Magic Items

Beyond spells, many different magic items can make useful additions to your stronghold. This section describes a selection of the most useful of such items, along with notes on suggested stronghold uses. Each heading also includes the item’s price in gold pieces (in parentheses). For full descriptions of these items, check with your Dungeon Master.

This section only addresses each item’s utility in a stronghold setting. You can find full descriptions of these items in the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide. Market prices for each magic item are listed after their titles. Many of these devices are too valuable to leave in the hands of underlings, but desperate times—such as when your stronghold is under danger of imminent attack—call for desperate measures.

Armor of Etherealness (varies)

Enchanted armor of this variety allows the user to become ethereal once per day. This item provides a great way to get into secret areas, but since you had better have another way out. Otherwise, you’re stuck for a day while the armor “recharges.”

Bag of Devouring (15,500 gp)

Although normally considered a cursed item, a bag of devouring can be extremely handy in a stronghold—as a means of waste disposal. It makes an excellent means of getting rid of kitchen scraps, human and animal body waste, and just about anything else.

Two tricks exist with such an item. First, don’t overfill it. The bag eats when it wants to, and you can’t force it.

Second, don’t stick your hand in it—or any other body part, for that matter. Some stronghold builders set up their bag of devouring at the bottom of a narrow well capped with a grate to prevent any untoward accidents from happening with a hungry bag.

You can also use a properly prepared bag of devouring as a trap. When you know intruders are in your home, simply remove the grating over the top of the thing and toss a bar of gold or some other valuable item into its gullet. Assuming the bag doesn’t simply swallow the gold right away, the precious metal should provide bait that few invaders can resist.

Boots, Winged (12,000 gp)

While not as impressive as wings of flying, these boots don’t attract nearly as much attention. They also make it easy to get back and forth to airborne strongholds.

Cloak of Etherealness (52,000 gp)

This cloak allows you to become ethereal for up to a total of 10 minutes per day. This lets you move freely into rooms or stronghold spaces otherwise sealed off from the rest of the world. Used judiciously, you could base an entire stronghold on it, with few if any doors, using the cloak for those few moments when you need to pass through walls, ceilings, or floors.

Since ethereal characters can move vertically as easily as horizontally, these normally inaccessible rooms can be high in the air or buried deep beneath the earth. Either way, you can get to them easily.

Daern’s Instant Fortress (55,000 gp)

This wondrous item allows you instantly to set up a tower, essentially three stronghold spaces stacked atop each other. You can use Daern’s instant fortress as a stronghold all on its own, or as the basis of a larger stronghold. Simply attach other stronghold spaces to it as you desire. In fact, if you had four such fortresses, you could make each a corner of a much larger stronghold.

The only real downside is that you can’t repair a Daern’s instant fortress with anything less than a wish or a miracle.

Decanter of Endless Water (9,000 gp)

With a decanter of endless water, you have access to fresh water anywhere in your stronghold, no matter how far from a well. The decanter also proves invaluable for putting out fires, especially in its geyser mode. Most stronghold owners keep at least one decanter of endless water on hand for such emergencies.

Wealthy landowners also use decanters to water their gardens and even to irrigate crops. Others use it to keep their moats fresh and full in the absence of a natural source of water for it. The device has no limits, so it can generate a theoretically limitless amount of water, enough to create a small stream.

The only real problem with a decanter of endless water is that many different people in the household will want it. It’s incredibly convenient in the kitchen or the laundry. Even the stable hands will want one to help tend to the horses. Of course, you don’t want to leave such powerful magic in the hands of just anyone. More than one stronghold has been flooded by a decanter of endless water that someone left running.

Deck of Illusions (9,200 gp)

If you want your place to look dangerous but you can’t stomach actually exposing your family and staff to such danger, a deck of illusions can come in handy. While the illusions generated by a deck of illusions are entirely random—you never know what you’ll get when you draw a card—they’re almost all useful as illusory sentinels. Best of all, these illusions last until they’re dispelled.

Drums of Panic (30,000 gp)

This item is a great device for your captain of the guard to leave with the commanding officer of each watch. It can scare off surprise attacks, giving your soldiers time to seal up the stronghold and prepare themselves for the oncoming assault.

The only real drawback is that they can scare people inside the stronghold as well. Still, that’s a small price to pay if the drums drive off invaders, even for a little while.

Everburning Torch (90 gp)

If you don’t mind your sources of continual flame looking like torches, this is a fine way to save money. These magic items actually cost 20 gp less than it would to have the continual flame spell cast on a torch.

Eversmoking Bottle (5,200 gp)

This magic item can help camouflage yourself and your friends. Most of the time, you won’t want to activate this until the enemy has come through the gates, giving those inside the stronghold who know its layout a great advantage over those who don’t.

The eversmoking bottle covers just over 400 square feet with smoke, about the size of a single stronghold space. A single item can’t obscure sight of most strongholds, although a strategically placed number of them working in conjunction might do the trick.

