Cloister of St. Ramedar

The Cloister of St. Ramedar was Tethyr's most renowned prison and sanitarium for the mentally ill. It was run by the Ramedaran Brotherhood, a monastic order in the church of Ilmater, circa the mid–14 century DR.

Geography
The Cloister was located on the southern face of Mount Adiir, one of the highest peaks in the Starspire Mountain range, approximately northwest of Zazesspur. The entrance was about above a sheer drop to the Bay of Bormul. A gravel road wide enough for a single wagon left the Trade Way about north of Zazesspur and wound its way west and upward to the redoubt.

Government
The Ramedaran Brotherhood was chartered by the Crown to administer Tethyr's penal system and care for the mentally ill. In the, Reverend Father Benentine Boldoran was the Cloister's top administrator, leading a group of about 45 painbearers and over 65 monks of the order.

Trade
The Cloister was supported by contributions from Tethyr's cities and the nobility. The Brotherhood used this income primarily to import food for the inmates and caretakers at least once a tenday.

Defenses
The sheer cliff, known as "The Wall", on the southern face of Mount Adiir rose some from the water and at a distance appeared to be a smooth, rippling granite surface worn by sea and weather. From a much closer proximity, over one hundred small windows (little more than arrow slits) could be seen in multiple rows high above the water. Given the paucity of handholds, slick surface, and buffeting winds, the Wall was extremely difficult to climb. The windows of the cells were protected from entry or exit by a specially designed wardmist spell, cast and maintained by wizards in payment for the care of relatives and other favors granted by the Ramedaran Brotherhood.

The courtyard of the Cloister was enclosed by an stone wall with crenelations that added another  to its height. The wall was tapered, being wide at the bottom and  wide at the top. The ancient dwarves that built the wall fitted the stones with a magical mortar that gave the wall a bit more resistance to physical damage. The monks kept wooden ladders along the wall about every or so. The wall and gate towers were patrolled day and night, with 11–16 guards during daylight and an extra handful of men added at night. The Captain of the Watch carried a pair of eyes of the eagle.

The only gate was set in the wall between two small, round towers apart. It consisted of double doors made of ironwood behind a portcullis made of steel treated with everbright. The two towers were in diameter and  tall, joined at the third floor by a covered stone bridge. Each tower had three floors with wooden ceilings set almost apart, each with a trap door and a ladder that could be drawn up if necessary. (The walls showed evidence that the dwarves had built four stories with ceilings and used stone steps embedded in the walls.) On the roof of each tower was a small catapult.

Because of the remodeling to fit human proportions, the doors to the stone bridge connecting the towers opened above the floor of the third level and were accessed by a set of small wooden steps. Inside the passage was a winch for raising the portcullis, murder holes for shooting down at attackers, and a large cast iron pot.

The next line of defense was the entryway into the mountain itself, called the Adiir Gate. Two large statues of hooded monks flanked a corridor that led  into the rock and arrived at the first of two massive slabs of granite that slid into recesses on tracks, one to the north and the other to the south. The second slab was set beyond the first and when both were sealed they formed an airtight mantrap of about. The sliding doors were controlled by multiple winches in a complex arrangement inside the Cloister. These manual devices and the doors themselves were located inside a spherical dead-magic zone about in diameter. The winch rooms were guarded at all times by five priests with two more stationed outside the outer slab and another pair inside the inner slab. The leader of the winch guards was in possession of a dark green ellipsoid ioun stone that granted him clairaudience to monitor those seeking access into the Cloister proper. Beyond the second sliding slab was a corridor lined with arrow slits on both sides.

Architecture
After entering the bailey through the front gate, the stables were to the immediate left. This L-shaped building was built by the Brotherhood and the single-story structure had a tack room and stalls for a dozen animals. Two acolytes bunked in the tack room and they fed, watered, and groomed the animals stabled there. At any given time, the Brotherhood had up to six horses and two mules with the rest of the stalls available for visitor's steeds.