What would you build in your keep?

[darni]

Hey playgrounders. I'm looking for some brainstorming ideas of cool stuff to put in a keep.

Let me give you some context; my fantasy medieval (d&d 5e) party has saved a city (Neverwinter) in its last adventure, and the rulers had decided to reward us with a keep. The DM has told us that we can describe what we want and discuss with him. We're not terrible high level (actually L6, but our DM likes to give us a bit overpowered stuff) so I'm guessing we shouldn't expect to receive crazy stuff like floating castles made of walls of force and served by genies, but I'm guessing there's still a lot of cool stuff and details that we can add to make it more interesting in the realm of the possible.

I've already gone through the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, and considered all the "standard stuff" including living (quarters, kitchens, servant rooms, halls, ...), military (walls, barbican, watchtowers, armory, prison cells...) and utility (stables, warehouses, smithy, workshops, temple, ...). To give you some sense of scale, the city is providing us with a staff of 10 (servants+soldiers) that we can enlarge out of our own pocket (say 5-10 more at most)

What I'm looking for is the more unusual stuff, functional or not. Museum rooms where we have trophies from our adventures. Hidden rooms and escape tunnels, traps. Music rooms. Small magic stuff that is cool to have around, like potions of feather falling in a cabinet in the watchtowers. Defenses against flyers and teleporters. These are just examples but I'd love to hear what you think!

[Corsair14]

Fruit orchard, water source, slate tile shingles. Sounds like a relatively small keep, doubt you will have much room for more than the utility stuff. Prison cells seem kind of odd for a civilian residence and would take up valuable space. Get with the dwarves and build multi-shot dart throwers for anti-air defense, castles are easy to take out from above in a fantasy world. Just a dragon carrying a large basket or two of saboteur's at night to take out the gate house will screw you over. Amulets to prevent magic use in or around the keep seeing as a wizard can simply use spells and breach the walls quite simply. Ensure the outer walls are perfectly smooth since in 5e anyone has a decent chance to climb.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Corsair14, just a thought, but the keep could have prison cells for local criminals, pending a trial or transport to the city, rather than military prisoners. Or they might have been left from an older phase of the keeps life, and it's up to the current owners what they do with them. As for space, it depends on where the keep is, but they can usually go down to create store rooms, dungeons and the like.

My thoughts:

Animated paintings and/or tapestries.

Weapons concealed as part of your bedroom furniture (hmm, what about enchanted bed sheets that act like armour if you're attacked while under them?)

The classic adventure Castle Amber (X2) had an arboretum with a pond in it, maybe something like that?

What about having a market square and merchants warehouses fairly close by, so you've got easy access to all sorts of goods, and an extra source of income so you don't have to deal with paying all the bills (warehouse rents and fees for traders pitches, plus the possibility of your treasurer also acting as a money lender). Same for a brewery or distillery, or something that uses whatever local resources are available - charcoal burners if there's a large forest, ore smelting if there's mines, meat preserving and leather tanning if it's primarily cattle farming country and so on.

In fact, if you've only got 10-20 staff and guards (which presumably includes a steward to run the place while you're off adventuring, a cook and their assistant, a couple of people to do the general cleaning and tidying, possibly under a head of the household, someone to command the guard, a quartermaster for them and so on), you're probably going to have to rent out buildings like the smithy anyway just to get someone working in it.

You'd almost certainly need guest rooms for the rulers of Neverwinter, as they'll likely want to visit at some point. And you might need to hire in extra staff when they do.

[darni]

Thanks for the input....

@Corsair14 Regarding the prison cell: it's not a permanent prison, but we have had the need to hold someone and question them, sometimes slightly off-the-record ;-) (and I'm planning to put it underground in one of the towers, which also where the guard barracks are.) I like your defense ideas, will research more. And using some of the courtyard to grow food (like an orchard or greenhouse) sounds like a useful idea.

@Storm_of_snow nice ideas, thanks! I'll see if I can find that adventure. Many of the buildings (actually more like rooms) are essentially to be able to use the party skills, but renting them while not in use could actually be a nice way to cover maintenance. I don't think a local market makes a lot of sense given that we're really close to a large city, but I will run this through the rest of the party. We had planned some simple guest rooms for general use, but you're spot on about "official" visits, we probably should have some fancy way of receiving them :)

Thanks again, keep the ideas coming!

[IShouldntBehere]

A public bath, with a nice source of flowing clean water to keep it fresh. Your average medieval fantasy type setting is filthy with filthy people, and adventuring is doubly filthy. Nothing more luxurious and and comforting than just to be able to get clean and be surrounded by clean people. I'd use my wealth to carve out my own little section of the world where everyone isn't caked dirt and their own excrement.

[Coidzor]

A magically fecund orchard if magically re-filling larders aren't available. Something like Eternally Fruiting Trees of Goodberry. Or even just Tree.

Both mundane and magical water sources.

Anti-air defenses.

A subterranean layer of anti-burrowing defenses.

