Fantasy fortresses in a magic-heavy world?

[mbartelsm]

How would you imagine a fort, citadel, castle in a fantasy setting where pretty much every soldier is able to perform one style or other of elemental magic (Lightning, Wind, Fire, Metal, Earth, Wood (flesh included) and Water)?

How to build a defensive structure in a place where a few unarmed, untrained people are able to collapse a stone, metal, wooden wall?

 

[Devor]

"Earth" is the problem element. A lot of castle walls are built with stone on the outside, and a large earthen mound in the middle. There's not really a good substitute, so you would need some way to "corrupt" the earthen mound so that it wouldn't be subject to an earth bender's magic. Similarly, you could corrupt the water in a moat.

The basic answer, however, is that the castle has defenders who are countering many of the offensive abilities with their own. And if your magic system has any weaknesses - like only a few people have magic, or that using it too much tires them out, or so on - then you'd build the fortification to take advantage of that weakness, like having lots of layers that force them to wear out their strength through attrition.

You'd also want to make sure that there are traps and tricks laying around that the defenders can use which the attackers might not be prepared for - the equivalent of dumping boiling water on their heads. For instance, maybe one "random mound of earth to move" is really holding down a pressure system trap.

Hope that helps!

 

[Mindfire]

Read the Codex Alera books. They describe the exact situation you're talking about. The short answer is: reinforce everything with magic.

 

[ThinkerX]

One solution, if possible with your magic system: have something which negates magic mixed into the material of the fortress itself. Hence, earth moving spells and the like simply fizzle out.

 

[mbartelsm]

The main problem is that there's nothing that can negate magic except a soul, and animating walls by providing them with souls is counter-productive (you don't want your wall doing as it pleases). Devor proposes an interesting idea, making many layers of defenses will tire the besiegers and save the energy of the defenders, but that would only delay the inevitable. I had considered using traps and the like, but I always envisioned the attackers using them to assault the walls (since taking down a wall is basically a big thug-o-war game, taking the enemy by surprise is an important factor), never thought of having the defenders use them, which now sounds very obvious.

 

[wordwalker]

If the magic system says that the only workable defense is to actively counter-control the fortress, that might be what they'd have to do. Which could make the whole invasion experience a tug-of-war: to use full-strength earth magic on the fortress you have to get close, and risk the defenders being strong enough to crush you with it.

Then again, maybe putting souls into walls is the best thing for some defenders: enlist the most loyal dying soldiers in the area and allow them to be the Spirit of the Castle-- at least, for people confident or desperate enough to try living in peace with sapient (or at least sentient) walls.

Of course, concentrating on earth control leaves its own openings for the other elements. Flame-throwers are the classic weapon for burning people out of sealed places (even if you don't hit the defenders, the heat keeps building up in there), while metal and lightning do terrible things to weapons and wood/flesh to some weapons and whoever's using them.

 

[Devor]

There's also a question of just how powerful your characters are. Traps and walls may just not be relevant anymore if the power levels are too high, and then you'd just be talking about some sort of open-field battle in a buffer zone between the enemy and the city.

Still, I think there's gotta be something you can do to keep an earthenworks wall from being utilized by magic. High levels of some mineral or another that doesn't count as earth? Can they use their magic on glass (which is just compressed-and-heated sand)? If not, maybe there's a similar way to affect the earthworks so that it can't be bent.

 

[Mindfire]

Hasn't this topic been posted before? I'm getting a really weird deja vu feeling...

 

[Queshire]

hmmm.... perhaps layering multiple elements in your wall? Like a thing layer of wood then metal then stone repeated a couple hundred times? That would ensure that an attacking army would need a variety of different benders working in concert to bring down the walls, significantly slowing the attackers and giving the defenders a chance to rain hell down on the attackers while they're bogged down with the wall.