Eyes of the Eagle (1,000 gp)

These magic lenses are a great help for watcher on lookout, either in watchtowers or on the perimeter of your stronghold. A single set of lenses, shared among shifts, can dramatically increase your guards’ watchfulness. You can double the usefulness by splitting the set between two watchers, though guards must then cover the other eye, which isn’t very practical for long-term use.

Figurines of Wondrous Power (varies)

Most of these are useful in some way, but a few are particularly helpful. The various steeds allow a watcher in an outpost to be able to return to the main stronghold with news quickly, especially the obsidian steed (28,500 gp). The silver raven (3,800 gp) is a bit more reasonably priced and can ferry messages back and forth with excellent speed.

Goggles of Night (8,000 gp)

A watcher equipped with a set of goggles of night can go without a light source (and thus avoid making himself a target for those skulking in the darkness). The limited range of the darkvision (60 feet) does mean that you shouldn’t use this for long-range sentries.

Helm of Teleportation (48,600 gp)

This device can make it easy for the wearer to get around the most secret and sealed-off sections of any stronghold.

Helm of Underwater Action (24,000 gp)

If you have an underwater stronghold, you should consider having one of these on hand so that you can entertain air-breathing guests. Not everyone out there has gills, after all.

Horn of Blasting (12,000 gp)

This item is the perfect weapon to let loose from the ramparts of your stronghold at invaders laying siege.

Horn of Fog (2,000 gp)

A horn of fog works well to obscure the sight of your stronghold. It continues to spread an obscuring mist for as long as anyone blows on it. Theoretically, a team of big-lunged blowers could mask even the largest stronghold. The only drawback is the noise that the horn of fog makes, which can lead attackers directly to the horn blowers.

Horn of the Tritons (15,100 gp)

If you have an underwater stronghold, this device is a must, especially if you’re having problems with local creatures poking around your home.

Ioun Stone (dark blue rhomboid) (8,000 gp)

This ioun stone gives the user the Alertness feat. As with the eyes of the eagle, multiple shifts can share a single stone, maximizing its utility.

Ioun Stone (iridescent spindle) (15,000 gp)

This ioun stone sustains the user without air. If you have an underwater stronghold, this is great to have on hand for visitors—and it’s cheaper than a helm of underwater action.

Immovable Rod (7,500 gp)

For an interesting foundation, you can place your (small) stronghold upon a series of immovable rods placed at whatever height in the air you can reach. Each rod can support 8,000 pounds, so putting one at each corner of a stronghold space is enough to hold a space built of wood and most furnishings. Using heavier materials requires more immovable rods, which could prove financially untenable. Don’t overburden the rods, unless you want to risk a disastrous collapse.

Smart builders encase the rods in something substantial before the project gets too far along. After all, if anyone can come along and push the button to allow the rod to be moved again, the entire place it supports is in constant danger.

Unlike other floating strongholds, one based on a foundation of immovable rods cannot be moved about. Once a rod has been made part of a foundation, causing the rod to move in any way destabilizes the whole building. How drastically this would happen depends in part upon what rests upon the immovable rods and how many rods are in use.

Iron Flask (170,000 gp)

In a pinch, an iron flask can function as an expensive self-destruct system. Just leave one in a secret area, filled with a powerful creature. When an invader opens the iron flask without the command word, the creature will attack and likely destroy the stronghold and everyone in it.

Lantern of Revealing (30,000 gp)

This great tool allows your doorman to discern if any invisible (and unwelcome) visitors are lurking in the darkness. Placed at a guard post, it lets sentries spot any invisible intruders sneaking around.

Lyre of Building (13,000 gp)

The lyre of building provides you with a measure of free labor when constructing a stronghold. If you play it for 1 hour per week, it cuts the labor cost on your stronghold in half, which means your stronghold’s base price is 15% lower. If you succeed at the Perform check and play for an additional hour, all your labor is free, and thus your stronghold is 30% cheaper. Keep in mind that you can use this savings to reduce the build time instead if you like. It isn’t possible to reduce the stronghold price by more than 30% with a lyre of building, because much of a stronghold’s cost is in materials. The DM may choose to limit this item’s effectiveness in speeding along construction of wondrous architecture and other magical enhancements to the stronghold (since such items aren’t built by common labor).

Then, when the place is done, the lyre of building can help protect your investment from the most determined attackers. Strumming the lyre makes your stronghold (or at least all of it within 300 feet) immune to damage from any source—including attacks, spells, magic items, or anything else that might damage or destroy it—for 30 minutes. Of course, it doesn’t protect you or your guards, so it doesn’t replace good defenses.

Mattock of the Titans (25,000 gp)

While it might be the most expensive digging tool in the world, the mattock of the titans is perfect for clearing stone for your building project. Utilization of the mattock reduces the cost of any underground stronghold space by 5%.

It’s also the bane of a stronghold owner who thinks her place is impregnable.

Mirror of Life Trapping (152,000 gp)

This expensive trap nonetheless proves effective against even the most dangerous creatures.

Mirror of Opposition (92,000 gp)

Another excellent but costly trap, this can help soften up the opposition.

