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

[Kinneus]

If your emperor has access to wizards, I'd be tempted to use them. It doesn't matter whether you want a low-magic or high-magic campaign. In a high-magic game, his magical monuments will seem perfectly in-place. In a low-magic game, they'll be all the more impressive, and give a good sense of this guy's power and madness.

Something simple might be good. Like... floating fountains. Geysers of water erupt in mid-air, then drip down, suddenly disappearing before even a single drop hits the pavement. The emperor might place this in a smaller city to show his approval or to encourage growth. And everyone agrees that the constant, dancing fountains are very pretty to look at. Unfortunately, the magic used to create them has weakened the barriers between planes, and now water elementals and malignant fae are "slipping in" to wreak havoc.

As an alternative to the classic colleseum, how about a battle royale in the city streets? Prisonsers, young gladiators, dishonored noblemen, pesky adventurers, or anybody else who is either stupid or rebellious enough to gain the emperor's attention find themselves shackled with magical mithril neck-collars. The collars are studded with various gems worth various points, so a common criminal's amber collar might be worth only one point, while a treasonous soldier's sapphire collar might be worth five. Anyone shackled with a collar is to hunt down and kill other collared individuals until they earn enough "points" to gain their freedom. The collars contain various wards and spells to make them all but irremovable; the only way to get them off is decapitation. The king's wizard advisors scry on the contestants often, letting the emperor and his high court enjoy the show from afar.

Oh, and if anyone tries to leave the city or nation while wearing the collar, it detonates. That just goes without saying.

 

[Tortoise]

I like the idea of the ever growing stone historical document. Where I think it could be even more interesting is the ever growing wall that is being built up around it by Imperial decree after it displayed something embarrasing about someone and those in power chose to keep spending money to make sure it stays hidden. Emperor's eyes only.

 

[Mallus]

Of course, anybody could build titanic statues. So his should move. They should salute his presence, maybe turn to watch the sunrise and/or sunset, kneel on holy days, and smash any impudent armies foolish enough to attack the Emperor's capital city.

I like this a lot. You could run a riff on the Trojan Horse where rivals of the empire sneak out of their "gift" with the goal of breaking into one of the Imperial collosi and taking control of it to smash the capital...

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The Eye of the Empire - Floating above an open square within the capitol, this giant crystal continuously projects images from all around the empire; sometimes beautiful landscapes, other times images of citizens both inside and out. Images are seemingly random, changing once every minute. The images are real time, and it is considered good luck to be seen upon the eye, although most people are unaware they ever appeared on it since it is unlikely they happened to be close enough to look upon the eye at the time they appeared. As a result of this, there is a group of men and women who spend almost every moment sitting in the square, staring at the eye in the hopes of seeing themselves upon it.

When the eye was first lifted into place, young boys came to the square and tried to kick balls high enough to strike it. Some of the magi wished to raise the Eye higher to prevent this, but the Emperor decreed it be left where it was.

 

[Truth Seeker]

Love the castle...

 

[Turtlejay]

The Stairway to Heaven is my absolute favorite:
- From the exterior it is *big*. Skyscraper big. Impossible to build big.
- The interior is bigger. Infinite in dimension. Literally infinite, not looping or anything. It literally goes on forever. As you rise you can glimpse in the balconies the infinite planes and access them as you will, but returning is not easy/possible.
- The Stairway is simultaneously in many places. The four corners of the empire have the four palaces. In reality, one palace with magic bending it to be in four places at the same time. If you exit the West gate, you are in the west kingdom, etc.
- The stairway actually works. Unfortunately for the emperor, Demon Princes and Deific emissaries have discovered it and use it for their own purposes. It is quite indestructible, but the area between the 44th floor and the 73rd floor is a contested battleground.

I also like the library, immense and vacant. Ever read the Sword of Shannara? The Druids, guardians of old knowledge, have such a library, and it is filled with traps. The true knowledge is not just sitting on shelves for any old schmoe to take:
- The scribes and acolytes are bound demons, charged with protecting the library for terms of 99 years in exchange for who knows what. Violate their turf, and their true nature is revealed.
- The library is a vast labrynth, difficult to master. Strange creatures wander the stacks, left to their devices if they avoid the books.
- These books are all worthless. The valued books are kept in some rube goldberg-esque accessed machine, bound in skin and guarded by something horrific.
- The project was that of the current emperor's father. His dad was the one who liked books and arcana, this guy just likes whores and swords.

