’s Bellfast Market. When Kord's Stormwardens conduct joint drills, the Stormward Link appears.  

Inhabitants

The realm is guarded and guided by Lendys’ Justiciars, adamantine-helmed planetars and archons who prosecute high cases and oversee military exercises. Among them move the Juriswyrms, ancient lawful dragons who serve as peer-judges in matters of dragonkind; their very presence is the summons to trial. Inevitables, act as clerks, bailiffs, and wardens of sentences. Alongside them train mortal petitioners and cadets: the alaghor of Mount Angradd, psionic strategists of the Arasilischand Neo-Ordosi and learned scholars vetted through writs from the Bibliotheca of Sophia.   However, except those are the Archons and Angels preparing to lead armies.

The Binary Flip, the instantaneous shift of the Orb of Day and Night, is so sudden that it has become drilled into every schedule; units trained in flip-drill move with uncanny quickness, gaining initiative as the world turns.   Strongly chaotic creatures suffer from Cadence Drag, their resistance to order and routine leaving them quickly exhausted, forced marches draining their strength at double the usual rate.   Within the bounds of the Court, Chain-of-Command Resonance ensures that legitimate orders carry farther and clearer, while false warrants and unauthorized compulsions sputter and fail. The Hall of Colors enforces Discipline Backlash, making any illusion or magic that forges rank far easier to pierce and dispel.   Finally, in the Equilibrion, the Juris-Echo ensures that lies spoken aloud reverberate as faint metallic dissonance, audible to the trained ear.   Fighters who hold the line in disciplined ranks or shield walls gain Formation Advantage, a small but vital morale edge to armor and resolve, though the moment they break formation the boon is lost. Through Cadence of Relief, any commander who devotes time to humanitarian labor, be it feeding the displaced, rebuilding homes, or caring for the wounded, earns Relief Dice to aid later acts of command, diplomacy, or healing tied to that community. Proof of Orders grants divinations that ask “who may lawfully give this command”? a sharp edge of insight, while forged warrants betray themselves by warming to the touch.   Within the Strategium, the gift of Chessmaster’s Clarity heightens the mind, granting greater aptitude in tactical engineering, sharper sense against strategic deceit, and a psionic foresight that can anticipate enemy moves.   Finally, Shield of the Innocent protects those who carry a lawful writ of the Court, enfolding them in a sanctuary whose power rises with the authority of the writ itself, so long as they remain clearly non-hostile.