 

[mbartelsm]

If the magic system says that the only workable defense is to actively counter-control the fortress, that might be what they'd have to do. Which could make the whole invasion experience a tug-of-war: to use full-strength earth magic on the fortress you have to get close, and risk the defenders being strong enough to crush you with it.

Then again, maybe putting souls into walls is the best thing for some defenders: enlist the most loyal dying soldiers in the area and allow them to be the Spirit of the Castle-- at least, for people confident or desperate enough to try living in peace with sapient (or at least sentient) walls.

Of course, concentrating on earth control leaves its own openings for the other elements. Flame-throwers are the classic weapon for burning people out of sealed places (even if you don't hit the defenders, the heat keeps building up in there), while metal and lightning do terrible things to weapons and wood/flesh to some weapons and whoever's using them.

Being the spirit of the castle may be doable in extreme circumstances where there aren't many choices left (I wouldn't want to be stuck as a wall much more than I'd like living in a temperamental fortress).

Other elements are always a possibility, but it's not likely you'd be able to control someone else's weapon, as, with time, your weapon becomes effectively an extension of your body (and soul), the same applies to your armor, that's why each piece of equipment is personal and nontransferable.

There's also a question of just how powerful your characters are. Traps and walls may just not be relevant anymore if the power levels are too high, and then you'd just be talking about some sort of open-field battle in a buffer zone between the enemy and the city.

Still, I think there's gotta be something you can do to keep an earthenworks wall from being utilized by magic. High levels of some mineral or another that doesn't count as earth? Can they use their magic on glass (which is just compressed-and-heated sand)? If not, maybe there's a similar way to affect the earthworks so that it can't be bent.

I built the world so that everything falls within one element or the other, everything is subject to magic control except things with a soul (because the souls exercises it's own magic into keeping it's body free from external control), I guess that one backfired a bit, but there's too much built around that mechanic to change it now.

The advantage is that magic is not that powerful, you wouldn't be able to lift a very heavy stone further away than 10 meters, as most people don't have a soul with that much strength, besides, using magic also depletes your vitality making you tired or even making you fall unconscious.

hmmm.... perhaps layering multiple elements in your wall? Like a thing layer of wood then metal then stone repeated a couple hundred times? That would ensure that an attacking army would need a variety of different benders working in concert to bring down the walls, significantly slowing the attackers and giving the defenders a chance to rain hell down on the attackers while they're bogged down with the wall.

That's another very good idea, thanks for all the help you've all given me so far

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

One of the more interesting problems of magic heavy worlds. The simple answer is to defend the walls with magic of some sort. Perhaps wards that twist opposing magic, which are built into the stone work, bound to it. And of course you would have wards that give early warning / alarms if they are attacked, and maybe more wards that turn an enemy's magic against himself when he attacks.

The more important question however, it what use are the walls? In a magic heavy world why can't the enemy wizard just portal into the castle grounds, completely bypassing the walls, and bringing an army with him? Or failing that simply ride in unseen under a spell of invisibility / disguise? To a certain extent building a magic heavy world requires going through the complete logic of the world and then seeing how things should be done. My thought is that if everyone has magic as you say, why build solid walls at all? Why not build walls of magic? Instead of stone masons you have wizards masons.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[mbartelsm]

Hi Greg,
The main problem with what you propose is that there is no such magic in my universe (with exception of invisibility), all magic in it is based on the elements and how these can be affected. While there are magic particles everywhere, even souls are made of these, they can't make a wall anymore than light or air can make a wall.

You can bind magic (in the form of a soul similar to that of trees) into the walls, but it won't do anything, if you want it to keep the walls together then the soul must have the will to stay together and for a soul to have will, it must have other emotions and desires too, and when it has emotions and desires the wall stops being under your control.

As far as invisibility goes, it is an ability of a school of magic far above the average user, it deals with the control of the titanic elements of Light and Shadow. For someone to be able to control these elements, that person must have an incredible self control and balance, which means very few actually pull it off. While this skill is good for infiltrating behind the walls, because of the amount of people that can use it, it is better left for spying or assassination purposes.

