Hello all, I am in the process of setting up my first game after a long hiatus and will have my first dungeon be an old abandoned fort. I am planning for this to be about 3 to 4 stories tall, with 1 one of these stories being underground, where the players enter from. So I was wondering...What kind of rooms and facilities should I put in this fort? I have been brainstorming for awhile and nothing is coming up. Thanks!
Help me build a fort
- Thread starter Nistar
- Start date
Celebrim
Legend
What function did this fort serve? What threats was it built to protect against? Was it a true fortification, having only a military purpose, or was it also a castle that served as a place of residence for a Lord?
It was a fort build and used during 100 year war between two human nations. It was abandoned after said war and rarely ever gone to in that time. It was mainly used as a place for its army to defend themselves against their foes. The Underground section is connected to a series of underground tunnels. It was only used by the military during the time it was active, and was connected to a series of magical notes that gave the wizards of the army more powerful spells.
Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
Well you need:
Towers (Unless it's a start fort, those are cool too)
Walls
Courtyard/training facilities
Officer quarters
Offices
Chapel/Shrine/whatever place of worship
Enlisted Barracks
Armory
Non-weapon tool/materials storage
Kitchen
Well
Mess Hall
Larder
Latrine (make sure it doesn't touch the well)
Stables
Barn (for storing animal related stuff)
Magical focus room.
Depending on how big you get, and you look like you are getting big, you may want to include various places for civilians inside or near the fort walls, such as a blacksmith, trade outpost, and a tavern.
Towers (Unless it's a start fort, those are cool too)
Walls
Courtyard/training facilities
Officer quarters
Offices
Chapel/Shrine/whatever place of worship
Enlisted Barracks
Armory
Non-weapon tool/materials storage
Kitchen
Well
Mess Hall
Larder
Latrine (make sure it doesn't touch the well)
Stables
Barn (for storing animal related stuff)
Magical focus room.
Depending on how big you get, and you look like you are getting big, you may want to include various places for civilians inside or near the fort walls, such as a blacksmith, trade outpost, and a tavern.
Celebrim
Legend
A military fort is a small functioning city.
It will have a hospital of some sort for quarantine and treatment of the ill.
It may have a barber for treating minor ailments, pulling teeth, trimming hair and beards and such like.
It will have a well or spring house with abundant water. If a spring house, it may also have an adjoining cool room where food was stored chilled by using the water from the spring to cool the room. In D&D, the well or spring proper will be secured against magical attack and have a set of double doors which are guarded against invisible creatures and the like.
Water from the well or spring proper will be pumped or otherwise transported to a ready cistern which will be slightly less guarded than the well, and inspected regularly for corruption (via detect poison or the like). The cistern will supply water, and if corrupted will be emptied and replaced by water from the well. In this manner, access to the main water supply is heavily restricted.
It will have a stables for at least messenger horses, and possibly cavalry units. The stables will have a goodly supply of hay in lofts and barns. In large D&D forts, there will be a small force of aerial cavalry to at least act as scouts.
There will be a pigeon coup with messenger pigeons or some sort of trainable species that can be used to communicate with other fortresses.
In D&D, since invisible creatures are a problem, it will almost certainly have a kennel for housing at least dogs to help maintain the security of the fort.
It will have a large common room for socializing and taking meals. Firewood will need to be plentifully supplied if the air is chill.
It will have a large kitchen for preparing meals. The kitchen will need a storehouse for coal or firewood. The cook is a professional, and while his assistants may sleep in the kitchen at night, he'll demand his own quarters.
The Kitchen will be adjacent to a large supply house, including larders and pantries, overseen by the fort's quartermaster who is in charge of seeing to the fort's logistic needs, and protecting the fort's necessities from sabotage or theft. He'll probably keep the keys to much of the internal areas of the fort, and have a separate office and quarters. If the fort is in an inhabited region, he'll also oversea the protection of the fort's strongbox, from which the fort purchases its supplies, which likely has its own separate vault to protect it.
