Corpus draconique 3.5

Oriel, lassé de l'hégémonie sur les arts profanes d'un seigneur local, a décidé de fonder sa propre guilde appelée Alqalinde, les “dispensateurs des secrets” en elfique. Mais pour pouvoir attirer des apprentis (et par suite des alliés plus puissants), il lui faut bâtir un hall de guilde. Par chance, de récentes échauffourées avec les yuan-tis et les géants ont été lucratives, de sorte qu'Oriel et ses alliés disposent de 150 000 po à dépenser pour faire sortir la gilde d'Alqalinde de terre. Oriel pense pouvoir financer une structure de la taille d'un château, et essaie donc de concevoir une structure s'étendant sur 20 cases de forteresses.

Quand il début la construction, il sait qu'il souhaite construire une tour au centre de la capitale Forghul, et qu'une partie de cette tour sera souterraine. Forghul est une cité (modificateur au prix de +6%), et son climat est celui des plaines tempérées (modificateur au prix de -5%).

Vient maintenant la partie amusante, l'achat des éléments. Oriel n'a pas à s'inquiéter pour la défense, son pouvoir magique pouvant en fournir une notable, et le centre de la capitale étant plutôt sûr.
Par conséquence, Oriel achète tous les éléments listés ci-dessous :

MAKING SENSE OF THE LIST When you build a stronghold, it’s often easiest to first look at the clusters: collections of components that work well together. Oriel also notes which components go underground, because they’ll have different wall costs (which he’ll pay for later). For the Alqalinde Guildhouse, the Wizard’s Research Cluster is an obvious choice. The masters get to use the fancy laboratory, of course, and Oriel decides on a second, more basic magic lab for the apprentices. They’ll live in a barracks—after all, they’re apprentices. There are 10 basic bedrooms (remember, each bedroom component has two bedrooms) for guildmasters and Oriel’s fellow adventurers when they’re in town. The dining hall and extended kitchen are enough to support the bedroom guests, the apprentices in the barracks, and the servants. Oriel adds a fancy bedroom suite and fancy office for himself, and a meeting chamber (paid for as if it were a fancy tavern) for the guild leaders. A gatehouse makes a nice entrance, and Oriel’s fellow adventurers insist he add an armory for accumulated loot. Finally, he adds two basic offices, one for the castellan and one for the guards.

WALLS AND TOWERS The Alqalinde Guildhouse is 21 stronghold spaces. Ordinarily, this means half the walls are interior, and half are exterior. But Oriel wants the same kind of wall for both interiors and exteriors, so the math should be simpler.
Oriel opts for hewn stone interior and exterior interior walls. The underground walls are free, so 7.5 stronghold spaces have no wall cost. The other 13.5 stronghold spaces cost 6,000 gp per space, or 81,000 gp. That’s too expensive, but fortunately Oriel is a 13thlevel wizard who knows wall of stone. This gives him a 50% discount, and the walls cost only 40,500 gp. Looking as some of the other do-it-yourself spellcasting discounts, Oriel sees that fabricate gives him a 5% discount on regular spaces and a 20% discount on fancy spaces. Stone shape gets a further 5% discount on spaces with hewn stone walls—which is all of them. Those discounts are worth a total of 6,510 gp. But Oriel is vain enough to want the Alqalinde Guildhouse to stand out in the Forghul skyline. So he puts two stronghold spaces 30 feet high, two spaces 40 feet high, and so on up to 70 feet high. That means an additional 21,800 gp. But again Oriel’s ability as a spellcaster comes to the rescue. Together, telekinesis and fly cut the height surcharge by 75%, so the towering edifice costs only 5,450 gp. (Oriel is going to be spending a lot of time on-site, casting spells to help the builders.)

OTHER EXTRAS Oriel wants a secret passageway between his bedroom and the fancy magic lab, so that means buying two secret doors (Search DC 30) at 400 gp. He upgrades each exterior bedroom door to strong wood (400 gp), buys an iron portcullis for the gatehouse (750 gp), and buys stone doors for both magic labs (he doesn’t want anything escaping) and the meeting room (privacy is a virtue). Five stone doors cost 1,500 gp. Each upgraded door gets a good lock (Open Lock DC 30), which adds an additional 450 gp. Finally, every aboveground stronghold space gets iron bars and glass on its windows (1,050 gp). And the meeting hall, fancy magic laboratory, and Oriel’s bedroom suite and study get lead-lined walls (6,400 gp), which block detect spells. Oriel is tired of being spied upon.

WONDROUS ARCHITECTURE The fancy magic laboratory has an engraved magic circle against evil (1,500 gp) for planar binding spells and the like. The security-conscious Oriel also pays for incriptions of vacancy on the meeting hall (22,500 gp) and inscriptions of privacy in his bedroom suite (14,000 gp). His office gets a pool of scrying (7,500 gp), and the gatehouse gets a warding bell (7,200 gp). Oriel could build these items, as he could any magic item, but he’s loath to spend the experience points, so he’ll just buy them. A few weeks ago, Oriel had some trouble with teleporting assassins, but he can’t afford enough forbidding sigils (see sidebar) to protect the entire stronghold. Maybe he’ll get the party’s cleric to cast forbiddance on the Alqalinde Guildhouse when construction is complete.

RUN THE TOTALS Oriel has made all his construction choices, and his plans for the Alqalinde Guildhouse are complete. The total cost is 146,642 gp, just slightly under budget. It’ll take 15 weeks to build the guildhouse, and with the amount of spellcasting required of Oriel, he’ll have to be there much of the time. Time to talk with the other players and the DM about taking the winter off from defending the realm.

MAKING IT LOOK GOOD Now that Oriel knows the details for his stronghold, it’s time to map it. Originally, Oriel tried a traditional tower, with crenellations, staircases, and all the medieval trappings. But no matter how gothic he makes the Alqalinde Guildhouse, it blends into the cityscape. Oriel isn’t evil, but he does have a sinister streak, so he designs a building that looks like an abode of the powerful. Oriel imagines a double helix of rooms centered around a huge granite spike and connected by tunnels that run through the otherwise solid spike. All the rooms hang off the edge of the granite spike like mushrooms on a tree trunk. Planning the interior corridors, Oriel varies from a strict double helix, because he wants certain connections (such as the guildmaster’s study and bedroom suite) to be easy. Constructing a fortress based on a double helix turns out to be a strong choice from a security standpoint. Oriel puts all the public areas on one helix, and more private areas on the other. For example, one helix starts at the gatehouse and ascends through the dining hall, past the kitchen and the castellan’s office, to the meeting room and the bedrooms beyond. The other helix heads from guard captain’s office to the armory, then there’s a break. When the second helix reemerges, it connects the meeting room to the guildmaster’s study and bedroom suite. Guildmaster Oriel can privately travel among his office, bedroom, meeting room, and magic laboratory (the latter through a secret tube that runs down the center of the granite spike—it’s omitted from the map for clarity). Mundane guests never need to travel beyond the dining room, and more trusted guests can easily access the meeting room and kitchen. And Oriel is strange enough to like the subtly disorienting effect of tubehallways of solid, smooth granite that get ever steeper as you ascend through the guildhouse. When he’d done, Oriel smiles to himself. His rivals won’t be able to ignore him anymore…