Saint Richard's Asylum

Saint Richard's Asylum is a psychiatric hospital in Tiegang, International Mandate. It is located in the Blackfriars district, close to Blackfriar's International Station, Blackfriars' Redux and the School of the High Inquisitor of Tiegang.

Founded in 1692 by adherents of the Anti-Hyperborean school of psychiatry, it is known for its heavily anti-medical view on mental illnesses. As such, the Asylum disavows all kinds of medication for its residents (as patients are called here). Instead, the Asylum believes in behaviour activation and modelling as proper treatments for all mental ailments. Being part of society is crucial to keep away unhealthy psychological factors, and as such, alcohol (in moderation) is celebrated for its salutogenic properties.

Residents are kept active in helping out in local bakeries (particularly Nikola's Bakery), and carpentry workshops, as well as attending and organising to the business of the Asylum itself. People who have psychological problems are obviously experts on those problems themselves, which is why physicians are banned from the premises of the Asylum other than for actual somatic reasons.

Residents of the Asylum has also found themselves valuable in attending to plumbing and hygienic management of the less civilised areas of the city, and it has been reported that the residents are particularly celebrated there as they appear too dumb too understand what's going on (which is of course a fat lie, as the residents do speak of finding half-dissolved corpses in fatbergs, though police have not taken these stories seriously as they are told by "the mentally ill").

Thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of the Asylum's residents, it is a fine self-funded commercial enterprise. Its surplus is re-invested in the Asylum's business.

The Asylum is named after Saint Richard, a Nazarene patron saint of the disadvantaged and outcasts of society.