What drives a man to build a castle on a small island?

I think it's not really an island. low tide and high tide allow perfect protection against aggressors while transportation is still possible.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint-Michel

According to Strabo, the island was used by the pirates in the ancient age. But the castle was probably built by Alexios I Komnenos of Byzantine Empire after the First Crusade.[2] It was extensively rebuilt in the 13th century by Leo I and at least one subsequent monarch of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.[3] Archaeological surveys published in 1982 and 1987 found that the original Byzantine plan survives primarily at the south with the characteristic square towers. The Armenians rebuilt the north and west sides of the castle with their distinctive rusticated ashlar masonry (not spolia from the late antique city) and round towers. They also put new facing stone on most of the Greek construction. Two Armenian inscriptions reportedly mention the rebuilding of this site by King Levon I (1206) and King Het‛um I (1251).[4] The Armenians also built a barrel vaulted chapel inside the fort.[5] The island was once connected to the mainland fort, Corycus castle, by a breakwater. The Armenians called this fortress Gorygos (Կոռիկոս) but as it was slowly conquered by Turkish Empires the name changed to Kizkalesi.

In the 14th century the Cilician Kingdom was on the verge of collapse and in 1360 Peter I of Cyprus captured the island at the request of the inhabitants. The castle was captured by İbrahim II of Karaman in 1448 and by Gedik Ahmet Pasha of the Ottoman Empire in 1471. (Karamanids was an Anatolian beylik )[6] King Levon 1 is the same thing as King Leo 1

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>>54912181
pirates

for them or against them

>>54912181

really fucking persistent Jehovah's Witnesses.

>>54912181
An ancient portal to Hell is on the island, since they can't figure out how to close it they can seal it off from the world and build a castle around it.

>>54912181

Style.

But seriously, what the hell OP? The world if chock full of smaller islands becoming basically just a fort. If guns/whatever can reach long enough, congrats, you have a unsinkable warship -hopefully in a strategic zone.

Up to the 1900s. Hell, China is doing it in the Daoyu as we speak.

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>>54912181
>What drives a man to build a castle on a small island?

I'd imagine they'd be very difficult to siege?

You'd still have to worry about Hydras and freshwater Plesiosaurs, but no location is perfect, obviously.

Alexander the Great turned an island into a peninsula. He was that determined to take over the city in it.

>>54912181
>no Jim you can't build a castle there it isn't big enough
>oh yeah? hold my beer and watch this

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>>54912463
>unsinkable

That sounds like a challenge.

>>54912610
what a gangster

>>54912181
Madness.

>>54912592
Do you think they got internet connection there

Controlling sea lanes/a harbour enterance. If shipping needs to travel passed it, and you have ballistae/catapults/cannons that can threaten ships as they pass, then you have reason enough to build one.

Other uses: quarantine facility, prison, refuge.

>>54912181
Shits and giggles

>>54912181
So that he can project force more easily in the area surrounding that island.

>>54912885
Yes: http://www.hotelduguesclin.com/fixe/informations_en.html

>>54912181
His wife

>>54912903

Morro Castle is a great example of a fortress created to hold a harbor entrance, but several fortresses were built on islands to control passage like that. A well sited battery in a castle could easily out shoot even a powerful naval squadron.

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>>54912181

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>>54912181
>ctrl + f
>Boat
>No results

>>54912431
>Implying that would stop them

>>54913151
Landmines. And after a while put up a sign saying "Remember that only the first 144000 will get into heaven. It's already full, so fuck off."

>>54912181
Well, before the flood it was your plain ol' castle on a hill.

>>54912242
how does anyone know when is low or high tide?

>>54912387
where are the farms?

>>54912610
nigga, Alex spent 10 fucking years in front of a city on a hill while he built a fucking ramp up to it big enough for his siege towers to roll right up to the front gate. The soldiers participating were allowed to have their families transported to the siege camps so that they could be together. for the decade fucking long siege.

If that dude wanted your city he was gonna fucking get it.

>>54913205

Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe that they go to heaven when they die. At least not for most of them. They believe that the supermajority of Jehovah's Witnesses who died will be reborn on Earth which is been turned into a paradise after Armageddon.

T. Raised as a Jehovah's Witness

>>54913302
Watching the water, bribing local fishermen.

>>54913313
wherever the boats stop

>>54912181
Because, is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
No, says the man in Holy roman empire, it belongs to the emperor.
No, says the man in England, it belongs to the land lord.
No, says the man in Vatican, t belongs to the priests!
I chose differently, i chose, Chateu de Ravissement!

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>>54915208

>>54915237
It wasn't impossible to build a castle in the middle of the ocean, it was imposible to build it anywhere else!

>>54912672
Calm down, Hank Johnson.

>>54914230
Isn't that just a slightly pedantic (if more accurate) interpretation of Revelation?

>>54912181
Who the fuck WOULDN'T build a castle on a small island if they had the chance?

An intense desire for privacy and a compulsive need to be as ostentatious as possible

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>>54915208

>>54914399
Or you could, you know, calculate it. A thing that was very important for higher-ranked sailors.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#Observation_and_prediction

>>54913390
I thought those were the Romans, who built a ramp to destroy a city full of Jews only to find out they had all killed themselves.

>>54915400
People who need to go places and is unwilling to swim to get to them?

>>54915970
> spend 400 days to chase god's chosen people out of their dirty hiding hole
> arrive at the top of the ramp to find that all of them are poisoned except the last dude, who falls on his sword
No wonder everyone hates the jews, couldn't they have done that at the start to save the romans the time?

