The Keep

[Jack7]

Lately I have been listening to a series of lectures called Citadels of Power. About Castles, their construction, design, uses, etc. I've been enjoying it immensely.

So I thought I'd start a thread on the Keep. The Castle, the stronghold, the personal base of operations.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...=682&gbv=2&tbm=isch&ei=ocpoTvHmGMzXiAKNweyRBA

Many times as DM I have awarded lands, titles, strongholds, castles, or keeps to my players. Or they have built and constructed their own strongholds.

Many times as a player (though I play far less often than DM) when my characters have become rich or famous enough I have built Keeps and strongholds. Some of my very most enjoyable adventures have involved my own Keeps; constructing secret areas, expanding them, converting them into estates, using them as training grounds or to raise livestock, having them become a stronghold (maybe for a local lord, maybe me becoming a Knight, Baron, or Lord), defending them against sieges or sapping, using my keep as a base of operations to launch raids against monsters or against enemies.

Adventures that were a great deal of fun and were useful too (as training in logistics, how to run an organization, constructing defensive positions, etc, etc).

Therefore this thread is all about the Keep.

Tell us about your own experiences with your Keeps or Strongholds or Castles (and so forth) or about the Keeps of your players.

What have you most enjoyed about your Keeps? Most interesting keeps? Most unusual?

Anything you wanna detail or discuss along these lines.

 

[Halivar]

My level 18 planar champion in 3E was granted one boon by Bahamut, and asked for a fortress from which to rule his lands. This was near the end of a two-year long campaign, so it was pretty extravagant. The whole thing was sheened like platinum, and protected by a gold dragon cohort in its top-most spire. We had acquired the seed of an anti-psionic catapsi tree (this campaign was heavy on psionic enemies), which we planted in the keep's courtyard, and our party wizard aged it a thousand years until it towered next to the keep.

Pretty awesome stuff. Below the keep we built the "Worldgate", a complex with planar gateways opening to a myriad of other material planes we had visited, and the Platinum Fortress became an interplanar trading post that figured heavily into later campaigns for years to come.

 

[olshanski]

I thought this was a thread about the movie.

The Keep

 

[Stormonu]

One of my players had a paladin who built a watchtower-like keep at the borders of the local wilderness. It was a two-story tower with an attached fortified mansion/chapel, with an unusually large "stable" for the paladin's bronze dragon mount. It became a bastion of healing and protection for nearby communities.

NPC-wise, a rather notorious keep the PCs sometimes used was called Eye Fort. It was a multi-story tower built over a sacred driudic tree. An open staircase wound to the top floor where an enormous crystal called "the eye" resided. The eye was actually a scrying focus. Access to it was highly restricted, as the government used it to spy on its enemies (and sometimes monitor it own).

 

[Jack7]

Storm, personally I think that frontier fortifications (Limes as the Romans would have called them, form which we get the word "limit") are usually the very best and most interesting types of fortifications, keeps, and outposts.

They are along the frontiers so they are surrounded by danger, they usually have access to great stores of raw materials, they are often besieged, as you mentioned they often become strongholds to service the frontier, they can serve as trading posts, and they make excellent bases of operation from which to launch expeditions.

They make nearly perfect keeps and outposts.

They may not be as complicated or well supplied as a castle, but they are often far more interesting.

I thought this was a thread about the movie.

The Keep

I liked that movie.

 

[Crothian]

I thought this was a thread about the movie.

The Keep

Book was better!

 

[haakon1]

My favorite Keep is the Keep on the Borderlands.

Specifically, the most fun I ever had as a DM was running "Return to the Keep on the Borderlands" and deciding that the Caves of Chaos had had enough, and were going to attack the Keep.

The PC's -- and NPC's of the Keep -- fought the enemy from the gates of the outer bailey, all the way into the Great Hall in the inner bailey, fighting bandits, orcs, skeletons, zombies, and some enemy spellcasters.

The battle went on for over 100 rounds -- the PC's staying alive with many potions and some NPC healing.

The final fight was the PC's dumping lit oil on the undead, the undead crushing in the door of the Great Hall, the PC's fighting them over a barricade of trestle tables, and finally, finally defeating them, just before the NPC leader was about to go for the secret passage and abandon the Keep.