Magical Architecture

[Lorsa]

I am currently thinking about how magic (for example in D&D) alters architecture. What sort of things can you do that would be very difficult otherwise? For example, can you use portals to the plane of water to create plumbing? Can you make things in clay and then turn it to stone later?

Also, to go with this, how does the presence of magic change fortifications. I'm sure it's been discussed before but a reminder would be good.

Basically, what does magic do to your cities?

[GreatDane]

Specifically, I know that several dungeons in Dungeon magazine featured Plane-of-Water plumbing/wells.

Other neat ideas:

• Fantastic architecture made possible by levitation magic or rare, lightweight building materials (from the Plane of Earth?)
• On the very magical end, flying structures that don't need to land can have all kinds of cool/crazy architecture on the bottom, where other builders would be impeded by the ground
• Scale in general can be increased, as the effort saved by magic can be shifted to grandiosity
• Fortifications-wise, "shanty castles" made by unskilled spellcasters armed with wall of X might be a common tactic
• On the more mundane side, buildings with specific wings/rooms for creatures of different sizes are probably common in metropolitan cities. I wonder if halflings/gnomes get discounted rates? Would a visiting Medium-sized dignitary pay extra to be quartered in the Large suite?

[Khedrac]

Simply having magical scaffolding while building a structure allows non-magic buildings that would be very difficult to build otherwise.

A the other end of the scale, buildings with water-surrounding permanent walls of force could be very beautiful, especially if the water was an aquarium. Magic could also allow this to work without compromising the privicay of the people inside.

[Corneel]

The Telvani buildings in Morrowind were a nice example. You needed levitation to move about in most of them.

[Mastikator]

Magical force field barriers that let only specific people through (basically a super convenient key/lock system)

Elemental magic that could maintain perfect heating and resupplying fresh air.

Gravity reverse + feather fall based elevators in place of stairs, you just step into the tube and you either fall up or fall down slowly.

Gate like wormholes that connect disparate smaller houses scattered around the world/multiverse.

Using the astral plane to make the building bigger on the inside, on the outside it's a tiny shack, on the inside it's arbitrarily large.

[JoeJ]

The largest city in my World of Battersea (D&D 5e) is built on a island formed by two giant basalt pillars (sort of like this) joined by a stabilized sand bar. It sits in the middle of a strait, at the intersection of several very important trade routes. The top of one of the pillars has been turned into an academy for druids, and the other one is where the wealthy nobles live. Inside that pillar is the dwarven district of the city.

Water is taken from the strait and lifted through tunnels to the upper city by a permanent Reverse Gravity effect. It emerges in the temple of Demohab (the god who controls the strait), where it magically becomes fresh. It then runs through a series of canals and aqueducts to provide drinking, washing, and sanitation water to the entire city. Most people of any means have running water in their homes. There are also public water clocks that chime the time.

A long stairway carved into the face of the pillar connects the two parts of the city, but food and other bulk supplies are brought up using permanent Teleportation Circles, which I have houseruled to affect objects as well as creatures. Several of these circles have been enchanted to be able to cast the spell Teleportation Circle three times a day. And to make sure that they remain available for necessary cargo, it is illegal for any person to be transported by those circles without a command from the king.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Using the astral plane to make the building bigger on the inside, on the outside it's a tiny shack, on the inside it's arbitrarily large.

I've used this one quite a lot--I had a library that extended into the Astral. Of course, that came with exposure to reality-altering creatures from that plane, so...

Actually, I've now done it with two library towers. Sigh. Getting type-cast here.

OK, I really borrowed the idea from the Tardis. I've never claimed originality--I beg, borrow, and steal ideas from wherever strikes my fancy.

[Darth Ultron]

Things like:

*Water Towers and Pipes- A tiny pea sized gate to the Elemental Plane of Water in a tank at the top of a tower. Using the gravity to make water pressure. Small Immobile Elemental Water animals (Animentals) like sea sponges, sea cucumber, sand dollars, and tube worms push the water and create currents and flow.

*Elemental Slugs from the planes of Ice and Fire for heating and cooling. Often in sealed containers.

*Air Lifts-instead of stairs many buildings just have an open shaft full of air that lifts and floats people up or down to each floor.

*Levitate on just about anything that is need, from floating trays or table tops to whole floating towers or buildings.

*Lighted objects in any dark place, often softly glowing objects. Plus ever burning fires of all sorts. And floating, glowing globes.

*Endless uses for animated objects. As well as unseen servants, mage hand, telekinesis.

[JoeJ]

Continual Flame streetlights.

[Grek]

The specific changes to fortifications depend hugely on the exact details of what does and doesn't work when it comes of magic. If you can specify an edition, I can get into the details, though.

[Andor13]

Rock to Mud and Mud to Rock let you pour not just concrete, but let you cast-form granite or marble or even obsidian. Shapeable walls of force can be used for intricate builds, but are unlikely to be economical for large constructions.
Immovable rods are great for temporary flying scaffolding.
Decanter of endless water is the basis for solving all plumbing issues.

