WATCHTOWER is an impressive place. The first thing anyone approaching it will see is the massive white limestone spire, reaching up into the heavens. The second thing they'll see is the wall. It's a rather impressive wall, made out of magically reinforced limestone like the rest of the fortress, over 12 meters tall and 4 meters thick. Two towers mark the corners of the wall as it extends from the cliff face over Lake Selene, and the gate house is large, square and solid, looming over the path leading up to WATCHTOWER.
Inside the walls is a large open courtyard, filled with grass and wild flowers. A gravel path leads from the main gates, splitting off to lead to each of the buildings within the fortress.
To the south-east, one of the wall towers has been extended to be slightly taller than the other three others. This is the
Training Tower, and in front of it are the
Training Grounds.
Turning north from the gates, right up against the cliff face on the center line of the courtyard is the monolothic
Keep, built squat and strong, right into the stone of the mountain, with the exception of a tall spire, which towers high above the rest of the fortress, braced against the cliffside with heavy stone buttresses. At the top of the spire is the Eye, a spiraling nexus of magical energy which serves as the focus point of a powerful scrying spell capable of casting its gaze over the entire Nexus and beyond. To the west side of the Keep, also built into the cliff, is a secondary tower known as the
Lab Tower. At its foot is a small forge built by Harnel for his smithing. To the east side, above the keep and next to the spire is an
Airship Gantry, built into an open cavern in the cliff face. Below the the opening of the gantry is a vehicle lift for transport from the airship gantry to a door on the third floor of the keep, or to the courtyard. Near the bottom of the lift is a small stable for whatever animal mounts may be brought into WATCHTOWER, though their owners are required to take care of the animals themselves.
To the south-west side of the courtyard is a small apple orchard, dotted with small magic obelisks which enhance its growth and fertility, esnuring that it is always in fruit: spring, summer and fall (but not in winter). In the south-west corner another tower has been modified, with a small nexus of magical energy hovering above it. This is the
Hospital Tower.
Near the keep, set directly into the cliff-face, is a large
Bronze Door locked and inscribed with runes of sealing and warding, which leads to the
Catacombs.
In the center of the courtyard, two low buildings serve as added
Barracks Buildings, providing extra room for the growing membership.
Training Tower + Training Grounds
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Converted from one of the defensive towers nearest the main gates, the Training Tower serves as the main training resource for WATCHTOWER members. The bottom floor of the tower contains a small armory full of basic weapons and armor for training. The upper floors hold a fully equipped gym. At one wall on the bottom floor is a secret Safe Room panel.
The Training Grounds take up much of the gate-side part of the Courtyard. Facilities in the Training Grounds include a small track, a shooting range, a modular obstacle course, and several rings for sparring.
Keep
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Ground Floor
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- Main Room - Once the main hall, this cavernous room has been transformed into a sort of wide, square lounge area. There are several low tables and comfy chairs. And a TV! To one side is a 'fireplace' which is really just a stone recess occupied by the illusion of a fire, and several heating glyphs. No chimney, you see. Several torch brackets hang on the walls but are empty. Light here is provided (as in all rooms of the building) by glyphs of light in the ceiling. At the back are three doors, leading to the barracks and the stairway. At one wall is a secret Safe Room panel.
- Stairway - A small square room dominated by a spiral staircase which leads up the keep, to identical such small square rooms on every floor. Has two doors, which lead to the Main Room and the Dining Hall.
- Dining Hall - A small dining hall, with two long tables. To the rear of the dining hall is a door that leads to a large kitchen and storage room. The kitchen has been refurbished to contain modern kitchen equipment.
- Keep Quarters (East) - A long corridor that leads into several rectangular rooms. Each room was originally designed to house four bunks, but has since been refurbished to provide quarters for a single (or perhaps two) member(s). Upon being given to a member, a room will initially contain a single bed, a dresser with a mirror, a desk with a chair, and another larger armchair. All the rooms have 'windows' which are not actually real windows, due to being inside a cliff, but magically show what it looks outside anyway. These rooms can be modified by members every which-way, so individual member rooms may be very different from the standard.
