D20 - D&D - Stronghold Builders Guidebook (WE) PDF

Construction Journal:
the
AlQalinde
Guildhouse
A Stronghold Builders Guidebook

Web Enhancement by David Noonan
The Stronghold Builders Guidebook is comprehensive
resource detailing everything a Dungeon Master or
player needs to design, construct, and play with castles,
fortresses, towers, and more. As an example of how to
build a stronghold within the context of an ongoing
campaignand as a reasonably priced fortress for your
own characters useheres the Alqalinde Guildhouse.
This is a tower created by Oriel, a 13th-level wizard in a
campaign weve got going in the Wizards of the Coast
Roleplaying R&D department.
Additional Credits
Editing and Typesetting:
Sue Weinlein Cook
Cartography:
Sean K Reynolds
Web Production:
Julia Martin
Web Development:
Mark Jindra
Graphic Design:
Sean Glenn, Cynthia Fliege
Based on the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game by E.
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and on the new edition of the
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game designed by Jonathan Tweet,
Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, and Peter Adkison.
D&D, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and DUNGEON MASTER are registered trademarks
and the d20 System logo is a trademarkowned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All
Wizards characters, character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof are
trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America.
Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is
prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
This product is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people,
organizations, places, or events is purely coincidental.
This Wizards of the Coast game product contains no Open Game Content. No
portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without written permission.
To learn more about the Open Gaming License and the d20 System
License, please visit <www.wizards.com/d20>.
2002 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Made in the U.S.A.
Visit our website at
<www.wizards.com/dnd>
To use this web enhancement, you must already

have the Stronghold Builders Guidebookyou will need
to refer to it as you read along. You also
will want to refer to the maps of the completed Guildhouse featured on pages 4 to 6 of this document.
This bonus game material is exclusive to
the official D UNGEONS & D RAGONS website:
<www.wizards.com/dnd>.
GETTING STARTED
Oriel, tired of a local nobles hegemony over the
arcane arts, has decided to found his own guild
called Alqalinde, which means secret-sharers in
Elven. But to attract apprentices (and eventually
more powerful allies), he needs to build a guildhouse. Fortunately, recent forays against the yuan-ti
and the giants have been lucrative, so Oriel and his
allies have 150,000 gp to spend to get the Alqalinde
guild off the ground. Oriel figures he can probably
afford something castle sized, so he tries to design a
structure with about 20 stronghold spaces.
When Oriel begins construction, he knows he
wants to build a tower in the center of the capital city
of Forghul, and that part of the tower will be underground. Forghul is a large city (price modifier of
+6%), and the climate/ terrain is temperate plains
(price modifier of 5%).
Now comes the fun part: buying components. Oriel
doesnt have to worry much about defense, because
his magic will provide that, and the center of the capital city is pretty safe.
Accordingly, Oriel purchases all the components
listed on the table on the following page:
Item
Wizards Research Cluster
(underground)
Deluxe Alchemical Lab
Fancy Library
Fancy Magic Lab
Fancy Office
Servants Quarters
Basic Privy
Magic Laboratory, Basic
(underground)
Office, Basic
Gatehouse
Hall, Dining
Office, basic
Armory
Kitchen, Extended
Bedrooms, Common
Tavern, Fancy
Basic Privy
Bedrooms, Common
Office, Fancy
Bedrooms, Common
Bedroom Suite, Fancy
Barracks
(underground)
Spaces
5.5
Cost
17,200 gp
500 gp
.5
1
2
.5
1
1
1
1
.5
2
1
1
1
1
200 gp
2000 gp
2000 gp
200 gp
500 gp
2,500 gp
700 gp
4000 gp
300 gp
1400 gp
2,500 gp
700 gp
5,000 gp
400 gp
MAKING SENSE
OF THE LIST
When you build a stronghold, its often easiest to first
look at the clusters: collections of components that
work well together. Oriel also notes which components
go underground, because theyll have different wall
costs (which hell pay for later).
For the Alqalinde Guildhouse, the Wizards Research
Cluster is an obvious choice. The masters get to use the
fancy laboratory, of course, and Oriel decides on a
second, more basic magic lab for the apprentices.
Theyll live in a barracksafter all, theyre apprentices.
There are 10 basic bedrooms (remember, each bedroom component has two bedrooms) for guildmasters
and Oriels fellow adventurers when theyre in town.
The dining hall and extended kitchen are enough to
support the bedroom guests, the apprentices in the barracks, and the servants.
Oriel adds a fancy bedroom suite and fancy office for
himself, and a meeting chamber (paid for as if it were a
fancy tavern) for the guild leaders. A gatehouse makes a
nice entrance, and Oriels fellow adventurers insist he
add an armory for accumulated loot. Finally, he adds
two basic offices, one for the castellan and one for the
guards.
WALLS AND TOWERS

