Building a Hobbit like Burrow-House

[Yogibear41]

Thinking of building my character a house, because the majority of towns are not a safe place for myself and another character in our party. I'm a were-bear and hes a ancient half-troll warrior that was put into stasis and was found by our party, he is most likely thousands of years old. While we are both good aligned their are groups of people mostly relegious organizations that seek to actively destroy us simply because of what we are. While I can stay in my human form for most of the time in town he always looks like he looks. There are hidden wards/alarms throughout most towns that detect shapechangers (me) when I walk through them (dopplegangers are a big problem, and I get shafted as a result of them lol) so anyway I think it would be a good idea to avoid said places if all possible.


So now for my question, I was originally thinking of just building a standard log cabin to the forest north of a town, but then I thought of the idea of perhaps building a Burrow style house similar to the Hobbit houses in the Lord of the rings, by basically finding a hill or something similar and digging into the side of it and then hollowing it out and supporting it from the inside with wooden beams or something.

I thought this would be better because it would be more fortified as well as blend into the forest more as the forest is full of monsters some friendly but most unfriendly.

Im basically looking for any advice on how to build this or advice on a different type of building plan or any low level spells or tools that could potentially help speed the process up.

[avr]

Soften Earth and Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/softenEarthAndStone.htm) or Stone Shape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneShape.htm) might help. If PF material might be suitable there's a spell named Burrow which would be perfect. Summon Monster III can summon celestial dire badgers and Summon Nature's Ally II ordinary dire badgers, each of which have a burrow speed.

[Yogibear41]

ooo I never thought of getting badgers to dig! good idea!

[Saito Takuji]

badgers, badgers?

seems like an awesome idea , might be able to get other burrowers out, and ther is the obvious mundane way of doing it with shovels and the like. mabey ad-hoc and use profession(mining) or something, would be simmilar to mining tunnels, just more homey and decorated.


hmm since hobbit holes are so mine like i wonder if hobbits could be argued for a bonus to profession mining.

[Derpldorf]

I'd advise you to make the outer layer of your home from the actual rock of the hill and stone shape away any fissures or flaws. Leave plenty of supports, not only wooden girding but also evenly spaced pillars of stone. Build your floors/walls/ceilings about a foot or so away from the cavern floor/walls/ceiling and support it out the wazzoo. Decorate to taste.

[Slipperychicken]

You could just move into the next dungeon you clear out (or one of the ones you already cleared out). Big roomy places with lots of space for guests and defensive traps. You might need to clean it up a bit, set up a proper door on the front, but it's less effort than starting from scratch :smallbiggrin:

You are monsters, after all. Dungeons are practically your natural habitat. Bonus points if you befriend a Kobold tribe to defend the dungeon in exchange for living-space.

[Squirrel_Dude]

badgers, badgers?
Mushrooms mushrooms!


Make sure to have a garden for growing vegetables and other foods. Like mushrooms.

[NilsRichter]

Im basically looking for any advice on how to build this or advice on a different type of building plan or any low level spells or tools that could potentially help speed the process up.

I find the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook a great ressource for projects like these.

It gives you ideas on how to structure the compound, basic rules for cost of construction, fantasy influences on medieval techniques, a lot of magical items and constructions, and even rules for how your character can afford it (through feats).

[Fouredged Sword]

What you are looking for is basic. There is great outdoor housing for short/medium term dry safe living. The most common way to build this structure is to cut down a number of trees, strip them of branches, and construct a densely packed wooden teepee. You lash the first three trees together to form the structure and then just keep stacking until you have a nearly solid wall of wood on all sides. Then you use smaller wood pieces like branches to fill in the gaps between the trunks.

Then you bury all but the top must section of the wooden structure. Grass will seed naturally or by planting plugs along the sides of the structure.

This is used because it makes a nice warm structure that will last several years using only an ax and maybe a shovel, and can be built in as little as two or three days by a single worker who knows what he is doing. If I where the DM I would allow this to be built using a survival check, somewhere around DC 10 or so.

A more comfortable version would consist of building a standard single room home with thick wooden walls and then bury it. Loose earth is easier to move on top of something than it is to keep up while building under it.