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View Full Version : Crazy features to add to a town/stronghold



Randel
2008-08-19, 01:47 AM
The questions about the cost of strongholds and forts in DnD got me thinking a little about how to allow players to make their own towns if their characters are put in a reasonable position of power.

After some thought, I decided to get a list of features that could be put into a town. Maybe organizing according to Military, Economic, Governement, Religion, or Technological groups or something.

Just an idea to collect some features to add to a town to give them some flavor or ideas for a quest. No need to get into how much it would cost (unless it uses an actual magic item to power that feature) though some things might have costs that can't be measured in gp.

I'm mostly going to stick to things from 4th edition, but feel free to add things from 3.x or even things taken from fantasy stories.

Anyway: some ideas


Slime Pits [sanitation]
Description: Used to dispose of garbage and organic waste, a slime pit is a large hole dug in the ground with an ooze dumped into it. The ravenous ooze will dissolve whatever is dumped into it. Naturally, it will eventually fill up and if one isn't careful it could release deady ooze monsters into the area. The users should have some way of killing the oozes and getting rid of the dead slime.
Some oozes only dissolve organic material and leave metal alone, these ones can be used to reclaim precious minerals from large amounts of organic waste.
Cost: collecting the oozes and keeping them under control.

Sending Stones [communication]
Description: Using a pair of sending stones, two towns may keep in communication with eachother. If the department using them is set up properly, they can send messages, news, information on market conditions, and other things quickly from one town to anther. If many towns are set up, they can form a network to allow for incredible information sharing.
Cost: The market price of the sending stones and cost of employing experts to work them. They can quickly pay for themselves if merchants can pay to send or receive messages through them.

Outer Walls [Defense]
Description: Tall walls built to surround the settlement. A good defense against land-based intruders. Taller and stronger walls defend against greater threats.
Cost: The labor cost to construct the walls, also needs a source of bulding material.

Teleport Holes [Defense-racial]
Description: non-magical in nature, these are merely small holes built into walls that are just large enough for someone to look through. Someone with the ability to teleport short ranges either through a spell or a racial power (such as Eladrin or Shadar-Kai) can see the other side and teleport past the wall, while those without teleportation must seek other methods of movement. These same holes may be used for ventilation or to aim some attacks through.
Cost: negligible, goes with the cost of making the wall.

Harpy Towers [Monster]
Description: Some towns may be able to achieve diplomatic relations with harpies and create a mutually beneficial arrangement. Either through agreements with a Harpy family or by simply granting the harpies citizen rights.
These towers are constructed to house harpies close to the town so that they may provide the town with assistance quickly. Either by joining in battles, providing routine reconnaissance, or delivering packages by air.
Cost: Maintaining diplomatic relationships with harpies, paying them for services, and the possibility of their mischief.

Emperor Tippy
2008-08-19, 01:58 AM
This is 4e I assume, based on the reference to Eladrin?

Dhavaer
2008-08-19, 02:17 AM
This is 4e I assume, based on the reference to Eladrin?


I'm mostly going to stick to things from 4th edition, but feel free to add things from 3.x or even things taken from fantasy stories.

I like the look of this, ideas on how to make settlements more fantastic are always welcome.

celestialkin
2008-08-19, 02:22 AM
Please people, put (4.0) or (3.x) in your titles.

Randel
2008-08-19, 04:29 AM
Actually, what I meant was that any suggestions for town/city/stronghold features are to be primarily fluff without too much specifics on the edition used.

For example, the eladrin and shadar-kai are races who can teleport short distances and (due to 4th edition rules on teleportation) they need to see where they are teleporting to to avoid getting into accidents with it.

So this idea works pretty good for 4th edition cities, but if you run a 3rd edition game and have a race that can teleport in that same manner then it should work for them too.

In short, these ideas are just here to help DMs or players put together an idea for a city or something. Implementing it into whatever game system they are using comes after they figure out what they want to make. Same reason I'm not putting in any gp values in the cost, since these things are basically part of the setting instead of items that the players are going to be selling.

