D&D 5E Player stronghold

[Fralex]

Might be cool to have something where the players have to gradually reclaim the stronghold room by room. Gnolls worship demons, right? So it stands to reason there'd be a lot of nasty remnants of their blasphemous rituals and such. At lower levels, the portion of the castle they're trying to upkeep will be much smaller and more manageable, and as they get treasure and gold they can pay to have more rooms refurbished. Make the stronghold itself a sort of myustery, a pseudo-dungeon that's mostly harmless, with the occasional heavily chained door with blood seeping out underneath it, or floor with a weird magic circle that, no matter what you do to try to erase or cover it, always reappears the next day (put a rug over it, and the symbols appear on the rug, etc.). Adventurers love inheriting haunted mansions!

...at least I'm pretty sure it's adventurers I'm thinking of.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It would probably bankrupt low-level characters to try running a castle, not to mention the renovation work to be done, so presumably they would have to leave it until such time as they could afford it.

There's no standard wealth/level in 5e, so you could give them a treasure trove at low level that could be used for the castle. At worst, the heavy armor types could end up with AC a little "too high," as there's little else that an excess of cash does to imbalance the game. You can't automatically make/buy magic items being the main thing.

And thereafter it would - like Pendragon - consume the vast majority of their wealth. This is possibly a downside, or an upside, depending on how you look at it. Benefits include having a fixed location to dick about with as a GM, which will be nice since I'm planning on running this as a long term semi-sandbox campaign. There is loads of ways that it can be turned into plot hooks, etc, and would serve to make the players feel connected to the political and cultural life of the setting.

Yep, you could make adventuring & treasure-hunting to keep the castle in good repair and well defended a major motivation of the campaign. Or, you could just make it a 'home base' that they don't have to much worry about once they've established it - threatening it only when you need a plot hook, time pressure, or whatever.

However, you get the weirdness of five people all owning a castle together, or the weirdness of one player becoming the noble and having a sort of dominance over the other players. You need to explain why the king would allow such an important piece of land out of his grasp, and feudal obligations start to become A Thing.

Yes, the party should be placed in the feudal hierarchy, if they're not to disrupt things. Or, if their castle is outside of civilized lands and not claimed by a kingdom (perhaps because it's such a monster-haunted region that no one else wants the responsibility of defending it), they could be a small, independent, power unto themselves.

Yes, it would be strange to have a band holding a feud instead of an individual titled noble. For one thing, succession would be uncertain. Perhaps the king accepts them on condition that the feud reverts to the crown if their party breaks up or dies/disappears (as adventurers are wont to do)? Then he can give it to whomever it's expedient to favor at that point. Or, the King could allow them as castelains until he chooses a noble to give the castle to (with the 'understanding' that it won't happen until they're ready to give it up).

This is not a Single Long Storyline campaign, rather being more episodic and sandboxy at times, if that matters.

It matters, I suppose, because the PCs could just decide to walk away from their castle if it gets too inconvenient, like a homeowner walking away from an 'underwater' mortgage.

 

[Derren]

The castle becomes the focus of the campaign. The party concentrates on clearing it out, making the environment safer, and then going on adventures to pay to refurbish it. The King should love having a part of his land become safer and protected by someone.

Oh yes, the king will certainly love having some nobodies take over a castle by force who then expect to rule like lords even without blue blood. That sets a precedent he and the other nobles really is going to love. Better yet, make this castle the objective of a quest.
"The duke proclaims that the person who manages to slay Egar the terrible and reclaim castle Greentide shall be rewarded with the castle and the lands around it and hencefor be called baron of Greentide and fly his own banner for as long as he and his descendent stay loyal to the duke and his successor"
Then have your party race and hopefully beat several other adventurers, minor nobles, civilized monsters, sellswords, etc. to it. Instant rivals and future plot hooks. That way you also don't need a ruined castle in the middle of nowhere. Instead it gets heavily damaged in the free for all when all the interested parties meet.

It also solves the problem of who gets to rule. The one who dealt the killing blow (if he can prove or the others don't dispute it).

 

[Jester David]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! It seems like there is the potential to excite the players there. Would you always try to make it the focus of the campaign?

It's nice to have a break sometimes. Getting the keep, repairing the keep, and upgrading the keep can be key. But there can be sidequests and plots related to both NPCs and the PCs.

For example, the keep might need a blacksmith, so the PCs can look for one at a few towns and pick the one they want. But she might need a favour or two done. Meanwhile, the party wizard is looking for spell components and equipment for their arcane laboratory. After killing the troglodytes squatting in the keep's dungeon the party finds a cavern system leading to the Underdark that needs to be secured. While exploring the main bedchamber, the party finds an old treasure map the former lord has been investigating at the time of his death.

 

[neobolts]

However, you get the weirdness of five people all owning a castle together, or the weirdness of one player becoming the noble and having a sort of dominance over the other players. You need to explain why the king would allow such an important piece of land out of his grasp, and feudal obligations start to become A Thing.

I've done this sort of thing before. Castles, wizard towers, airships. Party bases are the best!

