How to Build a Player Stronghold

In a tabletop roleplaying game, player characters will often want to create a base of operations. Some parties will revolve around businesses, and others will rally around NPC groups. But still others will want to create their own headquarters with strategic tactics in mind. This kind of base of operations--a stronghold--can radically change a game and the players within it. In this guide, you will find a variety of details to address when constructing a stronghold for your players, including what features it has, what it costs to build, and what it takes to defend it. 

When I was still very new to D&D, playing my second real character (a combination Cleric of Boccob/Wizard), I voiced to my DM my interest in having a base of operations. I didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted in mind. I just knew that I wanted my evil little magic gnome to have the status and resources of someone much more powerful than he was. So my DM went out and found a resource made for D&D 3.5, which was the most recent edition at the time, and he set to work making my dream a reality. My character surveilled a fallen castle with an abandoned gem mine, spent a week preparing combat spells as wands and scrolls, and hired a militia to take the fallen castle from a band of enemies (I think they were some manner of bandits, but I recall the battle more than the foes). After a battle that lasted eight real-life hours to conduct, the castle was mine. I paid to rebuild it and strengthen it, redeveloped the gem mine, and placed taxes on the trade caravans that passed through the region. Before I could further develop this stronghold, I graduated high school and moved off to college, where I would begin DMing and teach about 50 people to play D&D in my first year at school. As I went about making my own adventures, I often reflected on how fun my stronghold adventure had been and what else I might have accomplished with it given more time. 

I want to base this guide on that experience. For each fun memory I have of taking my stronghold, I will offer a variety of choices that can enrich the player experience of gaining a stronghold. Let's start with how your players intend to obtain a stronghold:

• Conquest: Like my gnomish spellcaster, your player characters might find it easiest to take an existing stronghold. The stronghold may be well-maintained by a force aligned with the stronghold currently, it may be falling apart and inhabited by opportunists, and it may fall somewhere in between. You may decide that when the players approach this stronghold, there are workers actively repairing destroyed parts of the stronghold. If conquest is the method your players choose, be sure to describe combat in an exciting way and keep the encounter fresh. This battle is for higher stakes than most battles, so really up the ante in order to make the outcome of the battle more exciting and narratively satisfying. 
• Purchase: Your players may be more peaceable about their desire to have a stronghold. If they want to purchase a base of operations, the price should be quite high. In my world, it costs a few gold to buy a basic house; a fully defensible sprawling castle is going to be considerably more. Keep in mind with these prices that my economy is geared toward most everything being cheaper than game manuals, but with the poor making much less as well. Here are prices for three sizes of stronghold: 
• Small Stronghold - With a standard castle shape and defensive features, this structure has a great hall, an armory, and enough housing for up to 15 people. At least 80 gold pieces.
• Medium Stronghold - With a grand portcullis and expanded defensive features like arrow slits and a mostly functional catapult, this structure has a great hall, armory, smithy, two defensive towers, and enough housing for up to 30 people. At least 140 gold pieces. 
• Large Stronghold - With a series of defensive gates and a full moat as well as the Medium Stronghold's defensive features, this structure has a great hall, armory, smithy, four defensive towers, luxury rooms for three important people, a collection of agricultural fields, and enough housing for up to 60 people. At least 300 gold pieces. 
• Extra Features - Any strategic advantages offered by the stronghold should carry an additional price. To go back to my example from experience, the gem mine on the property should increase the price by at least 100 gold pieces, the location on the trading routes' intersection should increase it by at least 50 gold pieces, and the positioning in a highly defensible position might add another 30 or so gold pieces. Not every GM wants to be a real estate agent, but you do want to charge your players appropriate prices for game-changing advantages. 
• Gift: If your players have indicated that they want a stronghold but haven't made any efforts to obtain one, you can offer a stronghold as a reward for a quest or quests. A well-off NPC who the party has worked with might tell the party, "I've recently obtained some property I don't mean to keep. If you complete some tasks for me, I will award the property to you." Then it's up to you as GM to create meaningfully challenging quests in order to make the gaining of the stronghold feel like an appropriate achievement. 
• Build: Some player characters have the ideas to build a unique stronghold and the money to do it. For them, start the process by tracking down a patch of land on which to build the stronghold. This process also follows the steps you're currently reading--they might conquer the land, purchase it, be gifted it, or otherwise turn a piece of land into a new home for a stronghold. Building a custom stronghold means that the players determine the form of the stronghold and you must match it with appropriate prices. Here are some guidelines:
• Small Stronghold base - 75 gold pieces
• Medium Stronghold base - 120 gold pieces
• Large Stronghold Base - 275 gold pieces
• 10 people's worth of housing - 15 gold pieces each
• Armory/Smithy/Other Specialized Rooms - 10 gold pieces each
• Tower/Portcullis/Moat/Other Defensive Features - 30 gold pieces each
• Mine/Lumberyard/Resource Harvesting - 50 gold pieces each

