Incarceration in the Realms

6 fantasy prisons and associated plot hooks to add to your games.

by Ferdan

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 magic, twisting it into a form that he can utilize. When
Incarceration In the Realms
The Spider initiates a prison riot, Riddance will be
There’s plenty of reasons to deprive someone or
encased in a shell that inflicts psychic trauma upon his
something of their liberty, though it tends to come
attackers, plaguing them with visions of horror and
down to threat. Political prisoners pose a threat to the
capable of targeting his foes with a curse that makes
ruling power, felons threaten society and the rule of
them nearly irresistible targets to their opponents and
law; while chaotic-evil, five-headed dragon queens
allies alike.
threaten just about everything under the sun. Though
there’s a world of difference between imprisonment
Parties called to the scene will find use for dispel
on a layer of the nine hells and being trapped in a cell
magic, counter spells and charms to subdue the
full of hungry rats because you spoke out against the
warlock, while the other prisoners may be brought in
Hulorn.
line en masse via arcana checks to manipulate the
lingering magical energy blanketing the prison in a
Here is a selection of six possible prisons that can be
similar manner to Riddance.
used in a game, with associated story hooks.

Cold-Point Prison
Vhaeraunt Castle
True to its name, Cold-point Prison is a frigid and
This castle is tucked away in the woods and serves as a
unforgiving compound positioned on a tiny strip of
privately operated prison for taking in the petty
land jutting into the sea, Cold-Point was built to house
criminals of Sembia and Cormyr, these prisoners are
dangerous criminals such as Riddance Everrasp and
always of low value as the two nations prefer to handle
notorious assassin, The Spider.
major criminals, traitors and foreign agents by
Cold-Point guards liberally utilize the spell sanctuary as
themselves.
they go about their duties, enabling them to enter a
prisoner’s cell and check for contraband or deliver new
Falorn, an enchanter of significant power and the
sheets and clothes.
owner of the castle is also the warden of the prison, in
the original deal signed with Cormyr and Sembia he
This sustained casting has had an unusual effect on
negotiated a small sum of money to be delivered
prisoners serving extended sentences; when they
monthly, just enough to pay his guards. Busy with more
attempt to lash out at their captors they find
important matters than thieving urchins, street
themselves beset by flashes of their target’s life, all the
brawlers and excessively corrupt merchants, the two
little ways they enrich the world, juxtaposed harshly
countries pay little heed to the prison's operation
with how they themselves subtract from it.
allowing Falorn to run a business on the side; wherein
merchants can contract his services to drum up a
For most prisoners this is a truly powerful moment and
significant amount of business.
has led many of them closer to repentance, for others
such as The Spider and Riddance it is only an
Of course, this business is far from legit, every cell is
annoyance. An annoyance that they are fast working to
enchanted to exert an effect similar to a geas upon its
turn to their advantage. Riddance, cut off from his
occupants, this effect continues for up to 90 days after
Patron has managed to manipulate this lingering
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the victim is released and is used to force the inmates
to act as Falorn commands, once the 90 days is up a
secondary effect kicks In erasing the victims memory of
the geas.
The party may come into the matter in several ways,
they can be approached by a merchant friend of theirs,
describing the suspicious activity of Falorn, perhaps a
spate of customers have attempted to resist the urge
to buy mint ale with every last bit of their savings and
died in their shop, or maybe they’ve just noticed how
unhappy their customers look.
Alternatively, if the party has their own business,
Falorn could approach them directly in order to offer
his services, thereby allowing the party to experience
the strange influx of customers themselves.
The Hold
The Hold is a prison ship, 100 feet long, it sails along
the coast full of high value prisoners, disguised as a
merchant vessel in order to avoid undue attention. The
Captain receives his orders via a two-way scrying pool
in his quarters, informing him where to set his course
in order to avoid hostile patrols or pick up and unload
more prisoners.
The Hold can be seen loading crates from beaches or
ports in minor or major settlements, these crates have
a permanent silence spell cast on them and contain
sedated or paralyzed nobles, high ranking cultists or
any other prisoner whose friends would attempt to
break into a standard, stationary prison.
One way to introduce The Hold is via prisoner delivery,
a party contracted to deliver prisoners in such an
inhumane manner is likely to have significant moral
qualms and may even come into conflict with the crew
of the extra-judicially operated prison ship.
Alternately, if you’d like to run a prison break with the
hold, perhaps one of the recently loaded prisoners was
actually a polymorphed fiend contracted to rescue a
specific prisoner that begins tearing its way through
the crew and attempting to force the ship back to port.
Root-Snare
Adrie Amakir was an immensely powerful sorcerer of
chaotic-evil bent, known as the Immolator for her
mastery of fire magic. Adrie believed she was destined
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to burn the world and elevate the primordials above
the gods. This belief filled her so completely that even
after death she continued to work towards it as a
revenant.
Adrie continued to burn and kill uncontrollably until a
Druidic circle; The Spear of Silvanus, subdued and
bound her within Root-Snare.
Root-Snare is built into the side of a heavily wooded
hillock, a single twisting passage burrowing deep into
the earth, terminating in a web made of roots that act
to sap her power, channeling the destructive elemental
power away from her and acting as heat sinks. The
trees covering the hill have the appearance of
wounded trees reviving after a bushfire, burnt bark and
fresh new wood growing from charred limbs and trunk.
The druids of Silvanus still tend this copse, for if they
do not it will fall and Adrie will return to scourge the
lands once again.
Cultists of elemental chaos, seeking glorious desolation
strive to uncover the Root-Snare so that they may
slaughter the druids and break the bonds.
Greybore Island
The compound on Greybore island is a prison designed
for one inhabitant, an Aboleth, unfortunately it has
long since partially slipped its mental shackles and
taken control of the guards.
While the Aboleth still can’t leave the compound, it can
exert its will over the guards, sending them to the
mainland, the very edge of its control and ordering
them to bring a group of sufficient power to break
Greybore's wards.
The enthralled guards will present a story about a
creature that has broken free of their prison and
requires some heroes to subdue, they will then take
them to the lowest level of the warded cave system
underneath the prison, where the weakened Aboleth
will attempt to control them one by one in order to
break the wards. Tip the party off by allowing arcana
checks to understand the wards power and purpose,
history to recall the defeat of the Greybore Aboleth or
simply have one of the guards temporarily break free
and blurt a pleading warning.
Incarceration in the Realms
Scaldfield Gaol

