Mighty Fortress: Playing for Keeps

Usable By: Wizard

Spell Level: 8

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 minute

Range: 1 mile

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S, M (a diamond worth at least 500 gp, which the spell consumes)

A fortress of stone erupts from a square area of ground of your choice that you can see within range. The area is 120 feet on each side, and it must not have any buildings or other structures on it. Any creatures in the area are harmlessly lifted up as the fortress rises.

The fortress has four turrets with square bases, each one 20 feet on a side and 30 feet tall, with one turret on each corner. The turrets are connected to each other by stone walls that are each 80 feet long, creating an enclosed area. Each wall is 1 foot thick and is composed of panels that are 10 feet wide and 20 feet tall. Each panel is contiguous with two other panels or one other panel and a turret. You can place up to four stone doors in the fortress’s outer wall.

A small keep stands inside the enclosed area. The keep has a square base that is 50 feet on each side, and it has three floors with 10-foot-high ceilings. Each of the floors can be divided into as many rooms as you like, provided each room is at least 5 feet on each side. The floors of the keep are connected by stone staircases, its walls are 6 inches thick, and interior rooms can have stone doors or open archways as you choose. The keep is furnished and decorated however you like, and it contains sufficient food to serve a nine-course banquet for up to 100 people each day. Furnishings, food, and other objects created by this spell crumble to dust if removed from the fortress.

A staff of one hundred invisible servants obeys any command given to them by creatures you designate when you cast the spell. Each servant functions as if created by the unseen servant spell.

The walls, turrets, and keep are all made of stone that can be damaged. Each 10-foot by 10-foot section of stone has AC 15 and 30 hit points per inch of thickness. It is immune to poison and psychic damage. Reducing a section of stone to 0 hit points destroys it and might cause connected sections to buckle and collapse at the DM’s discretion.

After 7 days or when you cast this spell somewhere else, the fortress harmlessly crumbles and sinks back into the ground, leaving any creatures that were inside it safely on the ground.

Casting this spell on the same spot once every 7 days for a year makes the fortress permanent.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Adventurers need to retire. Working all day and night slaying monsters, stealing treasure, and destabilizing nations comes with a whole range of occupational hazards. After a few years in the field, you’ll want a nice cozy keep full of magical servants catering to your every whim. Imagine a defended fortress, ready to be armed and guarded by the finest mercenaries in the land, packed with the exact furnishings you need. Imagine having nothing but the finest meals for a full month, on the house, catered personally by the keep’s creator. You can have all of this for a week for 500 gold, or for just fifty-two easy payments of 500 gold a week, you can have it forever!

Mighty Fortress is one of those spells that makes you ask the question “wait, why isn’t some wizard out there getting loaded off of making Mighty Fortresses?” The gold to building ratio is way off for the space, size, and furnishings it's offering. Now, is any of this particularly PRACTICAL? Absolutely not! You’re probably not going to need a gigantic permanent or semi-permanent fortress over your average adventure. At the cost of just 500 gold a pop and a slot in your spellbook, though, the majesty of it is certainly appealing.

If you’re looking for a place to safely long rest, Private Sanctum is leagues better than this. If you’re looking to construct a civilization over a few decades, Mighty Fortress can expedite that process a bit. This isn’t a spell you take to help solve problems or slay foes; it's something you take when you just want to build your own cool base with your friends and brag about it later. If you’re DMing for it, maybe consider throwing an attack their way so they can use the castle's defenses.

Want to buy a cool base for 26,000 gold? Pick up Mighty Fortress. Want practical 8th level spells that will kill things with frightening efficiency or break the rules of reality? You probably will want something else then.

5e Spells

Mighty Fortress: Playing for Keeps