Lord Weiss Dormitory

There in an upscale neighborhood in some district of Zephyrus are a row of luxurious Victorian apartments. Four floors of exquisite architecture, each is akin to a lavish mansion. Each with dozens of spacious rooms per floor. The centermost belongs to lord Edmund Weiss, an eccentric inventor and widower. As a member of the aristocracy, he has considerable pull in the district but rarely makes appearances in its parliament following the death of his wife some years ago. He is not a total recluse, however; whether due to loneliness or some strange whim he has turned the lower floors into a dormitory.

The lord of the house does not discriminate but he does prefer tenants he considers ‘interesting’. People with qualities that stand out or are alien to his Zephyrsonian eyes. That means many of his guests have been Other Worlders or have come from other wards. People with supernatural abilities and unusual quirks. Many a legend has even accepted his hospitality, such as the famed bounty hunter Freyja Nightingale. Then there was Thrad the Barbarian, a warrior who later went on to slay the Demon Lord of the Salt Fields after it kidnapped a princess. The locals jokingly call them Lord Weiss's menagerie, though his current tenants are a little more mundane. An eclectic gaggle of misfits from Queen Astraya's Academy have taken up residence on the second floor, unable or unwilling to bunk at the school's proper dorms. Their reasons? Anyone's guess. They share the floor with a woman who fancies herself a maid and is rumored to be something other than human. Next to her room is an apparently famous but reclusive author who rarely, if ever, steps out during the day. On the third floor is a girl who comes out at night and claims to be a vampire, though the veracity of these claims have yet to be truly tested. She often feuds with her neighbor, a self-styled mad scientist who spends more time eating cake than actually doing any kind of work. A detective and spirit medium also rents out a room on this floor though generally avoids the others, spending a lot of time in one of the dens by a fireplace.

Lord Weiss has the whole fourth floor to himself, it being his personal sanctuary. Besides a bedroom there is also a study, a library, and an observatory with a truly impressive telescope inside. He spends much of his time just staring into it, sometimes at Pharos and sometimes at something else entirely. Other days he's in the study, feverishly jotting down notes and drawing up strange diagrams. Only the bravest of his servants dare venture up there to bring him meals once a day and do the unenviable task of trying to tidy up after their lord.

There are a few other noteworthy qualities to Lord Weiss's home, though a lot of it is rumor. An example are the purported hidden passages that are said to riddle the building, some supposedly even connecting to the vast network of sewer systems and subway tunnels under Zephyrus. Other stories mention underground kingdoms and tiny people living inside the walls or long abandoned rooms tucked away, filled to the brim with mountains of junk. On the more real side of things is the secret garden out back, surrounding a Eastern Style hot spring. It is a popular spot for the students. On the roof, other than a forest of chimneys, is a greenhouse, tended to by Lord Weiss himself.

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