The Gaol is situated amidst a volatile geyser field, jets

of scalding hot steam erupt from the earth at random,
inflicting terrible wounds on anything living caught in
their blast. The building and it’s three fences are pock-
marked with rust and encrusted with mineral build up.
In order to escape without needing to fight their way
through the guards, prisoners would need to get past
the fences and then be either fast enough to evade the
geysers, perceptive enough to detect the buildup to an
explosion of steam or intelligent enough to pick out a
pattern and plot a safe path through the field.

Any jailbreak here will likely see mass loss of life

fighting through the heavily guarded complex or flash-
broiled corpses lying anonymously in the geyser fields.

Of course, resistance to fire makes the task a lot easier,

a fact Lucian; a recently incarcerated cultist of Belial is
counting on it. Lucian has signed a fiendish contract
exchanging 5 souls for temporary immunity to fire and
the ability to bestow immunity to a limited number of
people. If he fails to get these souls in one week his
own is forfeit.

If the PCs are imprisoned in Scaldfield they’ll definitely

be approached by Lucian who will offer his gift in
exchange for assistance with a breakout, after escaping
the main prison and entering the Geyser Field he will
revoke the gift and attempt to slay the Pcs,
commemorating their deaths as sacrifices to Belial.
After this the PCs will be forced to escape the now
deadly geysers on their own power.

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