I’ve talked about lairs before, and today at Steff Metal I discovered a link to a number of stunningly beautiful star-shaped military fortresses. This kind of fortress was invented around the same time as the cannonball, which explains the “why” (even the moats are genuinely useful). Or you could just look at them, and drool.
http://weburbanist.com/2010/03/11/starry-knights-14-stellar-star-shaped-fortresses/