- Rooms
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- Room 1 - Cessie Mithar and Harnel Therishien
- Room 2 - Room with Bathtub, belonging to Cessie and Harnel
- Room 3 - Ilpholin Xar'Cha
- Room 4 - Conrack
- Room 5 - Decker and Butler B. Butler
- Room 6 - Spyridon
- Room 7 - Boris Krestyanov
- Room 8 - Ithuriel
- Room 9
- Room 10
- Room 11
- Room 12
- Keep Quarters (West) - A long corridor that leads into several rectangular rooms. Each room was originally designed to house four bunks, but has since been refurbished to provide quarters for a single (or perhaps two) member(s). Upon being given to a member, a room will initially contain a single bed, a dresser with a mirror, a desk with a chair, and another larger armchair. All the rooms have 'windows' which are not actually real windows, due to being inside a cliff, but magically show what it looks outside anyway. These rooms can be modified by members every which-way, so individual member rooms may be very different from the standard.
- Rooms
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- Room 1 - DC
- Room 2 - Jeremy
- Room 3 - Triumphant Rose Guardian
- Room 4 - Mr. Sirtch
- Room 5 - Krystal
- Room 6 - Marcus
- Room 7
- Room 8
- Room 9
- Room 10
- Room 11
- Room 12
- Bathroom - A large communal bathroom accessible at the end of each barracks corridor. There are cubicles with toilets and cubicles with showers and tiny attached dressing areas. Hot water, too!
Second Floor
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- Stairway - A small square room dominated by a spiral staircase which leads up the keep, to identical such small square rooms on every floor. Has four doors, which lead to the Library, Planning Room, Infirmary and Labs.
- Library - A large room, with a large window that overlooks the courtyard. In the center of the room is a statue, perhaps a shrine to some long-forgotten god of knowledge, that has been covered with a purple cloth, and a sign that warns 'Do Not Remove Upon Pain of Death.' How strange. Radiating out from the statue are masses upon masses of shelves, upon which sit books on all topics, but mostly magic. Contains a panel which opens up a portal to the Safe Room.
- Map Room - Once an office, this room has been converted to provide something slightly more useful to WATCHTOWER's needs. Still relatively sparse, it has a cupboard full of maps covering most of the Nexus, as well as most of its major locations, though some of them, such as Remnant HQ, for obvious reasons, and the maps of AMEN and HALO start to make your eyes hurt if you look at them too long, and change every time you blink or look away. The center of the room has a large table white table for maps to go on. If a slightly more high tech option is what you need, there is a computer in the room as well, with access to the WATCHTOWER database as well as digital copies of all the maps. Images form the computer screen can be projected onto a wall or the table, and there's a drawer full of miniatures to play with as well, if you're into that.
- Infirmary - A stark white clean room, with several partitions. Each segment contains a bed, as well as various medical equipment both magical and technological. The beds themselves are sturdy, quite comfortable, and also have straps if restraining the patient is necessary. There are several shelves in each section containing medicine and healing herbs and stuff. The infimary is meant for general use and minor surgeries, and is not equipped for anything more 'heavy duty'. More extreme medical emergencies should be dealt with in the Hospital, and the Hospital is probably more convenient for such anyway, since unconscious and wounded people don't have to be dragged up a flight of stairs.
- The Labs - Previously where the Dillinite mages performed unholy experiments and summoned volatile beasts. The first room is a semi-circular one, which leads to four labs which are separated from the 'main' room by thick blast doors and decontamination chambers. Access to this room is restricted to Members only, or guests accompanied by a Member, as determined by a magical handscanner. These four labs are intended for general use only, and are identical to each other. Personalized member labs for larger projects go in the Lab Tower.
Third Floor
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- Stairway - A small square room dominated by a spiral staircase which leads up the keep, to identical such small square rooms on every floor. Has four doors, which lead to the Security Room, Rec Room and the two Vaults.