Now that you know how your players are obtaining a stronghold, it's time to let the players inhabit it. This should begin with good descriptions of the setting and the details in it. The stronghold is the new home of the party--you want your players to have a very clear impression of it. Additionally, your description will tell the players what they are working with, and by extension, what they will work to change. For example, if you explain that the stronghold's windows are actually just open air with no pane of glass between the inside and outside, a player character may respond with the idea that they don't like that. They would rather have beautiful stained glass windows in those spaces. And so the next time the party saves enough money, they buy fancy stained glass windows, and taking it even further, the people in the nearby countryside and towns begin to call the stronghold "Stained Glass Manor." You can see how the small details of a stronghold can become colorful and meaningful; this is because the easiest thing to customize in a tabletop game is a place like a stronghold--it's just like decorating one's home, but easier. 

Speaking of customization, let's consider a handful of features that a stronghold might have. The features listed above are largely centered around combat and economy--the traditional realms of colonialism. But your stronghold doesn't have to work like that. It might become a place of culture and camaraderie, or a dark and mysterious outpost of evil, or something else altogether. And to that extent, they should each feature different rooms, outbuildings, and architectural features. Here are a few to consider:

• Great Kitchen: With a master chef and a team of assistants, this kitchen can provide banquets and celebrations like those you might find in a royal hall. 
• Training Grounds: With a combat expert, beginning troops defending the castle can be turned into hardened recruits who can defend the stronghold ably. 
• Fortune Teller: With a mysterious seer, the party can receive advice from someone who can peer into the future and warn them of upcoming challenges. 
• Guild Hall: With a steward who tends to the craftspeople of the area, this building is home to community events that serve the production of goods. 
• Community Center: A place for people of the surrounding areas to gather, discuss community events, and share trade goods in a small marketplace. 
• Worship Center: With a religious expert (in one faith or in several), this building serves to give a home to the faithful of the community.
• Library: With an academic expert, this building is a repository for knowledge mundane and extraordinary, and the expert may be asked to research for the party. 
• Pastures: With herders and their shepherding dogs, these pastures can be filled with livestock, allowing the party access to a supply of milk, textiles, and meat. 

Any of these sample buildings can be added to a stronghold for about 25 gold pieces. These buildings can make a stronghold more unique, useful, and personalized to the party. Other services and resources can be added based on player suggestions and requests. Your role as GM here is not to play gatekeeper with what the players want, but rather to grant them what they want with a bit of work or money. It's more exciting to do a quest or two and add a desired feature to the stronghold than to always be chasing the next feature, which is always just out of reach. Strongholds can expand the players' powers and especially financial situation; I argue that it's better to adapt to changed powers than to restrict the players. 

Upkeep on a stronghold can get complicated, but it doesn't have to be. In general, you have two kinds of upkeep: personnel costs, and property costs. Once the party has obtained a stronghold, keeping the stronghold afloat is a new challenge for them. Using the same three-tier structure as before, here are some basic upkeep costs: 

• Small Stronghold: 5 gold pieces per month for various repairs
• Medium Stronghold: 15 gold pieces per month for various repairs
• Large Stronghold: 25 gold pieces per month for various repairs

These repairs are mostly simple work, keeping older construction working and improving outdated construction. If this is a stone castle, we're talking about chipped stone and leaning supports; if it's a massive wooden structure, we're talking about rot in the wood and termite infestations. These issues with the stronghold are not necessarily world-shaking issues--they're just a part of a building aging. But for the party, these small repairs will be well-worth the cost. If your players decide to ignore these basic repairs, after half a year, the stronghold should be impacted by the lowered quality of the building, and after a year, it will no longer be inhabitable. 

