#【Castles that were so High they Touched the Horizons】Setting Aesthetic

[whitecrownsblackthrones-archived]

The New Camellian Palace, but with an assfuck more detail you did not need:

The Camellian Royal Palace

The Camellian Royal Palace is the new residence of the Royal Li Family after abandoning the old castle for a better position. The new palace was built on a slightly inclining hill, making the land at the back of the palace grounds higher then the land at the front.

Consisting of two main palaces, referred as the Front & Back Palace, that are connected via two much smaller palaces(Called the Tiny Twin Palaces) to make it technically a single building, & an overwhelmingly massive garden.

Despite being a palace, it is styled somewhat in the fashion of old castles, such as having towers fashioned in the architecture of Front Palace, a large wall being built around the palace grounds & it’s gardens(also with guard towers built in), & the use of a drawbridge to be allowed entry & exit of the palace grounds.

The defensive wall of the palace grounds is armed with canons that peek out from gunports & windows, & have round-the-clock guards patrolling the area, as well as a few guards that sleep, eat & live in the towers built into the wall.

Front Palace

Front palace is more for royal affairs & official business, hosting balls & galas, & where guests would be housed; there are parts of front palace that also go underground(2 floor levels worth) & it has the most floor levels of all the palaces.

Front Palace also contains the throne room/ballroom, the banquet hall & dining room, the kitchen & the royal library; as well as varies guest rooms for visitors & other miscellaneous rooms.

The Throne Room & the Ballroom in Front Palace is the same room, stationed to be the first room one enters when coming through the front doors of this palace. Used as both a meeting chamber & party hall, it has two large thrones at the very back of the room, for the reigning monarch & their spouse, elevated slightly by a platform of 5 steps. Chairs are also stationed around the hall & are often moved around in correspondence to what the hall is being used for at the time: when the hall is being used as a party hall, the chairs will be moved towards the walls to make room for dancers & musicians, when the hall is being used for a meeting chamber, the chairs a moved closer to the throne & organized neatly for the attending members. Members attending a meeting will be expected to sit in accordance of rank, with the highest ranking person being allowed to sit the closest to the royal thrones.

The banquet hall is a separate room to the throne room/ballroom, but is directly adjacent to it, separated only by a large set of doors. These doors are typically locked when the banquet hall is not in use for/not ready to serve yet in a active ball to keep guests out/coming in too early. The hall itself is nearly equal in size to the throne room/ballroom, & has a table that can seat up to 45 guests. In the event there are not enough seats for the attending guests, additional tables & seats may be brought in & placed in the ballroom to accommodate guests. Right next to the banquet hall is the kitchen, where guests can observe top skilled royal chiefs cooking courses through a glass window that allows those in the banquet hall to watch. Next to the kitchen, & across from the banquet hall is a much smaller dining room, used for the everyday meals of the royal family. This dining room may also be used to for guests of the royal palace so long as there is a seat available.

The Royal Library is stationed in the second of the underground floors of the palace, allowing for the most quiet atmosphere, prefect for a library; there are few windows in the library because of this. The library takes up the bulk of this underground floor & is tended too by many loyal librarians.

Guest rooms in the palace were typically limited to one or two rooms, sometimes three or four for important or very high rankings guests(like a king or queen). The typical guest room was a boudoir with a connected bathroom, somethings with an additional lounging room or drawing room next door.

Every member of the royal family is given the following rooms in Front Palace:

1 Business Office

1 Study Room

1 Tea Parlor

2 Drawing Rooms

2 Reading Rooms

3 Personal Lounging Rooms

Back Palace

Back Palace is smaller then Front Palace(but large then the Tiny Twin Palaces, with fewer floor levels, & is where the royal family themselves live. It a more private area where only select guests & servants are allowed in.

Ladies-in-Waiting/Gentlemen-in-Waiting & a royal family member's personal company of bodyguards & knights are some of the few people outside of the royal family that are allowed direct entry into this palace.

Typically, the only staff allowed to have a room to live within in Back Palace are Ladies' Maids & Personal Butlers, & they may be made to share a room depending on how many of them there are. All other staff(such as cleaning or waiting staff) live in one of the Tiny Twin Palaces, & must be hand-picked by a member of the royal family to be given entry(the only expectation to this rule are the Head Maid & Head Butler).

Like in the old castle, the royal family still maintains having multiple rooms in their name, that are referred to as ‘apartments’, that they are free to decorate & do with as they please; the amount of which is based on rank of the family member. Though being smaller then the old castle, & smaller then & with fewer floors then Front Palace, the numbers are cut back hugely from the old days & are as follows:

King/Queen - 10 apartments

Crown Prince/Crown Princess - 7 apartments

Prince/Princess - 5 apartments

Tiny Twin Palaces

The two smaller side palaces are mostly used for staff & storage, with both having a single underground level.

Servants of the royal family(maids, gardeners, chiefs, etc...) live in this section of the palace, safe for ladies' maids or personal butlers, who are given a room next to their master's quarters in Back Palace.

