3.5 Flying Castle?

[Reuven]

Hello everyone,

I would very much like to craft a floating castle/keep/stronghold in the game I'm playing in. I seem to remember a ritual that took a number of wizards, a dragon's heart and a castle with an apropiate control room to make it happen.

However, the internet is a fickle thing and only answers when you phrase the question correctly.

Do you know ways to make a castle fly? I had pondered getting one off the elemental plane of air.. but that's only subjective gravity. And Immobile rods are not strong enough to do the deed.

Hope the hive mind can come up with some viable options!

[Fizban]

I think I actually recognize that thing with the dragon's heart, if I remember right it was from a 3rd party book called Dragons that really liked the "carve up the dragon" aspect of play.

For flying castles might I suggest the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook? It has rules for building castles and adding magic to them, including flight. You start by picking all the rooms you want, then figure out your walls, and finally enchant whatever areas you want in the same way you would a magic item. The whole process is very expensive (it's a freaking castle after all!), but there's also a nice Landlord feat that gives you "free" gold for building a castle, if your DM gives you a king, dragon, or someone else who will subsidize you. If all the players take it and pool their resources you can manage some pretty awesome stuff.

[Ravens_cry]

Technically rods work, if you have enough of them.
Idea: get, or make, a big enough creature, and get an item of fly for it, and build on top of it?

[FelixG]

Technically rods work, if you have enough of them.
Idea: get, or make, a big enough creature, and get an item of fly for it, and build on top of it?

Colossal the size category everyone forgets about until it is awake :P

[Killer Angel]

In the Faerun setting, there are the floating cities of Netheril, created by a powerful magocracy.
I'm don't know too much about it, so have no idea if there are indications in the fluff regarding spells and rituals, but maybe you can find some idea.

[DaMullet]

If you don't need it to fly very high, you can always get an item of continuous Reverse Gravity, and if you do need it to fly higher I'm sure there's some way to twink that.

[Kobold-Bard]

I think I actually recognize that thing with the dragon's heart, if I remember right it was from a 3rd party book called Dragons that really liked the "carve up the dragon" aspect of play.

For flying castles might I suggest the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook? It has rules for building castles and adding magic to them, including flight. You start by picking all the rooms you want, then figure out your walls, and finally enchant whatever areas you want in the same way you would a magic item. The whole process is very expensive (it's a freaking castle after all!), but there's also a nice Landlord feat that gives you "free" gold for building a castle, if your DM gives you a king, dragon, or someone else who will subsidize you. If all the players take it and pool their resources you can manage some pretty awesome stuff.

Seconding this. That book is awesome, and Landlord means you're not out of pocket; though it does give the DM permission to send your benefactor's enemies after you, which is ok because a seige in a flying castle kicks all kinds of butt.

Either or use Epic spells like I did. Raise Island + Epic Overland Flight/Summon 12 million seagulls + assorted defensive spells = floating fortress of DOOOM!!!! (doom because if you start losing you can just fly over your enemies and dispel the flight )

[Fingerlessfist]

maybe, in complete violation of science, you could cover the bottom of it in millions of very strong gyser spells and have it propelled upward on thousands of bursts of water....

or maybe you could tie it to a bigass balloon.

[Greenish]

Breland has a couple of flying fortresses. Hijack one.

[Unrest]

@Killer Angel: There are. I have the spell, Proctiv's Move Mountain, right before my eyes. Unpostable here, though. Anyhoo, it's an epic spell that lets you bring up a mountain peak 1 mile tall and 1 mile in radius (so lifting a castle would be like, I don't know, 8 times easier? it's very manageable DC then), it's in Player's Guide to Faerun.

[Killer Angel]

@Killer Angel: There are. I have the spell, Proctiv's Move Mountain, right before my eyes. Unpostable here, though. Anyhoo, it's an epic spell that lets you bring up a mountain peak 1 mile tall and 1 mile in radius (so lifting a castle would be like, I don't know, 8 times easier? it's very manageable DC then), it's in Player's Guide to Faerun.

Good to know, tnx.
at that point, it shouldn't be difficult to have/create/whatever a 9th lev. spell for "smaller" target. Eventually with a limited duration (1 month? 1 year?) and a gp cost worth of it.

[casper]

Who's going to create that castle? If he is an epic spellcaster, have epic spellcaster among his friends or have enough money to hire one, he can research custom epic spell, which would make castle fly, create a cloud to carry it or anything like that. "Fly" isn't in list of epic spell seeds, but I don't think that anyone would disagree, that such a spell can exist and its Spellcraft DC wouldn't be too high even for low-level wisard, especially if he would make it a ritual.

[The White Knight]

As for the construction of the building itself, that's all a matter of repeated castings of Wall of Stone and Fabricate. Only chumps pay for castles if there are Wizards handy.

[DanReiv]

Stronghold builder's guidebook has some insight on this. Flying is a stronghold's enchantment based on reverse gravity that cost 15k gold per Space.