The fort is likely to have its own stockyard maintaining chickens and pigs for a ready supply of fresh meat. If the fort is large enough, this may warrant a smokehouse as well.
It will need a laundry or scullery for cleaning. If civilians are employed for this purpose, which is typical, they will need separate quarters. Indeed, on the subject of civilians, it's not at all unusual before the modern period for important people, including such knights present at the fort, to want their own servants attending them and for their to be a large body of semi-professional civilian 'camp followers' that do all the work needed to keep the camp running and attend to various sundry needs. (Including the earthy needs of young men worldwide. It's worth noting that both when occupied by the Germans and when occupied by the Americans, the first thing French mayors tried to do was organize and set up brothels so as to reduce the random rapes that are to be otherwise expected. So however strange it may seem to modern eyes used to fully professional armies, your fort may well have a brothel.)
It will have a smith for repairing tools and weapons. The smith will likewise need a storehouse for coal or charcoal. He's a professional so he expects to have his own living quarters.
It will have an armorer for maintaining armor. The armorer will need a storehouse for coal, charcoal, vinegar, sand, vegetable oil, cured hides, wire, and all the other stuff an armorer needs to function. He's a professional so he expects to have his own living quarters.
It will have a fletcher for manufacturing arrows. He's a professional so he expects to have his own living quarters.
It will have an engineer for maintaining the forts anti-siege weapons and overseeing the training in their use. As with late medieval and early modern fortresses, D&D fortresses can't hope to survive a siege passively, and must maintain heavy weapons to counter whatever trebuchets, catapults, and monsters an enemy might array against them. The engineer will have a workshop, storage, and living quarters. He may rate as high as a Wizard in terms of professional comforts. Along those lines, the fort will have various mounts for anti-siege weapons preferably higher up in the fortress so that they can outrange any siege weapon of similar size. Compared to real world anti-siege weapons, D&D anti-siege weapons will need to be more mobile and so will have provisions for training the weapon relatively quickly that otherwise wouldn't be necessary until the 20th century. This is to deal with moving threats like giants, manticores, dragons, and the like.
A larger fort might also rate a bowyer, a mason, a farrier and multiple smiths. Each of those would need a workshop and a simple quarters, and possibly storage.
It will have an armory for storing weapons securely. In D&D, it will also need access to specialized weapons such as silver arrows, bottles of burning oil, holy waters, potions and so forth to counter common monstrous threats. These will be distributed in strongboxes to avoid sabotage, some under the watch of the quartermaster and some under the watch of the base commander.
In D&D it will need a hedge wizard for maintaining the fortresses basic magical defenses and identifying or countering simple magical attacks. He'll need a shop and a storeroom, and as a professional he'll need his own quarters. He may also insist on quarters for his apprentices and a separate antechamber to his apartments, and owing to his irreplaceable value is likely to be pampered in those small regards.
It's highly unlikely that any fortress will not have a chapel consecrated to some deity of war or if not, then the chief patron of the nation that built the fort. Such a chapel will likely have the attendance of a chaplain, who like the hedge wizard will expect certain comforts appropriate to the dignity of his office.
The fort will need barracks of several sorts.
The fort will have a commander. The commander will need an office and a planning/conference room. The planning room will need to be magically secured against scrying and teleportation, and access to the entire command and control complex will be harded against invisible creatures with guards and an 'airlock' or guardroom type structure. The commander will need secure quarters and protection from magical control or influence of some sort particularly when sleeping. Wards against conjured creatures are also typical. The commander will likely have an aide with his own nearby quarters, and an assistant commander with his own secure quarters in a separate part of the fort so that the fort can avoid easy decapitating strikes.
The fort will have an intelligence officer responsible for scouting out the region about the fort for enemy movement, studying any tracks that are found, and overseeing the training of the forts sentries. In D&D, forts will need specialized sentries who help watch against surprise attack and sound alarms.
The fort will need a latrine or garderobe.
