"NON-human castles (28mm or other) Fantasy" Topic

I have been looking around for a 28mm castle or fortress system, and it occurred to me that what might really be interesting is to make a fortress for Orcs or similar evil race, rather than the typical human/medieval/empire style.

Has anyone done this? One idea I had was to see about the 28mm Battlegrounds/Magister Militum Mycenean castle bits, and make some sort of cyclopean Orc and Goblin fortress, maybe dressing up the castle pieces with odd bits of skeletons, etc.

Interesting topic. Aside from chrome for looks, I'd think a fortification would reflect the physical attributes of a race, and also its culture. The size and height of entries would be one variable. Eyesight and related skills thta make missile fire more or less effective. A gregarious, numerous, and highly social culture would have different architecture than one dominated by a few powerful and low-trust individuals.

I expect Orcs would have crude misaligned large blocks shabbily assembled. You can go the Hirst blocks route to get the best result

I agree with Doc Mcb. Orc fortifications would look very different from High Elven, or Wood Elven fortifications. Orcs usually come across as having crude but functional architecture with no concern for aesthetics. Assuming the Orcish strength in is close combat, you might want to provide the fort with numerous sally ports.

The cyclopean route sounds good, but misaligned, nothing like the superior stonework of "Golden Mycenae" of the Illiad.

What I'm curious about is Dwarven fortresses. While they live underground, and so would not seem to need surface forts, some game systems have area effect gas spells. IIRC, Cloudkill from 1st ed. AD&D even states it is heavier than air, and so descends to the lowest point. Clearly, if such spells exist in the game world, Dwarves must build surface fortifications to keep mages and bodyguard units from getting to vunerable entrances. Dwarves being superior engineers in most fantasy worlds, perhaps they have developed some kind of gas trap. The shaft continues deeper than required, while population centers are higher up the shaft, so the gas sinks past to the sump.

The dwarves in the Splintered Lands lack gunpowder, but do have steam, and know quite a lot of chemistry. Their Earthpower Ale, made by brewmasters with rune magic, gives them some degree of immunity to poison gas. They routinely use water barriers to trap gases, as even the heaviest gas cannot penetrate a liquid. Their elevator shafts include vertical "locks" to protect against unwanted gases and also enemy fliers such as Moonglades's bats.

Mountain Home (the citadel itself and also its several satellite bases) are built within mountains that have rivers at their base, with underground lakes as bases for their balloonboats. Their shafts go out as much as up.

I do think I recall someone (was it Angry Badger?) who had WIP on some "evil elf" castle walls. It had a lot of spikes on it

The most recent Warhammer Siege book (1998) contains ideas for castles and fortresses for most of the Warhammer races, and scratchbuilt and kitbashed models for some of them. I've seen used copies go for $10 USD on used book sites.

Orc forts are depicted pretty much like forts in the Wild West, but with huge rough-hewn planks instead of logs. Lots of shields, lots of Orc glyphs and icons, lots of spikes and spears sticking out, gates like stylized Orc skulls. You could easily do a variation using a stone fort as a basis.

Dwarf forts are short, squat, blocky stone constructions with lots of Dwarf runes, stylized Dwarf heads, and carved borders.

High Elf fortresses are very graceful and well finished, with tall towers, like Cinderella's castle in Disneyland.

Wood Elf strongholds are large, beautiful treeforts.

Bretonnian castles look like toned-down Neuschwansteins.

Imperial castles are more squared off, like the castle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Tilean forts resemble Italian fortified towns, with the addition of leaning towers. (Yes, really.)

Lizardman strongholds have a Mayan or Aztec pyramidal look.

On the bad guy side, Dark Elf castles look like High Elf fortresses, only corrupted. Very dark, with lots of curvind spikes and spines.

Vampire Count castles are straight out of Dracula and Underworld movies.

Chaos strongholds are as varied as the Chaotic powers themselves.

Chaos Dwarf forts are massive, monolithic, dark, and decorated with brass and iron.

Tomb King strongholds resemble Egyptian pyramids and other structures.

Beastman forts are constructed of great slabs of unfinished stone, set upright like the logs of a palisade. A Herdstone occupies a central location.

Finally, Skaven get crap, literally. Skaven strongholds, at least the part aboveground, look like nothing so much as a garbage heap. Detritus piled on junk, with lots of tunnels and boltholes and flimsy ladders and catwalks.

Now, these are just the Warhammer takes on fortifications for each race. Other fantasy worlds would yield different looks.

Most of the forts incorporate some sort of anti-magic spells or runes into their walls, to protect against enemy wizards, sorcerors, and druids. And don't forget to include some form of defense against aerial attack, considering all of the winged mounts, dragons, flying monsters, airships, balloons and other potential dangers zooming overhead.

Going back to doc mcb's first comment about architecture reflecting culture, I remember reading somewhere that human castles went through one stage where the garrison was assumed to fall into two groups. First were the family and close friends of the owner. They garrisoned the keep. I think the keep incorporated the gateway. The others manned the curtain walls and towers, which had no direct entry into the keep. These folks could not be trusted, and might well flee the castle, lower a rope to help the attackers, or otherwise betray the castle. I suppose they were also considered expendable. I'm thinking orcs might build their castles like this.

Grelber

I would look at the following aspects:

1. Geography and geology
Where possible, fortifications would be sited to take advantage of the terrain and locally available materials.
Mud forts and even ice forts are conceivable. A moat of quicksand?
Races with money and magic are probably less constrained by transport costs.

2. Enemy
A fort is designed to defeat the kind of enemy it expects. No point building high walls if your enemy has a horde of flyers or magic to pass through walls.

3. Technology
A race is limited by the technology and magic it has at its disposal.

Thanks Doc Mcb. How does the water trap work? Is there a water-filed moat in the corridor near the entry so if the gas enters it seeps into the moat?

