[PF] If you had to hide a city

[Trekkin]

This is kind of a theoretical exercise, but it might actually become relevant in a campaign in which I'm playing.

I may well need to hide a city of chaotic outsider-possessed refugees from the armies of an immortal paladin-king with high-level divine (and possibly arcane) casters at his disposal. Technically it doesn't have to be a city, but these people still need to eat, breathe, sleep, etc. and go crazy if they get too bored, so I figure if I can hide a city-sized livable environment, their life/sanity support needs can be met fairly easily. There's also a planewide divine non-intervention pact; even if we were the biggest thorn in this guy's side (and we wouldn't be for a while), the worst we'd need to deal with was Miracle. This is why I'm not just going for a demiplane.

So what I need is, ideally, some sort of scalable solution so that we could get more and more hidden (or less and less reachable) as the party got higher in level, but still support a bunch of people. If it could be scalable by size, that too would be ideal, as it would be around thorp-sized if implemented immediately and we can expect a roughly linear influx of possessed, so we've got some time.

So where do I put it?
What spells should I track down?
What magic items would help?

I've been considering either deep undersea or in space, just to make armies extremely difficult to get there except by teleport, which reminds me: it's a planet, not an infinite flat plane, and there are stars and things (and possibly other planets, moons, asteroids, etc). Just if that matters.

[illyrus]

At lower levels an underground facility lined with lead could be a good start. As you level you can expand down and either hit water and go with the undersea idea or else flood the top levels with something nasty.

Hopefully by 13th-14th level you'll have found a toenail of the immortal paladin-king and can create a few half strength duplicates with simulacrum (might need to do some caster level boosting fu to pull it off). Then you'll have your own squad of immortal paladin-kings to send after him. Maybe even use one duplicate to test for any weaknesses (or just ask the simulacrum).

My assumption this is the Mary Sue GM from your other posts so regardless of what you do, even if it was somehow foolproof, the GM would make a weakness. That's why I'd rather reflect his awesome right back at him with simulacrum just to be contrary.

[Trekkin]

This is actually not Chief Circle. I don't play with Chief anymore. This is someone entirely different -- and one of the finest GM's I've ever played under.

If the plan is actually foolproof, we can expect it to be challenged in novel ways, but if we can defend it it will stand. I trust my GM here. That's why scalability is so desirable; if we can keep being a bigger pain to remove than the pain caused by the abomination of our existence, the powers what is will leave us alone (mostly), so we can do this incrementally.

[Gildedragon]

Look into the construction of a Mythal. A lot of overlapping circles of protection against law.
Building the city underground or inside a mountain.

[Chookster]

Don't overlook more conventional means, if you can feed the king misinformation and trick him into storming one of the hells, or one of the hells into storming him you could solve yourself a lot of problems.

Magic items and powerful spells are handy but often the best way to hide a city is to make the person you are hiding from look elsewhere.

Hire spies, agent provocateurs, get the drow involved, make a deal with a balor anything. Especially since he's lawful, the more chaos you can engender the more he will be compelled to deal with.

Are there significant forces of evil or chaos nearby that you can utilise? have you allies from where he is? does the king have enemies? family? allies that would become enemies if insulted by him or convinced by others?

Dont block him from one angle, hit him from every single one you have available.

[ArcturusV]

Never underestimate the effects of simple, mundane concealment. You can't stress that too much. If you have someone hunting you down with high level caster support, you're not going to out magic them (in my experience, Offense just tends to beat Defense as far as Magic goes, fairly universal). But there's no level of magic that sees through just simple things like camouflage paint or mundane disguises.

So the goal for a city is to find something that is easily overlooked. This can be done through two methods that come to mind. One is a simple bluff. The other is by being out of sight.

The Bluff is probably the better solution, if you can pull it off. Why HIDE your city of Chaotic Outsiders when you can just settle some area, maintain perfectly normal relations... and just pretend to all be a goblin clan or something. The problem is, while it's a better solution to seek out, it's also the harder one to pull off. Particularly if your particular setting lacks any natives to the world that look even remotely like the outsiders. Though you can manage to have a Puppet/Face. Something like a series of basements and tunnels that the Outsiders live in, right under a city of normal mortals. The mortals may or may not actually know about the Outsiders, if they don't that gives an additional layer of protection, no danger of someone using something as simple as Charm Person to break their cover.