Totally Guy
2008-08-19, 06:56 AM
A camera obscura tower. It spies on the horizon it spies on everyone.

Basically it's a mirror on top of a tower that can be aimed at things from within the tower by use of pulleys and cranks. The light is projected through a tiny hole and perhaps a lense into the pitch black room onto a table. Then you can spy for free without using magic.

This exists in real life and they're quite cool.

pingcode20
2008-08-19, 07:09 AM
Here's a few executive policies that would assist in augmenting a stronghold. They're mostly risky undertakings, though.

Selective Monstrous Introduction Program [Governmental Policy]
Description: Sure, you could send out dragonslayers every time an evil dragon decides to move into the area. Sure, you could wipe out all the orc encampments. But then what happens afterwards? Unless you decide to pay for constant adventurer sojourns to secure the countryside, you're going to be running into increasingly larger problems with various interlopers, at least until you manage to become well-entrenched in 'civilised' territory. The solution? Selectively seek out colonies of races with traditionally territorial tendencies, and offer favourable conditions for them to move in, as well as close social ties to your stronghold/town. Sure, they might turn on you, but that won't happen if you pick the right people there's no chance of that, right?
Cost: Whatever concessions need to be made to the group in question, as well as the cost of tracking down the right candidates in the first place.
Benefits: Ideally, you would pick a group with a strong background in producing some sort of product (kobolds and mining comes to mind) and traditional 'enemy' status, and pay primarily in legal protection and close trade ties - for instance, instead of offering to take their goods when they ship them, grant them some privileged trade position and allow them to construct a trading post where they are permitted (read: Strongly Encouraged) to operate openly.
Drawbacks: Might get you ostracised by rivals races, and potentially suffer retribution if some powerful nation decides that it is an insult to them.

Diamond Subsidies [Economics]
Description: As every adventurer knows, death is cheap, right? Wrong - reversing it still requires thousands of gp in diamonds, not to mention the services of a sufficiently powerful cleric. While most adventurers who come calling for such a powerful magic have access to the latter, the thousands in diamonds necessary for reversing the flow of death is nothing to sneeze at, and often costs the adventurers in question dearly. By collecting diamond dust from processing, and siphoning low to middle grade diamonds from local mines, the stronghold can offer diamonds for resurrection purposes to adventurers who choose to be based in the stronghold.
Cost: Requires a stronghold-controlled diamond mine to avoid loss. Expenses to retrofit jewellers to collect diamond dust, as well as loss of profit that could be made from selling diamonds at full market price.
Benefits: Encourages adventuring parties powerful enough to be self-resurrecting to base themselves in area.
Drawbacks: If not well-planned, may lead to market crash. May offend guilds.

Arcane Archive [Arcana]
Description: Establish and stock a library with arcane texts, both rare and not, and construct public laboratories for personal research. By establishing a comprehensive resource for wizards, and further subsidising research costs, the stronghold will attract spellcasters seeking to increase their power - in other words, all of them. By further permitting wizards to construct towers, a higher-than-normal concentration of spellcasters will build up in the local area, making the stronghold a very dangerous target to strike at. If possible, subsidisation of material components will improve the attractiveness of the stronghold to spellcasters.
Costs: Infrastructure to support major institutions, very expensive.
Benefits: Could make stronghold more attractive to spellcasters, especially if special effort is committed to acquiring rare tomes.
Drawbacks: If mismanaged, may result in loss of power to magocracy, or catastrophic damage due to mage battles.

hamlet
2008-08-19, 07:46 AM
There was, a long while ago, a Dragon Magazine article about this - building static castle defenses with the abilities of mid and high level PC's and monsters in mind. Can't look it up right now cause I'm well away from my archive, but I'll see if I can remember a few of the best.

For reference, these are AD&D, but can probably be adapted to 3.x or 4.0 pretty easily.

Murder Room
A single, high level fighter in AD&D can slaughter dozens of 0-level guards and soldiers without even breaking a sweat. However, restrict his movements, and he suddenly becomes a very big pin cushion.