- Security Room - Access restricted to Members only, as determined by a magical handscanner. If WATCHTOWER were a ship, this would be the bridge. Overlooking the courtyard, this room is filled with magical interface panels which control the base defenses, internal and external, as well as the prison cells. Computer wires and ports interlink with the panels, converting mana signals into binary, allowing control from one of the computer terminals in the room for the less magically inclined. The computers are also wired to the WATCHTOWER mainframe, which is located in this room, allowing for access to the main database. The mainframe itself is also contained in this room. At one wall is a secret panel that when pressed by an active member opens up a Doorway to the Safe Room. Non-members pressing the panel will have no result.
- Rec Room - Once an arena for fighting, this roundish room has been turned into a rec room, for relaxing and having fun. I wonder what that says about WATCHTOWER. Like the Main Room, it has a bunch of couches and soft chairs and low tables and a TV, though the TV is larger than the one in the Main Room, and may or may not have several gaming consoles attached to it. There is also a pool table, because no Rec Room is complete without a pool table, dartboards, and cupboards with boardgames like Twister: HALO Edition (like regular Twister except all players are required to be female and also nude), The Game of Undeadtime and Magopoly. Generally, if it's fun, it can be found here. Though... not that kind of fun. Save that for the rooms.
- Prison Cells - A 'C' shaped corridor that surrounds the Rec. The prison cells are actually along the inside of the C, and once could open backwards directly into the Arena, something that the Dillinites used regularly, to much enjoyment. Now that the Arena is a Rec Room, this capability has been removed. The cells are sparse, three walled affairs containing a chamberpot and a mattress. The front of the cells (facing the corridor) are barred, of course, and the bars can be magically charged or supplemented by a magical forcefield, activated from the Security Room.
- Vaults (East) - An 'L' shaped room, this particular Vault acts as an armory, containing racks of weapons and armor (magical or not) left behind from the Dillinite days, as well as a few extra additions.
- Vaults (West) - An 'L' shaped room, this particular Vault holds some gold, and also some of the artifacts, good or evil that WATCHTOWER have managed to procure. This vault has more security than the other vault, and has a handscanner much like the security room. Right now it contains:
- A large block of an incredibly strong concrete-like substance, etched with runes of binding and sealing, warded against teleportation or dimensional irregularities, and a number of other things. Sealed inside are a pair of ceramic jars, similarly warded, which house the captured souls of Shepherd and Cynthia.
Basement
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- Safe Room - A large room located deep underground within the mountain, filled with mattresses and several months of consumables. Virtually impregnable, and accessible from the outside only via the secret portals scattered around the fortress. These secret portals may be triggered by the various panels located throughout the base, which can only be opened by members. The portal may also be used to return to any of these locations (even by non-members, if they entered through different means or as a guest). In the back is a small door that leads to the Escape Tunnel. The existence of this room is only told to members of Watch, and great pains have been taken to magically ward this room from detection, if anyone ever bothered to search so deeply within the mountain.
- Escape Tunnel - A long tunnel that leads south. Its exit is a hidden trapdoor, on the south shore of Lake Selene.
The Spire
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- The Stairway - A continuation of the staircase that ran up the center of the main keep, this massive stairway makes up the bulk of the spire, snaking around the outer edges of the hollow structure in endless spirals of step upon step upon step. Landings up the stairway open out into the spire's obvservation decks, and all the way at the very top the staircase emerges out into the main observatory. For those that don't feel like climbing endless steps, twin pillars of light shine up the center of the spire. Stepping into one of the pillars will cause you to levitate up, the other will cause you to gently sink down. These pillars can be ridden all the way up or down, or can be stepped out of onto any of the observation landings.
- Observation Decks - Up the length of the spire lie several observation decks, larger near the bottom, but progressively smaller up the spire. These stone constructions open up into the air above the keep and the courtyard, allowing an unparalleled view over Lake Selene and the rest of the fortress's surroundings. Just don't fall off the edge.