Murlynd’s Spoon (5,500 gp)

If you find yourself under siege, this item can keep you and three other people fed indefinitely. If you can’t (or don’t want to) keep a cleric on staff, it’s the next best thing.

Necklace of Adaptation (19,000 gp)

This item is another excellent device to have on hand for visitors if you own an underwater stronghold.

Nolzur’s Marvelous Pigments (5,500 gp)

This magic item is a great boon for those do-it-yourself owners who would rather not have anyone know about the secret doors and traps in their strongholds. You may not be able to build such things yourself by hand, but with the aid of Nolzur’s marvelous pigments you can create them after the workers have gone.

Pearl of the Sirines (15,300 gp)

Lend this item to guests in your underwater stronghold, and they can breathe and move about easily.

Plate Armor of the Deep (16,650 gp)

If you want to get around an underwater stronghold in style and you’re not a water-breather yourself, this is the preferred suit of armor. Not only does it offer protection from attacks, it keeps the pressures of the deep from crushing you like a tomato, and it allows you to breathe and talk underwater. Best of all, it’s easy to swim in.

Quaal’s Feather Token (Bird) (300 gp)

You can place this reasonably priced item in each of your outposts. Watchers there can use it to alert you to any encroaching threats.

Quaal’s Feather Token (Tree) (100 gp)

This token is of some great use if you’re trying to build a tree-house stronghold or if you want to do some quick landscaping.

Ring Gates (40,000 gp)

You can use these as a quick and useful message system between any two points up to one hundred miles apart. You could even string several together to form a relayed message system.

Ring of Blinking (30,000 gp)

Besides its obvious benefits in combat, a ring of blinking comes in handy if you want to step through walls into secret areas of your stronghold. This ring functions an unlimited number of times per day, allowing you to come and go as you please.

Ring of Elemental Command (Earth) (200,000 gp)

This item can be extremely useful when building your stronghold. The most important powers it grants are soften earth or stone (at will), stone shape (2/day), and wall of stone (1/day).

Ring of Feather Falling (2,200 gp)

If you spend most of your time in an airborne stronghold, you’ll probably want winged boots for yourself. If you can’t afford such swank footwear for your entire family and staff, the least you can do is hand out a few rings of feather falling. After all, one wrong step and it’s a long way down.

Robe of Eyes (90,000 gp)

Though fantastic for a guard, this item is probably too valuable to hand out to any common sentry. Still, if you happen to have one on hand, why leave it hanging in your closet while you sleep?

Rod of Security (61,000 gp)

This magic item lets you whisk away a number of people to temporary safety should invaders overrun your stronghold. The only downside is that you and your fellow refugees reappear in the same place when you return from the rod’s pocket paradise. If you can manage to hold out long enough, you may be able to return after the hubbub has died down and the invaders have either left or given up looking for you.

Staff of Earth and Stone (85,000 gp)

This staff allows you to use passwall or move earth for 1 charge each. The move earth spell can be useful during a stronghold’s construction. Passwall, on the other hand, can be used in place of a secret door to permit access to otherwise inaccessible, secret parts of your stronghold.

Staff of Passage (180,000 gp)

If you eliminate a number of doors in your stronghold for security purposes, this staff can help you move about the place freely, leaving others behind to wonder where you went and how you got there.

Staff of Power (200,000 gp)

Among its other powers, this staff can cast wall of force for 2 charges. See the descriptions in the earlier sections for how to best use this spell in your stronghold.

Stone of Alarm (1,000 gp)

This device works as a reasonably priced alarm. Some builders scatter them throughout the more sensitive areas of a stronghold, working them into the floors of the place. Since the stone of alarm need only be in contact with an item for the alarm to go off if the item is touched, builders often place them on the inside of doors and underneath chests, making them virtually impossible to detect by other than magical means.

Stone Horse (10,000 gp)

This statue is a great item to help run messengers to and from outposts, since it creates a tireless mount. It also makes a handsome statue to decorate any courtyard when not in use.

Well of Many Worlds (82,000 gp)

Use this amazing item as a last-ditch attempt to get away from a stronghold that has fallen to invaders. Alternatively, you can use the well as an entrance to your stronghold on another world.

The only problem is that moving the well of many worlds breaks the link between the your world and the alternate one, leaving anyone on the wrong side of the well trapped a long way from home. Consider pinning down your well with stones and mortar, making it look a lot more like a real well than its close cousin, the portable hole.

In any case, once you get the well of many worlds working the way you want it—going to the right place on the other end—take great pains to lock it away and pin it down. Otherwise, you may find it moved and the link to your ideal other world broken.

You must also watch for creatures coming through from the other side. It’s prudent to set many locks and alarms on both sides of the well.

Wings of Flying (22,000 gp)

Devices such as this are essential for getting back and forth to airborne strongholds. Sure, you could teleport or climb a rope ladder, but when you do it with wings, you do it with style.

Note that the price listed above is a correction to early printings of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide. Consider this as official errata for that product.