[DrBloodbathMC]

It would in all honesty depend on my character and their class and race, as well as personality. For example my dwarven archivist would have an entire wing dedicated to a library, a huge dining hall and a kitchen with a pub as a subsection as notable sections, whereas a druid would probably have a good section devoted to a courtyard with big trees.

[Mith]

I have bargained with my DM for a project that develops over time in the form of a city. Since this is likely not going to have any in game impact aside from an epilogue at the end of the main campaign, I am allowed to have fun. I am also a Civil Engineering student that studied Water Resources Engineering. Here are some ideas I have had, you

- Wastewater Treatment using Oozes. Alchemy can allow for modification of Oozes to allow the process to extract minerals from the wastewater allowing for the recovery of anything useful like iron. While this may be a bit crazier than what your DM intends, the idea of revolutionizing civil infrastructure. Also, anyone that wants to invade via sewer has to crawl through a giant Ooze to do so. I personally would rule based on scale that the Ooze would have a lot of HP and effective regeneration. For my city idea, this also diverted treated wastewater to be used as fertilizer/water source for underground agriculture. This may not be feasible for your castle.

-I also second the idea of a bath house.

-Movable hallways/rooms. A central hub that rotates connecting doorways to different hallways.

[JaggedSun]

Artificer's or Alchemy Guild - Some place with lots of cool gadgets/weapons/potions are stored and created.

[BarbieTheRPG]

Traps.

PCs and NPC staff know where to walk but strangers wouldn't. You need to protect your infrastructure and nothing does it like traps. Poison darts (paralysis), prison pits, sliding walls into door-less rooms, dropping cages, whatever. Non-fatal 'catch-traps' that neutralize intruders.

[Jay R]

Guildhalls for being patron to alchemists, artificers, item-creating crafters, etc.

The world's first military academy.

A bard's college. A wizard's school.

Bring in some experts and scour the ground for signs of minerals, for mining.

Special orchards for growing ironwood, yew, and any other hard-to-find organic material.

Are you on a shore? A port. Are you on a river? Maybe dredge it out for increased trade. Better roads to all the nearby market cities.

Near mountains? Search for minerals, and build roads to forests for providing timber. Particularly, look for marble, granite, or other hard building stones.

Most importantly, watch your DM's face when you run all these ideas by him. Run with the ideas that made him smile, or look intrigued.

[2D8HP]

I can't decide between a Tavern with a Library, or a Library with a Tavern!
(Yes I've often thought that a map to a Tavern that you find in a Dungeon is a worthy quest goal!)

[Lord Torath]

Griffon Stables.
Secret passages with spy holes. Access is through the master bedroom.
A hiding place just behind the "throne" where an advisor can secretly pass information to the ruler while he/she's holding court.

[Telok]

Toilets.

Although given D&D I'd be sorely tempted to import the materials and labor for the ground floor toilets from Hades. Evil plumbing.

[Cluedrew]

Sparing Room/Dojo/Danger Room

I don't know exactly what sort of characters you guys are playing but even if they don't enjoy fighting, practice is important. It is usually hand-waved (depending on what sort of time skips you do, might not even be a hand-wave) but it is a detail that can breath some life into the world. The exact contents of which would be decided by your party composition.

[Coidzor]

Toilets.

Although given D&D I'd be sorely tempted to import the materials and labor for the ground floor toilets from Hades. Evil plumbing.

What's this now?

[Koo Rehtorb]

I hear the corpses of your enemies impaled on sharp stakes is popular in certain circles.

[Potato_Priest]

A quick escape route, preferably to a river to make your exit extremely difficult to track.

[Flickerdart]

A pathway to the Underdark, where you have a second, bigger keep.

[Telok]

What's this now?

Since d&d is so weird about alignment it's perfectly happy to have evil aligned inanimate objects. Add some properly wicked workers and you should end up with plumbing and fixtures more terrible than any intentionally set trap.

[daniel_ream]

It doesn't sound like you have a very high-magic campaign so far (are you perhaps playing E6/P6?) so that limits the options a bit.

Historically, keeps existed for a reason - military domination of the surrounding area, and sometimes as a purely cosmetic symbol of status and power[1]. I would want to know exactly why the local rulers had chosen a keep as the reward; since a keep is a significant military weapon, rulers generally restrict the building of them to people they can trust or control, and they would expect the keep to be part of their national defense strategy.

That said:

military (walls, barbican, watchtowers, armory, prison cells...) and utility (stables, warehouses, smithy, workshops, temple, ...). To give you some sense of scale, the city is providing us with a staff of 10 (servants+soldiers) that we can enlarge out of our own pocket (say 5-10 more at most)

That's not a keep, that's a castle, and you'll need a lot more than ten people to run it. You certainly can't defend it adequately unless you've got a ton of followers or henchmen not mentioned.

What I'm looking for is the more unusual stuff, functional or not.