Tons of good ideas in here! Great times!

Jay

 

[Storminator]

- a monument to the History of the Empire: a huge coil of granite slowly & constantly extrude from the ground, and an army of stone carvers surround the base, writing the events of the present on the thing as it emerges from the ground. An escalating spiral stair or floating disk-elevator goes up the center, and great balconies & terraced gardens protrude from the thing, like a vast 3-D garden that spiral upward thousands of feet. At the ever-rising pinnacle, a symbol of the emperor, a light, a watchtower, &/or the like, visible for dozens of miles.

Instead of writing the history of the empire, it writes the collected quotations of the emperor. Every time he says something he likes it gets engraved on the stone. The whole thing is like a monstrous version of Mao's little red book.

PS

 

[Amaroq]

I really like the "I decree that none of my subjects shall experience pain and suffering" idea.

There are so many hundreds of places that can go, even before getting to the "massive ritual that prevents it" level:

1. The Emperor is out for a walk. His minions are tasked with preventing any suffering from occurring in his perception range. The quickest way, of course, involves killing babies lest they cry in the emperor's hearing. And the mothers, who might wail about their lost babies. And, well, anybody else, really.

2. The PC's hear of a problem beyond their scope, e.g., baddy-bads killing peasants in the eastern hinterlands, and go to ask the Emperor for help. He won't hear of the problem - in fact, his flunkies consider them heretics or traitors for insinuating that there COULD BE a problem anywhere in the realm!

3. Justice is rendered backwards: being the victim of a crime violates the decree, because you have suffered. Therefore, the victim is punished. The PC's arrive to discover that thugs and criminals run rampant in the city, often in official garb, and the cowed populace won't complain ... but of course, mentioning the problem to any authority gets one branded a heretic/traitor.

4. Death itself is outlawed. Violators must be punished. Yes, there is an undead army rotting in the emperor's prisons.

5. Any of the myriad insane projects suggested in this thread is ongoing. The sheer scope of it is causing problems (environmental, magical, deaths of slaves constructing it, and/or displacing peasants), but by the emperor's decree the results are the fault of those whom the problem negatively effects ..

And, of course the mad emperor has his mages working to permanently enforce the decree, as described earlier.

. . .

Beyond that, I think "immortality" is the other obvious pursuit for a mad emperor .. but why limit it to the all-so-human statues and representations of himself?

He's got his mages and priests working on making him immortal. Some are pursuing necromantic paths, some are pursuing anti-aging paths, some are pursuing divinity/godhead paths ... and all of them are disrupting the natural order, causing suffering amongst the populace via experiment, sacrifice, etc.

It turns out immortality is actually within his grasp, if only he had the MacGuffin or Immortality and sufficient peasants to sacrifice ..

. . .

So, what would a magical version of the terracotta army be?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

So, what would a magical version of the terracotta army be?

The golem army and just before the moment of his death he orders his soul transfered to a golem. Que the Mummy 3

 

[WayneLigon]

The Reflected Palace

One day the Emperor was walking in front of the massive reflecting pool in front of the palace. The weather was perfect and not a breath of air stirred. The water was as glass, and the Emperor gazed into the water and saw his massive sprawling home reflected so perfectly that he was momentarily confused as to which was the real one. He was content, and since the weight of Empire was heavy upon his head the Emperor was thus, briefly, happy.

Then a single leaf from an olive tree touched the water, shattering the illusion. The emperor was distraught.

So he commanded that the reflection was to be perfect, always. Freezing the water did not solve the problem, nor could the magicians still every breath of air in the area.

The solution? Excavate the entire area under the palace and build an exact duplicate of the mammoth edifice, except upside-down. The reflecting pool would be replaced with a pane of pure crystal and the bottom-most shell of the cavern thus created was made by magic to mimic the sky above it, and to create illusionary duplicates of any inhabitants.

Indeed, the replica is perfect inside and out, meaning that if one possessed the means, one could wander into rooms where the furniture is nailed to the ceiling and vast crystal chandeliers sprout from the floor like trees.

The Emperor was at last pleased.

The day after the unveiling he commanded all olive trees in the empire be put to the torch, precipitating a massive economic crisis. But it was a Good Day.