# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > DM Help Help coming up with ideas and concepts for powerful magic users and their towers

## [email protected]

*Help coming up with ideas and concepts for powerful magic users and their lairs, towers and sanctums.* 

So I'm working with this concept of thematic magic users and their bases for a campaign.



I need Help coming up with ideas and concepts for powerful magic users and their lairs, towers and sanctums. 

So, Im working in this adventure where the players are having to deal with a bunch of factions, each pair of factions opposes each other on a philosophical and political level.

The faction Im having trouble coming up with ideas for are the rogue mages, the oppose the mages guild, who are all about control and practical application of the arcane, the rogue mages rebelled and just left, the weak ones were discreetly killed off while the powerful ones were left to their own devices in the outskirts of the nation. 

They are not bad guys per se but they are very egotistical and selfish, only care about their exotic and self indulgent reacherch and goals. Unlike the mages on the guild, who are mostly bureaucrats with very little real power, those surviving rebel mages are extremely resilient and almost god like in power. So its a good idea for the pcs to gain favor with them, and to do so they will have to explore their tower and residences and I really want to flesh out some eccentric, weird and outhrere characters with a lot of magical power at their disposal and to do so I also want the environmental storytelling of their towers and sanctums to show as much as as their personality as possible. Their powers and spells all have kind of a theme and their personalities and actions are very Weird. They are outsiders and not bound by common laws and morality. I dont want to push too far but I want their lifestyles, needs and ideals to be really decadent, amoral, self indulgent, problematic, interesting and exotic.

Here is what I came up with so far:

*Life magic user:*



She lives in a manor on top of a giant tree she built using her power over life and plants, she is isolationist and see non mages with disdain, there are no stairs to the top, you have to be able to fly or float to get to her and have an audience, she loves birds and her mansion is filled with caged birds, she hates her mortal body and wants to transcend it, undeath is the conclusion most of her peers arrived on how to transcend the needs to eat, drink and defecation.

She hates the undead and dont want to become a lich, her obsession is all about a non-necromantic way to transcend her perceived limitations, in special defecation, she is a neat freak and hates anything dirty or smelly, she unnaturally extended her life spam using life magic but still has physiological needs, her research is focused on a way to tap on life forced directly so that she is feed with extra dimensional energy much like a plant feeds on sunlight, she is so far unsuccessful, most of the birds in the cage are dead since she refuses to feed them so they wont soil the place but the abundance of life energy in her tower makes the corpses unable to rot. So its like a bunch of magically taxidermy birds on cages, she is unaware of this phenomenon. 



*Transmuter magic user:*



Also Know as the corrupter, she lives in a reddish cylindrical tower in a forest, very powerful, only found if he wishes to, probably the most eccentric of the magic users, the forest looks normal but as you get closer and closer to the the tower, it all gets very gory and organic, with veins, guts and entrails mixing up with the trees, rocks and grass.

The tower itself has one entrance up above, with a chain going all the way down, this entrance is a trap and the only way to get in is to walk in the walls of the tower as if they were not there, the entire towers interior is also organic look and feel, as if in the bowels of a giant creature, the disciples and attendants of the magic user are alchemists who turn common materials into gold and unlike the life magic user she is not an isolationist, he engages in trade with the villages around, trading gold for goods.

Her apprentice poses as him in a throne but in actuality the magic user is the tower itself, it has fused her body and consciousness to the structure and slowly spreading his corruption around the area in the hopes of becoming a godlike being, a type of man made genius loci.



*Mirror magic user:*



The youngest of the group, his magic is focused on spells related to mirrors and reflections, his castle is in ruins next to a lake, if inspected it reveals to be empty but the reflection of it reveals an intact castle, by entering the lake the player emerge in a pocket dimension where the castle is located, he is busy with his rechearch trying to reach a type omniscience/omnipresence by connecting a spy network on ALL reflective sources in the kingdom and later in the world. having problems on not going mad with information overload in the process.