Having one person be the lord will be a lot less weird if the other PCs have clear roles as well. Let the king organically raise one of the PCs up with a lordly title. Let the other PCs have awesome satisfying job titles and duties. A fightery type could become the head knight or captain of the guard. A rogue type could be the group's spymaster. A smart/charismastic character could be an advisor, strategist, diplomat or steward. If you've got a cleric, then the castle needs a temple and eventually a grand cathedral! An arcane caster could control a wizard's tower that is part of the castle, maybe start a mage academy at high levels.

Adventure wise, clearing the area out around and beneath the castle is great. If you are worried that some noble should logically already have a claim to the castle, let them come forward. Give the PCs a way to overcome this challenger (pretender? secretly evil? etc).

Good luck!

 

[Bayonet]

Another option: the PCs are regents to a noble who is too young to rule. This way, nobody gets to play "the" noble, yet there's a plausible reason for all the PCs to have legal authority.

I really like this one. You could also work in some intrigue type quests, with other npc's trying to influence the young heir for their own nefarious purposes. Technically, you're all on the same side, but you have a funny feeling that the treasurer or the castle's priest are corrupting the heir while you are off slaying kobolds.

 

[Riley37]

So it stands to reason there'd be a lot of nasty remnants of their blasphemous rituals and such.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

 

[Shiroiken]

Tell the PCs that the campaign will be based around owning a castle. Have 1 player make a character with the Noble background, and they inherit it (via. whatever convoluted scheme you decide). Everyone else is now the vassals of the new lord, who has to not only get enough funds to restore the castle, but also maintain it! The castle might have some minor pests (kobolds, goblins, vermin, etc.) that need to be vanquished as part of the introductory session. Suggest some roles for the other players, but allow the noble to assign the roles as they see fit. If the Noble PC becomes an ass (which can happen), have a mysterious figure offer to provide "proof" that another PC is actually the intended heir... if they'll perform just some minor task

 

[Charles Rampant]

I think that, after reading the very interesting suggestions here, that I'll go for the following setup. The game will start in a military camp, with the players part of a royal army; during the first few weeks they'll be sent out to do warlike stuff to the surrounding gnoll and goblin tribes. They gain a couple levels, look cool, impress everyone, and so on. Then one player, built for the purpose with the Torvsalan noble background, will be called into the royal council; they will be informed of their surprising inheritance ("Did you know that you are actually the fifth cousin twice removed of the last Earl? We did.") and given the opportunity to take over the castle. This is something of a mixed gift, since the castle has been derelict for five years, has become infested with Gnolls (like that sandstone castle in BG1) and all the tenants have fled. So they will have to remove the squatters, attract skilled hirelings to staff the castle, and make the lands secure enough to attract peasant farmers.

Naturally this will all take time, money, and good old questing. I like the suggestion by [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION] for the hirelings to prompt quests of their own - the blacksmith asks that they help her re-assemble the famed Lost Breastplate of Plotness, that sort of thing. Basically they can serve in the same roleplay and quest giving role as companions in Bioware games. As the tenants have fled, there is no income from the castle lands, meaning that I can quietly ignore the accountancy side of things, at least at first. And, having played a fair bit of Pendragon, I can see all the benefits for downtime that this gives. The players will have a reason to allow the winter months to pass in downtime - they have a sweet castle to chill in. And then they get summoned to Spring Court, good place to meet and greet with the kind of people that give quests out...

One alternative option to inheriting the Earldom is, I guess, to go for the shared tenancy option suggested by [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] which allows for the group dynamic to stay normal; the king offers the castle to them as heroes, to tend over and rule for as long as they live. I don't normally like 'adventuring' to be a recognized profession, but it wouldn't hurt in this case. That way it can also be given some gloriously goofy title, like Griffon Lodge or something. [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] is totally right to voice concern over random strongmen wandering in and stealing royal land, and I'm keen to avoid ruining the verisimilitude of a semi-feudal setting.*

I have asked my players if they are interested in this. I don't see any point in trying to spring a surprise like this on them, since it would be fairly fundamental to how the campaign plays, and they could very rightly complain that they didn't sign up for this style of campaign.

* Fun fact: I work in a History department, and the medievalists get very upset if you use this word. Apparently it is a modern word that describes so many different legal and social structures as to be essentially meaningless.

 

[Tony Vargas]

the king offers the castle to them as heroes, to tend over and rule for as long as they live. I don't normally like 'adventuring' to be a recognized profession, but it wouldn't hurt in this case. That way it can also be given some gloriously goofy title, like Griffon Lodge or something.... concern over random strongmen wandering in and stealing royal land, and I'm keen to avoid ruining the verisimilitude of a semi-feudal setting.

Trace any noble line back far enough and you probably find some random strongman. All the more reason not to like it, I suppose. It'd certainly get them embroiled in politics as older noble houses will want to see them fail, and less secure ones will fear that a similar arrangement might be used to replace them...

...OTOH, D&D isn't exactly historically accurate medieval when it comes to social mores.