Electric Island

[carrdrivesyou]

So, our party just claimed an island for ourselves. On the upside, it is rich in gold and iron, and close to a big city. On the bad side, it's small, and has a natural gate to the elemental plane of storms on it. My initial thought would be to build a stronghold there, powered by the electricity.

Anyone else got any ideas?

[Unoriginal]

So, our party just claimed an island for ourselves. On the upside, it is rich in gold and iron, and close to a big city. On the bad side, it's small, and has a natural gate to the elemental plane of storms on it. My initial thought would be to build a stronghold there, powered by the electricity.

Anyone else got any ideas?

Some questions I feel are important for your PC to figure out before starting this venture:

How easy is it to survive on the island?

If it's close to a big city, could ships make this island part of their stops? That could become very lucrative to make an harbor with an inter-ship market here.

Is the ruler of the big city fine with you establishing a fortress or the like close to them?

Are there people in the setting interested in visiting the Plane of Storms and would you be disposed to grant them access?

Are there people in the setting who can use elemental electricity to power devices in an efficient manner?

Are there aquatic sapient beings near who might object to you doing what you want to do with this island?

[carrdrivesyou]

Some questions I feel are important for your PC to figure out before starting this venture:

How easy is it to survive on the island?

If it's close to a big city, could ships make this island part of their stops? That could become very lucrative to make an harbor with an inter-ship market here.

Is the ruler of the big city fine with you establishing a fortress or the like close to them?

Are there people in the setting interested in visiting the Plane of Storms and would you be disposed to grant them access?

Are there people in the setting who can use elemental electricity to power devices in an efficient manner?

Are there aquatic sapient beings near who might object to you doing what you want to do with this island?


The island is barren and doesn't have enough room for even a micro farm, not that the soil would support it. So farming is out.

It's a frontier type setting (newly discovered continent) so each city runs itself. Local government has no say in what I do on said island. They do have a lot of shops and trade there though, so I'm unsure of the viability of a trading post.

I'm not sure anyone would want to visit, as the PCs are the local legends and heroes. Not sure many others would survive. Maybe some cloud giants?

Lightning in a bottle is the newest thing from the nobility alongside early psychology in the setting, so technology might hit early electric devices in the next 20-50 years by our estimates. We could potentially use the island as a power source though.

The local waters are mostly dead because of some natural phenomena we have yet to identify. It's big on the list though. That also means no aquatic sapients.


Good questions. Those got me thinking. I think I might make the caves a stronghold of sorts, and incorporate lightning rods to power certain devices. Sure the artificer and tempest cleric can figure out how to make it though.

[Cicciograna]

This sounds like a very inhospitable place to live, which leads me to the natural question: how is the big city sustaining itself? Where does it get food and water, what is it based on? Note, I'm not saying that it would not be possible for a large city to flourish in such environment, but I'm just curious on the logistics of its existance there. Maybe there's something that the adventurers can tap into - possibly coming into conflict with the city itself.

[Unoriginal]

It's a frontier type setting (newly discovered continent) so each city runs itself. Local government has no say in what I do on said island.

You said there is a lot of iron and gold on that island, could the local government of the nearby city just send an army to try to take it?

[Dork_Forge]

You have an island rich in valuable natural materials and a gate that may also be trasured, or used from the other side, so my suggestion would be:

Defenses are your main priority.

Securing the island from sea and air invasion and building a secure 'gateroom' like in Stargate would be priorities, siege weaponry, barricades and so on. A ballista that shoots lighting rods to chain lightning to from the gate would be cool.

Faraday cages will probably be a good idea...

Using the electricity from the plane of storms you could go simple like a Lost World electric fence, or more elaborate with a Dishonored styled wall of light, depending on how ambitious your Artificer is and generous your DM is. It'd be very important to make these defenses resilient to others, but with a hidden failsafe so they don't run rampant or get used against you.

The island isn't currently a good place for food and water, so remedying that is a priority too, mushroom farming in the caves, bringing soil from another island/the mainland to do garden beds like you were urban gardening in the real world. It'd probably be pretty easy to bulk buy supplies for cattle so you can have chickens, goats etc.

Water, desalinating sea water seems like the best bet until you fix the islands natural water, using the electricity you could make an ongoing active still that empties out into a resevoir/well system.

[Unoriginal]

Would it be possible to go to the Plane of Storms to gather water?

[DwarfFighter]

You said there is a lot of iron and gold on that island, could the local government of the nearby city just send an army to try to take it?

Assuming the PCs are running the operation, the local government would be better served to let them run the operation and instead negotiate a trade agreement: The PCs will need a market for their ore where they can translate that into goods and supplies, and the local government will want to tax and regulate the trade. I don't see an invasion being very profitable unless there are competing governments that want control of the resources, in which case they may be motivated to deny the other as much as they want to claim it themselves.

-DF

[carrdrivesyou]

I think the majority of the party are wanting to preserve the island as is. We are not sure why the planar gate manifested there in the first place, and altering the island could cause it to shift or become unstable. It generated a storm the size of a hurricane before we knocked out the storm elemental guarding it, and performed a ritual to disperse the localized elemental energy; but that elemental is still very much alive. We aren't sure when it will wake back up. The plan is to put the elemental and gate inside a sort of faraday cage to prevent further explosive discharges or storm generation. At least for the short term. There is a lot we don't know about it, and really don't have the time to research it. It could be useful to travel through, but none of us have tried. Will need to do more research.

In other news, how do I keep pirates off of my island?