Laboratory (Stronghold)
Laboratory (Stronghold)
A laboratory contains magical and alchemical equipment suited to research and experimentation as well as various containers—crates, barrels, bottles—holding materials and reagents used in the experiments.
Stronghold Feat: You immediately learn one new cantrip or spell at the highest spell level which you have access to, chosen from one of your class spell lists. In addition, once between long rests you can use a bonus action to regain a spell slot of a spell level equal to half your proficiency bonus.
At Grade 4, while using your laboratory the time required to relearn a class feature from the sorcerer , warlock , or wizard class is reduced by half.
At Grade 5, while using your laboratory the time required to retrain an archetype from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard class is reduced to 1 month.
Best Suited For: Sorcerer, warlock, wizard
Minimum Size: 1,001 square feet (Grade 2)
Minimum Quality: Luxurious
Followers Available: Apothecary, diviner, interpreter, porter, sage, torchbearer
Library
Library
A library is a repository of knowledge contained within the reams and pages of books, scrolls, and tomes stacked atop one another or alongside on rows of shelves, as well as a comfortable area to read them in.
Stronghold Feat: You gain an expertise die whenever you make an Intelligence check using a skill you are proficient with.
At Grade 2 and each Grade afterward, choose one subject. Your library staff have traded other books in exchange for a masterwork book on the chosen subject.
At Grade 4, while you are in your library you are able to read an entire masterwork book over the course of a long rest .
At Grade 5, your excellent staff have made efficient summaries tailored specifically for you for every masterwork book in your library.
You are able to read and internalize one book summary at a time and can do so over the course of a short rest.
Best Suited For: Wizard
Minimum Size: 100 square feet (Grade 1)
Minimum Quality: Luxurious
Followers Available: Apothecary, diviner, interpreter, sage, torchbearer
Menagerie
Menagerie
A menagerie contains animals, monsters, and exotic wildlife from around the world. Usually these animals are kept for display, but many druids and rangers operate animal sanctuaries or veterinary services.
Rural: A menagerie can be either a building or a rural stronghold.
Stronghold Feat: Once per long rest , you can use an action to heal a familiar or animal companion you touch, which regains 3d8 hit points. In addition, you gain an expertise die whenever you make an ability check related to animals.
At Grade 4, you can heal a familiar or animal companion using your stronghold feat once per short or long rest. In addition, once per long rest you can spend 1 minute tending to a familiar or animal companion to restore it to its hit point maximum.
At Grade 5, you gain advantage on checks made to identify the lore and legends of a creature you can see.
Best Suited For: Druid , ranger
Minimum Size: 1,001 square feet or 6 acres (Grade 2)
Minimum Quality: Frugal
Followers Available: Healer, minstrel, teamster, torchbearer
Sacred Grove (Stronghold)
Sacred Grove (Stronghold)
A sacred grove which you tend to during downtime helps to attune you to nature. A sacred grove can be as small as a carefully cultivated herb garden or as large as an entire forest. Many castles have a small sacred grove on their lands, often with a symbolic tree or other feature.
Rural: A sacred grove is a rural stronghold.
Stronghold Feat: Choose one skill you are proficient with. If you are in natural, outdoor surroundings you gain an expertise die whenever you make an ability check using the chosen skill.
At Grade 2 and each Grade afterward, choose an additional skill you are proficient with to benefit from this stronghold feat.
At Grade 4, you learn the commune with nature spell if you do not already know it, and you may cast it once between long rests without expending a spell slot.
At Grade 5, you gain an expertise die whenever you make an ability check if you are in natural, outdoor surroundings.
Best Suited For: Druid
Minimum Size: 1 acre (Grade 1)
Minimum Quality: Frugal
Followers Available: Apothecary, diviner, healer, sage, teamster, torchbearer
Castle (Stronghold)
Castle (Stronghold)
A castle is a fortified building and a symbol of power; castles range from small wooden keeps to imposing citadels. Usually featuring reinforced walls and often surrounded by a moat or other defensive feature, a castle is designed to protect the occupants from invading forces.
Stronghold Feat: You gain a coat of arms, which can be displayed on your shield or on the flag of a squire bearing your standard (if you have one). Allies who can see your coat of arms gain advantage on saving throws against fear .
At Grade 5, your coat of arms can inspire your allies. When an ally able to see your coat of arms makes a successful saving throw against fear, they gain inspiration.
Best Suited For: Fighter , marshal
Minimum Size: 5,001 square feet (Grade 3)
Minimum Quality: Average
Followers Available: Cook, interpreter, minstrel, porter, smith, squire, torchbearer
Building a Stronghold
Building a Stronghold
Your character works hard to earn gold—plundering tombs, killing things and taking their stuff, accomplishing dangerous feats of derring-do. So why would you spend that money on a building rather than on a shiny new suit of armor or a magical sword?