[The White Knight]

Like, per 5-ft. square? Does two storeys count as twice the spaces?

[Kobold-Bard]

Like, per 5-ft. square? Does two storeys count as twice the spaces?

Probably. But that's what Landlord is for, and flying buildings are for high level characters anyway.

[Malbordeus]

hmm. depends on if the castle needs to move...

a number of Immovable rods? set into the air, and then arches built between them to support the rest of the castle.

[Tyndmyr]

Technically rods work, if you have enough of them.

This and/or permanencied walls of force seem appropriate.

For the crazier, you could instead mount decanters of endless whatever, and ride around across a rocket plume of various stuff streaming downward. The implications of such a creation are both obvious and amusing.

[awa]

I vaugley recall cloud giants being able to make castles in clouds assuming im not misremembering maby you could hire some to build it for you.

[Tyndmyr]

Like, per 5-ft. square? Does two storeys count as twice the spaces?

Nah, space in SBG corresponds roughly to a room. Some spaces have multiple small rooms instead. So like, a barracks unit holds room for several soldiers to live, and counts as a single space.

Spaces can be stacked in any orientation, and presumably, you would want to limit the amount of non-enchanted spaces stacked atop enchanted spaces. Unless you ENJOY seeing what happens to a top-heavy castle, of course.

[Fizban]

A stronghold space is a 20x20x10' room, and is the unit of measurement used in building strongholds as one might assume. I'm pretty sure you can't get the thing off the ground unless every space has the enhancement though, so no problems with top-heavy castles since they aren't even possible! You have to pay extra for the movement speed, but getting it levitating is pretty cheap- as long as the "castle" is pretty small. There's also "swimming" and burrowing, and if you've got serious money, you can do teleporting and plane shifting.

One thing to remember with the SBG is that it's meant to be for large buildings. Yes, you can make one room fly crazy fast and be nearly invincible and then just have everyone live in a built in rope trick, but that's not how it's meant to be used. It takes about 20 spaces to get a proper keep going, and anything less that you might as well just buy an airship instead: it's more honest and might even be cheaper. If everyone in the party has a couple specialty rooms, 20 spaces should be about enough.

[Tyndmyr]

A stronghold space is a 20x20x10' room, and is the unit of measurement used in building strongholds as one might assume. I'm pretty sure you can't get the thing off the ground unless every space has the enhancement though, so no problems with top-heavy castles since they aren't even possible!

I suspect that's the intent. However, as a player, hanging or parking non-enchanted things on the castle are quite possible, and even likely. Also, there's the issue of dispel. Even if it's just a temporary supression(which is how I play it), that can be quite problematic.

[Shenanigans]

I will third (fourth? whatever) the SBG. Not only does it provide exact rules (and an example of a flying wizard's tower) but it's (in my opinion) one of the most fun books from 3.X.

In my main FrC campaign that I play in, our DM had us all eventually (27th level?) become Tethyrian nobility as a reward for a big campaign arc. We were all given land (of our choice-ish) and a fund for building a stronghold. Each of us was given a fund with which to build our stronghold, and could use personal treasure as well. Our Druid and Wizard helped us stretch our budgets to the max, and those who took the time to do so had a really great time building character specific strongholds. My monk built a fortress monastery in the mountains, the druid took a small forest with a lake-based stronghold, the sorceror/rogue/skill monkey had a seaside town with a small castle.

[Gavinfoxx]

Schema of Suspension. Lots of Schema of Suspension.

[Reis Tahlen]

Well, seems no one as made the suggestion, I'll do it...

<cough>

Haven't thought of buying a standart castle, then having a Hulk thrower/War Hulk working for you, and then...

[Chipp Zanuff]

Sharn, City of Towers (Eberron) utilizes Tenser's Greater Flying Disk spells to keep afloat. Multiple permanent ones.

[Unrest]

Sharn, City of Towers (Eberron) utilizes Tenser's Greater Flying Disk spells to keep afloat. Multiple permanent ones.

I'd launch a squadron of flying units, each armed with an Antimagic field scroll, to fly underneath! Man, would the guys below be surprised. (I mean, if there's something below. Haven't seen the place.)

And moving one of these is a standard action! That's cumbersome.

[Chipp Zanuff]

I'd launch a squadron of flying units, each armed with an Antimagic field scroll, to fly underneath! Man, would the guys below be surprised. (I mean, if there's something below. Haven't seen the place.)

And moving one of these is a standard action! That's cumbersome.

Oujo-sama beat you to that months ago.

[UserClone]

For a completely different take, there is a winged race in Mythic Races by FFG that has a racial prestige class which eventually allows them to SCULPT CLOUDS INTO A FREAKING FORTRESS. w00t!

[ArcanistSupreme]

Maybe you could use those Soarwhales from Arms and Equipment? 'Cause nothing says cool like a castle being towed around by giant, flying whales.