The main entrance to the keep/castle/citygate is, essentially, a room within a room. It is a 50x50 room in which a triangular, narrower room has been built inside. The main gate leads into this smaller, inner room, and is situated along one of the sides of the triangle and the exit into the city or the rest of the keep is at the opposite corner from this entrance. In order to approach this door, one must move into a space narrow enough that slashing and bludgeoning weapons are nigh useless.

In the walls of this inner room are a number of cunningly concealed murder holes. In the outer room (accessed by secret doors from outside and never from this inner room) are dozens of guards with spears and crossbows. The opponent thus restricted in his movements is stuck full of holes. In AD&D, even a 20th level fighter is unlikely to have much more than 100hp, and so 12 spears attacking with almost no chance of missing over and over again while the victim is pressed against the door unable to retreat is likely to make quick work of any foe.


Tower Cap
Watch tower tops are vulnerable to flying creatures such as dragons and wyverns who can swoop in and take off a couple of guardsmen for a snack before anything can be done. To deter flyers from doing this, you only need build a cap of flying buttresses with gaps wide enough for the guards to shoot through, but strong enough and tall enough to hold off a dragon for just a moment or two.

Teleport Proof Walls
Teleport and dimension door effects can ruin the day of any castle holder. Simple solution: mix a good amount of lead in with all the mortor and such effects can be neutralized. With a little extra planning, you can build yourself designated teleport traps that lure persistent casters to teleport into specific places within the castle that are designed as death traps to any who enter. Maybe an unleaded room filled floor to cieling with green slime. (ok, that last is a little nasty . . . but if I were building a castle and had to defend against such attacks . . . I'd do it in a heartbeat)

LordOkubo
2008-08-19, 08:54 AM
Teleport Proof Walls
Teleport and dimension door effects can ruin the day of any castle holder. Simple solution: mix a good amount of lead in with all the mortor and such effects can be neutralized. With a little extra planning, you can build yourself designated teleport traps that lure persistent casters to teleport into specific places within the castle that are designed as death traps to any who enter. Maybe an unleaded room filled floor to cieling with green slime. (ok, that last is a little nasty . . . but if I were building a castle and had to defend against such attacks . . . I'd do it in a heartbeat)

Problem, Lead blocks Divination, not Teleportation. Anyone can teleport anywhere they can see.

hamlet
2008-08-19, 08:57 AM
Problem, Lead blocks Divination, not Teleportation. Anyone can teleport anywhere they can see.

In AD&D, it blocked both, actually.

This can be remedied with the appropriate circles of protection I suppose, but it makes it far less acheivable for the average baron.

xPANCAKEx
2008-08-19, 09:11 AM
BOUNCY CASTLE

long ago the keep of the town was cursed by dying word of an evil wizard. Mist surrounded it forn 7 days and nights. On the dawn of the 7th day, i immerged from the mist reformed. 2 Floors of a bouncy substance never seen before. Since then the city has had to resort to more diplomatic relations to preserve the peace.
cost nothing
benefits:
*keep now immune to blugeoning damage

*jumping checks get a +2 bonus

* +5 glee bonus to any diplomacy checks made by city rulers while within the keep
a further +2 affinity bonus to diplomacy checks if cake or ice cream is served at any time during the talks
a final +1 moral bonus to diplomacy is applied if a jester is also present
drawbacks*movement within the castle is at 3/4 speed.
*keep stats now 5 toughess(? can;t remember the correct term) - and 1000HP
*piercing and slashing weapons deal double damage damage deals. Any piercing damage deals is dealt again every turn thereafter until castle is destroyed (ie: deflated), slash damage deals half original damage every turn thereafter until castle destoyed.
*DE*******N: At 1000 damage castle is fully inflated
At 600 damage the ground floor collapses and anyone on it begins to suffocate (as per drowning rules) and movement is now 1/4 speed
at 300 the 1st floor deflates, everybody on it is subject to suffocation and reduced to 1/4 speed; and anyone remaining trapped on the ground floor is reduced to 1/10th speed.
At 0 it collapses entirely, trapping all inside, reducing them to 1/10 speed, suffocating (as rules for drowning) them unless they can make it to the nearest window or doorway to escape....
*Any air based magical attacks made on the castle while it is less than 1000 hp will heal it instead of damaging it. At 1000 HP the castle is immune to air based attacks.
*POP - any attack that deals more than 150hp damage in a single attack has a 20% chance to instant destroy the castle, dealing 5d6 damage to anyone inside, throwing them 10d6 feet in a random direction



yes


i am bored on my lunch hour. Dear lord i am bored

TwystidMynd
2008-08-19, 10:15 AM
Please people, put (4.0) or (3.x) in your titles.

