What Rooms Would You Put In A Fantasy Castle

[ShadeZ]

Here is what I have so far.

Aviary/Aerie
Underground bioluminescent forest
Monster kennels
Stable
Giant meeting hall
Tower
Dragons lair
Over 10,000 bedroom/ multiuse rooms
Several stories
Forge
Storage
Huge kitchen
Hunting grounds
Training area
Arena
Throne room

 

[joshua mcdermott]

baths
toilets (or is that the throne room?)
banquet hall
smaller eating halls for guards/staff etc
barracks
staff quarters
Trash disposal/compost

Edit:
Gardens
Armory

 

[jacksimmons]

Library
Orrery/Clocktower
Solars
Reception Halls
Church/Prayer Rooms

 

[Devor]

Workshop - Often overlooked, a lot of the furniture would actually be built inside the castle.

State Room - almost like a museum or art gallery, where they display their private collection of whatever art or historical items they might have; in a fantasy setting, you might add in some magical curiosities.

Servant's Corridors - whether it's to hide them, or to let them work behind the scenes, you might find a castle has "secret" passageways, or just a series of back hallways in and out of every room, that are just for workers to get around.

Artillery Rooms - the ballistas, or trebuchets, or cannons, might have their own private stations, built to have coverage of the field and space to aim.

Fast Food Windows - a tradition going back to at least Ancient Rome, people like to buy food (or often a glass of wine) through walk up windows, and there's no reason you wouldn't see that, or some other form of a concessions stand, in a castle.

Marketplace - lots of people means customers to sell to, and people will look for opportunities to set up shopping stands wherever they're allowed, and the castle would want to charge rent or take a cut of the cash

Gym - well, not your modern gym, but a room for conducting whatever popular indoor sport they might have, whether that means volleyball court or a bowling alley

 

[Miles Lacey]

It would depend upon the primary function of the castle but here's some of the things I have included in my WIP equivilant of a castle:

Armoury: No point in having a castle if it can't be defended.
Barracks: Those soldiers have to sleep somewhere.
Kitchens: Obvious reasons.
Library and Study: We're cultured people, not illiterate barbarians!
Forges: Making and repairing armour and weapons in your castle saves money and time. When it's quiet they could be used for making utensils, plates, bars, tools, machinery, building materials etc.
Chapel/temple/shrine: Nothing makes people religious faster than knowing they could die from disease, bullets or a dagger in the back.
Trophy Room: Best for impressing visitors and reminding people that you're a big shot.
Harem: Get your mind out of the gutter! Harems were noted as places of great social and political influence and learning in the Muslim world (which also included many parts of Europe).
Bedrooms: We all need sleep.
Dining halls: Got to eat, drink and suck up to people.
Dungeons: Inconvenient relatives, mouthy spouses, treacherous nobles and that bard who sang that very rude song about your (ahem) privates need to go somewhere while you work out how much to ransom them for or to find a place to hide their bodies.
Treasury: Without the moolah you won't have a castle or anything or anyone worth building a castle to defend.
Toilets: in my WIP we have indoor plumbing. In more primative settings latrines would be the order of the day.
Statesrooms: Great for dancing, singing, relaxing, drinking and backstabbing.
Furnance room: Folks got to be warm in your castle. Also good for body disposal in coups, assassinations and plagues.
Stables: Obvious.

 

[ThinkerX]

I used to use the old AD&D 'Castle Guide' for this purpose. Not only names the rooms and includes floor plans for castles ranging from royal retreats to outposts, but also names the various officials, servants, and others that would be dwelling there.

 

[Vaporo]

A room that can only be found if you already know where it is.
A wing that looks normal until you try to map the corridors, at which point you realize that it can't possibly exist in euclidean space.
A giant pump that leads deep underground that can flood the entire surrounding area with magma.
An antigravity chamber.
A holodeck.
An expansive underground cave system.
A long-forgotten zoo full of immortal creatures.
A room that causes everyone to forget whatever they did inside when they leave.
A room that exists at all points in the universe at once simultaneously.
A room that moves around the castle at random.
A giant pit full of discarded cursed objects.
A kennel.
A kennel full of eldritch abominations.
A Wonka-esque room with a river of wine.

 

[Orc Knight]

A Smoking Room. Hobbits gotta 4:20 somewhere.
You have a tower, but is it a Wizard/Mage/Witch/Magical Being's Tower? Those are even more terrifying then normal towers. *Glares at the stairs*
A front lawn full of villages and fields so the people inside the castle can eat.
Several attics to store all the former rulers stuff. Including the Land Pirate King's Stuffed Long Legged And Necked Parrot.
An Art Hall with pictures of all the rulers looking down on commoners with a disgusted or constipated expression.
Hall of Conquest, like a Trophy Room, but with even more violence involved. Usually lot's of flags from enemies, maybe a crown or two. A skull chalice from a particularly tough opponent. A broken jewel hilted 'magic' sword from one of those annoying 'Heroic' uprisings.
Secret Corridors that even the servants don't know about, or pretend not to know about. For escape from Heroes and Dragons and other such or to visit those they probably really shouldn't or just to go out among the commoners for a day and drink bad beer and get in bar fights.
Strategy Room. With a giant map that is also a chess board with interchangeable pieces and a roaring drunk Brian Blessed shouting in it.
Pool Hall, for off duty personnel. Has beer, pretzels and pub burgers.
Servants Quarters, because if your gonna have corridors for them you're gonna want to probably give them room and board.
Auditorium and Stage rooms. Why go into the city for theatre when you can have it in your own home in real life HD?
A Shark Pool just off to the left of the dungeons.
The secret dungeon next to the royal chambers.
A room that is otherwise empty except for a spinning wheel.
Lawyer Stables, for when you just have to sue the pants off of your neighbor. Every good ruler keeps a good stable of the most compassionate and ruthless on hand.
The Vault that holds the treasury and is guarded by goblins in power armor and holds not only the gold, but that one rock with the nice sword stuck in it.
Vanity Rooms. For personal vanity and closets. Usually have at least ten fancy hats.
Bakery and Donut Shop inside the walk by window. Guards love it.
Summoning Chambers. For when the ruler just wants to talk to someone/thing they can trust.
Star Chamber. For the astrologers and astronomers to argue over.
Panic Room. Angry peasants can't find the rulers there.

