Evil Wizard Island

[Acanous]

So! Our party is level 12, and I've got myself a Lyre of Building, five weeks of down-time, and a 5 km square island, roughly circular, covered by a large forest that I planted, then spent a wand of plant growth on.

After doing some research, I have roughly 3 million GP worth of construction to play with. What sorts of things should I make?

I've already decided that a dock is a must, a sewer system for drainage, and encircling the island with a wall is a good idea. The rest is pretty open.

Any stronghold builders out there with some advice on how to make this island scream "An Evil Wizard Did It"?

I have Craft Wonderous item, and a +44 bonus to Craft: Trapmaking. If relevant.

[Johel]

Skull shaped castle towering above the cliff ?

[Acanous]

Would have to build the cliff first. Skull motiff could work. Should I put ever-burning torches in the eyes?

[Fatebreaker]

Would have to build the cliff first. Skull motiff could work. Should I put ever-burning torches in the eyes?

Of course you should. You should put ever-burning everything everywhere.

[Acanous]

Hmmm... Could Perminancy a Shadow Evocation (Wall of Fire) and make it black flame, too.

[Soren Hero]

if you could, make an automatic resetting trap of Wall of Iron or Stone, and an automatic resetting trap of Fabricate...you could significantly increase your productivity and resources with both of those :smallcool: with 3 million gp you could probably buy both of those and presto, walls everywhere

do you have access to the stronghold builder's guide? that has lots of good wondrous architecture to play around with. some tips: difficult access to your stronghold is always a plus, like say, making your inner sanctum difficult to enter through an underwater tunnel requiring water breathing, a deadend which needs to be accessed via a Phase Door Spell that only responds to you and your party/most important henchmen, with a last ditch teleport circle that only works for you to leave, and maybe some divination blockers from the SBG (im afb atm, otherwise i could give you more specific advice)

traps of create food and water to supply your minions with food (lowering operating costs)...maybe a Golem or two in strategic locations...basically, try making your stronghold easy to defend from within, with multiple fall back points and ambush opportunities (like Tucker's Kobolds kinda stuff)

manufacturing via automatic resetting traps of wall of iron and fabricate, plumbing via decanter's of endless water; since you are evil, maybe necromancy labs, zombie pits, breeding pits (for those evil minions), grafting to make minions more powerful..etc GO NUTS

[Acanous]

I have a decanter of endless water. I was thinking about a Wall of Stone trap. Fabricate I lack access to at the moment. (I have wall of stone and wall of iron) but yeah, something I could set off a few times while playing the lyre would be a plus.

[Johel]

You are not going at it the right way.
Shadow Evocation (Wall of Fire) with Energy Substitution (Acid)
Enjoy the everlasting fountain of acid black goo !!

[Acanous]

sadly, I do *not* have Energy Substitution :<

[nedz]

A nice water feature powered by your decanter ?
Perhaps some cascading fountains on the outside of your castle, with the outflow piped into an indoor pool. Pirannas and a trap-door on a bridge over the pool are a must.

For the garden:
Turn your trees into a nice shrubbery, populate with Battlebriers or similar.

For your minions:
Hire some Kobalds.

[Slipperychicken]

Find or build the obligatory island-mountain, hollow it out mostly, permanent Gate to the Quasi-elemental Plane of Beer inside. Beer Volcano. Beer rivers, Beer lakes. Or use another beverage or liquid of choice (magma and acid come to mind, although you'll look somewhat evil).

Flying, Sizing Riverine Gauntlets (make them spellblades for extra survivability) to have giant hands flying around the place, carrying around crates, carts, ships, and commuters. Each is about 14k. IIRC, it was Darrin who made these a while ago, I might link to his post later.

Invest in (or just abduct) some wacky and awesome creatures (like Griffins, Otyughs, Owlbears, giant eagles, displacer beasts, dinosaurs, etc.) and plants (massive variants on Venus Flytrap) to populate the island's wildlife. Make a jungle full of your bizarre experiments.

Bind elementals to do work around the island and generally look pretty.

Flying things do wonders to make your island look magical.

Use Fabricate/wall of iron traps/etc. to build really tall, thin towers.

Trap of Control Weather to keep it raining on the crops, keep the populated areas in extremely pleasant conditions, and keep that lightning hitting your conductors.

An extensive laboratory inside your mountain or tower hideaway, filled with strange creatures preserved in transparent tanks. Don't forget the vat of acid.

[Otomodachi]

http://www.somethingawful.com/series/65.php

A series of humour articles about having a wizard live next to you in a housing community, and all the weird things he does with his property. Honestly, I think it'll give you some good ideas, the whole gist of the article is the contrast between what the mundane narrator and the wizard think of as normal and appropriate. Lotta stuff on that site can be rude or gross, this article series is pretty tame though. Good luck! :)

[Water_Bear]

My view has always been that people are what makes any area notable. If you want to be a true evil overlord, a vast dystopian city is a must.

Step 1: Invest in a Mythalar.
Even if you're boring and keep your island from flying around it means that you can build any combination of crazy items you want without having to pay XP costs, as long as they don't need to leave the island itself. Any Fabricate or Create Food/Water traps will be cheaper and you can really go wild with stuff like Lightning Rail lines and powerful magical architecture.

Step 2: Immigration!
D&D is full of huddled masses of humans yearning not to be eaten by dragons. A metropolis filled with magical goodies and protected by a high level Wizard would sound like a utopia. These people will be loyal minions, do the day-to-day grunt work in your city more cheaply than constructs, and provide a great source of potential sacrifices.

Step 3: Daily Human Sacrifices.
With a large loyal population, ideally growing due to immigration, one person a day will not cut into the total populace of your evil metropolis. Plus, with large crowds for public sacrifices, massive magical alters, and a huge population of potential victims to choose from the Dark Craft XP and Gold should just keep rolling in.

I suggest framing it as a Lottery; claim the Mythalar needs blood to keep running and have a fancy public drawing of lots. In reality it's just you and some handy Divination spells, but the public doesn't need to know. :smallamused:

Step 4: Securitrons
Whether sentient Shadesteel Golems, Ice Assassins of yourself, armies of Vampire Lords or any of a dozen methods you need an elite guard of non-living creatures who fight and die at your command. In addition to being snazzy and helping the mood, they can deal with rebels and undesirables without you having to waste your precious eight hours of crafting a day.


tl;dr, Evil Castles of Doom or Volcano Lairs are fine but they lack the pizzazz of a full-blown Dystopian City. Use the above steps and the place will generate its own evil atmosphere, and even begin to draw in CR appropriate encounters as Good Adventurers try to overthrow you.

[Vegan Zombie]

Permanency some Magic mouths that shout DUN DUN DUN whenever someone arrives on your island

[Slipperychicken]

Permanency some Magic mouths that demand travel or citizenship documents whenever someone arrives on your island

Fixed that for 'ya. If you're really going for dystopian, make it an excessively bureaucratic and dehumanizing process, complete with demanding that metal/shoes/implants be removed, X-rays, pat-downs, strip-searches, AMFs, with the Magic Mouth demanding different pieces of paperwork every step of the way. If your paperwork is not in order, you're ejected and start all over again.

[KillianHawkeye]

If you just want the place to look evil and dangerous, you could take a page from old-school MegaMan games and cover your fortress with deadly spikes. :smallwink:

For defense, try and figure out a way to get one of those wall hands from the original Zelda game that annoyingly takes intruders back to the entrance. The heroes will eventually give up. :smallamused:

[Acanous]

I'm trying the Dystopian mageocracy, but the DM is making it hard to find people willing to immigrate.
I could just abduct children and raise them myself, but that would likely take longer than the campaign to see fruition.

[Water_Bear]

If you can't bring the mountain to Mohammed, bring Mohammed to the mountain.

People don't want to immigrate? Force them out of their homes with False Flag attacks and offer sanctuary to the refugees.

They're afraid of your city and its policy on sacrifices? Make them more afraid of the rest of the world, and make them realize you are the only one who can protect them.

As an Evil PC, you have the rare opportunity to act rather than react. As a Wizard you can do anything. As an Evil Wizard there is likely nothing you won't do.

As lame a line as it is, you really do have to think outside the box here.

[Slipperychicken]

I'm trying the Dystopian mageocracy, but the DM is making it hard to find people willing to immigrate.
I could just abduct children and raise them myself, but that would likely take longer than the campaign to see fruition.

Dump your tax rates into the dirt, allow underage drinking, keep costs of living low, make sure your country has job openings, also (the illusion of) religious and political freedoms. Have extremely lax regulations, to encourage (hopefully evil) businesses to set up shop there. Also don't extradite anyone to anywhere, so criminals will also show up.


Traps of Create Food and Water, Cure Light Wounds, Prestidigitation. Free food, healthcare, and dental for life. In a medieval setting, people will flock to your country. Have undead/constructs build cheap housing for the first wave of immigrants.

[Arcane_Secrets]

How about programmed images around the island that demonstrate on a loop your most gruesome and cunning kills of your foes? You can also add some misdirection into this by having some of the programmed images display traps that aren't even actually on your island, so when intruders prepare for them they're actually wasting their efforts and might be caught totally unaware by what you would actually use against them.

[Arcane_Secrets]

How about programmed images around the island that demonstrate on a loop your most gruesome and cunning kills of your foes? You can also add some misdirection into this by having some of the programmed images display traps that aren't even actually on your island, so when intruders prepare for them they're actually wasting their efforts and might be caught totally unaware by what you would actually use against them.

[Slipperychicken]

How about programmed images around the island that demonstrate on a loop your most gruesome and cunning kills of your foes? You can also add some misdirection into this by having some of the programmed images display traps that aren't even actually on your island, so when intruders prepare for them they're actually wasting their efforts and might be caught totally unaware by what you would actually use against them.

This is how you broadcast your extreme, over-the-top propaganda, including the Ten Minutes Hate. Also could function as news-boards, wanted posters, and PSAs.

[Igneel]

I'm currently getting ready for a Epic Nations game, so here are some things that I think are note worthy.

For defense: Spell Turrents from DMGII are traps that fire off and circulate through a list of 4 spells you put into it at designated targets within 120ft (and they are treated to have True Seeing) 1/round, and self repairs 4d8+20 HP on the fifth. All spells have to be of the same level and list (ex: 5th level wizard spells). Place them at least around the wall, if not at gates or the docks to keep people that don't fly your flags/colors away.

Get some form of entertainment to distract the commoners from their troubled lives. Gladiator battles seem to be common, maybe get a Mirror of Opposition just for the heck of it. I personally prefer execution/sacrifices of enemies to appease any gods/'magic devices' that work off blood/souls. I also like having a zoo for the kids of all kinds of exotic animals/creatures.

There are always people looking for the next best place to move to, whether its because the old place is problematic, at war, poor economy, what have you. Try finding a relationship between at least two countries that is straining to the brink of destruction for example, and cause some problems. Elf ship sank by a previously peace treaty-ed (illusioned) Dwarf ship? A army of (mind-controlled) Orcs attacking a normally out of the way village? A mage from a human kingdom just teleports into another kingdom and starts Disintegrating the kingdom's castle? Porting in some Rust monsters into the treasury. (Hired) Pirates attacking coastal cities save for you because of your 'protection' measures. The possibilities are endless. Have ships sail with a designated color or design on the sail to avoid Spell Turrents from shooting them. Change as necessarily to avoid enemies catching on.

Whenever having guests to places of importance such as your Keep, have security out of the wazzo. Intelligent Undead/Constructs with Rings of X-Ray, something with Telepathy with the Mindsight feat, some form of Detect X continuous for those Good/Law/Chaos/Evil Guys trying to sneak in that you don't want, Paper work, AMF's, True Seeing, Rod of Minerals and Metal Detection, etc at all entrances at the very least.

Get a team of Warforged or something with the caster levels and the Storm Bolt reserve Feat to get paid for continuously firing off lightning bolts for electrical power. Or just a trap that does the same thing, and cut out the middle man, but then lack some extra casters to back you up in a fight.

Find a permanent source of Black Sand for continuous healing for undead residents. All they need to do is spend a day at the Sand Spa.

Find a way to store Stygian Ice for some easy Wraith creation. Toss in a rat or something and you get a new Wraith within a minute maximum. Keep them in a trapped room they can't get out, but enemies can get in.

Display your power by showing trophies of past victims or challengers to your power. Whether you do that by permanently Flesh to Stone/Ice/Salt/etc a defeated Hero, or you just keep their best stuff and put it in a trophy case. Statues lining your main hallway are always fun. Just be sure to at least put a nail in the back of their heads so when a do-gooder comes and Stone to Fleshes them they die instantly (in theory).

Dragonwrought Kobold Skeleton/Zombies Polymorphed into Dragon Skeleton/Zombies for a better use of any Animating you plan on doing.

[eggs]

There should be a kitten training complex, where surly white cats are trained to accompany their evil overlords, and to prey upon unsuspecting townsfolk.

The complex should offer generous grants for the least fortunate of the surly kittens, as well as an exchange program for precocious kittens outside the island.

EDIT:
And given the trapmaking score, this should naturally be accompanied by a pressurized surly kitten trap, somewhere within the lair.

[nedz]

Surely all you have to do is destroy the neighbouring cities, without killing the population, and the refugees will arrive. You have to do this in an unattributable manner obviously.