Burning Castles (brainstorming)

[WizarDru]

So when I last left my players, they had just successfully returned to Castle Arbok, the home of their order. Utilizing a powerful artifact called BlueWand, they traveled to the castle's secure teleport circle. But no one greeted them on arrival...which is not all that unusual, since they didn't send advanced word.

Mounting the stairs from the dungeon they opened the door to the southern courtyard to find...the Castle engulfed in flames and smoke. "Must be a Thursday," says the warlock.

What I'm wondering is...do castles actually burn, historically? I know that the wooden structures INSIDE them can burn, obviously. But I thought I recalled that the mortar in the stones could also catch fire in some situations. Anyone know if that's true?

I haven't actually decided WHY or HOW the castle is on fire, yet. The players were on a quest to retrieve a ritual to protect the island chain their headquarters is located on. To that end, they've managed to retrieve all the makings to restore what is know as the "Silver Veil" that blocks unauthorized approach to the islands. The veil recently became unreliable and is malfunctioning.

In the meantime, the islands have been invaded once before by a group known as the Stormwrack Corsairs, who in turn were ferrying about representatives of a group known as the Cruel Wizards. They are, in turn, working for a race known as the Suelwyn, the previously unknown first race the gods created, who left the Irth to travel to the Planes of Dread (a.k.a. The Far Realms). They've been secretly preparing for an invasion and the player's order, the ArbokGuard, stand in their way.

If you were a race of extra-dimensional abominations hell-bent on striking out at your enemies, but were rushed (because they've just discovered your presence), what would you do? And how would that lead to a burning castle?

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Not a total expert on this, but not all castle construction was 100% stonework.

E.g., a tower's shell and roof are made of stone, but the stairway inside it could be made of wood set into the stone, and most of the floors would be wooden, as well.

Accordingly, after a fire, the tower might still be standing, but would be largely hollowed out.

 

[Gilladian]

The mortar in a castle might not BURN, but it could dry out (or otherwise be ruined by the heat), crumble, and allow stonework to collapse.

Often stone will crack or shatter in heat. Also, if any portion of this castle was built of brick, that could have a substantially organic portion that might burn, or at least disintegrate in heat.

As far as the bad guys rushing to destroy their enemies; do they have any power over the elements? Perhaps they have driven a whole lot of fire elementals to descend upon the place, or earth elementals to thin the crust and create a volcanic hotspot.

Or they have lured the pirates into attacking for them, and it is a massive smash-and-grab slaves and loot raid.

 

[kaomera]

If you were a race of extra-dimensional abominations hell-bent on striking out at your enemies, but were rushed (because they've just discovered your presence), what would you do? And how would that lead to a burning castle?

They've attempted to launch an all-out assault, sending waves of expendable monstrosities across the dimensional barrier and into the castle. However, in their rush, they didn't bother to check and see if the castle had any defenses against extra-dimensional intrusion. Unfortunately for everyone involved said defenses are old and unreliable, and while they've wreaked havoc with the invading forces, they have also ended up throwing the castle off it's dimensional base... And it's sliding... somewhere... Somewhere on fire...

So now the PCs would have to stop this slide, while also dealing with the remaining monstrosities. The monstrosities are also on fire, which might be bit of a problem for any ninja PCs!

Anyway, that's my thoughts...

 

[RangerWickett]

You're in a rush. Maybe you don't have a ton of warriors at your disposal, so you try to draw your enemies into a weak position.

If they have some clue to the PCs' comings and goings, the villains could predict with a few minutes lead time when they're going to teleport back. At that moment they strike with magic (fireballs, a dragon, a ritual, whatever fits your villain group) to set the castle aflame.

They appear to flee, but actually they hide and wait for the party to split up and start directing the firefighting efforts. Then they strike at one isolated PC.

The way you run this in order to make it fun is to start the session with a skill challenge, to help organize the fire-fighting efforts. Set up 5 sections of the castle, and make it clear that if no one is coordinating the firefighting efforts, parts of the castle will get burnt down. Ask who goes to lead which section of the firefighting, and have five separate skill challenges - one per PC.

Quench the Castle Fire - Section 1: The Central Keep
... (Also section 2: the eastern quadrant, section 3: the northern quadrant, etc.)
Complexity 1 (4 successes before 3 failures).
I'm sure you can figure out the proper skills and DCs.

Each skill check requires 5 minutes, and represents organizing multiple castle defenders to work together. For every 5 minutes that passes with no PC guiding a particular section of the castle, that section gets a failure.