- The Observatory - Walking up the last few steps of the vast staircase of WATCHTOWER's spire would bring you into this room, the observatory. The room is not large, and enclosed entirely in stone, in defiance of what the name of the room would have you believe. In the center of the room, however, is a small raised dais, in front of which hovers a vast silver mirror, edged with glowing magical runes, which serves as the viewing port for the massively powerful scrying spell at the top of the Spire. On three sides of the dais are magical interface panels linked to computers. The computers here are partially networked to the Security Room computers, and allow searching to a copy of the Central Database. The computers and interface panels are primarily used, however, to control the view from the observatory.
- The Eye - Hanging in midair above the top of the spire is this colossal writhing nexus of magical energy; a roiling maelstrom of primal forces strong enough to crack the mountain in two, bound and contained to power one of the strongest scrying spells in the Nexus. The scrying spell can pierce through most material obstacles and weak magical wards, as well as many technological methods of concealment. However, stronger magical defenses or purpose-built methods of concealment can defeat the spell even despite the powerful forces at work, as the spell primarily focuses on coverage and scope, able to reach across the entire planet, as well as into space, rather than defeating abjurations. The ladder and trapdoor in the Observatory will bring you to the top of the spire, directly under the focus of the spell itself. Due to the powerful magical forces at play, those emerging through the trapdoor will find themselves feeling an uncomfortable pressure on their spirit, as the spinning magical energies hammer at their essence. Coming closer to the focus of the spell intensifies the effect, to the point where trying to come in contact with the 'surface' of the nexus would result in death.
Barracks Building East
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To the east of the Keep, this building holds extra barracks for members. It is constructed somewhat similarly to the first floor of the Keep itself: the front has a small sitting area and kitchenette, though neither are as large as the Main Room and Kitchen in the Keep; the middle of the building is a long corridor with rooms on either side; and the back is a communal bathroom like the one at the back of the Keep. The rooms are identical to the ones in the Keep, except contain real windows instead of magic ones (due to not being inside a friggin' cliff), and are so are slightly better for fresh air purposes (though the Keep is well ventilated anyway) but worse for security purposes, as you have some panes of glass in the middle of your stone wall. The rear end of the central corridor contains a panel which opens a portal to the Safe Room.
- Rooms
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- Room 1 - Adir and Sakura Frescot
- Room 2 - Shawna von Letters
- Room 3 - Jasper
- Room 4 - Vizekasadriz
- Room 5 - Claude St. Aureon
- Room 6 - Hildur Lange
- Room 7 - Matt Vulpan
- Room 8 - Klicht
- Room 9 - Krayger
- Room 10 - Cutter
- Room 11
- Room 12
Barracks Building West
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To the west of the Keep, this building holds extra barracks for members. It is constructed somewhat similarly to the first floor of Keep itself: the front has a small sitting area and kitchenette, though neither are as large as the Main Room and Kitchen in the Keep; the middle of the building is a long corridor with rooms on either side; and the back is a communal bathroom like the one at the back of the Keep. The rooms are identical to the ones in the Keep, except contain real windows instead of magic ones (due to not being inside a friggin' cliff), and are so are slightly better for fresh air purposes (though the Keep is well ventilated anyway) but worse for security purposes, as you have some panes of glass in the middle of your stone wall. The rear end of the central corridor contains a panel which opens a portal to the Safe Room.
This building, in addition to member rooms, contains 4 reserved guest rooms, which are in general identical to the ones given to members.
- Rooms
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- Room 1 - KR and Wenomir
- Room 2 - Darcy Diavolo
- Room 3 - Valeriya Waskensen
- Room 4 - Mia Mechanicus
- Room 5
- Room 6
- Room 7
- Room 8
- Guest Rooms
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- Room 1 - Ghoul
- Room 2
- Room 3
- Room 4
Lab Tower
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Set into the cliff on the west side of the base, the Lab Tower contains personalized member labs, for those more tech or magic or SCIENCE(!) inclined members that might want a personal space to work on their pet projects. The Lab Tower has four floors, with the first three floors each having three labs arranged around a central room. Like in the Keep, each lab has two doors for decontamination purposes, if necessary. A secret panel in the central room of each floor opens up a portal to the Safe Room when pressed by an active member. Non-members pressing the panel will have no effect, though they can still walk through the portal if a member opens it for them. Like the labs in the Keep, these labs can only be opened by members, and certain members *cough*KR*cough* may have installed extra security measures.