*The blood magic user:*



She is an old had, very power, possible the most powerful, controls life, space, dimensions, water, rivers, size and even a little bit of reality,  gets power from human sacrifices, guild outlaws sacrifices, so she opens a hut where she offers her services as midwife, any unwanted baby from noble people trying to keep their status or peasants who cant afford is sacrificed to power her magicks if male and raised as a helper/daughter /apprentice if female.  

Her hut is larger on the inside and is able to sprout spider legs made of rots and move places if the people get too afraid/mad at her baba yaga style.

*The emotion and time mage:*



The unofficial leader of the rebels and second most powerful of the group, he is cocky and likes to show off. Control over emotions, time and space are his specialties. There was a conflict with a local general of the kingdom and in revenge he evacuated a large and important local fort using fear spells, imploded the fortress from the inside out with his spells, created a permanent time control bubble around the area, froze the building in the air in the middle of the explosion, altered the temporal effect so people could enter unaffected, and made the floating ruins of the fortress his base of operations. All this in a pretentious demonstration of power to cause fear and admiration. He collects people that are very obsessed with their beauty and would rather die than age, but by dying they would rot and their beauty would fade anyway so agree to be frozen in time and displayed in his castle as a type of sick perverse form of art. He is always in the look out for more beautiful people that would agree with such insane proposal and guests to entertain in his gallery full of beautiful frozen vain people.

This is what I was able to get so far, Im picturing around like 11 magic users? So if you guys would like to share any ideas or concepts I would be more than happy. Plus I just find the concept of thematic powerful magic users doing questionable experiments and have immoral or amoral habits.

I feel its a very interesting way to add some color and flavor to a dungeon and I feel some people could run entire campings just inside a random weirdo mages tower LOL.

EDIT: Also, any feedback on the ones I've made would be much welcomed and appreciated. Did you guys like it? Found them interesting? Would those places instigate you to explore and wonder as a player?

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## Khedrac

You could have a mage whose main focus is on knowledge and the gaining thereof.  Their tower will be a massive library.  At first thought they don't seem particularly dangerous, but when one realises that even if they don't know your true name (probably) they definitely know the true names for a dozen arch-fiends and arch-angels whom they can summon to deal with troublemakers...
Probably non-interventionist by nature (though expect them or their servants to show up at the destruction of a famous library to "save" what they can) the big question for most adventurers will be "how can I find new informtion for them to trade for accessing their library?"

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## [email protected]

> You could have a mage whose main focus is on knowledge and the gaining thereof.  Their tower will be a massive library.  At first thought they don't seem particularly dangerous, but when one realises that even if they don't know your true name (probably) they definitely know the true names for a dozen arch-fiends and arch-angels whom they can summon to deal with troublemakers...
> Probably non-interventionist by nature (though expect them or their servants to show up at the destruction of a famous library to "save" what they can) the big question for most adventurers will be "how can I find new informtion for them to trade for accessing their library?"


Oh, that's nice!

Him knowing their names would actually be extra impact because in this setting and game world speaking and knowing people's names is taboo, you only refer to people using their titles "The keymaker" "the balcksmith" "The duke" "The Priest" or their titles "The white knight" "The Hyena" "The Invisble Beggar" like a fairy tale, knowing or speaking someone's name is something really privete and intimate, nice one.

It kind of reminds me of that spirit in the library from Avatar the last air bender, one of my favorite episodes of the show.

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## Quertus

Rats, my phone ate my first reply :(

So, lemme tell you about ones Ive actually used, one at a time this time.

Necromancer #1 (Necromancy, Time, Space)

Ill put the details in a spoiler, not just for length, but because those who believe they know me irl shouldnt read the spoilers

*Spoiler: omniphant graveyard*
Show

So, looking at this simple stone tower, it seems like nothing special, although the ring of golems around the giant spyglass (telescope) at the open-air top layer might give some pause. What makes it noteworthy is the surrounding area.