The fort will need a donjon or gaol for detaining prisoners. A typical layout would be an oubliette located at the bottom of a tower that had no high security storage. Prisoners would be chained or put in stocks within the oubliette and then deprived of light except when needed. Canques might also be used to limit prisoner freedom. Access to the oubliette would be through a trapdoor with bolts on the far side and a ladder which would be withdrawn when not needed. Since this is a fortress of war, better accommodations or apartments would not be warranted, as any important prisoners would be shipped back to facilities deeper in friendly territory as soon as practical. There might also be stocks or pillories in the yard for dealing out minor punishments. Depending on the culture, the fort might have a torture chamber for extracting information from captured prisoners.
It will have a hospital of some sort for quarantine and treatment of the ill.
It may have a barber for treating minor ailments, pulling teeth, trimming hair and beards and such like.
It will have a well or spring house with abundant water. If a spring house, it may also have an adjoining cool room where food was stored chilled by using the water from the spring to cool the room. In D&D, the well or spring proper will be secured against magical attack and have a set of double doors which are guarded against invisible creatures and the like.
Water from the well or spring proper will be pumped or otherwise transported to a ready cistern which will be slightly less guarded than the well, and inspected regularly for corruption (via detect poison or the like). The cistern will supply water, and if corrupted will be emptied and replaced by water from the well. In this manner, access to the main water supply is heavily restricted.
It will have a stables for at least messenger horses, and possibly cavalry units. The stables will have a goodly supply of hay in lofts and barns. In large D&D forts, there will be a small force of aerial cavalry to at least act as scouts.
There will be a pigeon coup with messenger pigeons or some sort of trainable species that can be used to communicate with other fortresses.
In D&D, since invisible creatures are a problem, it will almost certainly have a kennel for housing at least dogs to help maintain the security of the fort.
It will have a large common room for socializing and taking meals. Firewood will need to be plentifully supplied if the air is chill.
It will have a large kitchen for preparing meals. The kitchen will need a storehouse for coal or firewood. The cook is a professional, and while his assistants may sleep in the kitchen at night, he'll demand his own quarters.
The Kitchen will be adjacent to a large supply house, including larders and pantries, overseen by the fort's quartermaster who is in charge of seeing to the fort's logistic needs, and protecting the fort's necessities from sabotage or theft. He'll probably keep the keys to much of the internal areas of the fort, and have a separate office and quarters. If the fort is in an inhabited region, he'll also oversea the protection of the fort's strongbox, from which the fort purchases its supplies, which likely has its own separate vault to protect it.
The fort is likely to have its own stockyard maintaining chickens and pigs for a ready supply of fresh meat. If the fort is large enough, this may warrant a smokehouse as well.
It will need a laundry or scullery for cleaning. If civilians are employed for this purpose, which is typical, they will need separate quarters. Indeed, on the subject of civilians, it's not at all unusual before the modern period for important people, including such knights present at the fort, to want their own servants attending them and for their to be a large body of semi-professional civilian 'camp followers' that do all the work needed to keep the camp running and attend to various sundry needs. (Including the earthy needs of young men worldwide. It's worth noting that both when occupied by the Germans and when occupied by the Americans, the first thing French mayors tried to do was organize and set up brothels so as to reduce the random rapes that are to be otherwise expected. So however strange it may seem to modern eyes used to fully professional armies, your fort may well have a brothel.)
It will have a smith for repairing tools and weapons. The smith will likewise need a storehouse for coal or charcoal. He's a professional so he expects to have his own living quarters.
It will have an armorer for maintaining armor. The armorer will need a storehouse for coal, charcoal, vinegar, sand, vegetable oil, cured hides, wire, and all the other stuff an armorer needs to function. He's a professional so he expects to have his own living quarters.
It will have a fletcher for manufacturing arrows. He's a professional so he expects to have his own living quarters.
