The Fortress of Disciplined Enlightenment
| Planar City | |
|---|---|
| Plane: | Mechanus |
| Layer: | Mechanus |
| Ruler: | Lady Nancias Garabutos |
- Law is a series of rules. Rules can be learned. Once a rule is learned, there's knowledge to find a way around it. And once a body can find a way around the law, there's nothing that can stop him.
This is the home of the Fraternity of Order, better known as the Guvners. Since few of them care to say "The Fortress of Disciplined Enlightenment" every time they speak of their home, they usually shorten it to just "The Fortress." It sits on its own cog, its spires and towers rising high into the clear darkness of Mechanus' night. Guards constantly patrol the parapets, keeping a vigilant watch for someone who's not concerned with the law and the wrath of the Fraternity of Order.
Lady Nancias Garabutos rules the Fortress of Disciplined Enlightenment. Her jurisdiction's fair and just, always adhering to the letter of the law laid down before her; she tries to be true to the spirit of the law, finding loopholes in the old laws and using them as she needs. She's canny and careful, and has a firmer grasp on the laws of the Fortress than most of the scholars studying in the archives below.
There's rumors that certain underlings are planning to find a way to discredit Lady Nancias. The chant is, they've discovered laws that clearly demonstrate she's not qualified to rule here, and that they do. Some say that the laws these berks've found are forgeries, artificially aged to appear far older than they are.
The Fortress is thousands of yards through the middle, and there's literally hordes - though they're the most organized hordes anyone's ever seen - of clerks, functionaries, warriors, and other seekers using the Fortress for this and that. The Fortress is nonagonal (nine-sided), and there's nine sections dividing the interior. There's no intermixing between sections - the kind of work done in one area is never done in another - though all sections are devoted to making sure the Guvners can come out on top in their struggle to understand the multiverse. The sections include: the farms, the barracks, the eatery, the court, the training ground, the bureaucracy, the libraries, the bazaar, and the Lady's Palace. They work as a harmonious whole, making this an organized hive where each speciality contributes to make a greater creation.
The libraries far extend underneath the Fortress, with room upon fireproofed room of legal volumes from all over the multiverse. This is the most inhabited part of the Fortress, for there's bloods studying the law all the time. There's no question that the libraries are the focal point of the keep - which is all well and good, because it's in the court that the Guvners come ever closer to discovering the truth of Law through their endless debates and tireless arguments.
If a body's got an escort and a pass, the Guvners'll let him peruse their vast library of law. They've got the most complete collection of laws from all over the multiverse here, from Baator to the city of Waterdeep on the Prime Material. Chances are that if there's a law a body's looking for, it's going to be here. Everything's extensively cross-referenced, so a cutter can look under the subject, originating world, places where the law's applicable, and so forth. There's even histories of laws and how they've changed, if that's the sort of thing a basher's looking for.