>>54916059
>gods chosen people
>their invincible fortress gets wrecked by heathens
Jehova being that god as usual.

>>54916180
this was long after jehova had Jesus shanked for us. they were all heathens at that point.

>>54912387
Just like my LEGO sets...!

>>54912181

Women

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>>54916827

>>54915032
For a second there I thought you meant the farms were on the boats.

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>>54915970
That was Masada, Alexander turning an island into a peninsula was the Siege of Tyre.

It's one thing for your wars to impact history, it's a whole other thing when they're making their mark on geography.
There's a quote about that, but I can't remember it

>>54912181
Much like the island forts in the English Channel, needing a base to watch and bombard ships from.

>>54916921

> A mad wizard builds a castle on an island
> Rumor is he was done dirty by a woman
> Wizard traps his castle; traps only activate for women
> Pirates end up raiding and killing the wizard, bypassing all the traps due to their dicks
> Island castle becomes a pirate fort
> A few years later pirates abandon island due to 'lack of women'
> Time passes by and while a few errant lords and pirates use this island as a base, no one stays long

> Present day
> Players find an abandoned castle ripe for headquarters, but will have to deal with the traps as they come up
> Or players have to rescue a hostage being held there by pirates
> Or players can break the spell by bringing a descendant of the wizard's ire to the island
> Or Players are hired to kill the ghost of the mad wizard who has begun to attack passing ships

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>>54916981

Maybe with enough boats of appropriate size.

>>54917348

yo what if

> A king's armada includes a flotilla of agri-barges
> Said agri-barges gets separated from the main fleet either on purpose or by accident
> For 'setting reasons' the boats never link up with the original fleet, opting to stay nomadic as they are self sustaining
> Several generations later these boats are still circling the globe and coasts
> Trade with coastal towns and ports
> These nomads have a good reputation because they don't want gold but fertile dirt

These barges can act as easy but slow transport for players or maybe the occupants have a reason for not settling down and staying nomadic.

>>54917404
I like this idea, and think it would combine well with a ghost ship encounter. Maybe its actually haunted, maybe its just one of those "this ship was abandoned 40 years ago, but still is spotted from time to time" sort of deals.

Bonus points if it pierces the fog right in front of the ship the pcs are on, and is far too massive to avoid. Now the players need to investigate the spooky ghost town on the waves, deal with whatever's left of the original inhabitants/livestock, try to find food, maybe find some timber in a good enough condition to either patch their ship, or build a raft.

>>54917404
Mostly, they'd want fertiliser and minerals. Trade food for phosphorous and new soil microbes.

But since ports already HAVE fresh food, they'd end up trading the food for pirates at sea for high prices (fresh produce at sea? PREMIUM PRICES!), and come to ports to spend their pirate gold.

>>54917450

For boats this size, despite not needing a large crew to maintain the ship, they would have an infrastructure to sustain a small population after generations of living. The top deck could be this weird spooky farm/orchard/garden and below deck be an old ghetto with tree roots from the top deck snaking below.

>>54912181
Because he just want to be left alone.

>>54912181
existing

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>>54917348

>>54912387
Comfy as fuck

>>54912181
To defend against the sea?

Dude got tired of bitches tagging on him and being a wage slave so became a.based hermit.

>>54916982
The Siege of Tyre was when Alexander built a bridge of rubble to reach the island portion of the city? Been a while since I read any history books.

>>54913390
Alexander was only king for 13 years. What you said isn't true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre_(332_BC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Gaza

>>54916180
Well, the fortress was invincible. The people inside were not. Chosen indeed. Chosen to die.

>>54917498
sea bird poop makes for excellent fertilizer. there's a country in the south Pacific whose entire economy revolves around the collection of centuries worth of bird crap deposits.

>>54922590
Yes, but how much do you get on a moving aircraft carrier?
And besides, you'll still need stuff you can't get from that.

>>54922635
you could raise seagulls or something, I'm sure there's a way to domesticate them.

>>54912181
Autism

>>54922590
Bird and bat poop.
I saw a documentary about that a while ago, apparently some people are worried that the deposits are going to run out sooner than anyone thinks and their economy is gonna be straight fucked.

>be new Lord by grace of the King
>be given money by said King as he was grateful for me saving his ass this one time
>decide to buy a castle
> medieval real estate agent tries to sell glorified forts and villas with high walls as castles
>tell her I ain't having that shit
>tell her I want a castle with a moat, the more moaty the better
>she says she all the castles in the land are already taken
>Get pissed off and threaten her peasant life
>she cries and pleads for her life saying she has an idea
>Get OP pic
>biggest motherfucking moat in the kingdom
nobody attends my feasts becuase the smell of seagull shit is always in the air. All my armour and weapons are fully rusted every couple years Because of salt.

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>>54912181
>What drives a man to build a castle on a small island?
To keep the prison you built on the island secure?
If you just built the prison then pirates and other anti-government entities would just break out all of the prisoners you placed in said island prison. That's why you build a castle around the prison. I mean, if you're going all the way and building an island prison for the baddest of the bad, the most dangerous individuals in all the land, then you want to 110% sure that they aren't going to check out or be checked out unless you give the order.
Besides, it's easier to build a castle on an island since you don't have to dig a moat around it afterwards.
I know this isn't the correct history of pic related, but it's related enough I don't feel wrong including it.

>>54912181
Wanting to have his own private fapcastle where none of those peasants can interrupt.