The Workhouse is the city's primary center for the indigent and the able-bodied poor. It serves as a combined shelter, factory, and correctional facility. Those who cannot pay their debts or find honest work in the Free City are often sent here to earn their keep. Residents spend their days engaged in grueling but necessary tasks for the city: breaking stones for road repair, unravelling old rope for oakum, or weaving coarse grey cloth for the City Watch uniforms. This is a sprawling, grim complex of soot-stained brick and grey stone. Its architecture is strictly functional, featuring high, narrow windows and a large, paved central yard. Unlike the nearby merchant houses, there is no gold or silk here—only the cold reality of civic duty and hard labor.
