Awaken Castle

[Morithias]

Is it possible to cast awaken on a building and make it sapient? Like where it could lock the doors, reset the traps, and talk to you?

I couldn't find anything in any of the ebberon books or in the stronghold builder's guide. So what do you people think?

[Chilingsworth]

Well, two ways I can think of:

1. cast animate object on the castle, make it permenantly animated, then cast awaken construct on the castle. I'm not sure if this would actually work by RAW.

2. Make a castle-sized custom magic item. Make it be an intelligent magic item. It's cost would be dependant on what base abilities you gave it.

[JaronK]

Vision is the main issue. You could make a flying castle with a control room in the middle (IIRC Stronghold Builder's Guide allows for this), then make that room have a magical Chamber effect. Now make that intelligent. That at least makes the castle fly.

JaronK

[Madcrafter]

I saw a PbP campaign once that had a character I always wanted to copy. He was a psion, who had been turned into an undead and Haunt Shifted into an airship. Had control and such over the whole thing, and used his powers to do stuff. You could do the exact same thing with a castle.

And I found the thread: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3389.40

Just scroll down to the Iron Maiden cover.

[JaronK]

Haunt Shift can't do larger than Huge, IIRC.

JaronK

[Zaq]

Haunt Shift can't do larger than Huge, IIRC.

JaronK

Haunt Shift into something, then PAO that something into something bigger? I forget if Haunt Shifting into something makes it ineligible for PAO, but if not, PAO solves everything. Everything, I tell you.

[Deth Muncher]

Okay, so Animate Objects lets you animate a Colossal sized object, assuming you have a caster level of 32. I'm not very good at op-fu, but I assume there are certain shenanigans you can do to increase your caster level as-such. Also, depending on the size of the castle, the caster level required doubles per size increase (i.e. a Colossal+ would take 64, if you kept extrapolating out), so that's something to keep in mind. But anyway, once you do that, and you Permanency it, you need to find some way to make your castle humanoid shaped - Awaken Construct (SpC, 21) specifically states you need a humanoid shaped construct to Awaken. Perhaps you can haggle with your DM, perhaps you can use a Wish or Miracle to get around this, or PAO it to look like a golem for a bit, but regardless, find some way to make it qualify - and make sure you Maximize it so it's got 18s in its mental scores, whydont'cha. Now, since its sentient, you should see if it can qualify for Blindsight or Blindsense via feats - this solves the problem of vision, at least partially. Alternately, make it take levels in some psionic class so it can just read minds. Tada!


EDIT: I figure there are more effective methods for this anyway, but to get your castle awakened in the first place, I'd say you should take Leadership, and make sure you and all your spellcasting minions have Circle Magic, so that you can use them to supplement your own casting levels. Assuming you have any, that is - you can always have your Cohort be a caster, and then your minions go off of them. But regardless, you need a high level caster and lots of lower level casters to help out.

I would go ahead and say that you should be using the Stronghold Builder's Guide to help plan your castle, since you're going to have minions around that can attend to it for you. As per the castle itself, I would say definitely make it a psion of some sort, so you can get that one feat the Killer Gnome uses to detect minds at 100ft, and since it's got to have Telepathy to do that, it can detect unwanted intruders and keep them away. Now, technically speaking, the castle couldn't reset anything - it could, of course, have levels in Thrallherd and control numerous golems about the castle, and since you've already got those minions from before, it can command them to help out too. If it's a psychic of some sort, chances are it's got access to Telekinesis, so physically resetting traps shouldn't be too much of an issue to get around the whole "auto-reset" thing, though if you're buying traps they should have an auto-reset anyway. Also as an added bonus, by virtue of being a psionic class your castle will more likely than not have a Psicrystal which it can send about to do its bidding - or have it tag along with you, so you've always got a way to talk to the castle even at a distance.

Also, I'm totally taking this idea since I've put so much thought in it. :P Also, is anyone else thinking Castle Heterodyne?

[aazru]

Fiend of Possession :smallbiggrin:

[Serpentine]

A Dragon magazine gave the mechanics for the liveships of the Liveship Trader books. I think they'd make a good place to start - a very large sentient construction, made so through complex magic, that has sensory perception of and control over its whole "body".