Everyone knows what an elephant graveyard is, right? Well, this tower is situated in the middle of an *everything* graveyard. Bones of every species imaginable (and many unrecognizable) surround this tower, organized by creature type. Careful observation may lead one to discover that the golems are carrying the bones out of the tower and placing them into piles (the golems cease this activity for a period of time after detecting unknowns in their vicinity; if the unknowns seem demonstrably not hostile, they will resume their work (so long as no one is in the tower, that is)).

Inside, the tower is similarly boring mostly. Simple unintelligent life (birds, rats, etc) are warded out; familiars based on such life forms may feel the ward, but can pass it without difficulty.

What baffles the most destructive of intruders is that none of the magic is visible, or subject to removal, even by Mordenkainens Disjunction. And the tower itself heals at near-Tarreasque speeds.

For peaceful intruders, they will find that the bottom floor contains simple amenities (fireplace, couch, comfy chairs, even beds), and a hole in the ceiling where a staircase once stood reveals that similar furniture used to exist on the next floor. Above that are libraries and labs, with huge stone altars (slabs) and giant metal cages.

The libraries contain works on a vast array of arcane topics; it is nigh impossible to learn much about the towers creator by browsing their library. However, given an infinite amount of time to study and cross-reference, a clever and patient reader may notice a) while most of the books are secondhand (or fifth hand or more), and often contain notes in the margins by various hands, one set - a dry collection of dissections (literally autopsy reports) - are pinned in the same hand with only that hands notes; b) that hand penned notes that are related that cover several topics, including dissections of planar shepherds, information about planar shepherds, information about planes (especially demiplanes and fast time planes), the creation of extradimensional spaces, Sigil, and the Valdus Crystal.

Turns out, this tower is a mortal attempt at reproducing such wondrous magic. When the tower is unoccupied, it accelerates to tremendously fast time to sync up with connected fast time extraditions spaces. The golems (built with planar keys to these demiplanes) collect the bones of dead creatures from those pocket worlds, and place them in corresponding piles outside the tower.

The twist: the woman who resides there now is not the towers creator. She knows nothing of him, his fate, or the intention of his work, and barely understands the rudiments of the tower. She knows enough to say that the tower isnt operational unless the only thing living inside is its creator, from which many infer that she built it. In reality, she is Undead, but hides this fact. She is a pleasant hostess (despite (rare) rumors of her temper), and, if pressed, admits that she has such a temper, but feels that the gods are watching this tower, and so does her utmost to be a civil hostess to any guests who happen by.

The towers creator was most interested in Evolution, and in using Necromancy to guide and expedite the process. He accidentally invented numerous creatures, from flying turtles to electric rats, but what he really wanted to do was to work on higher species, like humans, elves, and Dragons.

Unfortunately, before his work advanced to that stage, he suffered a mishap. While investigating a problem in one of the demiplanes, his planar tuning fork was destroyed. As the plane in question lacked the resources with which to craft a replacement (and the golems had standing keep out orders until he resolved the problem), he ultimately spent the remainder of his years on a fast time plane. Before his death, he created one last golem, an immortal companion that could be mistaken for a slaymate (because he had wanted a slaymate, and realized, trapped on a demiplanes of his own creation, he would never get one).

Ultimately, his work on golems, planes, and artiface exceeded that of his passion for creating custom creatures. His last creation contains all the knowledge he amassed on that front. As would his corpse, I suppose.

As for the towers regeneration, its a combination of every connected demiplane acting as a repeating trap of something akin to Make Whole, and numerous small hidden areas within the tower containing necrotic hearts (all the creators own heart) that similarly magically regenerate everything in the tower, including each other. (The towers current resident does know about and has studied the hearts)


So, kinda the opposite of your thematic towers, this one looks vanilla, but contains hidden depths.

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## Quertus

> You could have a mage whose main focus is on knowledge and the gaining thereof.  Their tower will be a massive library.


