[OSR] Real places in RPG [3]: Harihar Fort
This seemingly inaccessible Fort is in the Nashik district, Maharashtra. western India.
Its purpose was to look upon the trade route through Gonda Ghat.
Unreachable places
Fantasy stories often feature a quest for a mentor/professor type of person. Those are evidently the secluded type (how else would there be an adventure?), searching for peace and quiet... At the top of a montain.
Even if this photo shows a stair carved in stone to a fortification, it really opens your mind to the possibilities of hardship you could find along your path to get to your ermite source of knowledge
They normally won't get down into the civilization, so why have an easy route to come to visit? They WANT to be left alone, anyway...
Untakeable Fortress
This kind of fortress was not a defensive fort, more of an observation point and deliver intelligence on anyone taking the road down in the valley.
Sure, as a last time mesure, a sovereign could barricade himself up there, and could probably not be easily dislodged from there.
Not even a trebuchet could throw stones at this remote area. A frontal attack by foot soldier would also be doomed to die under the stones, arrows and bolds of the defenders.
A siege could also take a very long time, and the resources to invest into the siege would be tremendous (manpower must be paid, but also food, etc.)
Spells like Goodberries or Create Food and Water make the outcome of a siege even more difficult if divine or mundane spellcasters are in the ranks of the defenders
Aerial attack
Attacking from above would be an option... Griffin-mounted knights? Low tech goblin air ballons? Floating disk? Wind-elemental-powered skyships? Yes, fantasy gives you options. Don't think the defenders would not think of such possibilities in planning their defenses (unless the technique is a novelty)?
Portals
Spells like Dimension door, Teleport, or Gate could bring you within the fortress walls... Sure, it's not easy or the war won just because you got there, but these spells do take away a good portion of the usefulness of such fortification. Unless they are protected by runes, enchantments, glyphs or the like. Which again is a big cost added to the construction and upkeep of the place (try to send one of those cushy spellcasters to walk to the top of that montain, taking stairs)... They will even complain the lack of teleportation circle, which is a security mesure!
Other reasons to want to get up there
As I wrote in a previous post, this series of post is based on a collaborative "show me your rpg places"-Group on facebook.
Other people there had good ideas, too...
- What about the moss? Could it be that this moss is a particularly rare and hallucinogenic sort?
- Could this stair lead to a doorway to another plane?
- Who else could you want to meet there? An orders of seers with peculiar knowledge about current events? A martial Art master tired of war and rivalry?
- Is there a magic source in that fort? With rejuvenative proprieties? Or just plain cure against the magical plague slowly decimating your village?
- Is the sword of the Emperor of the 5 Kingdoms set in a stone up there? (that would diminish the amount of candidates...)
- Is the Philactery of Lich hidden there?
- Is it not the best place for a dark cult to practice their unholy rituals ?(humans to sacrifice might get scarce, though)
And remember: reaching the top and surviving whatever ordeal is waiting for you does not mean you'll survive the descent back to civilization...
If you have another idea about what could be done, write it in the comment (in here is better, everyone can then read it)
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