It will have an engineer for maintaining the forts anti-siege weapons and overseeing the training in their use. As with late medieval and early modern fortresses, D&D fortresses can't hope to survive a siege passively, and must maintain heavy weapons to counter whatever trebuchets, catapults, and monsters an enemy might array against them. The engineer will have a workshop, storage, and living quarters. He may rate as high as a Wizard in terms of professional comforts. Along those lines, the fort will have various mounts for anti-siege weapons preferably higher up in the fortress so that they can outrange any siege weapon of similar size. Compared to real world anti-siege weapons, D&D anti-siege weapons will need to be more mobile and so will have provisions for training the weapon relatively quickly that otherwise wouldn't be necessary until the 20th century. This is to deal with moving threats like giants, manticores, dragons, and the like.
A larger fort might also rate a bowyer, a mason, a farrier and multiple smiths. Each of those would need a workshop and a simple quarters, and possibly storage.
It will have an armory for storing weapons securely. In D&D, it will also need access to specialized weapons such as silver arrows, bottles of burning oil, holy waters, potions and so forth to counter common monstrous threats. These will be distributed in strongboxes to avoid sabotage, some under the watch of the quartermaster and some under the watch of the base commander.
In D&D it will need a hedge wizard for maintaining the fortresses basic magical defenses and identifying or countering simple magical attacks. He'll need a shop and a storeroom, and as a professional he'll need his own quarters. He may also insist on quarters for his apprentices and a separate antechamber to his apartments, and owing to his irreplaceable value is likely to be pampered in those small regards.
It's highly unlikely that any fortress will not have a chapel consecrated to some deity of war or if not, then the chief patron of the nation that built the fort. Such a chapel will likely have the attendance of a chaplain, who like the hedge wizard will expect certain comforts appropriate to the dignity of his office.
The fort will need barracks of several sorts.
The fort will have a commander. The commander will need an office and a planning/conference room. The planning room will need to be magically secured against scrying and teleportation, and access to the entire command and control complex will be harded against invisible creatures with guards and an 'airlock' or guardroom type structure. The commander will need secure quarters and protection from magical control or influence of some sort particularly when sleeping. Wards against conjured creatures are also typical. The commander will likely have an aide with his own nearby quarters, and an assistant commander with his own secure quarters in a separate part of the fort so that the fort can avoid easy decapitating strikes.
The fort will have an intelligence officer responsible for scouting out the region about the fort for enemy movement, studying any tracks that are found, and overseeing the training of the forts sentries. In D&D, forts will need specialized sentries who help watch against surprise attack and sound alarms.
The fort will need a latrine or garderobe.
The fort will need a donjon or gaol for detaining prisoners. A typical layout would be an oubliette located at the bottom of a tower that had no high security storage. Prisoners would be chained or put in stocks within the oubliette and then deprived of light except when needed. Canques might also be used to limit prisoner freedom. Access to the oubliette would be through a trapdoor with bolts on the far side and a ladder which would be withdrawn when not needed. Since this is a fortress of war, better accommodations or apartments would not be warranted, as any important prisoners would be shipped back to facilities deeper in friendly territory as soon as practical. There might also be stocks or pillories in the yard for dealing out minor punishments. Depending on the culture, the fort might have a torture chamber for extracting information from captured prisoners.
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Celebrim
Legend
The fort will need defensive structures to serve its purposes.
The fort will need a gate house. The gates house will have double doors, double portcullis, and an outer drawbridge preferably of copper or bronze sheathed wood, reinforced by iron nails and bands. The passage through the gate house will be covered by arrow slits and murder holes. The gate house otherwise acts as a large tower. The exit of the passage is always into a courtyard over looked by the keep, so that if the gate falls any attacker that forced the gate or bypassed it finds themselves trapped in an exposed area and subject to missile fire (and possibly spells). When the gate is open, it is always defended by sentries with dogs trained to alert the sentry when they smell an intruded that they cannot see. More elaborate defenses may also be possible.
