Thats No Castle!

1d4 alternatives to castles for when you need a fortification up on that hill.

1. Tax House 

A fortified storehouse and bureaucratic center where taxes paid in local bulk goods (such as cloth, or salt) are collected, tallied, and made ready for transport. Could have a small garrison, or just a handful of sword/gun toting officials.

2. Agadir 

A sort of collective fortified granary, with individual chambers for different local families. Built as a citadel usually on elevated, rocky positions to protect surrounding farmland. Often used to store other valuable such as deeds, records, jewelry, clothes, carpets, and so on.

3. Signal Tower

Either optical semaphore or a classic pyre. Built high up with good lines of sight. Minimum garrison, and lightly fortified. Might double as a lookout and base for scouting parties. Of a similar vein, a relay or post station with stables of fresh horses and a cantina for tired messengers. 

4. Monastery (abbey) 

Big, isolated, and well-built religious compound. The monks likely own a significant amount of local land which they work themselves or rent to tenant farmers. Poorly defended with a lot of valuables.

 

1d20 Magnificent Hats

1. Absurdly large and colorful turban, 12 daggers hidden within.
2. A lobster-tail pot helmet with a beautiful meter long peacock feather plume.
3. A shako with another shako balanced atop it.
4. Jaunty commissars cap gilded in silver and purple of color.
5. Colorfully patterned top hat with cockades about the brim.
6. Great helm with antler horns and a miniature stags head crest wrought in ivory.
7. A pickelhaube with built in earplugs and a tiny cannon.
8. A galea with a veil and crest made of magical flames.
9. Massive bicorne with its own spyglass armed monkey.
10. A ushanka that is actually a tiny bear.
11. Just Henry the Eighth's horned helmet
12. Meter and a half tall wizards hat with built in compartments.
13. Houndskull bascinet shaped to look like a pig snout.
14. A sallet painted all the colors of the rainbow with a 'queer & here' sticker.
15. A black and white checkerboard patterned kepi with a single red gem front-piece. 
16. Bronze church bell with an eyesight cut into it.
17. Straw sunhat interwoven with removable piano wire.
18. An ulfire colored beret that is always warm.
19. A metal sedge hat painted with scenes from Hieronymus Bosch paintings.
20. Bowler hat with built in mechanical orchestra.