The Alqalinde Guildhouse is 21 stronghold spaces.
Ordinarily, this means half the walls are interior, and
half are exterior. But Oriel wants the same kind of wall
for both interiors and exteriors, so the math should be
simpler.
Oriel opts for hewn stone interior and exterior interior walls. The underground walls are free, so 7.5
stronghold spaces have no wall cost. The other 13.5
stronghold spaces cost 6,000 gp per space, or 81,000 gp.
Thats too expensive, but fortunately Oriel is a 13thlevel wizard who knows wall of stone. This gives him a
50% discount, and the walls cost only 40,500 gp. Looking as some of the other do-it-yourself spellcasting discounts, Oriel sees that fabricate gives him a 5% discount
on regular spaces and a 20% discount on fancy spaces.
Stone shape gets a further 5% discount on spaces with
hewn stone wallswhich is all of them. Those discounts are worth a total of 6,510 gp.
But Oriel is vain enough to want the Alqalinde
Guildhouse to stand out in the Forghul skyline. So
he puts two stronghold spaces 30 feet high, two
spaces 40 feet high, and so on up to 70 feet high. That
means an additional 21,800 gp. But again Oriels ability as a spellcaster comes to the rescue. Together, telekinesis and fly cut the height surcharge by 75%, so the
towering edifice costs only 5,450 gp. (Oriel is going
to be spending a lot of time on-site, casting spells to
help the builders.)
OTHER EXTRAS
Oriel wants a secret passageway between his bedroom and the fancy magic lab, so that means buying
two secret doors (Search DC 30) at 400 gp. He
upgrades each exterior bedroom door to strong wood
(400 gp), buys an iron portcullis for the gatehouse
(750 gp), and buys stone doors for both magic labs
(he doesnt want anything escaping) and the meeting
room (privacy is a virtue). Five stone doors cost 1,500
gp. Each upgraded door gets a good lock (Open Lock
DC 30), which adds an additional 450 gp. Finally,
every aboveground stronghold space gets iron bars
and glass on its windows (1,050 gp). And the meeting
hall, fancy magic laboratory, and Oriels bedroom
suite and study get lead-lined walls (6,400 gp), which
block detect spells. Oriel is tired of being spied upon.
WONDROUS
ARCHITECTURE
The fancy magic laboratory has an engraved magic
circle against evil (1,500 gp) for planar binding spells and
the like. The security-conscious Oriel also pays for
incriptions of vacancy on the meeting hall (22,500 gp)
and inscriptions of privacy in his bedroom suite (14,000
gp). His office gets a pool of scrying (7,500 gp), and the
gatehouse gets a warding bell (7,200 gp). Oriel could
build these items, as he could any magic item, but hes
loath to spend the experience points, so hell just buy
them.
A few weeks ago, Oriel had some trouble with teleporting assassins, but he cant afford enough forbidding
sigils (see sidebar) to protect the entire stronghold.
Maybe hell get the partys cleric to cast forbiddance on
the Alqalinde Guildhouse when construction is complete.
RUN THE TOTALS

Oriel has made all his construction choices, and his
plans for the Alqalinde Guildhouse are complete. The
total cost is 146,642 gp, just slightly under budget. Itll
take 15 weeks to build the guildhouse, and with the
amount of spellcasting required of Oriel, hell have to
be there much of the time. Time to talk with the other
players and the DM about taking the winter off from
defending the realm.
MAKING IT LOOK GOOD

