Look upon my works, ye mighty... (my players stay out, please)

[SiderisAnon]

He has magic users working for him; right?

The Imperial Fireworks. Some sort of bronze and stone monstrosity that looks like a pipe organ mated with half of the sculptures in the art museum. Every night just after dark, it fills the sky with a shower of light and sound, a fireworks show. On the night of the emperor's birthday (and maybe other special nights), it showers the sky all night long (keeping everyone in the city awake, of course). No matter what, the thing cannot be turned off.

If the emperor is a lunatic, have it be real fire where occassional sparks fall back and start fires in the city. If the wizards are smarter, then it's just illusionary light and sound.

 

[Dandu]

 

[Celebrim]

You carve a whole mountain into your image.

To avoid taking a boat, you commission a bridge made of porceline and alabaster that is 15000 feet long and 500 feet high, and it goes from the mainland to an island home you only use for a few months of the year.

You build a floating city to be your capital. But most of it is uninhabited because the cost of transporting things up to it is prohibitive, and once the initial wonder wears off, its just a place you are trapped in. So the whole thing is basically just a palace that everyone carefully pretends is a city.

You commission your magicians divert part of a river an upside down waterfall to supply an aqueduct that is unnecessarily tall and long just be impressive.

You have your life story (the official version at least) carved in bas relief by master stone carvers on the famous walls of a fortified city, rendering them easily scaled.

You begin a project involving stone statues of various sizes (up to 150' high) erected so that everyone anywhere in your empire will be able to turn in at least one direction and see your image. This project is estimated to require 44000000 statues. Only 43,860,000 to go.

You create a vast 'garden' of fantastic permenent illusions, pyrotechnics, and colored everburning lantern.

Using large numbers of teleportation portals, you link several of your palaces in vastly removed portions of the continent in such a way that from the interior they seem to be a single connected structure.

You collect the largest collection of uselessly and frivously animated objects and constructs in the world, and fill a vast whimsical palace with your toys.

You convert a 100 square mile area about a particularly important holy site into a vast walled garden and temple complex, hoping to please some diety (for extra madness, its the goddess of chastity that the emporer by way of the gift hopes to seduce).

You commision a 60' diameter scale model of the world, which is to be complete and to scale in every detail. It's covered with 1/4" high mountains made of jade and mother of pearl, and 1/4" deep ocean basins lined with lapis lazuli and containing thin sheets of water held in place by tiny fields of force. Tiny 1/4" high cloud systems slowly drift over the surface, and teeny cities light up as it passes into shadows. Hangs in the air slowly turning in your football stadium sized study/private audience chamber.

You dig a massive canal parallel to but a few miles away from a major river, which when completed, hardly anyone ever uses because all the cities are on the river.

You commission a magically created oasis in the middle of a major desert in order to foster trade and encourage development. This angers an Efreeti Pasha and sparks a minor magical war (which you win at great cost). But afterwards only a few travellers ever come, because there is nothing else for 500 miles and no resources to be gained from the trip but the water and food you need to get back. Undaunted, you study plans for repeating the project a half-dozen more times.

You build the largest sailing vessel in the world, a seven masted vessel that is 700' long, 160' wide and contains 10 separate water tight chambers to prevent sinking, and a palace with its own pools, fountains, and gardens. It sails around a lake 10 miles long and 2 miles wide at its widest. It often has to be rotated by rowers because it cannot switch tacks in the lack without danger of running aground. It's just as well though, because it wouldn't be seaworthy in any larger body of water.

You build a to scale 200'x200' version of your capital to give to a favored neice as a 'doll city', complete with 10's of thousands of inch high inhabitants. The whole thing is designed to be dissembled and reassembled on tables, and it takes 1300 ox carts and a dedicated staff of thousands to move it.

 

[LostSoul]

A Pleasure Palace with baths and great food and beautiful servants... the whole works, and it's open to the public!

Except it's all an illusion covering up the horrid reality. You know how that works. And the ruler just rubs his hands and giggles at the whole thing.

He plans to revel in the mayhem and bloodshed that will inevitably come from the mental trauma everyone's suffered when it's revealed for what it is. He's had everyone who worked on it banished to Hell and he's only revealed the truth to one other person, a powerful advisor. This advisor has never gone to the Pleasure Palace, while the ruler goes all the time (he's twisted).

He can blame the whole mess on the advisor if he needs to.

Oh yeah, and if he dies the illusion is dispelled.

What will the PCs do? Hmm...

 

[Mark]

Gnome Druid-Tinkers could be forced to build a one-inch diameter golden pipeline to transport cavier direct from the coast to the capital. Yum!

 

[Truename]

If it were my game, I would decide that the Emperor would consider himself the divine conduit/avatar of a favorite god or goddess, and have him build great works based on that theme.

Deity of Knowledge: Libraries, laboratories, universities, and perhaps a wizard's tower to research forbidden knowledge.