A stronghold offers benefits that are designed to be equal or superior to the equivalent expenditure in arms and equipment. These benefits grant stronghold builders (and their parties) resources, bonuses, powers, and abilities which directly affect them, and which make their tomb raiding easier.
Haven. Unless the Narrator deems otherwise, you are always able to use your stronghold as a haven .
Try the Stronghold Builder tool! ⇨
City Bolthole | Cave Goblin Lair | Broken Bottle Tavern | Archives of Elucidation | Dwarven Gold Foundry | Floating Wonder Isles | Forest Queen's Sanctuary | General Store | Gray Mage's Tower | Halfling Shire Home | Healer's Temple | Horse King's Meadhall | Minas Curath | Monastery of Two Winds | Thief King's Guildhouse | Village Farmstead | Wilverley Castle | Brockendale Castle
Stronghold Types
Choose your stronghold’s type from the list of stronghold types: castle, encampment, farm, guildhouse, house, laboratory, library, menagerie, sacred grove, shop, tavern, temple, training hall, or workshop. The type of stronghold you choose defines the nature of the benefits it grants you.
Size
Choose a size for your stronghold. A stronghold’s basic cost is 1 gold piece per square foot for a building, or 500 gold pieces per acre for a rural stronghold. Strongholds of grade 7 and higher are usually out of the reach of most adventurers.
The size is the overall “footprint” or total space occupied by your stronghold. You can choose how much of it is physical structures and how much is external grounds such as gardens and courtyards.
Typical Examples. Of course a luxurious house that’s tens of thousands of square feet in size is likely called something else (like a manor, mansion, or palace), larger castles include keeps, fortresses, and citadels, great temples include cathedrals and basilicas, and after acquiring students a library that has expanded from a humble room into a sprawling structure might be called a school. A stronghold’s size (no matter what it is called) does not change its stronghold type.
Buildings. These strongholds are primarily structures, although they may include land. You decide how much of the space you’ve paid for is part of the building and how much is external grounds and gardens. When purchasing a building use the Building Area column of Table: Stronghold Size.
Rural. Some strongholds, such as farms, encampments, and groves, are not primarily based upon a structure. These strongholds tend to be larger than those based upon buildings, with expanses of open land.
When purchasing a rural stronghold, use the Rural Area column of Table: Stronghold Size.
Rural strongholds may include frugal structures such as barns or tents, and a single dwelling such as a farmhouse. These structures do not cost extra and are not considered sub-strongholds.
If a stronghold is a rural stronghold, this is noted in its description.
Table: Stronghold Size
| Grade | Building Area | Rural Area | Typical Examples |
| 1 |
100–1,000 square feet |
1 - 5 acres | Cave Goblin Lair , City Bolthole , General Store |
| 2 |
1,001–5,000 square feet |
5 - 10 acres |
Archives of Elucidation
,
Halfling Shire Home
, Horse King’s Meadhall |
| 3 | 5,001–10,000 square feet (about 85 feet × 85 feet) |
11 - 20 acres |
Broken Bottle Tavern
, Elven Noble’s Refuge, Floating |
| 4 |
10,001–25,000 square feet |
21 - 60 acres | |
| 5 |
25,001–50,000 square feet |
61 - 120 acres | |
| 6 |
50,001–100,000 square feet |
121 - 250 acres | |
| 7 |
100,001–250,000 square feet |
251 - 600 acres | |
| 8 |
250,001+ square feet |
601+ acres |
When purchasing a rural stronghold, use the Rural Area column of Table: Stronghold Size.
Rural strongholds may include frugal structures such as barns or tents, and a single dwelling such as a farmhouse. These structures do not cost extra and are not considered sub-strongholds.
If a stronghold is a rural stronghold, this is noted in its description.
Unusual Strongholds
Now that you have the basics of your stronghold, you can apply large multipliers to your stronghold cost in order to give it unusual traits—your stronghold can be completely underwater, or you can have it flying in the air. This modifier applies to the base cost of the stronghold, before you apply furnishings.
Minimum Cost. Note that there is a minimum cost for certain features. If your stronghold total cost is less than this minimum cost, its price is increased to the minimum cost. The minimum cost is applied before multipliers for furnishings and staff.
Income. Shops, taverns, and other businesses are assumed to break even, and neither generate income nor lose money. However, you may choose to have your stronghold generate an income. This is generally a long-term option, and the stronghold generates one-tenth its value every year. You may choose how frequently you collect this income. For example, a 50,000 gold shop generates 5,000 gold per year. The owner might choose to receive that monthly at a rate of 417 gold per month.