Constructions sized for different races. A castle of giants could have colonies of goblins or kobolds living in the walls. Or a mixed race city could have building standards where everything is sized for Large creatures on the ground floor, Medium creatures for the 2nd & 3rd stories, and Small creatures for the upper levels.

A city could be zoned for different movement types. A grassy quarter for centaurs where there are no stairs, but only ramps. An avian quarter, where the streets are half-forgotten, but building designs feature prominent balconies and pay attention to how they shape the wind. The muggy quarter is a canalled section with amphibious races like lizardmen above and merfolk/locanth under the surface.

Defenses are something to consider too. Perhaps the entire city center is protected by a giant permanent magic circle against evil.

[Xuc Xac]

Can you make things in clay and then turn it to stone later?

Yes. They're called bricks.

[Bohandas]

Yes. They're called bricks.

Indeed.

I think the more interesting application of magic is the ability to make things out of *ground beef* and then turn them to stone later (wih flesh to stone)

[Bohandas]

Also:
*Portals and teleportation circles can allow distant non-contiguous urban areas to fucntion as a single city
*Decanters of endless water allow irrigation in the desert and possibly plumbing anywhere
*Reverse gravity could potentially double the available floor space in any given room (floor+ceiling). False gravity could multiply it by a factor of six to ten (floor+ceiling+walls+exterior walls where applicable)

[Lorsa]

Thanks for all the ideas!

I think the thread is interesting in a general way too, but if anyone is looking for specifics, I will be playing D&D 5e.

EDIT: How long would magically-infused stuff last? If the city has been abandoned say, a thousand years?

[Darth Ultron]

Magic can last as long as the DM wants it to, of course.

No edition of D&D has a time limit on magic lasting, and the basic idea is that many magic items are old and from years or even centuries past. And the magic items still all work.

Though many settings, particularly the Forgotten Realms, are full of old broken magic. Also it is featured in a lot of adventures.

[TheCount]

There is also things like monuments or tourist atractions:

• an enchanted clocktower that cast illusions on the skies depending on what time it is.
• a floating orb/spehere that acts as a mostly accurate world map somewhere in an arcane academy, cartoghraper's guild.
• streetcleaning with magical servants or predestination, for omething minor.
• the sewer system: offically, there are multiple ones for the same city, one for every district, unofically... its a pain to patch up the "hidden" tunels that connect them, not the mention the...personal ones...from some of the nobles....

the building of the guld/department/office responsible to maintaining and planning the city (with so much spellcasters, i imagine it could look like multiple different building in les than a hour, from the outside anyway).

[Bohandas]

*Decanters of endless water allow irrigation in the desert and possibly plumbing anywhere

Oh, and I left out that decanters of endless water could also be used to make perpetual motion waterwheels

[JoeJ]

Oh, and I left out that decanters of endless water could also be used to make perpetual motion waterwheels

The decanter of endless water described in the DMG can't do that because it needs a command every round. A variant that produces water continuously could easily be created if the DM wants one, though.

[Bohandas]

The decanter of endless water described in the DMG can't do that because it needs a command every round. A variant that produces water continuously could easily be created if the DM wants one, though.

that must be new in 5e. In the 3.5e srd it says it keeps going until a second command word is given to stop it, Sweet Porridge/Sorcerer's Apprentice/Strega Nonna/The Liar/Why the Sea Is Salt-style

EDIT:
"Decanter of Endless Water

If the stopper is removed from this ordinary-looking flask and a command word spoken, an amount of fresh or salt water pours out. Separate command words determine the type as well as the volume and velocity.

'Stream' pours out 1 gallon per round.
'Fountain' produces a 5-foot-long stream at 5 gallons per round.
'Geyser' produces a 20-foot-long, 1-foot-wide stream at 30 gallons per round.

The geyser effect causes considerable back pressure, requiring the holder to make a DC 12 Strength check to avoid being knocked down. The force of the geyser deals 1d4 points of damage but can only affect one target per round. The command word must be spoken to stop it.

Moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Craft Wondrous Item, control water; Price 9,000 gp; Weight 2 lb." -3.5eSRD

[Bohandas]

This thread is relevant:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ying-Furniture

[Bohandas]

Not directly magical, but underwater creatures like merfolk could potentially build skyscraper sized buildings out of wood due to bouyancy

EDIT: relevant: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...world-building

[Kelb_Panthera]

Woo boy. Can't speak to 5e but just looking at the pregen stuff from 3e can give you all kinds of crazy ideas.

Impossibly delicate structures thanks to things like hardening and mud to stone or even just material that's beyond what we have in reality like mithral, glassteel, or riverine.

Then there's the classic "bigger on the inside" and "every surface is a floor" thanks to dimensional magic.


Then there's wondrous architecture from Stronghold Builder's Guidebook letting you lay effects over whole rooms such as the chamber of airy water or inscriptions of privacy to fill a chamber with breathable water or block scrying effects.

Then there's -weird- stuff like making structures with living or undead tissue, making grotesques that can carry on a conversation, statue guardians, etc.

You can even build structures suspended from nothing in the depths of the sea or in the sky.