- Labs - Players of members who have labs are free to write up descriptions of their labs to be posted here if they are particularly bored, or inexplicably popular and therefore sick of having to describe their lab over and over again.
- Lab 1 - KR
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KR's lab is kind of a mess. For all her genius and despite (or perhaps because of) her former existence as a robot, KR is apparently no big believer in a clean workspace. Workbenches are scattered with wiring and machine parts and the innards of half-complete or half-disassembled (it's hard to tell really) weapons and robots. Slightly more complete robots stand deactivated in every corner, and racks of weapons created on a whim and promptly discarded adorn most walls. A row of laptops remains on at all times, in strict defiance of the environmental movement, and a minifridge holds a rather dangerous combination of computer parts, drives, deadly chemicals and soft drink cans. A microwave sits on top of it, and on top of the microwave sits a stack of cans of soup and instant noodle cups, in case she gets hungry but doesn't want to leave her work for the moment (which is usually).
- Lab 2 - DC
- Lab 3 - Mia Mechanicus
- Lab 4
- Lab 5
- Lab 6
- Lab 7
- Lab 8
- Lab 9
Hospital Tower
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The tower furthest from the main base, and thus mostly sheltered away from the, has been converted into a hospital building, with a nice view of the orchard. The tower, though not as large or extensive as a proper civilian hospital, pretty much lives up to its name. The first floor has several rooms fully stocked with surgery equipment, an x-ray room, and several other rooms filled with most of the kinds of things necessary for treating a membership with a distressing habit of getting shot, or stabbed with swords, or smacked with maces, or burned by magical fireballs, or bitten by horrendous demonic monsters, etc.
The upper floors, accessible by stairs or a lift large enough to carry a bed (as all of them are on wheels), contain several wards for recovering patients. Aside from the PC doctors, the Hospital is staffed by a number of drones, specialized to serve as surgeons, nurses and orderlies, so that patients here are always in good care. A secret panel on each floor opens a portal to the Safe Room when pressed by a member. Non-members pressing the panels will have no effect, but they can still enter portals opened by a member.
The small magical nexus at the top of the Hospital Tower serves as a second shield spell, giving the Hospital Tower an extra layer of defense in case the outer shield spell fails durign an attack.
Airship Gantry
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Set into a purpose-build cavern in the side of the cliff to the east of the Keep is a large gantry, which is accessible from the third floor of the Keep or ground level by a small lift or a small spiral staircase. In addition, there is a larger vehicle lift from the ground level up to the airship gantry, allowing ground vehicles to be stored up there as well.
- Vehicles
- A large, heavily armored zeppelin of K-Corp design, captured after a failed attack on WATCHTOWER. It's been decorated psychedelic patterns painted all over the envelope, as well as a pair of angry eyes and mouth. The gondola, while not as eye-blindingly colorful, has a memorial to Butler B. Butler painted on the side. The zeppelin has a rather large cargo hold, as well as a separate bomb-bay, which can drop rather large bombs (though they are currently in rather short supply). It's armed with a rather heavy variety of weapons, including: two disruptor quad-cannons mounted in the aft of the envelope (one ventral, the other dorsal); two heavier disruptor quad-cannons mounted on either side of the gondola and two long-range flamethrowers mounted on the fore. The thing is powered by one of DC's zero-point modules, and can pretty much stay aloft and fire forever, carrying no fuel except for that which goes in the flamethrowers. It has energy shielding, though prolonged use cuts into the ship's energy supply significantly. Currently WATCHTOWER's only functioning aircraft, and is usually used for large scale assaults.