Seriously. Trash-eating oozes aren't applicable to 3.5.

Thanks for playing.

xPANCAKEx
2008-08-19, 12:00 PM
Seriously. Trash-eating oozes aren't applicable to 3.5.

Thanks for playing.


gelatinous cube in a bag of holding?

Krrth
2008-08-19, 12:22 PM
You might want to see if you can get ahold of the town creation tables (along with feats) in d20 Gamma World. They should be easily adapted to DnD, at least in idea format.

Duke of URL
2008-08-19, 12:57 PM
Ideas (details/stats are left as an exercise for the reader):

Moat
Well, not just a moat. A moat filled with piranhas. Anthropomorphic piranhas. With class levels.


Honeypot
A false weakness in the defenses designed to lure enemies to a particular location where they can be mercilessly slaughtered. Pair with field effects, symbol of... spells, and the like.


Teleportation Circles
For mutual defense treaties. Expensive, but brutally effective (and good for trade).

BigPapaSmurf
2008-08-19, 01:02 PM
In my PCs last stronghold there was a courtyard with a massive old tree, the druid took up residence under the tree in a special dirt/root constructed room and had their treasury rigged under the tree, so that if it were disturbed by someone who doesnt know wtftad, it would make the druids area collapse crushing anyone there, under the weight of the tree.

Im a fan of water walls, i.e. outerwalls built directly into the water leaving no landing space, its hard to get a ladder working from a boat.

Permanent non-detection areas are always useful.

One thing I came up with but havent used is a kill pit moat. Some invisible gasses will knock you out almost immediatly if a large breath is taken. In your dry moat you can have a mechanism which releases a heavy gas, which will sit in the moat waiting for the bulk of the enemy forces to gather. Best to let the first wave get killed by standard defenses and when they send in the crack troops/horses, release the gas.

Eskil
2008-08-19, 01:05 PM
Grave Moat [Defense-Monster]
Description: The Grave Moat is essansially a water-filled trench containing chained Skeletons and/or Zombies meant to impede and intimidate landbased aggressors.
Cost: Digging the trench, supplying chains(, corpses) and any cost to animate them.
Benefits: Discourages from attempts to storm the city/fortress.
Drawbacks: Most likely evil and may be impractical.

Randel
2008-08-19, 02:53 PM
A few features that could work in 3.5

Arcane Hot Water [Water Utility]
Description: Construct a large water-heater like structure and put a permanent wall of fire inside it. Then use it to heat up a supply of water for the use of the townspeople. A series of pipes or aquaducts may be used to send the water to various places where it can be used. If you need a way to shut the heater down and there is no command word to do so, a valve may be opened to flood the chamber with water, extinguishing the fire. Draining the water form the chamber allows the wall of fire to reactivate.
Cost: Getting a high enough spellcaster to use both Wall of Fire and Permanancy. The cost of material components. Constructing the water system to keep water flowing and maintaining those lines.
Benefits: Anything that involves publicly available hot water. If the water is sent to boiling then it will be useful in killing any bacterium in the water. Access to hot water in winter can help the people keep warm. Development of hotsprings or saunas may promote cleanliness. An emergency divert switch may divert the castles boiling water out to fill the defensive trenches or spray it onto enemy invaders.
Drawbacks: Pipelines require skilled artisans to build and maintain. Pipes may break or leak and boiling water deals heat damage to people. If water runs out, the wall of fire may begin to damage the furnace over time.

