Crystal Palace

This article refers to the palace in the ancient Thassilonian city of Xin. For the house in the Mudhaven area of Absalom, see Crystal Palace (Mudhaven).

The Crystal Palace was the palace of Xin, founder of Thassilon, and the site of his death and location of his remains. Upon his death, the Palace itself became infused with his restless spirit. It is located inside of a mountainous spire of crystal at the city of Xin, on an island about 100 miles west of Magnimar in what was formerly the southern coast of the Thassilonian realm of Bakrakhan.

The Palace sank along with the rest of the island upon which the city of Xin was located during Earthfall, and it remained on the floor of the Arcadian Ocean until parts of the island were raised by adventurers in 4712 AR.

History

While leaving Azlant in exile, Xin stole from his family's vaults a dark diamond the size of a kettle that was etched with primordial runes. Upon arriving to what is now known as Varisia in -6530 AR, he planted the gemstone in the middle of the new capital city for his new empire of Thassilon, and it grew to become a palace of living, gleaming crystal.

Over nearly 25 years, Xin developed the Thassilonian schools of magic and crafted the Sihedron while administering his nascent empire. However, he grew to resent the responsibilities of rulership and delegated them to the best pupils of his seven schools, collectively naming them the Runelords and granting each a portion of the empire to rule. With administration delegated, he focused his work and the Palace on his research.

Xin grew more paranoid over time, in part out of necessity after several attempts on his life, and dismissed his mortal staff in favor of clockworks. He also pursued the creation of a clockwork reliquary into which he could transfer his soul and achieve immortality. The Runelords, covetous of Xin's power, waited for him to weaken the defenses of the Sihedron and the Palace during his pursuit of his reliquary before dispatching the rune giant assassin Shasthaak to kill him in -6420 AR. In retaliation, Xin detonated one of the Sihedron's shards, which destroyed his assassin, himself, and much of the Crystal Palace. Although he planned to be resurrected, the Runelords thwarted his plan, and his restless spirit was effectively confined to the Palace that he inhabited.

The Runelords soon agreed to avoid the site and city, allowing it to fall into ruin over a span of more than 1,000 years. In -5293 AR, the damage from Earthfall sank the Palace, city, and island to the depths of the Steaming Sea.

This page contains spoilers for the following products: several encounters and major plot points of The Dead Heart of Xin.
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It remained there until adventurers reunited the shards of the Sihedron in Magnimar in 4712 AR, which triggered Xin's plan and raised the city from the sea's depths, causing an earthquake and massive tsunami in the process.

Structure

The Crystal Palace is at the center of the island inside a craggy mountain spire of black crystal that resembles dull obsidian and actively absorbs nearby sources of light. The structure was originally gleaming in tone but became darkened by time, damage, and the descent of First King Xin's spirit into madness. It is windowless and has a single arched doorway on its eastern side that leads to its interior, which as of 4712 AR was sealed with black crystal.

Despite its craggy exterior the Palace's features become smooth when touched, which endangers any attempts to climb the structure. The interior is subject to temporal anomalies that present themselves as visions of First King Xin's past.

The Palace's walls are a foot thick and its doors are four inches thick, and all are made of the same crystalline material. Compared to the rest of the city of Xin, the Palace is relatively well preserved by wards and magical mending abilities that self-repair any damage done to its crystalline structure. Its interior was largely unaffected by being sunken for ages; only its lowermost hold was flooded, and the rest of the structure remained largely intact. The Palace itself can mold itself to the needs or wants of Xin or the spirit's axiomite servants. However, like crystal it is susceptible to sonic effects that can shatter the material.

Underground levels

Several underground levels once existed beneath the Crystal Palace, but all but the uppermost of these were sealed or destroyed by the passage of time and the island's raising. The surviving level containing much of Xin's clockwork army, including 1,760 deactivated but intact Xin legionnaires stored in temporal stasis, was flooded with seawater due to the collapse of its armory. This level included a magically automated foundry for manufacturing and assembling clockworks and their components.

Ground floor

The Palace's ground level was a public forum from which Xin ruled over his empire, issued judgments, and welcomed visitors. The floor of its main entryway is made of transparent crystal, through which one can see thousands of clockwork Xin legionnaires. Its ceilings are 30 feet high, save for First King Xin's throne room, which are 100 feet high. It also includes a temple to Lissala in her early form, a dining hall illuminated by captured shining children, a library of mostly ruined texts, and the four surviving Thassilonian spellwells—a predecessor to the more powerful runewells.

Workshops

The Palace's second floor contained Xin's personal workshops and laboratories, a clockwork orchestra, a biological laboratory for the study of extraplanar constructs such as retrievers, and vats containing his largely failed attempts to forming homunculi.

Xin also maintained a workshop dedicated to his construction of his clockwork reliquary above the Skymetal Vaults in what was originally the Palace's middle section. This section is also the final resting place of Shasthaak, the rune giant sent by the Runelords to assassinate Xin.

Apex

The Palace had several more floors above its workshops, but all were destroyed in the explosion Xin caused to stave off his assassin.

Skymetal Vaults

Xin constructed and supplied separate vaults for seven types of skymetals—horacalcum, adamantine, djezet, inubrix, noqual, siccatite, and abysium. All were sealed and accessible solely through teleportation magic.

Inhabitants

As of 4712 AR, the Palace was both inhabited by and infused with First King Xin's spirit, making the structure itself semi-sentient in nature. This spirit could manifest itself in an unnatural spectral form in parts of the palace, possess constructs that litter the Palace, or infuse itself into the structure to trigger traps and seal its doors.

Its time underwater drew powerful alghollthu, including the veiled master Ogonthunn, whose gemstone Xin personally stole and used to seed the Palace's crystalline structure. Most living mortals who were in the palace when it sank after Earthfall became various forms of undead. Many intricately adorned axiomites awaited in stasis within the structure until disturbed. Several conjured guardians also inhabit the structure, some bound for the entirety of its sealed underwater existence.

References

Paizo set part of The Dead Heart of Xin in the Crystal Palace, including maps of its surviving levels.