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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 5117406" data-attributes="member: 41584">Back in ye olde days, there were odd ways to attempt to prevent people from travelling ethereally or astrally through one's castle walls (gorgon's blood mortar, or a layer of some living tissue), or scrying into sealed areas (thin layers of lead), etc. If the game is going in that direction, I'd try to come up with similar 'fixes' to the most common issues.  Castles would have underground connecting chambers, so that a fireball raining down from above during a siege might not find a bunch of people standing exposed.  Catapults and ballista would hurl not just rocks and big spears, but weighted and barbed nets, or catapult-sized doses of tanglefoot goop at large flying attackers, causing them to drop to the ground (gravity for the win).  Incorporeal undead might find a layer of blessed silver worked into the mortar, that either bars their passage, or just burns them if they do force their way through. Other defenses would depend on the commonality of exotic dangers.  If the local Salamanders like to send Thoqqua burrowing up into the castle so that they have easy routes past the defenses, perhaps some sort of dwarven-built system of tunnels beneath the castle that are filled with a massive reservoir of water, that drowns any burrowing Thoqqua who comes up (and quite possibly leaves it juicy and tender, steamed to perfection for the maintenance crews dining pleasure).  More magical solutions could include glyphs of warding placed in various subterranean pockets that inflict Cold damage (a nasty surprise for Thoqqua), a magically maintained series of storage tunnels that are kept at brutally cold temperatures (yes, our basement freezer-storage also doubles as a no-Thoqqua zone), or, if the monsters sent upwards are conjured thoqqua or earth elementals and not 'free-roaming,' a simple massive Hallow-backed Magic Circle of Protection from evil, that prevents summoned creatures from pushing their way up into the warded area. But if none of this has ever happened in the area, there's no reason to waste all of this work (although the Hallow - Magic Circle is probaby a lot easier to accomplish in a hurry than the flooded tunnel schemes...).  Similarly, if the local area isn't reknowned for it's dragon attacks, spending a bunch of money on tanglefoot catapult shot might not be the best investment (just a few, 'cause ya never know, and you've got an alchemist on retainer, right?). And there's always the possibility for more exotic solution.  I vaguely recall some story from WW2 about a building being hidden from long-range bombardment by a giant canvas painting of the city backdrop that was dropped down the side from the ceiling, making the building impossible to see for the operators of the giant guns outside the city. A permanant glamer could accomplish a similar feature, with only those who work in the keep knowing that the central building is on the left side of the courtyard, not the right, and that bombardment of the 'keep' on the right will just destroy the gardens.  Even many of those working in the keep as serving staff might have no idea, as they enter a series of switch-abouts while passing through the gates and get thoroughly turned about in the process, being led to believe they are entering from another side entirely. The game has pretty much endless options for item enhancement (just as one could use blindness/deafness to create a thundering weapon) or for the research and creation of new spells entirely for castle defense.  Between that, alchemy, and artificial limitations added to the system (such as lead sheets, gorgon's blood mortar, etc.), it shouldn't be too difficult to make a castle defensively viable.</blockquote>

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