> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ashenmarch.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Seat & Castle > Raise your House's Seat on your greatest holding — a permanent castle you build in stages, adorn to make your own, and defend. The long-horizon prize your Gold is saving toward. A **Seat** is the one thing on the war-map that stands still. Territory flips daily — yours, a rival's, the fading edges of a decaying claim. Your Seat is the mark that *stays*: a permanent castle on ground you proved on foot, that says **I was here, and I held it.** It's also where a long life of tribute finally goes. Cosmetics are pride; a Seat is a **monument you build over months** — the long-horizon prize the [Treasury](/en/treasury) is saving toward. ## Raising your Seat You can raise a Seat only on a **Citadel** — the top [fortification tier](/en/conquering-land), ground you've held and pushed to its peak. That gate is the point: a castle is earned by the climb, not bought on a whim. When a holding reaches Citadel, the Herald offers you the Writ of Seat. Raising it is a deliberate act: * **Choose the ground.** You site the castle at an exact spot inside your own land — plant your flag where your feet are. (Not on water, not on the frontier edge — on solid ground that's truly yours.) * **Break ground.** The first stage — a timber **palisade** — is laid with Gold. Not at Citadel yet? Open the **Castle Planner** from any holding to preview a castle and see what each piece costs — so you know exactly what to march toward. ## Savings you can watch become stone A castle isn't a single purchase — it's **funded into being, stage by stage**, and each stage visibly rises on the map: 1. **Palisade** — a timber ring and your banner. 2. **Keep** — the central stone tower. 3. **Walls** — the curtain wall closes the ring. 4. **Towers** — corner towers crown the silhouette. It's a castle now. You pour Gold in as you earn it; a stage completes when it's fully funded. Nothing is time-gated and nothing is lost — a half-funded wall waits for you. ## Making it yours No two Seats look alike. Beyond the stages, you **adorn** your castle with named works — each changes how it looks *and* how the Herald speaks of it: * **Great Hall**, **Watchtower**, **Barbican**, **Moat**, **Banners of your House**, **Chapel**, and more. Some are pure prestige; some genuinely strengthen your walls. Each is shown honestly for what it does — and the ones that defend are the heart of the next section. ## Defending your Seat Here's the promise: **the more you invest, the harder your home is to lose.** A fully-built, well-adorned Seat is a real stronghold — meaningfully tougher and slower to take than open ground, and it *recovers stronger* when you tend it. But it is **never a wall you can hide behind forever.** The land can always be contested — a determined rival, or a coordinated House, can still lay siege and, given a real campaign, take it. Your castle buys you strength and **time**, not immunity. * **A siege gives fair warning.** When rivals come for your Seat, the Herald raises the alarm with real time to answer — you'll know your walls are being tested long before they fall. * **Tend the walls.** When your Seat takes damage you **tend** it with Gold — masons mend the breach. A wounded Seat advertises itself, which is honest: it tells rivals there's an opening, and tells you to ride home. * **If it falls, it *stands*.** A captured Seat isn't erased — it stands under the conqueror's banner as a **ruin**, a mark of a House that was here. And ground once won can be won again: you can march back and rebuild. Taking a rival's Seat is a **prize** — a bounty for the taker — but taking the *land* never hands you a working castle for free. You inherit broken ground; a Seat of your own is still something you **build**. In Ashenmarch, the land is won on foot — and a castle is *raised*, never stolen. ## One Seat, and strongholds beyond A House holds exactly **one Seat** — your capital, your name on the map. Should you want a second castle, that's a matter for the Crown: a rare, escalating-cost **Crown Writ**, bought in the [Market](/en/the-market). Each Writ costs more than the last, so strongholds stay few and hard-won. Your Seat is singular; everything after it is ambition. ## Earned only, never pay-to-win Like everything that touches a battle in Ashenmarch, a castle is **built with earned Gold** — coin your holdings paid you as tribute. There is **no way to buy a castle, a stage, or an adornment with real money**, and no shortcut past the Citadel climb. A castle is a monument to the miles you walked, not the money you spent. See [the bright line](/en/the-market#the-bright-line). ## Questions Hold a territory at **Citadel** — the top fortification tier. When it reaches Citadel the Herald offers you the Writ of Seat; you site the castle inside your land and fund the first stage with Gold, then raise it stage by stage. No. A Seat makes your home **meaningfully harder to hold** and buys you time to defend — but it's always takeable by a real, sustained siege. Investment buys strength, never immunity. They can take the **land** — but that gives them a ruin, not a working castle. A Seat of their own is still something they have to build. And a fallen Seat can be reclaimed and rebuilt. One **Seat** per House. Additional strongholds need a rare, escalating **Crown Writ** from the Market — deliberately expensive, so they stay rare. Never. Castles, stages, and adornments are **earned Gold only**. Real money in Ashenmarch is your membership and nothing else — it never buys a castle or power. You can raze your own Seat — a deliberate, heavily-confirmed act. It leaves a permanent **ruin** on the map — the ground remembers — and that cleared ground can be built on again later. The Treasury — how your holdings earn the tribute a castle is built from.