If multiple PCs cooperate on the same section of the castle, they can only earn one success every 5 minutes. However, if at least one PC succeeds his check, any failed checks don't count toward failure. (I.e., it's only a failure if nobody does anything useful for 5 minutes.)

After the first five minutes, the bad guys strike. You want to come up with a group of monsters who completely and totally lack controller elements, because you do not in any way want to impede running. Then you pick the PC most likely to run when he's outnumbered. They attack him.

Treat it like an ambush -- perception checks and such -- and once combat starts, have the one player handle his own PC, while the other players each get 2 to 4 low-level minions. Their purpose here is to die horribly, but maybe chip some damage off the bad guys. I suggest you use brutes that can hit multiple melee targets at once, to make it clear that the PC is outmatched. If he gets at least 12 squares from all the monsters, he gets away and can get to one of his allies (which should take about 3 rounds or so).

Then you describe that the monsters are chasing and will be there soon. Give the players a few rounds to either set up defenses (players A & B, plus 2 to 4 minions for the other players), or run and get more reinforcements. If you've got 5 PCs, the smart move is probably for A to get B, B and A split up and get C and D, and then all four of them converge at E.

Eventually the tide will turn (and if the players decide not to run and get their allies, other castle folks can alert them to the monsters, so they can join the fight as soon as their minions are dead). And hopefully combat won't have taken so long that the castle burns down around them.

 

[Glade Riven]

On another note, traditionally, castles were often plastered on the interior. According to this, plaster is non-flamable and can help slow the burning process. It can also serve as a protective layer.

So while everything is on fire, the plaster does protect some areas from being consumed too quickly. But there's a lot of burnable stuff in castles...wooden support beams (not everything is stone), furnature, wood paneling (yep, some castles had rooms furnished with wooden paneling), clothing in the dressing rooms, curtans and tapestries that were put up for insulation. Courtyards often had wooden structures within the castle wall (stables, workshops, etc).

 

[WizarDru]

This is some good info and some solid idea, guys. Thanks.

Some further context:

Castle Whyte is a mythical castle built (supposedly) by the Aewyn, the legendary 'First Folk' created by the Divine. [they have been retconned into being Eladrin]. The castle is made from a special white stone that is sort of a magic marble. I've never been terribly specific about it's construction, so I'm not sure about it now. It has survived over a millennium without too much damage or wear, indicating magical protection.

It has been since co-opted by the organization that the heroes are members of, known as the Arbokguard. The guard use it as both a base of operations for the North of Berenshar and also as a training academy. So an attack here would be like a strike at a military base that also serves as a training camp, like The Presidio in San Francisco once was. So an attack on here is basically an attack on a fully garrisoned base of monster hunters. It's a desperate act.

The Suelwyn are attacking because the Silver Veil is damaged, something the players are about to fix. They don't actually know anything about the players, who only stumbled into their plans in a meaningful way about two days ago. But the Arbokguard has been expected to be a problem, so they're trying to bleed them a little while they can.

For the Suelwyn race, I'm using the one race of abominations from the MM whose names I can't recall. But basically the Suelwyn have all been twisted from their time in the Far Realms...and weren't really that well put together in the first place.

So far all I've mentioned to the players is that there is flame and smoke, some of which would be on the castle walls.

 

[NewJeffCT]

The third one burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YiPC91QUk]YouTube - Guards! Make sure the Prince doesn't leave this room ...[/ame]

 

[NewJeffCT]

in all seriousness, though, if these creatures are abominations from another plane, I think they could be creating magical fire that is hotter than normal and can even burn/melt stone. Or, it could be an alchemical type of fire that can cause stone to catch fire & be difficult to put out - imagine a spy setting an alchemical fire on an interior stone stairway leading to the castle's wall defenses.

Plus, as stated above, castles have a lot of wooden things inside them - stables, stairs, walls, support beams, parts of the gates, etc. Torch enough support beams and maybe a wall becomes a bit shaky... and, if all those wooden things burn, the burnt out smell is going to make things difficult for humans, elves, eladrin, etc.

 

[WizarDru]

in all seriousness, though, if these creatures are abominations from another plane, I think they could be creating magical fire that is hotter than normal and can even burn/melt stone. Or, it could be an alchemical type of fire that can cause stone to catch fire & be difficult to put out - imagine a spy setting an alchemical fire on an interior stone stairway leading to the castle's wall defenses.

I think I like this idea: twisted elemental horrors from the Plane of Madness sent to attack the castle.

This raises the question, of course, of what kind of creatures would be both an elemental and an abomination? I suppose I can take regular elementals. Any one have some suggestions on ideas for elementals touched by the Far Realms?

FYI: The Suelwyn is the name given to the Foulspawn of the MM.