Quotes / Mage Tower

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Literature

Every wizard had a tower, even in twenty-first century New York. It was the expected, required thing, and magic had rules and bindings more powerful than aught else. It had to, made as it was out of words and will and belief. Certain things had to be true, or the magic crumbled to dust and nothingness.

— Painted Birds and Shivered Bones, by Kat Howard

Towers stand alone in waste areas and almost always belong to wizards. All are several stories high, round, doorless, virtually windowless, and composed of smooth blocks of masonry that make them very hard to climb. The Rule here is that there is also a strong no-entry spell, often backed up by a guardian demon. In addition, Towers are subject to colour coding: black for evil wizards and blue, white or red for good or neutral ones. Black Towers tend to cast a blight of evil on the surrounding terrain: days before you reach them, you will have been able to tell they are near by the dead grass and trees.

— The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

From high orbit he drove a spear of sky-iron into the planetary crust, then directed an army of bound spirits to mold and shape it, until it was a fortress sufficiently grand for the ego with which Malkuril intended to furnish it. In this house, he puttered contentedly, sealing up servant populations of useful and sinister beings. He acquired the treasures of a thousand worlds, several million volumes of sorcerous lore, and the most comfortable pair of slippers he had ever owned...

— The Fall and Rise of the House of the Wizard Malkuril, by Scott Lynch

"But sorcerers are creatures of habit. Give them a tower to hide in and they’re up the stairs like a ferret up a drain, to borrow a phrase. Towers exert a strange glamour upon sorcerers. Caves, too, but only if a tower isn’t handy."

— Johannes Cabal, "A Long Spoon", Johannes Cabal

"It's rather like an induction into a hidden world, isn't it? Like taking food in the seelie court. Once you know what happens in the tower, the mundane world doesn't seem half as interesting."

— Professor Playfair, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence

Live Action TV

Thankfully for Qarth, the Warlocks exert little influence in our politics. They rarely leave the confines of their House of the Undying — a pompous name but, I admit, a strange and dark tower. It is said that none who enter ever leave. Of course, since there are no visible doors I have to believe that none ever enter, either. We can only imagine what the Warlocks do inside. I wager we do not have to imagine much: they read dusty scrolls detailing their lost glory; they sip shade-of-the-evening — a foul concoction brewed from the nearby trees — until their lips turn blue, the better to frighten children and the ignorant.

— Xaro Xoan Daxos, Game of Thrones — History and Lore of Westeros: The Warlocks of Qarth

Tabletop Games

Ceoris stands as the ultimate symbol of House and Clan Tremere, the brash conspirators of the mortal wizards of Europe, and the brazen Usurpers of the Cainite darkness. Its magic-hewn walls, soaring towers and impregnable foundations seem to represent all the power of the blood magicians within. Dark things creep about it at night, stony monstrosities flit from its towers and screams echo in its halls. Ceoris is a testament to the Tremere's efforts to keep the world's predators out and its own evils tightly locked within.
And predators and evils there are aplenty...

— Vampire: The Dark Ages — House of Tremere

Somewhere in the region of the Screaming Hills stand the Silver Towers of that most despised of all sorcerer covens, the Cabal of Egrimm van Horstmann. Many times have my brothers and I sought to find and destroy these towers and, more importantly, their sorcerous occupants. Every such venture has ended in failure. The Silver Towers are wrapped around with subtle yet powerful enchantments that I have not yet managed to pierce. Thus the Towers remain impossible to locate. They cannot be seen in the daylight hours, and throughout the night, when they are fully visible and therefore more vulnerable, they shift and travel across the landscape, vanishing and reappearing at random. Even a person with no understanding of the complexities of bending the Winds of Magic to his will must surely realize the virtuosity required to maintain such an enchantment as this. This in itself hints at the terrible power and skill of the Tower's dread occupants.

— Liber Chaotica

Ghrond lies in the bitterly cold north of the Witch King's domain. In shape, it is likened to the great city of Naggarond, yet is far smaller in size, a fortress to be garrisoned rather than a place in which to dwell. Its single, massive tower rises from a mountain spur like a grim, black and slender spear.
From the pinnacle of Ghrond's tower, Sorceresses of the Dark Convent can see far across the tundra, and peer into the ever-shifting Realm of Chaos. Within the Realm of Chaos, the lands seethe with energy, rising and falling like the sea, whilst the air is bathed in competing colours of magic, turning and twisting, howling and crying like the wind. The Sorceresses observe the changes in the Realm of Chaos, for it is said that the patterns of change hold the secrets to the future, and that all mysteries are contained therein for those who dare to look.

— Warhammer: Dark Elves Army Book (7th Edition)

The preferred dwellings of Necrarchs are forbidding towers in the wilderness. There are several reasons for this: the vantage point of a tall tower gives greater access to Azyr, the Blue Wind of Magic, which the Necrarchs observe to gain insights into the future. A tower is easily defensible, and given their relative lack of a need for blood, the Necrarchs prefer to shy away from civilisation. Most of all, whether they admit it or not, dwelling at the base of the heavens brings the Necrarchs closer to what they see themselves as: Gods.

— Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Night's Dark Masters — A Guide to Vampires

The White Tower is visible tens of miles away, a sharp white needle of marble thrusting up into the sky. Its approaches are guarded by rings of illusion and mazes of spells, which mean only those people whom the Loremasters want to approach the Tower may find the true path towards it. It is said that those who seek wisdom and learning will find it at the Tower, but those who seek power for its own sake will become lost in Hoeth's spell-mazes for the rest of their days.
Here, the High Elves learn and study High Magic, the only spellcraft that uses the Winds of Magic in harmony. Teclis, the same mage that helped the Humans of the Empire found the Colleges of Magic, is now the High Loremaster of the White Tower and he presides over some of the mightiest wizards in the world.

— Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms Of Magic (2nd ed)

The measure of a Sorcerer's worth in Surgub is determined by the height of his tower, a law that has caused the city to grow vertically into a crown of crystalline spikes many kilometers high. The highest ranked sorcerers seldom descend from the heights, living out their lives in the clouds far beyond the grip of common mire beneath.

— Black Crusade

Video Games

On a cliff overlooking the dark waters of Lake Calenhad stands the tower fortress that is home to the Circle of Magi. This tower is the only place in Ferelden where mages may study their art among others of their kind; within the high stone walls, the Circle practices its magic and trains apprentices in the proper use of their powers. But the Circle Tower is as much a prison as a refuge: the ever-vigilant templars of the Chantry watch over all mages, constantly alert for any sign of corruption.

— Dragon Age: Origins

"A proper mage tower. Every castle needs one."

— The Inquisitor, Dragon Age: Inquisition

"That's a proper wizard's tower — no truck with gravity or mortar. I like it!"

— Sienna Fuegonasus on Holseher's Tower, Vermintide II

Visual Novels

"If I had experiments to do and I didn't want to be bothered... I'd put as many stairs between me and my visitors as possible."

— Unnamed wool weaver on the location of Gideon's laboratory, Reigning Passions, Sevastian season 2

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