Deity of War: Weapons, arenas, giant smithies, crazy siege engines of questionable worth.

Deity of Magic: Perhaps a grand museum of all kinds of arcana "discovered" in other conquered empires, weird laboratories or magical workshops.

Deity of the Sun (or Fire): Perhaps a giant magical orb that outshines the sun itself. Everburning fires throughout the city. Giant mirrors so that other cities will always know of their presence.

Deity of Music, Frivolity, Madness, etc: Vomitoriums for actual vomiting. Places that magically play all kinds of music. Giant auditoriums for the Emperor to play daily.

To take this one step further: it has been revealed to you that you are in fact THE ONE GOD of which all other gods are merely reflections. You embark on a massive projects of the sort quoted to grant Your followers' prayers, which are revealed to You in dreams.

Example: You hear that Your followers are starving due to drought, so Your mages cause innumerable loaves and fishes to rain from the sky. Dozens of people are killed from falling objects, and the food piles to waist height in the streets. People are unable to eat it all and the food rots, attracting vermin and eventually leading to an epidemic.

Example 2: In Your aspect as the Lord of Mercy, you declare a moratorium on all suffering. "None shall feel pain while My mortal form inhabits the earth!" you announce during a week-long holiday and feast, convened across the land at the last minute and at great expense. Your mages cast a massive spell which prevents anyone from feeling pain. Unfortunately, they are unable to actually prevent bad things from happen, and people suffer minor and major trauma without being aware of it. Minor wounds turn into major infections due to being unnoticed and untreated. Gangrene is common, and injuries of all sorts become crippling as people stress their bodies further. Your mages quietly end the spell when Your fickle attention turns to another project.

 

[Ainamacar]

The most powerful ruler on three continents deserves a fourth, the entire work a testament to his own greatness.

The entire prime material plane in an orb, sitting neatly at the end of his scepter.

A wide-ranging harem recruiting program, and reality show?

A new language (or at least script) for adoption by the entire population.

An elaborate, terribly garish tattoo required for the entire population.

All the coins in the kingdom are enchanted to display a different likeness of him daily, and project obsequious thoughts of praise to anyone holding them.

The Arirang Festival.

 

[haakon1]

Let's say you're world-building and you have an emperor who runs a VAST empire. He's inbred, unqualified, selfish, dissolute, addicted, divinely mandated, possibly insane, definitely the richest man on three continents, and probably bored. He thinks big and has loyal (or terrified) spellcasters, slaves, architects and artists at his beck and call.

So what is he using them for?

"Same thing we do every night -- try and take over the world!"
-- Pinkie and Brain

Just because he's a loser, doesn't mean he knows it. Hubristic little corporals who think they are Caesar abound in history.

So, vast military works, to build galleys to sail across the ocean, or to build space dreadnaughts to conquer the moon, that sort of thing.

And once he realizes he's failed to conquer the world, great walls to keep out all the enemies he's made. A fortified port at Ostia for bringing in wheat from Egypt. Long walls from the port to the city, to stop the bandits and revolting slaves from stealing the wheat.

Once the bread is taken care of, you need circuses -- a Circus Maximus for chariot and horse racing. And a Collessium for gladiator combats, especially the fun ones where you flood it and have ships fight it out. And then you get to see if lions can swim!

So, Rome with more walls, and crazy stuff for conquering the world.

 

[haakon1]

An elaborate, terribly garish tattoo required for the entire population.

Like the top knot the Manchu emperors made all Chinese men wear.

BTW, the "all first born sons must be named after the emperor" suggestion is one I really like. Even more insane if everyone must also adopt the emperor's family name -- so a whole generation of boys have exactly the same name. Very confusing!

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I'd start out with the classical Pyramid scheme. To prepare for the afterlife, the emperor has a Magnificent (with big "M) tomb be build for him. Okay, make that some more tombs for his wife, his closes advisors, ah hell, make at a living, breathing necropolis. Lots of tombs are already occupied, so you'll probably have some problem with those restless dead, which the emperor of course must not see.

Another crowd pleaser is the Roman idea of combat on stage. Let the mages summon interesting creatures for such events. Summoning is known to have some side effects, you say? Ah, our mages will surely be able to handle this.

I wouldn't force the people to adopt the emperor's name. Why not simply giving luscious birthday present to children who happen to bear the same name?

Our stressed emperor would have to make sure that his subjects are working hard enough to maintain their beloved ruler's wealth level. Have some mages teleport him around the world with his palanquin and entourage to visit gold mines, manufacturies and so on. Of course the places visited have to accommodate the visitors, so you better enlarge the galleries in those mines.

The emperor's statue in the nation's capital must not be of less height than the mountain over there.

When the emperor visits the coast, he surely appreciates the ocean's surface being covered by rose petals, regardless of the season. And he won't take "it's just the wrong season" for an excuse when he wants to eat some fresh strawberries.

You know, being an emperor and all that is no easy task!