Once you take all that in and start considering the needs of intelligent creatures of wildly different sizes and body shapes, things go from just fun to truly fantastic.

[Bohandas]

Electricity spells allow for arc welding

[ed57ve]

I always pictured something like the academy town from homm5, a lot of floating islands, with gardens and fountains, instead of bridges you can keep something like a main portal hub to connect every island.

i am new so i cant post imagenes but check it in google

[The Jack]

How magic would change fortifications? Well, I have many an answer for that. I am going to assume that you're knowledgable about mundane fortifications/castle strategies, because that'd make it easier for me. If not, a quick search can find a wealth of information, and I highly recomend the youtube channel Shadiversity, the dude's mad about castles. Anyhow, i'll also try to keep the spell levels low:

-Undead stockpiles.
Animate dead is a great spell that creates permanent undead, and control isn't strictly necessary. Skeletons are great because they don't require food or air and you can store them compact. Because of this, undead are a must-have for castles (Unless you see it as evil or something...) Essentially, you'll want prisons of undead that you can controlably release into areas of the fort where they're a hazard to your enemy and not your side (undead Archers are thus usually not want you want to work with). Ideally, you should have a means to safely dispose of them too. But they can greatly bolster defences without draining precious food, and don't require sleep. It's also very helpful that your living troops won't need to worry so much about friendly fire into your dead troops and that fear is not such an issue for foolhardy undead.

Offensively, bundling undead together and unleashing them in the midst of your living enemy is a great idea. control isn't an issue; just smuggle or rush them in, open them up, and then run. However, you'd just be helping your enemy if you released dead into their dead. Still, this "terrorist" strategy is going to call for stricter security measures. Think seige towers with only one way for the dead to get out, wagons you can rush into the midst of the field spilling undead Unfortunately I don't think catapulting undead into the enemy really works when skeletons have vulnerability to bashing and zombies don't have great health pools.

Elementals are absolutely terrifying to large groups of weak opponents in confined spaces, but it takes a high level to summon the big ones, so it really depends on how rich you think the castle owner is/the price of magic. A trap might be better suited.

Traps
Castles have many chokepoints, for example the gatehouse or a narrow passage. The Fire breathing statues, Glyphs of warding shooting spikes, pits, suprise undead; All are good. You could even combine poison gas with undead to make something more lethal than either alone. The round boulder might be an excellent last resort if you can make the lanes for it. Ultimately, however, you're still going to want good walls, hard to breach doors and your forces to be raining death on the enemy as they try your defences, so relying on traps too much isn't the greatest.

Walls and wards
I don't fully know how wards work in DnD, but most AOE spells seem to not care for corners. Fireball essentially invalidates fortresses unless there is a solid counter for it. I'm not sure of the spells needed (perhaps controlled anti-magic sections?) but magic that protects the walls and the people on/in them from dangerous AOEs and abilitys that allow easy circumvention of walls is essential.

Leamond's tiny hut is absurdly perfect for a defending army, too perfect.

Construction
Wall of Stone isn't the best written, but in 5e it's a fantastic way to make quickly, build big and obtain a resource. It's also an easy way to beat a castle since you could build bridges over walls. (note- Wall of force seems to be temporary very deliberately in 5e) Mold earth and earth control are fantastic for quickly building fortifications.

[Bohandas]

Walls and wards
I don't fully know how wards work in DnD, but most AOE spells seem to not care for corners. Fireball essentially invalidates fortresses unless there is a solid counter for it. I'm not sure of the spells needed (perhaps controlled anti-magic sections?) but magic that protects the walls and the people on/in them from dangerous AOEs and abilitys that allow easy circumvention of walls is essential.

Hmm, in later editions (IIRC this won't work in 1e and 2e) You need a tight honeycomb of small rooms rather than big open areas, ideally they should either be non rectangular (either hexagons or parallelograms) or else arranged in a brickwork pattern with every second row translated half a room's width to the side. And any corridors should be curved or bent.

A combination of one way glass in the windows, lookalike rooms, and a constantly changing layout (either achieved magically a la Hogwarts or manually a la the Winchester Mystery House) will help preclude the kind of accurate image of the place necessary for accurate teleportation.

[Lorsa]

Thanks for the continued responses. This is very interesting indeed and gives plenty of ideas.

While general ideas are good, perhaps I should mention that I will use the D&D 5 rules, in case someone wants to be more specific.

[Bohandas]

Unfortunately I don't think catapulting undead into the enemy really works when skeletons have vulnerability to bashing and zombies don't have great health pools.

You need undead rat swarms. Rats don't break as easily as big things when you drop them

[Wraith]

With sufficient magic, you can do away with the whole idea of a house entirely.
All you need is just a doorway set against a solid surface, and whoever walks through it can step into a pocket-plane of their own choosing and design. EVERYONE in a city of millions can live inside a personalised mansion with infinite space to expand and no troublesome neighbours, all so long as you enter through an enchanted door within a given area - a "town square" or a henge or something.

Kind of like how Sigil works - every arch is potentially a doorway to somewhere else, so long as you meet the requirement to open it; the difference being that the destinations in this "town" are not quite so unpredictable.