Stonemakers Guild [Magical organization - defense - housing]
Description: A group of arcane spellcasters who specialize in casting Wall of Stone, Stone Shape and any other number of earth-related spells. Those who can cast Wall of Stone each day can constantly add to the castles walls and defensive parameters, creating walls, houses, roads and other things. As long as they have a good layout of the city and permission to do so, they can easily expand the cities perimeters on a regular basis every day.
Cost: Running an arcane institution, the land the stone structures are to be put on, experts who know where the new walls should be added, paying the mages.
Benefits: Constant reliable source of building material, also as long as the stonemakers have jobs you know you have mages on hand in case another use for their magic is needed.
Drawbacks: Dwarves and some races who deal with stone may see this as foolish. There may be cheaper sources of building materail (though in this case, the pay is pretty much all profit for magic users so if there is relaiable work for them it may encourage people to study magic for a posh useful job) the number of walls created per day are limited.

Unseen Crafter Factory [Magic Institution - Crafting]
Description: Spellcasters capable of casting Unseen Crafter (from Races of Eberron) can cast the spell repeatedly in order to create crafters that make items. They require the raw materials to make the items and need the skills to craft the items, but one skilled wizard can make many crafters, limited only by their number of spell slots per day.
Cost: A building and equipment to house the crafters, spellcasters capable of casting Unseen Crafter, raw materials, and a market for those items.
Benefit: With properly optimized Crafting Mages, many unseen crafters can be working at once. If the crafter has access to Pearls of Power (mainly 2nd level ones) they can create even more crafters. You can use this to provide your army and citizens with inexpensive masterwork weapons and armor. Trade routes can give you a huge advantage if there are any wars because you can now make weapons cheaply.
With some minor modifications to the idea, Dedicated Wrights can be used to make magic items as well. The fabricate spell creates things faster, but Unseen Servant is a lower level spell and so can be started earlier.
Drawbacks: Requires a good market for the things you are building, and you need those mages to be skilled and willing to keep casting those spells. You need to keep the supply lines for the raw materials going to maintain production. May tick off non-magical artisans and may result in you depending too much on a few mages to keep your economy running. Also, other mages may copy the idea and use their advantage to make it hard for mundane workers to make profits.

Brown Mold Refrigeration [Food Storage - monster]
Description: Get some Brown Molds and place them in boxes. Then put them in a room where food is kept and they will drain the heat out, refrigerating the food to keep it from spoiling. Or you can have the room filled with buckets of water which turn to ice, then sell the ice to people to use to keep things cold.
Cost: Acquiring and cultivating brown mold, constructing the rooms and maintaining them.
Benefit: Cheap ice and refrigeration. Also can be used as traps or weaons in an attack... just throw a box of brown mold into enemy invaders, then watch it burst open and start freezing people. Add fire to make it expand for more fun.
Drawbacks: Exposure to fire may make the brown mold grow giant. Brown mold is dangerous and must be handled properly. The mold may get loose and infect food or make dangerous heat-eating patches of the stuff inside the city.

Hot Air Castle [City Movement]
Description: By using permanent walls of fire, furnaces, distribution pipes, and several balloons, you are able to create enough lift to make your castle FLY!
Cost: Highly skilled workers who know about architecture, flight, and navigation. Castings of Permanant Walls of Fire. Sturdy building material.
Benefit: Your castle is now able to rise into the air and thus avoid ground-based attacks. With proper designs you may be able to steer it and fly to wherever you wish. You receive several bonuses to Awesome and Moral against land-based strongholds.
Drawback: If the balloons are damaged too much, your castle falls from the sky. You can land the castle, but usually need Carpets of Flying or similar things to move to and from the ground. The cost of carrying weight means your castle should be lightweight for maximum efficiency and it may be prohibitively expensive to have much land brought up with you. Food should be either magically created in the castle or brought up from the land. A moving castle may make it hard to control your outlying lands as effectively as a more permanent one.
You may be better off just having an airship instead of an air castle.

LordMalrog
2008-08-20, 02:33 AM
My character !!!LORD MALROG!!! had a massive black tower, taht could burrow and fly. safe to say the enemy was quite surprised!:smallbiggrin: