[3.P] Floating City

[RFLS]

So, I have a player whose stated goal is making a floating city. Generally, these are plot devices, but he wants to do it RAW (I offered to fiat some MacGuffin for him). How would you, the playground, do this? The best I've got is lots and lots of permanencied force-walls.

[Duboris]

A genesis spell could easily provide a fabricated area for this.

[Tvtyrant]

I made a similar thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202179) a while back.

[Asheram]

Now, if you have a mining operation and a way to different realities through the shadow plane (as a variant rule) you could head over to the Ptolus (by Monte Cook) campaign setting and mine some Heliothil

Heliothil is a non magical mineral with a negative weight.
Compare a piece of stone weighing 1 pound and a piece of Heliothil the same size of that stone next to eachother and the Heliothil would weigh -5 pounds.

Really expensive to buy, but if you can mine it on your own... *shrugs*

[Psyren]

Epic magic. No really. The exact methods by which Ioulaum created his first flying city are detailed in Lost Empires of Faerun.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Reverse gravity is a 7th-level spell. At minimum caster level it affects 13 ten-foot cubes, which would support an equal amount of mass on top. A continuous magical enchantment would cost 182,000 gp, and maybe you can squeeze in a 30% price drop because it's tied to a structure. Spreading the 10 foot cubes out as much as possible, you get 1,300 square feet (36'x36') per 127,400 gp, though you could probably stack 2 or 3 stories on top of your reversed foundation. You can also construct your foundation so that it's livable, albeit upside-down, giving you another story or two of living space. Let's say 5 stories if you make the foundation a heavy solid 10' slab, so that's 6500 square feet per 127,400 gp spent, or 98 gp per square foot of five-story buildings, which divided by floors gives you 19.6 gp per square foot of interiors.

If you bend the reverse gravity spell so that it affects 5-foot cubes, that makes 8 5-foot cubes per 10-foot cube. This gives us 104 5-foot cubes of foundation, or 2,600 square feet per 127,400 gp, but they won't weigh as much and you probably will be limited to two-story buildings at best. However, this makes the cost 49 gp per square foot of flat ground without resorting to building tall buildings everywhere (you need to put something on top of it to weigh it down). But this will let you make it a lot cheaper to make the island float.

At this point it's just a question of cost. How much can we spend on this floating island, or where are we going to mine out the ore or rock used to construct it? So... Exactly what diameter do we want for our floating island?

EDIT: I see that wall of force was recommended in the other thread, since it's 5th-level. Unfortunately, that means you can't move the island. The wall is also structurally unsound, since it has hit points and hardness.

EDIT 2: You could also permanently enchant some enormous lead balls (lead balloons?) with reverse gravity and suspend the city from them. I believe that this is even more cost-effective, but let's stick with reverse gravity foundations for now.

[DeusMortuusEst]

EDIT: I see that wall of force was recommended in the other thread, since it's 5th-level. Unfortunately, that means you can't move the island. The wall is also structurally unsound, since it has hit points and hardness.

On the other hand, your island can be brought down with (greater) dispel magic. If that isn't unsound, I don't know what is.

[Tvtyrant]

On the other hand, your island can be brought down with (greater) dispel magic. If that isn't unsound, I don't know what is.

If I remember correctly you can simply wrap a thin stone wall around the area that has been Reverse Gravitied, so that the line of effect of the Dispel Magic is broken. It becomes more like an engine then, but such is life.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

On the other hand, your island can be brought down with (greater) dispel magic. If that isn't unsound, I don't know what is.

Only one 30-foot-wide piece of it. At best that'll unbalance the island for a little bit (I guess you'll have to leave a big chunk of rock on the bottom on the middle as a counterweight). If you treat every 5-foot cube as its own magic item, an area dispel does nothing and a targeted dispel only works on one cube.

Wasn't it mentioned in the Vlad Taltos series that floating islands became unfashionable after the connection to the Imperial Orb was severed for a few hours and lots of nobles died?

[Gavinfoxx]

There are a few ways. You generally want to combine as many of these as possible!

-Walls of Force
-Suspension spell, shining south (+repeating traps or spell clocks)
-Find a Skyberg
-Soarwood components
-Reverse Gravity spell, (+repeating traps or spell clocks)
-Wondrous Architecture (per Stronghold Builder's Guide)
-Stone Trap spell, shining south (with impossible trigger conditions, and building off of those stones)

My favorite is Stone Trap!

I would suggest that you read these things:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit

They seem to be somewhat relevant handbooks...

[Psyren]

Only one 30-foot-wide piece of it. At best that'll unbalance the island for a little bit (I guess you'll have to leave a big chunk of rock on the bottom on the middle as a counterweight). If you treat every 5-foot cube as its own magic item, an area dispel does nothing and a targeted dispel only works on one cube.

They aren't magic items though; they are points in space with spells on them, which makes them eligible targets for area dispels, chain dispels, enlarged dispels etc. It might take a while to bring your city down, but an airship armed with spell turrets (or a strike force of babau demons) could ruin your entire investment.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

They aren't magic items though; they are points in space with spells on them, which makes them eligible targets for area dispels, chain dispels, enlarged dispels etc. It might take a while to bring your city down, but an airship armed with spell turrets (or a strike force of babau demons) could ruin your entire investment.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I was using magic item pricing for my estimates. They would be continuously-active magic items.

[Bomaz]

In addition to the epic spell already mentioned one can build a flying/moving/teleporting/whatever castle according to the stronghold builders guidebook.

[nedz]

Chain Gate some relevant outsiders and enslave them into lifting your structure into the sky.

You can probably do a similar trick with air elementals.

[Arcanist]

Epic magic. No really. The exact methods by which Ioulaum created his first flying city are detailed in Lost Empires of Faerun.

That story always makes me cry every time... :smallfrown: Everything was much better during the age of Netheril... Except for those last 5 minutes... that really sucked...
Just give your player a Mythallar and have him cast Proctiv's Move Mountain... then give him a heads up to put the Mythallar on top of the floating inverted Mountain or to at least stay away from the floating mountain for a good week or so... If he wants to do some seriously cool stuff like make reverse gravity fountains, drifting statues and streets made out of reinforced adamantine then he's gotta do that himself, but if he is doing this, then he's gotta atleast have Epic Spellcasting :smallbiggrin:

[Tvtyrant]

Make a bunch of the airships from Eberron and then chain them so they are constantly flying in different directions while pulling chains attached to a big platform?

[Arcanist]

Make a bunch of the airships from Eberron and then chain them so they are constantly flying in different directions while pulling chains attached to a big platform?

Wouldn't that rip the city to pieces? :smallconfused:

[Tvtyrant]

Wouldn't that rip the city to pieces? :smallconfused:

No, the city is on the platform. It would be like a platform being held up by a crane! With a city on the platform!

Another option would be to make a much smaller flying platform (say a castle with a garden, which includes a pool that is refilled by a Decanter of Endless Water and a permanent waterfall coming off the side) and then have each "room" be a portal to a different city. Make a bunch of cities in the Elemental Plane of Earth, say, and then each person who lives on the floating island gets their own microcity to live in. Or make the doors entrances to something similar to a portable hole, but much larger. The outside and inside of the building is coated in far, far too many doors, each of which goes to a separate pocket dimension the inhabitants live in.

[Gavinfoxx]

You don't have to make airships the Eberron way.. one of my earlier link described the various ways to make airships. A city lifted by zombie soarwhales would be AWESOME!

[Jasruv Lundux]

Here is a way to do it with a low level spell.

An item that continuously casts a persisted Unseen Servant every round will build up 14,400 unseen servants after a day. Each one can lift 20 pounds so a total of 288,000 lbs or 140 tons could be lifted by each item.

Even a minimal non-persistent version of the item can build up a steady state population of 600 unseen servants after an hour for a lift capacity of 1200 lbs. That would only cost about 2000 gp per lifting element.

If the GM allows for a variant of unseen servant that can only do one job (Lift the City) with a higher effective strength, even better.

One reason why 'unlimited' and 'low-level' can be down right scary.

[Arcanist]

Here is a way to do it with a low level spell.

An item that continuously casts a persisted Unseen Servant every round will build up 14,400 unseen servants after a day. Each one can lift 20 pounds so a total of 288,000 lbs or 140 tons could be lifted by each item.

Even a minimal non-persistent version of the item can build up a steady state population of 600 unseen servants after an hour for a lift capacity of 1200 lbs. That would only cost about 2000 gp per lifting element.

If the GM allows for a variant of unseen servant that can only do one job (Lift the City) with a higher effective strength, even better.

One reason why 'unlimited' and 'low-level' can be down right scary.

Just use Servant Hoard to make this go by faster and so you can lift an even larger city, because 140 tons isn't even a city block :smalltongue:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Magic of eberron's got you covered. It gives a detailed description of how elemental vessels are created, but it never actually gives a maximum size to the vessels.

Bind an elemental monolith (CAr) into a massive khyber shard, and put it in the center of a massive slab of bedrock that's been cut free of the earth and had binding struts crafted all over its soon to be outer surface. Then build a city on top of it.

It's a hell of a project that would take some serious engineering, but it'll work by RAW and it'll have an "engine" that you can put some serious security around to make it difficult to drop.

You could even demand he conjure up and bind a primal elemental (ELH) if you feel a monolith wouldn't be enough power. That or distribute a series of "engines" powered by monoliths or lesser elementals to run through the binding struts.

[RFLS]

Magic of eberron's got you covered. It gives a detailed description of how elemental vessels are created, but it never actually gives a maximum size to the vessels.

Bind an elemental monolith (CAr) into a massive khyber shard, and put it in the center of a massive slab of bedrock that's been cut free of the earth and had binding struts crafted all over its soon to be outer surface. Then build a city on top of it.

It's a hell of a project that would take some serious engineering, but it'll work by RAW and it'll have an "engine" that you can put some serious security around to make it difficult to drop.

You could even demand he conjure up and bind a primal elemental (ELH) if you feel a monolith wouldn't be enough power. That or distribute a series of "engines" powered by monoliths or lesser elementals to run through the binding struts.

I LIKE it.... :smallamused: I've always had a thing for Eberron.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Just use Servant Hoard to make this go by faster and so you can lift an even larger city, because 140 tons isn't even a city block :smalltongue:

That's why I prefer reverse gravity. You can play around with the weight because its effect is based on volume.

Also, these other ideas are interesting but I haven't seen any price tags or price estimates.

[Jasruv Lundux]

Here is a cost breakdown for my idea.

It will take several of these to float the city and one or two provide movement.

unlimited, use activated x2000 gp
Immobile (Large obelisk or similar) x .5
Net multiple: x1000 gp

Spell used: Extended Unseen Servant, Mass (From Races of Destiny)
Spell Level 5
Caster level 12
Gp cost to make: 30,000 (1/2 Market cost)
xp cost to make: 2400

Stable population of Unseen servants: 172,800
Lifting capacity: 3,456,000 lbs or 1,728 tons
lbs to gp lift ratio: 115,200 lbs / 1 gp



Mount or bury one of these every 75 ft or so on the underside of the flying city to provide lift. The effect can only extend up to 55 ft from the source so the player may want to use the enlarge metamagic as well to spread them out further. This would up the cost somewhat.

I would recommend that the GM let the player find some rare mineral that could be used to offset the xp cost. (More adventures to find and mine deposits of said mineral in various exotic locales.)

The original poster had already offered the player a plot device to accomplish the task. This is a RAW way to accomplish the job as efficiently as I can find without extensive searching.

Your city should also be safe from one disjunction spell taking the whole thing down, although enough dedicated effort would do the job. But that applies to normal cities as well.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The base costs for mine are pretty low. Just the cost of a decent sized khyber shard, a casting of gate, and wages for a few hirelings for the core of the idea.

I suppose I could try to dig up a set of reasonable costs for the rest. I'll get back to you.

[Arcanist]

I would recommend that the GM let the player find some rare mineral that could be used to offset the xp cost. (More adventures to find and mine deposits of said mineral in various exotic locales.)

FOOL! TRUE ARCANIST ELEVATE CITIES USING THE SOULS OF THEIR ENEMIES! DARK CRAFT XP! DARK CRAFT GOLD! SOULS! ALL ARE INSIGNIFICANT UNDER THE WEIGHT OF MY STUDIOUS MIND! :smallamused:

... But yeah, just use Souls to make it... You're city might exude an Evil Aura, but if that is really a problem, just redeem the items... I'm sure the DM will consider redeeming the item if you "Fill it with the grateful tears of 1,000 mothers whose dead children have returned to life."

[RFLS]

FOOL! TRUE ARCANIST ELEVATE CITIES USING THE SOULS OF THEIR ENEMIES! DARK CRAFT XP! DARK CRAFT GOLD! SOULS! ALL ARE INSIGNIFICANT UNDER THE WEIGHT OF MY STUDIOUS MIND! :smallamused:

... But yeah, just use Souls to make it... You're city might exude an Evil Aura, but if that is really a problem, just redeem the items... I'm sure the DM will consider redeeming the item if you "Fill it with the grateful tears of 1,000 mothers whose dead children have returned to life."

Uhm...yeah, I'm just going to stick with the khyber shard thing.

[Arcanist]

Uhm...yeah, I'm just going to stick with the khyber shard thing.

... Oh... Okay... I'll just be over here... Sure you don't wanna at least consider the soul idea? :smallfrown:

[RFLS]

... Oh... Okay... I'll just be over here... Sure you don't wanna at least consider the soul idea? :smallfrown:

Pretty sure; I think they generally good group might have an issue.