Typically, servants living here will share a room with a number of their co-workers(usually with females only share with females & males only sharing with males, though this is not always the case). Though, servants of exceptional service many be given a room of their own.

This is also where varies supplies for the staff & their duties are kept, such as cleaning supplies, gardening supplies, extra silverware, extra furniture, extra staff uniforms & many other things.

Underground Tunnels

There are huge tunnels that go deep under the grounds of the palace & it’s gardens.

This is both used as a measure for the royal family to traverse the palace ground in secret & safety, or even allow them to escape the grounds in secret in the case of a emergency.

These particular exit tunnels is very long & will take the royal family in one of two directions based on which tunnel they take, either to the border of the state of Xu Yong, or close to the sea & the border of the state of Ying-ling.

Staff of the royal palace will also use these underground tunnels to move about the palace grounds faster during large balls or other gatherings that make walking the halls difficult, or if they need to go a long distance(etc: going from the East Gardens to the West Gardens).

(Camellian Royal Palace & Royal Gardens)

The White Camellia Gardens

The Royal Gardens are also called The White Camellia Gardens, both in refence to the kingdom name itself, the kingdom's namesake flower & the majority abundance of white camellia flowers that are grown here.

The gardens are mostly sectioned off into 4 parts, the East Garden, the West Garden, the Front Garden & the Courtyard. The East Garden & West Garden are sectioned off from the palace by fences, & used for different proposes.

East Garden

The East Garden is where flowers, tress & other flora are mostly grown. Of course, there are flowers & trees everywhere in every garden, but this is where the bulk of them are.

There are 3 large greenhouses here, used to grown unique flora or flora that requires certain conditions grow, one of the greenhouses was gifted exclusively to the late Queen, Rosa, which has returned to open use of the staff after her death.

The storehouse that hold the palace's food reserves is also safely tucked into the corner of this garden, which is food harvested from the peasants was collected & stored. In the cases of famine, or other situations that could cause food shortages, the propose for this storehouse is to deliver these reserves with the citizens of Camellia.

West Garden

The West Garden lack the most greenery & flora, as it is used as training grounds, usually either for the royal family, their personal knights, or the knights which guard the palace.

There is a separate building here used as the barracks for the royal knights & guards; which is the only building to have three underground floors.

The royal stables are also in this part of the gardens. Near the royal stables is a smaller, secondary exit to the palace, used only by the royal family & is near a private riding trail the royal family enjoys use of.

Front Garden

The Front Garden are just that: the gardens at the very front of the palace grounds, & are the first things visitors see when entering from the drawbridge.

These are the most lavish gardens, with well trimmed flora, hedge walls, columns & statues for architecture décor, as well as water fountains, the main attraction being the large ornate fountain at the center of the gardens; this fountain is usually filled with camellia flowers to produce a pleasant floral aroma that is favored by the ground's creator, King John.

If one of the royal family was to host an outdoor social gathering, this is where it would be. Tables & chairs would be brought out to accommodated the guests & a stage brought out for musicians to play on.

Courtyard

The Courtyard is the space between the 4 palaces, & is the private garden space of the royal family. They have the freedom to decorate this space as they please.

Only gardeners hand-selected by the royal family are allowed to tend to this garden.

[whitecrownsblackthrones-archived]

In correspondence with the new palace, there are also new living arrangements for the Royal Li Family in Back Palace.

The royal family still maintains having multiple rooms based on their title that are referred to as ‘apartments’, though being smaller then the old castle, & smaller then & with fewer floors then Front Palace, the numbers are cut back hugely & are as follows:

King/Queen - 10 Rooms

Crown Prince/Crown Princess - 7 rooms

Prince/Princess - 5 rooms

Lord/Lady(in commoner marrying into royalty law AU) - 3 rooms

Also in correspondence with the new palace, every member of the royal family(not applying to Lords/Lady in the au mentioned above until after the marriage) is given the following rooms in Front Palace:

1 Business Office

1 Study Room

1 Tea Palor

2 Drawing Rooms

2 Reading Rooms

3 Personal Lounging Rooms

[whitecrownsblackthrones-archived]

Now that the new world map is done, here’s the new Camellia map:

Westport is obviously now the center of the country. Going back in history, before John was king & went on a conquering spree, Camellia was pretty much only the size of Ying-ling & Kyren, with Ying-ling being the original capital & where the original Camellian Royal Castle was. Taking Westport was huge for the kingdom, & John was quick to move the capital to Westport & build a new royal residence there once he secured the state, which would both be safer then having it close to sea & allow him to build a stronger home. That being said, there is also a new castle now, which has been officially changed to a palace.

[whitecrownsblackthrones-archived]

BTW, here’s the new map

Obviously, Zedessa & Dahlia are the new kingdoms(surprise to no one, I added another kingdom with a flower name, which makes the number for flora kingdoms 5).