The fort will be enclosed in walls not less than 20' high. All walls will be surmounted with covered ramparts that provide full 360 degree and overhead cover, and project out from the wall. Ramparts will be regularly pierced with arrow slits, and will be able to fire projectiles both down at attackers at the base of the wall, and up at attackers flying overhead. Cross shapes to the arrow slits give maximum field of vision while minimizing exposure. All walls will be able to fire down on interior courtyards and defenders within a wall (there is no being 'on a wall' of a fort in a world with fireballs and dragons). Walls generally are only accessed via towers, and any courtyard access is controllable. Roofed areas will be covered with tile or slate to avoid fires, and sloped at least 45 degrees to shed snow and force anyone atop the rampart to balance precariously. Ramparts will have wet hides on hand in a siege to patch roofs damaged by missile fire, and buckets and barrels of water for extinguish fires.
All walls will be overlooked at least the corners by towers that are at least 10' taller than the top of the ramparts. Towers will have 360 degree fields of fire, including into courtyards. They will project out beyond the walls to allow firing along the base of the wall. Towers will act as expedient keeps as necessary, and will have their own separate storage, barracks, and miniature gate houses (even if only an 'airlock' style set of doors), and be able to shut themselves off from outside access in the event adjacent walls are overrun. Towers are of two basic types - anti-personnel towers and anti-siege towers. Anti-personnel towers are topped by ramparts similar to walls, but have roofs that are more steeply angled to make purchase difficult. Anti-siege towers are topped with anti-siege weapons - usually a mix of ballista, mangonels, and catapults - with direct fire weapons preferred in most roles. To provide for better fields of fire and to ensure the fort has no blind spots, these must generally be uncovered. Anti-siege engines are generally mounted on platforms that can pivot (some times operated from the room below) and will have windlasses that can quickly adjust elevation. Ammunition can be stored in the room below the platform and passed up through a trap door. In general, one of the primary jobs of anti-personnel towers is ensuring that no unharrassed foe can get in range to deliver harassing or destructive fire at the anti-siege towers. Archers will be trained to single out unarmored attackers with wands or staves or the like for special attention. Anti-siege towers in turn focus on threats that could damage the ramparts of an anti-personnel tower, such as siege engines and large monsters. All towers will be close enough to each other to provide useful mutually supporting fire.
Secondary positions for indirect fire are sometimes located behind the wall in inner courtyards. These will hold catapults or in larger fortresses trebuchet. These positions are not as exposed as those on tower tops to enemy spell or missile fire, but aren't useful against overhead attackers. They are good positions for launching barrels of flaming oil or similar hazardous projectiles if the fortress has those resources. However, they require a spotter to report the fall of the missile and the locations of targets, since the crew will not be able to see it themselves.
There will be a keep, acting as a both a refuge of last resort and insurance against any attack overrunning part of the fortress. The keep will have its own separate gatehouse, much like the main gatehouse and protected in much the same way. It will have its own ramparts and towers which will naturally be able to mutually support each other. All towers in the keep will be at least as high nearby towers in the outer perimeter, and walls will be nearly as high as the towers.
The keep will have alarm bells, horns, and gongs for signaling or spreading various alerts.
The fort will need a gate house. The gates house will have double doors, double portcullis, and an outer drawbridge preferably of copper or bronze sheathed wood, reinforced by iron nails and bands. The passage through the gate house will be covered by arrow slits and murder holes. The gate house otherwise acts as a large tower. The exit of the passage is always into a courtyard over looked by the keep, so that if the gate falls any attacker that forced the gate or bypassed it finds themselves trapped in an exposed area and subject to missile fire (and possibly spells). When the gate is open, it is always defended by sentries with dogs trained to alert the sentry when they smell an intruded that they cannot see. More elaborate defenses may also be possible.
The fort will be enclosed in walls not less than 20' high. All walls will be surmounted with covered ramparts that provide full 360 degree and overhead cover, and project out from the wall. Ramparts will be regularly pierced with arrow slits, and will be able to fire projectiles both down at attackers at the base of the wall, and up at attackers flying overhead. Cross shapes to the arrow slits give maximum field of vision while minimizing exposure. All walls will be able to fire down on interior courtyards and defenders within a wall (there is no being 'on a wall' of a fort in a world with fireballs and dragons). Walls generally are only accessed via towers, and any courtyard access is controllable. Roofed areas will be covered with tile or slate to avoid fires, and sloped at least 45 degrees to shed snow and force anyone atop the rampart to balance precariously. Ramparts will have wet hides on hand in a siege to patch roofs damaged by missile fire, and buckets and barrels of water for extinguish fires.