- A smaller airship stolen from Lethargia, built for transport. It has controls, two seats for the pilot and co-pilot, and cages in the back for prisoners. It's currently in a state of refurbishment, (and has been for several months, due to KR's lack of proper materials). The combustion engines have been replaced by much simpler ones, seemingly powered by magitech, and everything that can possibly be simplified has been. The hull has been reinforced slightly, and is now both fireproof (up to several thousand degrees centigrade) and vacuum proof. The inside has been hollowed out somewhat, regular controls having been replaced, again, by much simpler ones, and benches have been added along the sides, for extra passengers. The center is dominated by some sort of receptacle, for what looks like a large cylindrical device that stretches from floor to ceiling, though the device itself is currently missing.
An alien spacecraft, hijacked by DC during an extraterrestrial invasion of Inside. (Thrown into the sun) Details in the spoiler:
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-It's solar-powered and never lands, instead meant to sit in space and recharge. The solar power tech is enough that so long as it's kept charged, it shouldn't run out unless it's being used heavily.
-Its main weapons are high-efficiency laser cannons (basically, more shots than usual) with a single mass driver mounted somewhere. I imagine the bottom or something like that. He said it was better for ground targets due to being difficult to aim, so I imagine it's on the bottom or something.
-It has shields, with variable amounts of power able to be diverted to them. They're quite strong at max power, but this takes power from movement and weapons.
-The main method of boarding it consists of transporter beams (aka cliche 'abduction beams'.)
-There are, of course, airlocks.
-There are shuttle ports.
-The ship's actual frame/armor is pretty tough, though some of the interior is...flimsy at times, or so I saw during the hijacking.
And of course, the ship has an armory! (Removed prior to aforementioned sun-throwing, and thus still available)
-Many laser rifles (can be dialed down for weak rapid-fire or dialed up for more powerful shots but slow-firing)
-Power armor designed for aliens
-Beam focuser modification for lasers (allows greater armor-piercing capability for the lasers weakens them a bit, they have to be dialed up fully to regain normal power)
-Deployable uni-directional shields (can be fired through from one side but not the other, lasts a minute maximum, can be depleted by enemy fire)
-Mines, grenades, and directional charges, probably fairly standard explosives or something since they weren't described much. The grenades are supposedly some kind of cross between frag and incendiary.
-Pickaxe/hammer-like melee weapons that use pistons to deliver a secondary shock to drive the pick in deeper. Designed to pierce armor.
Much of the armory (including all of the alien power armor) and quite a bit of the interior have been disassembled and/or removed by WATCHTOWER's rather large cohort of mad scientists for study, though some of it's slowly being put back and reassembled. As of the moment, it's non-functional. (Because it was thrown into the sun)- Several generic hovercars and hoverbikes intended for use by members. They're unarmed and (mostly) unarmored, plainly intended for transport instead of combat.
Defenses
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The internal defenses of each building include magical forcefields in every doorway that can be activated singularly, or all together in an emergency.
External defenses include extra strong magical shields on the main gate and a magical shield spell that starts at the walls and encloses the entire base. The Keep and the Hospital Tower have secondary shield spells, providing an extra layer of defense for those inside should the gate and wall be breached.There are also a variety of cunning magical traps buried in the courtyard and the path to WATCHTOWER, that may be deployed for explosive effect.
Forcefields may remain active for roughly 4 hours before having to recharge (for 24 hours), or until they are beaten down or dispelled. Traps take a roughly 12 hours to recharge. Simply dispelling the forcefield or traps (or indeed, any of the various glyphs in the building) only deactivates them. More powerful spells (like a Mage's Disjunction, for instance) must be used to get rid of them permanently.
All the defenses are triggered from the Security Room.
The Catacombs
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Generally sealed, by the large bronze door in the courtyard, the catacombs are a series of corridors and tunnels that lead deep into the mountainside. The full extent of these catacombs is unknown, and very little has been mapped of them. Whats inside? Treasure perhaps, but also danger. Cave dwelling monsters native to the mountains may dwell within, as well as magical beasts and abominations: descendents of failed experiments thrown into the darkness by the mages who previously inhabited the fortress.
((The Catacombs are a free area for anyone to invent their own dungeon crawls for WATCHTOWER members, should they so wish it. Anything and everything can possibly be found inside the mountain, at the plot GM's discretion.))