Re: Grelber and castle garrisons. Had not heard that before. However, my personal picture of Orcs is that they value strength and so a leader who resorted to this would be seen as weak, and would be challenged and killed ASAP. If he's too cowardly to accept the challenge, his followers desert and follow the strongest Orc who is properly "Orcish".

Dark Elves, on the other hand, are notoriously treacherous schemers and fond of byzantine plots. They would certainly use such a system, and to some extent have similar safeguards within the family quarters as often the knife in your back comes from your kinfolk.

Interesting.

I may be old-fashioned but I still imagine Orcs as in the old AD&D manuals, tribal creatures who dwell in broken lands. Not great builders. I would put them in huts and small caves in steep hills, but if they really want to build something, I would imagine some kind of Dark Ages fortress : wood and earthen walls etc.

The idea of large marshy moats around the fortress is interesting. Some european castles are not built on a hill, but in a marshy place, surrounded by marshy valleys.

Even if we assume that the orcs are less… civilised, they should grasp the concept of fortifications after encountering them, unlessthey are totally nomadic and have no permanent habitation or land to defend.

That being the case, they can:

1. Imitate what they encountered using the resurces they have in their homeland.

2. In the event that they captured a fortification, modify it to suit their needs.

3. Put captured craftsmen and labourers to work, as the Mongols used captured Chinese.

4. Pay someone to build something for them with all the loot they got.

Gygax imagined the humanoid races as largely taking over other race's works. He portrayed them as doing very little to improve old fortresses they moved into, just doing barely enough to patch up holes, and weaknesses, having little ability to construct fortresses. He portrayed several of them as being skilled miners, but not builders, back in 1st Ed. AD&D. I like them that way, because if they were highly disciplined, and technically capable, they would be far more of a threat to the other races. I view Hobgoblins as being the most intelligent, militarily organized, of the humanoids. They are the most dangerous of the lot, but they always serve as armies under someone else's command, directing them as pawns. YMMV. Cheers!

One of GW's better ideas (to me) was that Dark Elf Black Arks – their big warship/transports – were just (permanently?) beached during the invasion. The ships became fortresses from which the invasion forces would stage.

Would there even be castles (as we know them) in fantasy worlds with magic and flying creatures? If somebody can fly or turn invisible it would be very simple to get inside the castle and open the gates to the attackers. Renders the whole point of the castle pretty useless.

Not useless, just a drastic change in form and function. A lot will depend on how prevalent such creatures are.

Also Magic is a two edge sword. You can use the same magic to proof your castle to unwanted guests.

Back years ago when running D&D campaigns this issue came up from time to time. Players can be quiet clever in this regard.

Actually as a player, I started a crime wave, when I came up with the idea of using certain spells to pass through walls and into the treasury of castles and strongholds. I hired a wizard to cast the spells for me. Once he saw what I did, the DM had him going off on his own crime spree. All the while throwing blame on me. I think even my castle got "hit". Then we had to come up with counters, was a lot of fun.

Cheers, Xin

they should grasp the concept of fortifications after encountering them, unless they are totally nomadic and have no permanent habitation or land to defend.

It raises the question of how an Orcish economical system works? :)

I wouldn't say they are nomadics, but – they are not human. They don't cultivate land, so they don't need to defend it. Of course they need to defend their hunting grounds, but a fortress is not necessarily the best thing for this. Guerrilla warfare in the broken grounds, where they are certainly better than the Humans, would probably be the good choice.

"It raises the question of how an Orcish economical system works? :)"

Yes, they must have a self-sustaining economy to begin with.

Unless they are planning to occupy land, the raiding and warfare is for loot, slaves, and prestige.

As for defending the home ground, be it for herding or hunting, that only applies if there is limited land – they can just keep evading unless they run into lands that are already occupied by other races or orcs.

And by the way:

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Yes. Culture is trumps. The sylvan elves of Wyldewood do not build in stone, as there is nothing one can do with it that they cannot do as well or better with living wood -- height, resistance to impact and fire (through cushiony giant leaves), etc. Their Ecological Research Service at the College of Druids has cooperated with the Golden Grove Corps (their professional military) to develop a wide range of defensive plants including entangling and constricting vines, which can also be coated with various "saps" that have effects such as accelerating decay. Zombies struggling to get through such a tangle quickly become plant food.

Hamster, my dwarves have metal pipes and the sylvan elves have helped them develop rubber. (The rubber is a specialty crop in Wyldewood and exclusively grown for export to Mountain Home. The elves are capable of metal work but largely import it from Mtn Home. Wyldewood and Mtn Home are firm allies -- they have a "special relationship" perhaps as strong as the US and Britain in our world -- and there are powerful economic interests undergirding it.)

So think of it more in terms of "locks" in a spaceship to handle outside vacuum safely, or watertight doors in a submarine: double barriers, with a way to close one behind you before opening the next.

I have been looking at the Battleground ranges now produced by Magister Militum. You have the following intriguing options:

Mycenean--Lizardmen, maybe Orcs, maybe Dwarves, primitive humans;
Vaubanic--Empire or Renaissance-flavored humans
Italian medieval--human
Arab/Indian--human, maybe something more exotic
Stockades or log palisades--orcs, human
Medieval with rounded OR squared towers--human, other

Stylistically, all of these would be in same ballpark for scale and would not be too jarring in their relative dimensions, etc., with each other.

Thanks for the answer, Doc. The game world your Dwarves are from is more advanced than the ones I have gamed in. Airlocks and rubber is more that I expected. However, with such safeguards a Dwarven hold should have little to fear from Cloudkill or similar spells, or any appropriate alchemical brew.

Good thread, folks. Thanks for the read.