Nearby Features

Nearby unusual features also modify your stronghold’s cost. A stronghold atop a mesa is hard to assault and thus more valuable, while one near an evil forest might be less valuable because it’s constantly beset by monster attacks from the woods.

With your DM’s approval, you can build your stronghold near benign features such as a consecrated shrine or malign features such as a monster lair nearby. Choose as many as you like from Table 1–3.

For terrain features, you can choose the same feature more than once to cover more than one direction. If you pay an extra 8%, for example, you can have a river on both the north and east sides of your stronghold. It’s also possible to mix good and bad terrain features in this way. The land to the west of your stronghold could slope away (impeding normal movement) but be heavily wooded (making attacking easier), resulting in no net modifier to your stronghold’s cost.

Income sources can be purchased multiple times as well. This can represent multiple income sources, or an income source that’s more lucrative.

Table 1–3: Nearby Feature Modifiers to Stronghold Price

Characteristic	Modifier
Natural feature that impedes normal movement	-2.00%
Natural feature that prohibits normal movement	-4.00%
Natural feature that makes attacking easier	+2.00%
Site under legal dispute	+5.00%
Site in lawless area	+10.00%
Site controls income source	-10.00%
Nearby potential income source	-5.00%
Site hidden from long-range observation	-5.00%
Monster lair nearby	special*

*See text below.

Natural Features: Features that impede normal movement include hills, tidal flats, and rough terrain that would slow an attacking army. The cost assumes you have built a road for normal traffic in and out of your stronghold. The extent of natural features is left deliberately vague, but the terrain types and obstructions listed in Chapter 9 of the Player’s Handbook are a good starting point.

Natural features that prohibit normal movement are more significant barriers such as cliffs, rivers, and more exotic obstacles such as lava plains. Any kind of feature that requires a skill such as Swim or Climb to move through falls into this category. The shape and extent of the natural features depends on the specific site.

Some features actually make a stronghold easier to attack, such as high ground that overlooks a castle or a forest that provides cover for attackers.

Legal Status of Site: If your site is under legal dispute, it means that someone else has a claim on your stronghold or the land it sits on. Perhaps a noble family technically owns the land, but no members of the family have been seen for a decade. Maybe another nation believes that any stronghold near their border belongs to them. Exactly who disputes the site’s status and how they’ll enforce their claim is up to the DM.

Sites in lawless areas face a different problem: There’s no other authority in the land. If the stronghold runs into trouble, there’s no greater power to appeal to, and the stronghold’s residents are on their own. Ownership of the stronghold lasts until it’s taken away by force.

Income Sources: The exact nature of income sources varies, but they all work the same way. Each income source provides 1% of the stronghold’s final price annually as pure profit—above and beyond labor costs and other expenses. You must supply living quarters for the workers needed (20 per income source) if you want them protected behind the walls of your stronghold.

Potential income sources require some work before they start generating income. You may accomplish this by spending an additional 5% of the stronghold’s final cost at some point (essentially purchasing a controlled income source in two installments). This expenditure covers the income source’s start-up costs. Alternatively, you can complete an adventure such as clearing the gem mines of undead or completing a diplomatic mission to earn timber-harvesting rights from nearby centaurs.

Some ideas for income sources include crops harvested nearby, ranching and horse-breeding, a toll road, gem or precious metal mines, a timber operation, or a travelers’ inn.

Site Hidden from Observation: Forest strongholds and other camouflaged structures pay this cost modifier. Most strongholds can be seen from miles away, but hidden strongholds follow the rules for spotting distance as if they were stationary, Colossal creatures (see Table 3–1 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide for spotting distances). If you use magic to conceal your stronghold, you don’t pay this surcharge, because you’re paying for the magic instead.

Monster Lair Nearby: The exact nature of the monsters and the location of the lair are up to the DM. Clearing out the lair should be the basis for an adventure, not just a single battle. Depending what lives there, it may be possible to handle the problem diplomatically. To earn the price break, the nearby monsters must at least initially be hostile. To determine the price break, find the encounter in the lair with the highest EL, and subtract 3. Then add 1 for every additional encounter (up to three) within 1 EL of this encounter. The final price break shouldn’t be greater than the highest EL in the lair unless particularly unusual circumstances dictate (DM’s option).

Adding It All Up: Add the modifiers from your climate/terrain type, primary settlement, and nearby features. You’ll apply the sum of these modifiers to your stronghold’s construction cost to arrive at a final price in step 4.