I had an eccentric Wizard have a tower that was composed entirely of books. Stacks of books for furniture, even the tower walls were books. The party was aghast when they saw him burning books for warmth in a fireplace made of fireproof books. He admitted he had anti flame, a dark fire that would unburn the books - he used that to cool the tower in the summer. Seems like a similar theme.

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## JNAProductions

> Rats, my phone ate my first reply :(
> 
> So, lemme tell you about ones Ive actually used, one at a time this time.
> 
> Necromancer #1 (Necromancy, Time, Space)
> 
> Ill put the details in a spoiler, not just for length, but because those who believe they know me irl shouldnt read the spoilers
> 
> *Spoiler: omniphant graveyard*
> ...


Using this. Using this SO HARD, because its SO COOL!

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## Quertus

Nani the Narcissist (Force, Enchantment, Illusion, Space)

*Spoiler: maze of despair*
Show

Nani is known for 3 things: being a narcissist, having eyes all over her body, loving to play with her prey, having lots of inexplicable admirers, having a very selective memory, and not being able to count.

In reality, Nani is a unique Beholder, who replaces the head of her victim, and burrows lots of eye stalks throughout their body. She uses Charm, Dominate, and even Necrotic Tumor magic to ensure that she has plenty of replacement parts (ie, Wizards) around should her body wear out.

Her lair is protected by weird combinations of Walls of Force, Solid Fog, Confusion, and emotion-control magic. So its an invisible maze in fog, that makes you move randomly and lose your bearings, and tries to make you lose hope and despair. And it contains hazards being held away by magic, so attempts to remove the magical impediments often result in acid, lava, poisonous acid, poisonous lava, poisonous acidic lava frogs, cats, swarms of exploding undead mice, sealed gates containing rabid Karens, and other hazards to appear.  Whats truly baffling is that, if Nani is alerted to the intruders, shell generally deal with them by poking them with a stick until dead. Seemingly, shell poke through a Wall of Force, and be immune to retaliation.

In reality, one of two things is going on. Either, its an illusion, and the victim is being hit with Sense Shifted Far Punch (Scry and die be annoyed for 1 damage), or shes literally playing 5d Wizard Chess, striking from dimensions others could not even perceived without her benevolently revealing her presence. As shes literally moving in 5 dimensions, most 3-dimensional beings have no way to interact with her (Although they can hold an action and break her stick).

Nani doesnt really do invited guests who arent her thrulls (one way or another).

Past the defenses, Nani lives in, incongruously, a very small Dyson sphere. She uses her talent for Force-based magic to say that down is where she says it is. Those who stare at the sun long enough may realize that its supposed to be her face; those who stare longer may get some clues that its actually supposed to be *her* / that shes not human, as the hair is all wrong.

Inside is an idyllic garden and magic university, where the captive residents treat her like a goddess, and she raises new spare parts.  Although the natives are dimly aware that an outside world exists (Nani has to go *somewhere* to get all the extra teachers), the Sphere is literally their world, and most dont lose their heads wanting to leave. Especially after hearing about the darkness in the outside world.

Someone who can survive / defeat her defenses, and will not offend her pride / will praise her, and whose actions do not disrupt the school can actually find Nani an exceptionally receptive and useful tool. Who will forget that she likes the intruder, and Attack them with a pointy stick the next time they intrude in her domain. Because Beholder Narcissist, who cannot learn that this isnt the perfect plan to deal with all uninvited guests.

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## Quertus

Necromancer #2 (Necromancy, Space, Dream)

NEffolipii, the undying horror

*Spoiler: living inside your own head*
Show

Whats scarier than a Wizard? An undead Wizard, a Lich. Whats scarier than a Lich? An ancient Lich that has nearly transcended the material plane, a Demilich. Whats scarier than a Demilich?

Well, what if Freddy Krueger and a Lich had a baby, and that baby looked like the final boss from SAO? And it lives somewhere between Dream and reality, a shifting place where you literally bring your own worst nightmare with you, like Degobah.

