D&D General Campaign Idea: Building the Palace of Versailles - what would you do?

[Tonguez]

So I've been looking at the Bastion rules and thinking about Domain Management and got the idea of designing a campaign where the PCs are part of the Building of the Palace of Versailles.

Spoiler: real world history

So in 1600 Versailles was a small muddy village, built around the old parish church and manor house, with poor soils on low, marshy ground surrounded by wooded hills. In 1623 Louis XIII had a hunting lodge built and then in 1661 Louis XIV commissioned the Architect Louis Le Vau to expand the lodge into a palace, and the André Le Nôtre to layout ornate gardens with the first Royal Fete taking place in the gardens in 1664. The Palace took 21 years with Louis officially moving his court there in 1682.

So PCs might be Architects-Builders, Landscapers, Court Envoys, Guards, Labourers, Staff of the Hunting Lodge or local Villagers

Adventures could include negotiating Court ettiquette and intrigues, dealing with the local villagers, church and nobility, managing building logistics, recruiting and deploying labour, exploring the Versailles forest and marsh, keeping workers healthy and confronting opposition both natural and supernatural - marsh hags, ghosts, druidic curses, fey. The PCs have three years from initial recruitment in 1661 to the first planned Fete in 1664 (the whole project to 21 years)

Anyway does anyone know of any published or online modules that focus on a similar Building Project?
Any useful rules you can think of?
Have you got any ideas of how you'd do this kind of campaign?
How do you handle the passage of years in 'construction time'?

I'm already considering putting an old half submerged ruin in the marsh as a dungeon and will feature les fees - lutins, gobelins, farfadet, melusine (Secretly King Louis might himself be in league with a Fae Lord - which will eventually tie-in to the Hall of Mirrors)

 

[TigerDude]

I for one would prefer to adventure instead of being a craftsperson or contractor. Are you building it on top of an ancient tomb?

 

[kigmatzomat]

Pendragon work in seasons, where each "module" is a year. I never played it, but you have to design your campaign around this philosophy, where you campaign in summer, spending fall getting to a wintering position, spend winter maintaining gear & teceuiting, spring getting resupplied/training and repeat in summer.

Or in your case, deliver supplies in spring, major construction in summer, fall is to put up roofing/walls for winter, focus on interiors/furnishings in winter.

I would switch the campaign a smidgen. Make it building a temple where demons and other forces are trying to prevent it. You can have attacks on the workers, at the stone quarry, poison the food supply, steal icons, sneak in corrupted workers who defile the holy ground, competing religions or nobles try to get the ruler to redirect assets,
etc, etc.

 

[aco175]

To me it sounds fun as the backdrop of the campaign. Maybe we start off guarding the royal surveying crew looking for the lost ruins of X to build upon. Finding out later that the old X location was tied to summoning demons or being able to boost magic or something cool or sinister. Then we need to secure the road between the location and where the stone is coming from. This may be a quarry or port of some sort, but there are always problems there. I would use a cut-scene and skip things to the next spring at this point saying you spend winter in the local village by the river and ready to blah, blah, blah..

The PCs may be 5th level at this point so they might be getting more trust. Maybe they travel to meet with other local rulers bringing gifts or pilgrims/workers coming to visit or work. There should be a rival king or duke trying to create an accident when the ruler comes to visit and the PCs must figure out things. End the year with a harvest tournament where they can play games and can expand the winter village.

Next spring, blah, blah, blah... The main foundation is set and construction could be aided by the local dwarves/gnomes/eccentric mage with his mechanical golem if the PCs can deal with this. This is the year for human problems since the influx of people to get some work has likely driven off most local monsters. Thugs in town are on the rise and things point to the new guild that needs to be dealt with and then there is a strike at the docks or quarry that needs to be quelled. Where to the PCs stand on this?

Another year, evil leak in from the sub-basement that was thought to be cleared. Maybe a secret cult has risen to try and bring back the old demon lord or such and operate in secret. They could be creating new secret tunnels to and from the main building to outer buildings where workers start to go missing. This could be a cool series for 9th or 10th level level PCs ready to be 11th.

I do not seeing things taking 21 years though. It might be cool to have the next campaign after this one be some of the kids of this campaign who married locals and now that palace is finished find a way to hold it.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I will agree the timeline for construction in d&d is not like in the real world.

Just using cantrip Mold Earth to dig foundations in a day or build earthen construction ramps and supports would speed up construction immensely. Its hard to imagine how much effort excavating large areas with shovels and wheelbarrows can be.

You add in leveled spells like Wall of Stone and Stone Shape and the core structure is done in a month. Even just using Floating Disk to move large objects through the structure will shift the timeline.

 

[Piperken]

...Anyway does anyone know of any published or online modules that focus on a similar Building Project?
Any useful rules you can think of?...

It seems you would want to look at any games that have robust settlement play loops; Stonetop comes to mind, even though it is meant for Iron Age fantasy.