 

[Devor]

The advantage is that magic is not that powerful, you wouldn't be able to lift a very heavy stone further away than 10 meters, as most people don't have a soul with that much strength, besides, using magic also depletes your vitality making you tired or even making you fall unconscious.

Then maybe you can get away with the simple answer: A really, really tough mortar. Instead of making the wall immune, just make it too big and solid and heavy for an army to move.

That sort of runs along the same idea of mixing all the elements inside the wall. You should consider whether your defenders would expect an army of all one element, or an army that's mixed and varied. If you have defenses that rely heavily on earth, for instance, then your enemy needs to have a lot of earthbenders if they want to plow through it. If they only have a handful of them, they're going to have a hard time of it, and those specific units will wear out. But if you've got a mixed-element wall, then that's not going to be useful if your enemy has an army with all of those elements on hand. It only gives each of their soldiers something to latch on to. But a mixed-wall would be very useful if you had an army of all-one-element.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

So the basic problem is that you're more or less describing the invention of artillery. Once long-range explosive projectiles were invented, walled fortresses became outdated relics.

Modern military installations instead use space as a defense. It's the reason why army bases are typically so large; from the fenced perimeter to the actual important areas can be several hundred yards, or even (in some cases) miles or more. There's no point in buiding more than rudimentary physical defenses; your defenses are space (it takes your enemy more time to get to the objective) and people (to counterattack the enemy).

In a world where any soldier can blow up a defensive wall, there's no longer much point in having defensive walls.

 

[PlotHolio]

I imagine glyphs carved into the stone. To prevent undermining or sapping, the castle could have a heavy foundation, also glyphed. The castle would still have several weakpoints, such as weak glyps around the gate, attacks from the air, and enemy magic users that somehow manage to get inside the walls.

Perhaps you could have a shield over your gate that requires soldiers to have some sort of spell or tattoo keyed to the glyphs that allows them to pass through the gate unharmed.

In response to the above post, the twist here is that large empty spaces are also somewhat ineffective as a defense, because enemy troops could raise earth barriers to cover their advance.

 

[wordwalker]

And now we know why on Avatar it was the earthbender nation who had the "Impenetrable City": no earthbenders on the other side.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

In response to the above post, the twist here is that large empty spaces are also somewhat ineffective as a defense, because enemy troops could raise earth barriers to cover their advance.

Presumably the defenders also have magic-wielding soldiers who could just blow up the earthworks as they're constructed, so I don't know what good that would do the invaders.

Open spaces are effective mainly because they give you time to shoot at the enemy as he's running across in the open, with no cover. You can add non-cover-providing obstacles that slow him down (uneven ground, slanted pits, Belgian gates, caltrops) too. Walls are expensive and they'll inevitably be destroyed when your enemy has artillery (magic or otherwise). Plus they'll give him cover.

 

[Lucas]

One question is, how militarily valuable are fortresses in a magic heavy world? I think it depends on the nature of magic warfare within the constraints of the writer's universe. For example, fortresses were extremely important in the First World War, but of less importance in the Second World War.

 

[mbartelsm]

One question is, how militarily valuable are fortresses in a magic heavy world? I think it depends on the nature of magic warfare within the constraints of the writer's universe. For example, fortresses were extremely important in the First World War, but of less importance in the Second World War.

They are mostly for defensive purposes, A place near (or around) a city where civilians can fall back and be safer shall an invasion or siege happen.

 

[Lucas]

They are mostly for defensive purposes, A place near (or around) a city where civilians can fall back and be safer shall an invasion or siege happen.

I know that.

The issue is not whether what the purpose of fortifications is, but if they are usable in relations to the type of weapons (in this case I presume magic weapons) utilised? The type of weaponry would also determine the usage of the fortifications. For example, if the magic in question is some sort of ersatz for gunpowder weapons, then the fortifications will have to remind of later fortifications in renaissance-era Europe rather than medieval castles.