OD&D Using magic to help build an undispellable castle

[Ciaran]

Hi folks! Got a thing coming up in my B/X campaign and wanted to see how to make what I have in mind fit the overall framework of the rules.

One of the PCs is an 8th level fighter who's been given a knighthood and command of a small border keep near the tentpole megadungeon. Because of ongoing troubles with a couple of rogue devils building small armies and a broader desire to reassert control of the region after various wars, the local magocracy wants to expand his keep into a castle. (Also, the PC will soon hit level 9 and gain a castle according to the rulebook.) Ideally this will be stone, as devils have fire magic and wooden buildings are flammable But building a stone castle takes several years, and there's no time for that either in or out of character.

The obvious route is stacking up wall of stone spells. But no one can be entirely sure whether either devil can dispel magic, so ideally the magic-users will want to use instantaneous effects that can't be dispelled. But there aren't a lot of obvious options.

The campaign has a lot of homebrew and I'm always happy to add more. So in addition to B/X spells, I'm open to converted AD&D spells and entirely homebrew spells. Magic items and funky rituals are also on the table, so long as they roughly fit with how magic is presented in B/X.

Any suggestions would be greatly welcome!

 

[aco175]

Its been a while but I thought that Permanency spell created something that once the spell is finished it is, well... permanent.

Back in the day, I recall getting to the level of gaining a keep and tending to find one in disrepair that needed cleaning out and repair. Once one appeared in a dream from a god and then just somehow showed up in the location.

 

[Ciaran]

Possibilities in B/X itself:

Using conjure elemental to command an earth elemental seems like it should be useful, but it's not clear just what an earth elemental can do when it comes to working stone. If nothing else, it's an inhumanly strong laborer, and I'd be inclined to let it quarry stone highly effectively.

Piling gravel into a mold, casting transmute rock to mud, then dispelling the effect should work to create sizable stone blocks in place. This should actually help in a lot of ways; there's no need to quarry big stone blocks, move them overland, or even lift them into place — workers can just carry manageable baskets of rocks and pebbles. AD&D suggests this would yield a soft rock like sandstone, which isn't ideal, but historically sandstone castles were a thing so that's not a major strike against it.

Move earth can create a motte and bailey, which isn't stonework but also is nothing to sneeze at. In addition, stripping away masses of topsoil from the underlying rock could allow the creation of quarries right next to the worksite, vastly reducing the time needed to ship the worked stone.

And that seems to be it for B/X. Not a lot of options here.

 

[Ciaran]

Its been a while but I thought that Permanency spell created something that once the spell is finished it is, well... permanent.

Back in the day, I recall getting to the level of gaining a keep and tending to find one in disrepair that needed cleaning out and repair. Once one appeared in a dream from a god and then just somehow showed up in the location.

In AD&D, the permanency spell is used to make temporary spell effects permanent. And permanent spell effects of any sort can be dispelled. So that unfortunately doesn't solve the problem.

Technically I could have given the PC another castle, but this ties in to an ongoing major sequence of events in a way that I found compelling. Expanding their existing keep fits better, and as the party built the keep in the first place, this gives the players a stronger emotional connection to events.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

Stoneform first appears in the Dawn of the Emperors boxed set, and was later incorporated into the Rules Cyclopedia

The AD&D conversions are found in the Champions of Mystara boxed set. The AD&D version add options. Options that are very sweet.

Other useful spells are Clothform, Woodform, Ironform, and Steelform.

(DTRPG should have all of the above.)

 

[bloodtide]

The spell Wish, of course.

The spell Bigby's Construction Crew

The spell Fabricate

Genie's can be summoned and put to work. They have lots of magic.