Ludwig II. Full stop. One of his castles included a grotto with a boat carved to look like a golden shell that traversed an underground lake to a full-sized underground opera theater.

Arboretums. *pssht*. Amateurs.

[1] Bodiam Castle in England, for instance, looks like an impressive castle but is in fact almost indefensible as one

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Sparing Room/Dojo/Danger Room
I don't know exactly what sort of characters you guys are playing but even if they don't enjoy fighting, practice is important. It is usually hand-waved (depending on what sort of time skips you do, might not even be a hand-wave) but it is a detail that can breath some life into the world. The exact contents of which would be decided by your party composition.

Hmm, what spells (or variants of) would you need for a magical version of a danger room/holosuite with training programs?

Lots of illusions obviously, stoneshaping or walls of stone/force if you want something like a climbing wall or a ninja warrior-esque assault course, maybe golem creation for combat training.

A quick escape route, preferably to a river to make your exit extremely difficult to track.

I prefer the Patrician's solution in Guards, Guards - a cell where all bar one of the locks are only accessible from the inside. But at a minimum, you want an emergency escape route that isn't also an easy and convenient way in around your own defences - maybe you need to blast holes in otherwise solid walls or something similar, rather than the video game version where you have, say, a secret door only operable from one side, or a cliff that you can't climb up but can easily drop down from the other side.

[Stealth Marmot]

A Library with a bunch of books that are good for researching.

Should give a circumstance bonus to all sorts of knowledge and lore checks.

[Cluedrew]

That's not a keep, that's a castle, and you'll need a lot more than ten people to run it. You certainly can't defend it adequately unless you've got a ton of followers or henchmen not mentioned.

I think those are the options being considered, not things already included.

Hmm, what spells (or variants of) would you need for a magical version of a danger room/holosuite with training programs?

I did think of that, but besides not being exactly sure what is available in E6-super, doing all that from the get go seems a little bit odd. Its strikes me as a bit of adding modern ideas (suddenly) to a medieval world which always jars me. Not to mention it starts reaching gimmick level.

That being said: The biggest obstacle would be mimicking the computer to control all those functions. Now if you just want to set and then overcome obstacles an emblem on the wall that stores golem creations spells and stone-shape should be plenty. If you want the actual danger room you are going to need some sort of almost-sentient mind controlling it (I suppose you could make a computer out of alarm spells if you tried, but then you know what is going to happen). That I'm not sure how to do, you don't want something that doesn't like you pretending to try to kill you, because they will not be pretending.

[khadgar567]

Somesort of fertility / mind rape idol providing more yield as long as you are in rule ans slowly corrupts people to your rule is much betterthen their regular rulers

[Storm_Of_Snow]

I did think of that, but besides not being exactly sure what is available in E6-super, doing all that from the get go seems a little bit odd. Its strikes me as a bit of adding modern ideas (suddenly) to a medieval world which always jars me. Not to mention it starts reaching gimmick level.

Agreed - it was more of an open question about what would be required.

That being said: The biggest obstacle would be mimicking the computer to control all those functions. Now if you just want to set and then overcome obstacles an emblem on the wall that stores golem creations spells and stone-shape should be plenty. If you want the actual danger room you are going to need some sort of almost-sentient mind controlling it (I suppose you could make a computer out of alarm spells if you tried, but then you know what is going to happen). That I'm not sure how to do, you don't want something that doesn't like you pretending to try to kill you, because they will not be pretending.

Or a spirit that's happy to be bound to the room to control it for you, or even some way of slightly randomising the results (ask for the illusion of six orcs to fight, one time it brings you 6 all armed with spears and shields, the next, 2 with paired axes and 4 with shortbows). Maybe there's something like a group of annotated wheels outside that you can just spin to get something random, but also manipulate to select something exact.

[Braininthejar2]

A hidden room with a wall display full of communication mirrors and message stones, to monitor my vast espionage network.

[Honest Tiefling]

Toilets.

Although given D&D I'd be sorely tempted to import the materials and labor for the ground floor toilets from Hades. Evil plumbing.

I'm going to double down on this, especially if your DM is of a particular bent. Firstly, it'll prevent the DM from saying your people got sick due to bad water. Secondly, you should establish why people can't sneak in through the garderobe. I'm not 100% sure if that was historically accurate, but I wouldn't put it past a DM to have some goblins sneak in that way.

I would also seriously consider a well built, sturdy room to do spells in. Better give the wizard a place to do magic that isn't flammable.

Perhaps some entertainment for your lackeys? Wouldn't want them to get ideas about following someone else, would we?

Secret passageways are a must!

[daniel_ream]

Secondly, you should establish why people can't sneak in through the garderobe. I'm not 100% sure if that was historically accurate

It was.

Figuring out how to get the *** out of the castle in a safe way was absolutely a part of the design. Although really, a near vertical chute that exits over the moat or the river was usually how it's done.

[Mastikator]

What is it supposed to repel or protect against? Because a historic keep is awesome against ground forces and does diddly squat against flying wizards.