But it'd be funny, if the mages go trying to scry in on the evil Outsider City, and BAM... there's a human village. They scratch their heads a bit. Say something like "Well the humans must be polymorphed outsiders. GET 'EM!" They go all inquisition, the humans are just humans, and don't know about the outsiders. The Paladin just kinda shrugs, says "ooops" and tells the Wizard they must be using some sort of misdirection spells or what not. Go do it RIGHT this time.

... and everytime the wizard scries that town? They just figure it's a fluke.

The easier one to set up but less effective? Just make your city unobtrusive. Think like the typical wood elves in a setting. Their "City" is part of the forest, they live in trees, it's usually not described as overly obtrusive from the natural world. If they can find something like a Forest, or a Sea Cliff, marshland, whatever, that they can make look like untouched wilderness while living in it (Hollowed out trees, tidal caves, etc), then you can end up having the Paladin and his whole army just march right past them without even knowing the city is there.

[hoverfrog]

You need only hide enough to make the effort of finding you not worthwhile. Why have a high level divine caster bother the gods in an effort to locate you when you're not a thorn in their side? They don't send this kind of fire power against every pick pocket or leaflet distributer. Appear to be less than you are through conventional means like disguise.

Don't stay in one place. If they find you they still need to mobilize against you. Take a trick out of BSG and jump away at the first sign of trouble. Make your city mobile to achieve this. Eberron has Argonth and mobile fortresses but an even higher magic world might have cloud cities (I've scried the city, my lord. It is surrounded my clouds) or burrowing cities (yes, my lord, it's under ground somewhere) or even teleporting cities (It was here, my lord, I swear it).

Hide in plain sight. If your surroundings are mundane then tracking you down might be impossible. (My lord, I have located the enemy's city. It is in a featureless desert) or (My lord, the elven city is in dense woodland).

Look like something else. Use illusions and other forms of misdirection to seem like your something else. If you look like your surrounded my equatorial rain forest while hiding in the desert then spells to find you may be construed as misdirection.

[illyrus]

This is actually not Chief Circle. I don't play with Chief anymore. This is someone entirely different -- and one of the finest GM's I've ever played under.

If the plan is actually foolproof, we can expect it to be challenged in novel ways, but if we can defend it it will stand. I trust my GM here. That's why scalability is so desirable; if we can keep being a bigger pain to remove than the pain caused by the abomination of our existence, the powers what is will leave us alone (mostly), so we can do this incrementally.

Ah ok my bad and good to see. With the divine lock in place does that mean that you don't have to worry about divination spells asking the gods for information?

- Lead sheeting to block scry.

- Lining the outer buffer rooms with something (intense heat/cold, magma, etc) to hamper earth glide/burrow.

- Create natural choke points

- Have a Guards and Wards ability you can turn on and off in case you do get invaded

- Create Dimensional Lock items/traps that you can turn on and off

- Expect spies, traitors, and defectors and setup a way to deal with them (kind of depends on party alignment here)

- Don't enter and leave the structure directly, if everyone inside is immune to scry then your main worry becomes someone tailing you inside. Build a second structure and teleport from there to your main structure's teleportation room. Before you get dimensional lock when you're not expecting anyone friendly to teleport flood/block off the room and surrounding area so the nearest safe location is outside your city. This can also help with the spy portion above as if the inhabitants couldn't directly access the city they only have limited information to give to your enemy.

- If you're dealing with a group that is defined solely off a portion of alignment or race, feel free to take advantage of crafting in restrictions for magic item cost reduction and to keep others not skilled in UMD from being able to use said items. You can actually use this on a small scale as a litmus test. Create a cheap item that only works with a chaotic person touching it. Create another one that only works with a lawful person touching it. If they light up both then they're a spy, if they don't light up the chaotic one then they're not one of you either. It is still can be bypassed but can be an extra detection layer.

[Shining Wrath]

This is kind of a theoretical exercise, but it might actually become relevant in a campaign in which I'm playing.

I may well need to hide a city of chaotic outsider-possessed refugees from the armies of an immortal paladin-king with high-level divine (and possibly arcane) casters at his disposal. Technically it doesn't have to be a city, but these people still need to eat, breathe, sleep, etc. and go crazy if they get too bored, so I figure if I can hide a city-sized livable environment, their life/sanity support needs can be met fairly easily. There's also a planewide divine non-intervention pact; even if we were the biggest thorn in this guy's side (and we wouldn't be for a while), the worst we'd need to deal with was Miracle. This is why I'm not just going for a demiplane.

So what I need is, ideally, some sort of scalable solution so that we could get more and more hidden (or less and less reachable) as the party got higher in level, but still support a bunch of people. If it could be scalable by size, that too would be ideal, as it would be around thorp-sized if implemented immediately and we can expect a roughly linear influx of possessed, so we've got some time.

So where do I put it?
What spells should I track down?
What magic items would help?

I've been considering either deep undersea or in space, just to make armies extremely difficult to get there except by teleport, which reminds me: it's a planet, not an infinite flat plane, and there are stars and things (and possibly other planets, moons, asteroids, etc). Just if that matters.

Use a Somebody Else's Problem field from _Hitchhiker's Guide_.

[Gildedragon]

Are the outsiders neutral or good? If so send a missive to that end to the paladin. They are innocents: chaotic, sure, but peaceful and decent and best left alone for the sake of the greater good.

[Coidzor]

I'd say that the best idea, ultimately, would be to look up how he's able to retain his Paladin status despite being a genocidal, tyrannical dictator-type who kills people because they're chaotic and get rid of that.

Or figure out what on earth he could have to offer to high level arcane casters worth their salt and undermine that, since at least the high level divine casters can be read as propping him up as a figurehead, seems less likely you'd get divine and arcane casters all in one conspiracy though. Potentially possible though.

This thread may be of interest. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282918&page=2) Initially about constructs, starts to veer towards discussion of making an impervious fortress-city.

Also (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197070), check (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188179)out (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125679)things (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=246396)about (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248241)the (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248528)Tippyverse (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222007).

[Telonius]

Find the city where the Paladin lives, and build it about 40 feet below that. Be sure there's a good thick lead lining on all of your tunnel ceilings. There's a decent chance that if he ever gets a divination that gives their general location, he'll start going paranoid that his own people are turning to evil.

To really do it right, you'd need to have a man on the inside who can display a false alignment. Have him work his way up to be an interrogator/executioner. All captured Outsiders will be funneled through him. He "disposes of" the miscreants. To get around those pesky Truth spells: "Don't you worry, m'lord, they'll be in the ground after I'm done with them." That way you even have a way of getting them to stop looking for particular bad guys.

[Trekkin]

Are the outsiders neutral or good? If so send a missive to that end to the paladin. They are innocents: chaotic, sure, but peaceful and decent and best left alone for the sake of the greater good.

We think they are, but there are good reasons for said paladin to try to get rid of them. They do tend to wear down the host's sanity after a while. That said, there's precedent for them staying perfectly lucid for centuries, and they do need informed consent to possess someone.

There's also the issue of said paladin having gone on a worldwide inquisitorial crusade to wipe these guys from the face of the earth the last time their cults got too big (but they were run by Evil people then), so there's every risk he'd react the same way--and even if he Fell midway through, it's not like his armies just disappear when he loses his paladin powers.

I've looked into hiding the city by mundane means and just disguising it as a normal town. Unfortunately, the possessed grow progressively more mutated as time goes on--and besides, at some point someone's going to decide to walk their shoggoth at the wrong time, it'll get noticed, and we'll all have to pack up anyway.

[Gildedragon]

Are the hosts willing? Is the relationship host-spirit mutually beneficial?
If not... You get on stickier ground. Why can't they go back whence they came: CoP against [anything] would free the hosts methinks

[Trekkin]

Are the hosts willing? Is the relationship host-spirit mutually beneficial?
If not... You get on stickier ground. Why can't they go back whence they came: CoP against [anything] would free the hosts methinks

As far as we can tell, yes; the outsiders require the informed, freely given, magical-compulsion-free consent of their hosts, for one thing. They won't even listen to people who are even mildly intoxicated when they decide, which we learned the irritatingly inconvenient way.

The symbiosis thing is a bit harder to define. They give the host what the host wants, and in return they get to exist. As far as we can tell the sanity erosion is a side effect of that empowerment, since the host and the outsider communicate on an unconscious level and the continual exposure to Far Realms thought kind of skews them.

That, and most of them eventually go mad with power, play host to as many outsiders as possible for as much power as they can get, and get lost in the conflicting suggestions. Some don't, though.

So it's not evil to try to get people on board with this, per se, but it's definitely foolhardy.

[Gildedragon]

Oh so far outsiders... interesting
not just say being possessed by slaads
very interesting.