 

[Estarriol]

A pottery chamber. It could be normal or have magical glazes of various kinds.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

-A roller derby (just trust me on this one)
-A wizard chamber
-A library
-A statue room full of statues of the luxurious ruler...make sure the statues are enchanted to come alive!
-A hidden chamber with a magical giant brain that mind controls the monarch!!!!!!!!!(may be a bit niche)
-A laboratory for science and alchemy and whatnot
-A secret room for me to hide in and eat spaghetti

 

[ShadeZ]

You have a tower, but is it a Wizard/Mage/Witch/Magical Being's Tower?

A god of ice mages tower yes.

 

[skip.knox]

With all the suggestions, we're gonna need a bigger planet. <g>

 

[K.S. Crooks]

I'll try to state what others haven't:
infirmary, spells and potions (laboratory), indoor archery range, games room, hidden passages, greenhouse, servant quarters, wood shop, dungeon, armory, laundry

 

[Vaporo]

With all the suggestions, we're gonna need a bigger planet. <g>

A room where they store a spare planet.

 

[ThinkerX]

This thread is bringing back memories of a decades old project of mine: 'Falling Towers.' Rival groups of wizards who came close to decimating a continent in a catastrophic magical war, employing arcane artefacts they did not understand. The war ended with a truce, the terms of which saw the artefacts sealed into widely scattered towers, each watched over by wizards with small armies at their beck and call.

Therefore, these towers each contain (among other chambers)

Heavily trapped and warded artefact chamber
library
laboratory
wizards quarters
barracks, with attendant armories and training rooms
portal chamber (teleport link to other towers)

Problem is, warlords, religious fanatics, and barbarian hordes have been on the rise since the truce, they all know the locations of at least some towers, and they want the artefacts contained within.

 

[ShadeZ]

Question. If you beast holding cells are made to contain dragons and monsters could they not also double as a human prisoner dungeon?

 

[Orc Knight]

If you're planning on holding a large amount of prisoners, sure. Does the castle generally take in lot's of prisoners?

infirmary, spells and potions (laboratory), indoor archery range,

Those are some I missed. Greenhouse or hothouse is also a good use of space.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Swimmingpool
Sauna

 

[Miles Lacey]

Due to premature posting as I hit the wrong button I never got to complete my list of rooms for a decent castle. So here they go:

Alchemy lab: If located next to the dungeons it keeps the mages on their toes (nothing like the dungeons to intimidate them) and provides them with plenty of subjects to test their spells and potions on.
Bathing pools: Gotta keep everyone clean and smelling nice. Bathing regularly is also rumoured to help stop the spread of many diseases and illnesses. Also useful for extracting confessions and putting out fires.
Animal pens & stables: The leather, fur bikinis, milk and meat need to come from somewhere. Also, the knights have to ride something cool to wow the masses. Riding tanks just doesn't quite have the same effect.
Archery range: Useful if your folks haven't discovered the machine gun and sniper's rifle. Good way of keeping everyone combat ready.
Brothel: A remarkably effective place for extracting treasonous confessions. Seems that people who pay for sex love to talk and reveal stuff they wouldn't otherwise say.
Greenhouses: Animals and humanoids need to have their fruit and vegetables as well. The broken glass would be useful for slashing enemies should things get that grim.
Interrogation rooms: When wining, dining and whoring doesn't loosen tongues it turns out that racks, whips, hot metal implements and other such tools could be deployed if you're barbarians or medieval. In my world we've discovered that keeping the lights on all night while blasting really annoying songs, nagging spouses or the kids crying "Are we there yet?" through loudspeakers was more effective.
Towers: Useful for throwing people off (which is much cheaper and cleaner than using an axeman or hangman), watching out for enemies and locking up princesses. (Don't forget to have some boiling water handy. Handsome princes seem to be attracted to them for some stupid reason.)
Infirmary: People tend to get hurt a lot in castles. Backstabbing, poisonings, falling down stairs, an arrow going the wrong way, being burned by boiling water while rescuing the Princess locked up in one of your towers, DWP (drunk while ploughing) incidents and getting a dose of the plague or syphilis are all part of living in a castle.
Underground and hidden passages and rooms: When boiling water, boiling oil, arrows, cannon balls, dead bodies, excrement and dragons are flying in all directions outside and traitors, unwashed peasants, aristocrats who think perfume is a good substitute for bathing and enemy soldiers are rampaging inside you need to get from Room A to Room B without being detected. Making sure the passages and rooms are booby trapped increases the fun/thrill/body count.

 

[Ban]

I haven't seen "Wine Cellar" yet.

Are we entirely focused on medieval castles, or are later castles from for exmple the romantic period also accepted? In that case you can't go wrong with a place for the butler to sleep, a dressing room, a salon, an oratory, a throne room (Neuschwanstein) and if you really wish to go full Ludwig II, some artificial grottos made to look like fantasy destinations.