Personnel upkeep is a little simpler since it doesn't require us to make gradual decay part of the equation; we're just talking about paying people their wages. Obviously not every employee makes the same kind of money; I've divided workers into three categories with prices:

• Basic Workers (Farmers, Militia, Cooks, Etc.) - 1 gold per week (this is again aligned to my low-income world, granting better pay than the average business venture to attract workers)
• Intermediate Workers (Soldiers, Miners, Smiths, Etc.) - 3 gold per week (again, a low-income world with a relatively high pay rate)
• Expert Workers (Librarian, Fortune Teller, Troop Commander, Etc.) - 5 gold per week or more, depending on skill level/trade

So now we have a stronghold which the players have had some hand in devising, whether they've built it custom or customized it after obtaining it, as well as what it takes to develop and maintain it. Narratively speaking, the party is emotionally connected to the stronghold. So it's time to put on our evil GM hat and exploit that narrative weight. It's time for someone to try to capture their stronghold. 

A brief aside: I don't like to be an evil GM for the most part. I'm not the party's antagonist; I'm trying to tell a story with them, not tear down their story. But threatening the party's stronghold is not antagonizing the party or tearing down their story. It creates another moment within the story. The players suddenly must defend their prize possession against enemies, forcing them to get involved. When I say "evil GM," what I mean is that I'm placing my players in a position where they have to deal with an emotionally-charged scene, which isn't so much evil as just storytelling. I so rarely give my players emotionally-straining moments that when I do, I feel the need to identify it as evil GMing, even if it isn't. So feel free to have your party's stronghold come under attack when it means a lot, but don't make it a normal thing. Unless of course your whole campaign is about defending the stronghold--then go right ahead. But an attack on the stronghold should otherwise happen only once, or else you risk being an actually evil GM who wants their players to be unhappy. 

An attack on the stronghold can go a number of different ways. It might be a full-on attack that the players can see coming from the assembling forces outside the stronghold. It might be a sneak attack in the middle of the night that a sentry only notices as the attack is launched. It could be an attack from a rival noble with their own stronghold (and a counter-attack could be the next part of the story), or it could be a coalition of people from the neighboring countryside, or it could be a truly evil foe bent on destroying what the party has built. Whatever the case, you want the attack to be memorable--not just an encounter. 

I'll draw inspiration for attack strategies from the example I started this guide with. The stronghold I was to take was settled in a valley with mountainous cliffs surrounding it on three sides; on the fourth, the valley stretched out to the trade route roads. I had hired a militia and sent them to invade from the roads while I set my character and a few archers on the cliffs. We launched the attack in the dead of night, and when most of the stronghold's troops were cleared, I used "Fly" to descend to the top of the stronghold and fight my way down and outside. From this, I draw a few suggestions: 

• Launch a two-part attack. Just as the players have adjusted to the apparent threat of forces moving in, unveil a second prong of the attack. This moment, narratively speaking, will likely make the party feel like underdogs, making the battle more exciting. 
• Include magic-users. Nothing will spice up this battle like the players having to deal with someone using "Stone Shape" to alter the design of the stronghold or dropping a "Fireball" on a gathered mass of the party's forces. 
• Make it unclear what the attacking forces want. Are they there to capture the place? To massacre the people and destroy it? To send a message to the party? You can then use the final moments of the battle to make clear what their intentions are, giving greater narrative closure to the battle. 
• Reward the party for using their defensive features. If your party's stronghold has a moat, a portcullis, arrow slits, a catapult, or any other defensive feature, allow your party to make effective use of it. It will be immensely satisfying to your players to defend their stronghold this way. 

When the battle is over, there will be repairs to be made. Have the party assess the damages and arrange for their repairs. They may need to hire new recruits to replace the people who died in the battle. They may choose to increase their defensive features in order to better prepare for another attack. (Above, I said not to attack your party's stronghold more than once, but if they are really digging in for another attack--that is, they seem to want it--go for it.) After the attack, business will go back to normal, and the players can begin another cycle of improving the stronghold. 

So you see that a stronghold allows us to access some of the most fun parts of the game: customization, a feeling of ownership, meaningful combat, and narratively-driven development of the party's dynamics and goals. What began for me as the thrill of conquering an unsuspecting town (the gnome spellcaster in question was my most evil character I've played) soon made me realize that a stronghold is really about commitment and engagement. So get out there, add a stronghold to your campaign, and watch as your players build their campaign around it. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a one-shot adapted from The Big Lebowski, a list of superstitions in my homebrew world, and how to create ripple effects from player actions. Until next time, happy gaming!

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