Hexplorations: Floating Castles
Hexplorations (charts for details of things you may encounter in a hex crawl or simply developing your world) #9 is all about floating castles! We’re a couple days late because we just finished the initial release of Worldographer‘s new battlemat/dungeon mapping functionality, which replaces and upgrades Dungeonographer.
To use this chart simply roll for each column or look at the options for inspiration or use a combination of the two approaches. For example, you may roll 4-3-1-3-2-2 resulting in an old, but well maintained medium castle which was magically lifted via a spell or ritual. A wizard must control it through spells. To get on or off, you must step into a magic circle projected directly below the floating mass. The floating citadel is used by evil humanoid forces including an emperor; senior human, troll, or ogre captains; evil dragon fleet; orc archers and troops.
Filling in some details based on the above results we can surmise that a powerful emperor tasked his wizards to develop a new weapon: a flying fortress. They found a magical way to lift a castle from the ground and how to magically move it. The emperor loaded the castle up with troops, convinced some like-minded dragons to work with him and are now conquering their neighbors.
Hopefully these charts and ideas can be the basis of most of the key details to any floating castle or structure the PCs may find in your game. Customize the results to fit your setting as needed and as inspiration strikes!
| d6 | Age/Condition | Structure Size/Type | Origin | Propulsion | How to Get On/Off | Primary Fighting Forces |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Newly built | Wizard’s tower | Magically lifted via spell or ritual | Stationary | Stairs on side can be used when landed | Undead: Lich leader; death knight captains; skeletal pegasi fleet; skeleton archers and troops |
| 2 | Recent, but like new | Small keep | Extra planar | Drifts along air currents | Teleport from a specific spot directly below (perhaps magically lit) | Evil humanoid forces: Emperor; senior human, troll, or ogre captains; evil dragon fleet; orc archers and troops |
| 3 | Recent, but not maintained | Medium castle | Magically constructed and designed to fly | A wizard must control it through spells | A gate is brought down by flying creatures; it has a twin inside the structure | Devils: Archdevil commander; greater devil captains (specific type depends on archdevil); lesser devil fleet, archers, troops |
| 4 | Old, but well maintained | Large castle | A powerful artifact placed in the structure lifted it | An artifact within the structure is used to control it | Small piece breaks off, lands, lifts back up and re-connects | Good human/demi-human forces: Senior knight commander; knight captains; good dragon fleet; peasant archers and troops |
| 5 | Old, in ruins | Large castle with a couple smaller floating islands with small structures | Side effect of a magical experiment gone wrong | A great flying beast pulls it along | Flying beasts (gargoyle, hippogriff, young dragons, etc.) serve as a sort of taxi service–many must be paid or otherwise convinced | Priestly order: high-priest commander; high level cleric or paladin commanders; pegasi or hypogriff or griffin fleet; paladin and monk archers and troops |
| 6 | Ancient, but restored | Small city or the center most section of a city with a castle in the center and a couple smaller floating islands with small structures | A god’s observational platform | The creator or designee can mentally control it | Something weird: magic beanstalk, walk up a rainbow, etc. | Wizard & his/her conjurations: wizard commander; aerial servant and air elemental high level troops; air, smoke, and dust mephits |