Solid Fog

A permanent solid fog works best as cover for your stronghold. Ambitious characters—or those with small strongholds—can cover their entire structures with such spells. This spell conceals the place wonderfully, but it presents two problems.

First, people in the area may be suspicious of a perpetually foggy locale, especially in a region in which fog is uncommon. Nothing sticks out worse than a fog bank on the side of a mountain on an otherwise bright and sunny day.

Second, the solid fog impedes your guards’ ability to see out as much as it keeps other people from looking in. If you don’t have much in the way of guards, this may not concern you.

Solid fog can block off obvious paths toward your stronghold. If, for instance, you can only get to your stronghold by making the proper turn at a fork in the road, obscuring that region may help keep strangers from finding their way to your home. Similarly, you can block a pass between your stronghold and the main road with solid fog. Just put enough space between the spell and your stronghold that you have plenty of time to react to anything you might see coming out of it.

Note that while a severe wind (31+ mph) can blow away a solid fog, the permanency spell means that the dispersed fog returns as soon as the wind fades away. This can create a dramatic situation in which your stronghold is exposed during a storm but is back within its cover as soon as the wind dies down.

Consider placing a permanent alarm spell on the far edge of the solid fog. That, combined with the effect the solid fog has on movement, should give you plenty of time to react to anyone who manages to find his way through the soupy stuff.

Casting: 280 gp (Wiz7) or 320 gp (Sor8)

Permanent: 10,600 gp (12th)