Now that Oriel knows the details for his stronghold,
its time to map it. Originally, Oriel tried a traditional
tower, with crenellations, staircases, and all the
medieval trappings. But no matter how gothic he
makes the Alqalinde Guildhouse, it blends into the
cityscape. Oriel isnt evil, but he does have a sinister
streak, so he designs a building that looks like an abode
of the powerful.
Oriel imagines a double helix of rooms centered
around a huge granite spike and connected by tunnels
that run through the otherwise solid spike. All the
rooms hang off the edge of the granite spike like mushrooms on a tree trunk.
Planning the interior corridors, Oriel varies from a
strict double helix, because he wants certain connections (such as the guildmasters study and bedroom
suite) to be easy. ConNew Wondrous Architecture

structing a fortress
Forbidding Sigils
based on a double helix
These
inscriptions guard a
turns out to be a strong
stronghold space from unwanted
choice from a security
visitorsextraplanar or otherstandpoint. Oriel puts
wise. A sigil has two effects: First,
all the public areas on
the area is sealed from extradione helix, and more
mensional travel into it, includprivate areas on the
ing dimension door, teleport, plane
other. For example, one
shift, and summoning spells.
Second, creatures with alignhelix starts at the gatements different from the casters
house and ascends
cannot enter the area. Creatures
through the dining
whose alignments differ in one
hall, past the kitchen
aspect (lawful evil vs. chaotic
and the castellans
evil, for example), suffer 3d6
office, to the meeting
points of damage and are hedged
room and the bedout. Creatures whose alignments
rooms beyond. The
differ in two aspects (chaotic
other helix heads from
good vs. lawful neutral) suffer
guard captains office to
6d6 points of damage.
the armory, then
A successful Will save (DC 19)
theres a break. When
negates both effects, but if a
character fails the save once,
the second helix
future attempts automatically
reemerges, it connects
fail.
the meeting room to
Dispel magic automatically fails
the guildmasters study
against
forbidding sigils unless the
and bedroom suite.
dispeller is 11th level or higher.
Guildmaster Oriel can
Caster Level: 11th; Prerequisites:
privately travel among
Craft Wondrous Item, forbiddance;
his office, bedroom,
Market Price: 12,200 gp.
meeting room, and
magic laboratory (the
latter through a secret
tube that runs down the center of the granite
spikeits omitted from the map for clarity). Mundane guests never need to travel beyond the dining
room, and more trusted guests can easily access the
meeting room and kitchen. And Oriel is strange
enough to like the subtly disorienting effect of tubehallways of solid, smooth granite that get ever
steeper as you ascend through the guildhouse.
When hed done, Oriel smiles to himself. His rivals
wont be able to ignore him anymore...
See the results for yourself on the Guildhouse

maps starting on the next page.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Noonan is a designer and editor for the Core
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS team at Wizards of the Coast.
His credits include codesigning and editing the
D&D Adventure Game and parts of the new Player s
Handbook, D UNGEON M ASTER s Guide, and M ONSTER
MANUAL. Hes also the coauthor of the Hero Builders
Guidebook, Sword and Fist, Song and Silence, and the
Stronghold Builders Guidebook. His wife lets him out
once a year, so please excuse his wild-eyed, frantic
behavior.
ABOUT THE
CARTOGRAPHER
Sean K Reynolds was born in a coastal town in southern California. A professional game designer since
1998, he coauthored the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign
Setting and the Living GREYHAWK Gazetteer for the new
edition of D UNGEONS & D RAGONS , as well as many
other books. After leaving a design position at Wizards
of the Coast, he spends his free time reading and creating computer animationand now maps. Read more
about him at <www.seankreynolds.com>.

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Construction Journal:

A Stronghold Builders Guidebook

To use this web enhancement, you must already

WALLS AND TOWERS

RUN THE TOTALS

MAKING IT LOOK GOOD

suite) to be easy. ConNew Wondrous Architecture

See the results for yourself on the Guildhouse

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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