If you've read In Hell's Bright Shadow, you probably know about the watchtowers situated along Kintargo's wall which serve as strongholds of the Dottari and also house jails for those who violate the laws of the city.
Anyone caught wearing fine embroidered clothing must turn over the clothing to the government and pay a fine equal to 10% the clothing’s market value; failure to do so results in the clothing being impounded and the dissident being imprisoned in a guard tower for 1d4 days before being released.
“I hear the dottari guard towers are so full of prisoners now they’re keeping those they arrest in warehouses. My cousin even said they’re putting prisoners to work in places like Sallix Salt Works.” (Links to Prisoners of Salt on see page 29.)
A PC who is arrested for public disobedience (or other relatively minor crimes) is placed in a cell under one of the numerous watchtowers along the city walls; these PCs are kept for 1d6 days or until a fine is paid (if the crime isn’t associated with a specific fine, 20 gp is standard). For greater crimes, a PC is likely sent to the Holding House for several days until the government decides what to do with the criminal—some are freed, others are sentenced to excruciations, and particularly important prisoners are moved on to Kintargo Keep.
If the PCs comply with the arrest, they’re brought to the nearest guard tower in the city imprisoned for the night—they’re released the next morning if they agree to pay fine of 50 gp per person.
I am interested in these towers for two reasons, if the PCs are captured and taken there, they might seek to escape for whatever reason, or a combat encounter may occur in that context. Second, I think that one mission the PCs may choose to embark upon is mounting raids against these watchtowers to free those imprisoned within. If the rumor above is to be taken literally, the watchtowers are frequently occupied to their capacity (or a large portion of it) with Kintargans arrested under Barzillai's draconian laws, which include not only the Proclamations but a repressive form of governance in general.
So by breaking into a tower, fighting the Dottari, and freeing prisoners, the Silver Ravens can show their defiance against the Thrune regime and spread their reputation as heroes of the people. When the cell doors are cast open and the prisoners scatter back into the city, they can spread word of the Silver Ravens and grant them greater publicity.
Additionally, they can also disguise themselves as Dottari and request a prisoner transfer using false documents...but that's up for the PCs to decide.
Here are the questions I ask:
1) How tall would you imagine these towers are?
2) How many floors?
3) How wide are they?
4) Besides beds/barracks for the guards, jail cells, and a storage area, what might these towers contain?
5) What would be on the ground floor?
6) How many Dottari would be stationed at each tower?
7) Besides a few Dottari, what other threats may they face within or outside the watchtowers?
8) How should I stat out the warden of the watchtower?
9) How should I stat out the torturer/keyholder, if the role is not taken by the above?
10) How long would the response time be for Thrune reinforcements to arrive and relieve the watchtower?
11) How would Barzillai and his lieutenants respond to watchtowers being raided?
I am interested in these towers for two reasons, if the PCs are captured and taken there, they might seek to escape for whatever reason, or a combat encounter may occur in that context. Second, I think that one mission the PCs may choose to embark upon is mounting raids against these watchtowers to free those imprisoned within. If the rumor above is to be taken literally, the...
First, I realize I'm casting Raise Dead on this thread, but I'm going to toss out information that someone may get use from.
Second, I've been interested in the towers for the same reasons. There's not a whole lot to go on, so the truth is that we can do whatever we think appropriate. Naturally. That said, there are a few things that provide guidelines.
Chief among them are the towers on the Bleakbridge, as found in part four of the AP. They are good representations of towers appearing along the city walls and wherever else they might exist. These square, stone towers are 40' x 40' in dimension and two stories in height.
We're also told that the towers (along the walls) are used either as barracks or as holding cells.
From this we can deduce that, as barracks, they are not elaborate structures, providing enough space for a couple patrols worth of Dottari (2 groups of 3 each). We can expect a single sergeant level officer (a 2nd level fighter) to make occasional appearances, but even that may be a bit much for some towers. At more important towers, though, the lower floor might double as an office for a lieutenant (or more rarely a captain) who is resident at most times.
For holding cell towers, there is probably a similar setup. That is, an upper room capable of holding somewhere between 4 to 8 prisoners, in one large cage or numerous individual ones. The lower floor would be for processing incoming prisoners, storing their gear and providing a small rest area for Dottari.
As most of these prisoners are in for minor charges, they're either let go soon enough (pending a fine, time served or other requirement), or are taken to a more secure facility because they're of a worse sort.
There should be no expectation of a warden, nor that these towers represent some type of elaborate jail structure. The cells and security would represent a struggle for lower level character (1st to 4th or so) fit for such escapes, but would be a lesser struggle for anyone higher.
That the Dottari are more disciplined than most police forces allows us to presume that the upkeep and condition of towers are probably better than for average scenarios, and it might be reasonable to run into 6 to 8 Dottari (including a lieutenant) if a group jailbreaks or escapes at the worst moment.
Still, would-be jailbreakers might have more difficulty figuring out which tower their buddy has been taken to than actually breaking someone out.
In terms of response, attempts at breaking out should have notoriety repercussions, regardless of success. The break out at the Salt Works adds 1d4 notoriety for each attempt, as an example, but it's not an official facility so double that amount seems appropriate for a guard tower. Repeated break-outs might bump this further.
Notoriety effects provide answers as to how the city and Barzillai will respond, though it might be reasonable to increase the city's Danger level for a week (by 5 or 10) to represent the response. At minimum, groups who do lots of raids risk reaching that 100 notoriety mark, damaging their supporters and delaying increases to the rebellion as a result. But, there are other effects to be had from notoriety, and it's a useful metric to use for Dottari or Asmodeans who are actually hunting down the PCs in some fashion--higher notoriety means that PCs better have good disguise skills or risk being recognized.
James Jacobs, in his "ask James Jacobs anything"-thread, answered some of these questions by Axial, but for some reason Axial didn't update this thread with Jacob's answers. So, here they are, maybe they can be of use to someone else.
(..snip...)
2) Regarding the watchtowers along the Kintargo wall...2a) How tall are they?
2b) How many floors are they?
2c) How many people do they intern in the jail cells, on average?
2d) How would the Dottari respond to them being raided?
2a) The towers are each 100 feet wide, but they're only about 60 feet tall. They're pretty squat, as far as towers go.
2b) Each floor has a 10 foot high ceiling, with a fair bit of infrastructure between floors, so I'd say that each tower has 5 floors and a roof.
2c) The typical tower keeps its prisoners on the 3rd floor (so that a potential escapee has equal amounts of adjoining floors to flee through, thus maximizing chances for them to get caught before exiting the tower), but not the whole floor is cell space—I'd say no more than half of each floor has cells. Let's guess that means about 15 10-foot-square cells. Pre-thrune, these cells would normally be used for minor criminals and drunks and what not, and would usually be pretty empty, but once Martial Law happens, I'd not be surprised to see them full. You could probably say that during the AP's first 4 adventures that the typical tower holds 2d10 prisoners at any one time.
2d) Increased patrols and increased guards at the towers. They'd likely end up recruiting Hellknight help, and if the PCs got really pushy, Barzillai might approve adding bearded devils or erinyes helpers.