The Castle is Alive

arbados · Feb 21, 2025

I'm considering creating an adventure where the group must enter a castle to recover something. The something is irrelevant as the main fun is with the castle. I want it to be alive and be the primary nemesis and obstacle as they try and complete their goal. My post here is to ask for ideas on what a "living castle" could do to ones that enter unwanted.

jdrakeh · Feb 21, 2025

I forget which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser collection it's in, but one of them contains a story about a living (and very murderous) castle.

overgeeked · Feb 21, 2025

I know of two similar modules. Waking of Willowby Hall and Eyes of the Stone Thief. The first is a mansion coming to life, the second is an animate dungeon. You also find something like that in some older D&D editions with building-sized mimics. And of course there’s all the haunted house media. Any of them could be good inspirations.

First decide how alive it is. On a scale from “can only move and act naturally” on up to “can do impossible things, is completely animate, and can control everything normally part of the house.”

That will determine a lot.

Slamming doors and windows. Moving walls. Doors that lead different places every time they open. Toilets that shoots back. Furniture that moves, attacks, even swallows targets. Unreliable lighting. Flying cutlery. Doors atop stairwells that slam into you knocking you down the stairs. Stairs that go flat and form a slide. Faucets that shoot burning hot water. Bookcases filled with books that fly out and attack. Doors that close and lock at the worst time.

There’s a lot you can do with this.

Dross · Feb 21, 2025

Lots of creatures have symbiotic or parasitic critters with them. Ghost of past victims, or illusions there of. Strange sounds that are bodily functions.

I do also have an errant thought that the castle has a cold or similar with mucus and coughing.

aco175 · Feb 21, 2025

Maybe think of it like a person and the rooms are based on organs and places in the body. The main entrance is the mouth with a trapped gate and maybe a fire-breathing something. The secret entrance is the sewer 'exit'. An acid room, a brain room, etc...

Ralif Redhammer · Feb 21, 2025

Thinking about it like a giant mimic, I think it would have lots of things to entice intruders into dangerous situations. Fake and real treasures that lead the PCs into traps of all sorts - fire jets, collapsing ceilings, etc. It also might have a symbiotic relationship with rust monsters, gelatinous cubes, and carrion crawlers, to clean out any refuse.

Necropolitan · Feb 21, 2025

There's an adventure I think would be handy in the old 2E Ravenloft Construct sourcebook Children of the Night: The Created.

The Automatic Man deals with a now-abandoned inventor's house where every part of it can be controlled by the construct inside it.

GreatestHonor · Feb 21, 2025

Some ideas for you:

Doors could become walls after they pass through them.
Paintings could reach out and grab at them
Tiles and stones could shift underfoot, making walking/climbing more difficult, stairs could become slides
Rugs and curtains could trip and bind
Shrubbery could attack them
Illusions could appear to upset or terrify them

RenleyRenfield · Feb 21, 2025

arbados said:
I'm considering creating an adventure where the group must enter a castle to recover something. The something is irrelevant as the main fun is with the castle. I want it to be alive and be the primary nemesis and obstacle as they try and complete their goal. My post here is to ask for ideas on what a "living castle" could do to ones that enter unwanted.

Yes! Lovely idea.

- Have each room "themed". (The Taxidermy room, the Piano room, the room of Mirrors, etc.

This will give lots of options for varied ways the House can mess with the characters. Confusion, clones, pain music, and my fav = steal a precious item from character then let them chase a painting person around to get it back, jumping through painting portal madness

uzirath · Feb 21, 2025

The AD&D version of Ravenloft (I6) included a living tower called the Guardian of Sorrow. (I don't remember if it was changed in later editions.) It could shake people off the spiral staircase and had a set of animated halberds that could attack the characters. The only way to destroy it was to shatter the pulsing glass heart suspended at the top of the tower.

The Castle is Alive

arbados

Explorer

jdrakeh

Front Range Warlock

overgeeked

Dragonbane

Dross

Explorer

aco175

Legend

Ralif Redhammer

Legend

Necropolitan

Hero

GreatestHonor

Explorer

RenleyRenfield

Explorer

uzirath

Hero

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