StealthSeeker wrote:evilauthor wrote:So from the description of the Temple in OAR, we know the inhabited portions of the Temple is roughly five or six stories tall. The wings contain offices and the residential apartments of VIPs like the Vicars.
So the question is: Does the Temple have elevators?
In ancient Rome, the most affluent people in an apartment building lived on the ground floor or close to it while the poorer ones had to live upstairs because climbing so many floors was a chore. If the Temple has no elevators, escalators, or other means of powered lift, then apartment desirability should follow the same logic.
But in the Temple, Clyntahn - arguably the highest status member of the Temple outside the Grand Vicar - has a corner apartment that looks out upon the city of Zion, implying it's NOT a ground floor apartment. In fact, implying a top floor or close to top floor location. And of course being the fat ass he is, Clyntahn himself wouldn't want to climb any more stairs that he has to.
I would say that it does not have elevators. Elevators require a lot of maintenance and the kind of mechanical knowledge that safehold residence just don't seem to have. AND!!... you can have a "view" from the lowest floor of a building if the building is built on a high hill or mountain.
I've just come again across the bit in HFQ [p341 hardback]where Rayno comes
'through the mystic sliding doors... The office walls' ever changing mirror of God's handiwork... Another golden streamer, from no discernable source, struck down to illuminate Cyntain's actual work space... distant birdsong and wyvern whistles came quietly...'
Seems to me that since the Temple contains working eight hundred year old sliding doors, light sources and high def video and sound systems, all of which are completely out of Safeholds capability, then working elevators is not massively improbable!