All walls will be overlooked at least the corners by towers that are at least 10' taller than the top of the ramparts. Towers will have 360 degree fields of fire, including into courtyards. They will project out beyond the walls to allow firing along the base of the wall. Towers will act as expedient keeps as necessary, and will have their own separate storage, barracks, and miniature gate houses (even if only an 'airlock' style set of doors), and be able to shut themselves off from outside access in the event adjacent walls are overrun. Towers are of two basic types - anti-personnel towers and anti-siege towers. Anti-personnel towers are topped by ramparts similar to walls, but have roofs that are more steeply angled to make purchase difficult. Anti-siege towers are topped with anti-siege weapons - usually a mix of ballista, mangonels, and catapults - with direct fire weapons preferred in most roles. To provide for better fields of fire and to ensure the fort has no blind spots, these must generally be uncovered. Anti-siege engines are generally mounted on platforms that can pivot (some times operated from the room below) and will have windlasses that can quickly adjust elevation. Ammunition can be stored in the room below the platform and passed up through a trap door. In general, one of the primary jobs of anti-personnel towers is ensuring that no unharrassed foe can get in range to deliver harassing or destructive fire at the anti-siege towers. Archers will be trained to single out unarmored attackers with wands or staves or the like for special attention. Anti-siege towers in turn focus on threats that could damage the ramparts of an anti-personnel tower, such as siege engines and large monsters. All towers will be close enough to each other to provide useful mutually supporting fire.
Secondary positions for indirect fire are sometimes located behind the wall in inner courtyards. These will hold catapults or in larger fortresses trebuchet. These positions are not as exposed as those on tower tops to enemy spell or missile fire, but aren't useful against overhead attackers. They are good positions for launching barrels of flaming oil or similar hazardous projectiles if the fortress has those resources. However, they require a spotter to report the fall of the missile and the locations of targets, since the crew will not be able to see it themselves.
There will be a keep, acting as a both a refuge of last resort and insurance against any attack overrunning part of the fortress. The keep will have its own separate gatehouse, much like the main gatehouse and protected in much the same way. It will have its own ramparts and towers which will naturally be able to mutually support each other. All towers in the keep will be at least as high nearby towers in the outer perimeter, and walls will be nearly as high as the towers.
The keep will have alarm bells, horns, and gongs for signaling or spreading various alerts.
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GMMichael
Guide of Modos
Good news: you should throw out 90% of Celebrim's bang-up job. (Sorry C)
A fort that's been abandoned for 100 years will barely be a shade of its original self. Nature will have begun to retake it, and looters will have claimed most goods left behind by the occupying army.
This means that most rooms will be empty, except for trash left behind by squatters, rendering the original purpose of many rooms unidentifiable. It's possible that a gang has moved in to use it as a hideout, or some animals appreciate the shelter it provides.
The being said, any former enchantments may remain, and have likely become cursed/haunted by now...
A fort that's been abandoned for 100 years will barely be a shade of its original self. Nature will have begun to retake it, and looters will have claimed most goods left behind by the occupying army.
This means that most rooms will be empty, except for trash left behind by squatters, rendering the original purpose of many rooms unidentifiable. It's possible that a gang has moved in to use it as a hideout, or some animals appreciate the shelter it provides.
The being said, any former enchantments may remain, and have likely become cursed/haunted by now...
Celebrim
Legend
No need to apologize.
Sure, but most of my description was intended to inspire a map and not current contents. That's why I paid more attention to what sort of rooms a hedge wizard might demand if he was to be quartered in a military fortress, than I did to the contents of those rooms.
All true, but none of that inspires a map.
I've actually taken all of this into an account, and while I may have rooms with no actual items or monsters, none of my rooms are actually empty, and Celebrim has indeed helped me to make a high quality map.
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