Table: Unusual Strongholds
| Feature | Cost Multiplier | Minimum Cost |
| Disguised/hidden (like a thieves’ guild disguised as a legitimate business) | x2 | -- |
| Garrison | x2 | -- |
|
Income |
x2 | -- |
|
Island |
x3 | 1,000 gp |
|
Mountaintop |
x3 | 1,500 gp |
|
Underground |
x3 | 2,000 gp |
|
Underwater |
x5 | 4,000 gp |
|
Floating in the air |
x10 | 20,000 gp |
|
Wondrous materials (such as adamantine) |
x10 | 30,000 gp |
|
Pocket dimension |
x50 | 35,000 gp |
Furnishings and Staff
Features include furnishings, staff, security elements (such as enchantments and traps), and so on. Furnishings are easy to do—you simply decide how much you wish to spend from the Stronghold Furnishings and Staff table and multiply the cost of your stronghold by the amount shown for its total cost. This multiplier applies to the entire stronghold (you can’t just create a single decadent room to stand in when talking to visitors).
Legendary strongholds are truly unique and renowned the world over, and people travel long distances to see them.
Selling Items. You cannot proceed to simply sell off individual items—it’s all part of a general cost—but if you are in desperate need of money you can downgrade your stronghold’s furnishings and recover half the money you spent.
Staff. Staff come with the stronghold and include all household workers and laborers, but not soldiers or special hirelings. The number of staff you have is determined by the quality of the stronghold you’ve chosen and its size (as per the Stronghold Furnishings and Staff table), rounding down (minimum 0). If you change the quality or size of your stronghold, your staff levels increase or decrease accordingly.
There is no expectation that all of your staff will be on duty or on the property at a given time.
Garrison. Choosing the garrison feature gives your stronghold a number of soldiers equal to half the stronghold’s staff level. For every 30 soldiers you also gain one veteran, and for every 200 soldiers you gain one knight. At the Narrator’s discretion, other NPCs (or monsters) may be part of your garrison. A garrison is used to defend a stronghold and cannot be taken adventuring.
Table: Stronghold Furnishings and Staff
| Quality | Cost Multiplier | Staff by Strongold Size (Structure) | Rural |
| Frugal | x1/2 | 1 per 1,000 square feet | 1 per 5 acres |
| Average | - | 1 per 500 square feet | 1 per 2 acres |
| Luxurious | x2 | 1 per 100 square feet |
1 per acre |
| Legendary | x5 | 1 per 100 square feet |
1 per acre |
Combining Strongholds
You can combine multiple strongholds; for example, you might choose to put a library or a temple in your castle, or place a sacred grove on your house’s grounds. You must pay the cost for both. A sub-stronghold must be half the size or smaller in square feet than the stronghold in which it is placed, and must be of the same quality.
Prestige and Increasing a Stronghold
The final value of your stronghold (including any sub-strongholds) determines the amount of additional Prestige you gain. The prestige bonus granted by your stronghold is shown in Table: Stronghold Prestige. The cost to increase your stronghold’s size later is modified by its furnishings and any other cost multipliers.
Table: Stronghold Prestige
| Cost | Prestige Bonus |
| 101-1,000 gp | +0 |
| 1,001-25,000 gp | +1 |
| 25,001-50,000 gp |
+2 |
| 50,001-100,000 gp |
+3 |
| 100,001-250,000 gp |
+4 |
| 250,001+ gp |
+5 |
Stronghold Types
There are many different types of strongholds, from small townhouses to mighty castles and mysterious wizard’s towers.
Free Followers. Each type of stronghold grants its owner a stronghold feat, as well as additional followers. For every 100 staff you have, you gain 1 free follower (see page 371 later in this chapter). You may choose the type of free follower from the list associated with your stronghold type. Followers granted by your stronghold start at inexperienced, increasing to seasoned when you reach 9th level, and expert at 17th level.
Stronghold Ability Score Increase. When you acquire a stronghold of Grade 3 or higher or upgrade a stronghold to Grade 3, one of your ability scores increases by 1, determined by the type of stronghold (see Table: Stronghold Ability Score Increase).
When you acquire a stronghold of Grade 6 or higher or upgrade a stronghold to Grade 6, your ability score increases by 2, and the maximum for that ability score increases by 2.
If you have a choice between ability scores, you choose which ability score to increase each time you gain this benefit.
Other Stronghold Benefits. Most benefits from a stronghold only affect its owner—every member of an adventuring party might chip in for a castle, but there’s only one name on the deed. For example, anyone with permission can learn to use a new weapon faster by training in a Grade 2 training hall, but only the owner of a Grade 1 tavern gains advantage on ability checks and attack rolls made against creatures poisoned by alcohol, and adventurers can’t craft items faster in a workshop stronghold unless they own it.
Table: Stronghold Ability Score Increases
| Stronghold | Ability Score |
| Castle, workshop | Strength |
| Menagerie , sacred grove, temple | Wisdom |
| Encampment , farm, training hall |
Constitution |
| Guildhouse, shop |
Wisdom or Charisma |
| House, tavern |
Charisma |
| Laboratory , library |
Intelligence |