Building Strongholds

[Scott]

The players going through the GD series now are all intent on building castles after the series is over. Really, if you aren't a medieval architect, the rules are terrible. I am not interested in designing castles where every door needs to be itemized. I've always been tempted to hand them one, just because by the book is such a headache. Something general like small, medium, or large castle with a few modifiers is the level of detail I'm looking for. Any thoughts on prices?

[Scott]

There are three stronghold ideas that have been percolating in my campaign brain for years, waiting for PCs of the appropriate level to come along and claim them instead of building them: a cloud island, an Orthanc-like tower, and a an Elvin stronghold with a history similar to Nargothrond.
The cloud island will probably have to be cleaned of cloud giants. I sort of set introduced this idea into the current campaign after the PCs freed the female storm giant from the Jarl's dungeon. She mentioned that she came from a cloud island and was kidnapped by cloud giants and sold to the Jarl. The party may encounter her again after completing the series.
Imlad Dómiel (Vale of Stars), now known as Imlad Nirnaeth (Vale of Tears), is the Nargothrond like stronghold in the northwest Suss, currently occupied by a very powerful green dragon.
The Orthanc-like tower, which looks like the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, has never been placed.

[geneweigel]

For fast and non-creative players who don't want to go through major detail I use the 3 book set Volume 3 Underworld & Wilderness (1974) visual reference on page 21 as its all ready to go with just popping out the doors/windows or adding an outer wall. Its cookie cutter so its cheaper. I would imagine a finished castle might be even cheaper even than this especially in an untamed wilderness.

[GRWelsh]

I've always found that players organically come up with the idea on their own to take over a tower or castle if they have an adventure in it... i.e. clear it out. Especially if it is in a sandbox area where they are already adventuring a lot. There were castle designs in Dragon Magazine #145 that may be usable: Littlefang, Goldworthy, and an elven castle, Niriath Henning. The downside of letting the players get a castle this way is they aren't spending all of that money they've saved up, which is what was driving the dream of having one's own castle in the first place. If they aren't able to build and pay for their own stronghold they might be missing out on that sense of achievement. You could let your players do all of the accounting and architectural work and submit the design to you for review and approval. It might be interesting to see what they come up with!

[geneweigel]

The refurbished "old dungeon" castle has the danger of it not being mystery proof whereas some old magic might "come home" at a inopportune time.

My brother and cousin sacked the Keep at the end of the 80's because I had kept reusing B2 for new players. While it was a joke to my brother, my cousin paid the bills and kept it running for years but him occupying it made it become a literal backwater as far as my input. He had made a dungeon under the keep but lacked the next step of making it interesting hiding all his fortune elsewhere. It got so sick of him being the "king of the borderlands" that I wouldn't even mention it. I had introduced multiversal "Keeps" tp maintain my sanity.

[Scott]

The. construction rules are for serious war gamers, which none of my party are. They’re not going to know what crenelated or machicolated mean. I would assume the PCs would be hiring engineers to plan and build it anyways, so they will probably just give some basic ideas. If I don’t give them one to sack, they’ll probably have Corbek the cleric build one, since it’s half price, and move in there.
They talked about a cloud island castle, but I told them the clerics would be pressured to build strongholds that would be accessible to attract adherents, but it might work for another PC.