Building a Prison

[Ebrick]

I'm a Dm and i'm going to be sending the party into a prison to break someone out. They are 13th level, a rogue, fighter, and bard. I'd like to ask for some ideas on what to put in the prison. A bit about what i've got so far:

The prison is run by all an independant unit but houses all of the worlds most vile beings, from common race mass murderers to Illithids, to Giant undead dragons and gargantuan abberations. No one leaves. Ever. It's flavor is that of Alkatraz, Arkham, Azkaban, and The Tower of Latria (demon's souls). A really grimy, gritty, haunted and insane place. It's run by a beholder, with common race guards, Wraiths under control, and The Warden, who's a human assassin bounty hunter type. The idea is for this to be a complex of challenges for the players, and as such, there is no flying, and all of the prison cells are enchanted to make the prisoners speak gibberish.

The problem i'm having is simply filling rooms. I just dont know what to do with all of the space a prison might have and still keep each place original.

[Liam Warner]

Well you've got your standard options depending on the prison make up i.e.

1) Wardens office.

2) Barracks/meal room for guards on a break

3) Chapel

4) Different wings low/med/high security, male/female/genderless. Even in a prison like this your going to have a range of inamates from the Hannibal Lecter (silence of the lambs) serial killers who you don't let your guard down around because he'll take your face and escape through but who normally aren't too much of a problem through the uncontrollable monsters who just lash out all the time and into the Tai Lung Super villains who are placed in a wide open room, in chains with 100 guards armed with ballistas and orders to shoot if they sneeze because no one in the prison is strong enough to stop them if they get loose. Then you'd have the magic user cells inscribed with runes to generate an anti-magic field suppresing their powers.

5) Death Row if your doing executions which also requires an execution chamber.

6) Maybe an exercise yard although I'd advise against it considering who you've got in there.

7) Solitary confinement: a hole in the ground you look troublemakers in

8) Shower blocks.

9) Prisoner meal room

For the population simply draw from the various horror movies out there. Big bulky guy's who's face has been removed leaving their nerves and muscles exposed, undead zombie sitting patiently on his bed, badly burnt man skinny, guy who looks like your grandfather, elf with no eyes.

If you give the challenges they'll face a better idea of the route can be planned out as they aren't going to see the entire prison. I mean are the guards actually good guys, corrupt, insane? What did the person do to get incarcerated here? Magical crimes, murder, slavery, framed? All these things affect what they'd run across.

[Ebrick]

The guards are decidedly not good guys. This is sort of the material plane hell you send aweful people to so they can be tortured and kept by much more aweful people. The devil's keeping them locked up, but he's not a great guy. A lot of experimentation and torture happens.

The person they're after knows too much about the kings of many nations in a time of mass assassinations. Although the Pc's wont know until later, all of the major countries donated time and effort to have him arrested. He's not actually a bad guy, just has far too much bardic knowledge.

[Kantrip]

You could have the prison divided into sections, each built to contain and neutralize a specific type.
For example:

The Wet Wing: a section where it's always damp, to contain fire based creatures, with guards immune to fire

The Silent Corridor: permanent silence spells to contain creatures with sonic attacks, with guards who are deaf.

The Dark Cells: section always in darkness to contain creatures with gaze attacks, like the medusa, with blind guards who have blindsight.
Or the guards are creatures with gaze attacks and it's only the darkness protecting the prisoners.

The Silver Cells: Built to hold lycanthropes and devils, guards armed with silver weapons.

For more normal prisoners such as humans, special security sections:

The Wheel: A circular section with a slowly revolving inner wall containing a single opening that only lines up with each cell once per 24 hours, for maybe an hour each time. This gives time to feed the prisoner, or remove them, but could force the players to wait a long time for the cell they want to come into play.

The Aquatics: A section completely under water, with gillmen guards and/or sharks. The cells are elevated and contain air but only reachable through the water filled passages.

The Furnace: Corridor with permanent walls of fire on each side, heat side inward, with the door-less cells on the cool side. Guards are salamanders. Prisoners are brought in or out by means of energy resistance rings, fire.

[Liam Warner]

Well in that case you add all sorts of creepy touches. For example an execution chamber (method to be determined) with an observation window behind which is a table with cups and plates for the warden to enjoy a nice meal while overseeing the morning executions. Kitchens where some of the prisoners have been cooked to cut food costs including some remains that are obviously those of newborn babies. Special rooms for backers to have some fun with the prisoners ranging from rape to wizards trialling new spells complete with the victims.

To borrow fom a back I'm currently reading cells where people can be pressed up against a wall with limbs sticking through it for thropes to savage infecting them and getting a meal. Or for those who don't feed on common items things like Blodbags (men and women who've had their limbs and eyes removed because all they need to do is produce blood for the vampiric denziens).

Have the chapel but have it descreated and defiled.

[Ebrick]

Love it. Keep it coming.

[Lurk3r]

You may want to check out the Pathfinder Database's Red Gaols Prison Map. It's free and a pretty good base for a small prison. All you need to do is increase the size to suit your needs and spookify it.

[Liam Warner]

A few more ideas . . .

Sensory depravation and Hyper Sensory chambers to shut the inmate off from everything but their own mind or bombard them with a massive amount of sensory impressions respectively

A maximum security wing filled with preserved bodies and Crystals/Some other container that their souls have been stored in.

[Fire Mountain Games]

There is a map of a full-color map of a prison in our free preview aptly titled Prison Break! and a room by room description.

That prison is intended for 1st level characters, of course, but it might provide you with a few ideas.

Hope that helps,
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games

[JiCi]

Sorry for necro-ing this thread, but I'd like to pitch in: your prison doesn't have to be big, if it's not using cells.

- You could have a system that petrifies convicts, shrink them down to size and store them in drawers. The warden could use them as chess pieces too ;)

- You could have several mirrors of life trapping, each containing 15 convicts. Yes, it's expensive, but... if over the years, a warden managed to get 100 mirrors, that's 1,500 prisoners. The only problem is if a mirror breaks, you have 15 freed prisoners. Then again, the mirror is 4 feet squares, be a 2 x 2 frame, which is easy to store.