Enter NEffolipii, oversized Naga Lich.

Few things are static about the dark tower that NEffolipii calls home, aside from the presence of traps and massively vertical libraries, as its shaped by the nightmares of those in the vicinity. One day you might find people burning at the stake next to a lake of elves and orcs and men (all dead, all rotten); the next, hungry wolves and terrified elves might be fleeing from cats; a third, giant feet from the sky may be squashing things randomly around the tower while jelly children scream the floor is lava!.

Inside is as incoherent as the grounds, with corpses floating in indoor reflecting pools, clowns behind random doors, and rabid Karens demanding to speak with a manager.

And because people have dreamt of NEffolipiis phylactery many times, they may just plant such a dream phylactery in a victims nightmare. Which is just another way for NEffolipii to have a way to get back at them later, and join their nightmare.

Yet, asssside from the ssssserpentine hissss, the refusal to point out where traps are / which walls are illusory / which illusions conceal mind control symbols, and being violently pissy about being told what to do, NEffolipii is surprisingly receptive to parlay with visitors.

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## Quertus

Conner the Conjurer

*Spoiler: Heaven on Earth*
Show

Ever heard the phrase Heaven on Earth? Conner sure has! He has literally brought a little piece of (the seven) Heaven(s) (/Celestia / whatever) to Earth, in his own secluded mountaintop valley.

Although Conners lack of crafting or engineering skills mean that, on first glance, most peasants would turn up their noses at living in his shack, everything in the area is literally heavenly. One never chokes on the water, or trips on tree roots. The dilapidated-looking shack never actually collapses. There always happens to be a celestial frog or dragonfly to eat mosquitoes the moment they enter Conners domain. The beds and chairs are always perfectly comfortable. It always rains at just the right time.

Conner has been researching ways to extend this Heaven to the whole world. Although this would normally be way outside his power range, his divisions indicate that a massive influx of good souls could sufficiently attune the world, and potentially draw the whole world into Heaven. Or, at least, it works like that in the Outland. So hes researching ideas like creating a harem of celestial mayfly quicklings, to rapidly spread his half-celestial offspring throughout the world, and thereby finally see full Heaven on earth.

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## Bohandas

*Oneiromancer/Dream Mage*
The tower is a dream pulled into the material plane. The internal layout is mazelike, and slowly but constantly shifting. It seems to be cobbled together out of several other random buildings, and may include some rooms that should (based on their placement relative to the other rooms) occupy the same space as each other, but nonetheless do not. Many of the rooms have incongruous features, such as staircases in private rooms (sometimes leading to finished basements, despite the main rooms not being on the first floor), rooms that are missing key features (such as an armory with no weapons or equipment but plenty of places where such things could be placed), rooms with multiple incongruous or incompatible functions (such as a guardroom that's also a kitchen {not for the guards}, or a prison cell that's also an observatory), or conversely rooms with interdependent functions (such as a pantry, kitchen, and dining room) that are impractically far from each other. The tower has many floors that are either unused, unnecessary, abandoned, forgotten, and/or inhabited by creatures other then the tower's usual denizens and who don't seem to interact with the tower's main denizens. The tower is also stocked with incongruous goods and furnishings, such as a trampoline with furniture set up on it, objects that are made out of raw sewage, things set off by fuses which have no business being set off by fuses (such as a door that is opened by lighting a fuse which sticks out from the keyhole, or a book that can only be opened by lighting a fuse attached to its cover, or a sundial which doesn't cast a shadow until a fuse burns down to its gnomon), chicken nuggets that are actually live cockroaches covered in (cooked) breading, weird fruit that turns you into a monster if you eat five of them (over any time period) but doesn't do anything if you eat less than five, various strange but powerful artifacts that fade away into to nothing if removed from the dream, and a fireman's pole that's actually a very tall scratching post. The building also has several unnecessary and impractically located swimming pools, bizarrely large restrooms, an elevator consisting of a shaft inhabited by a colossal trained snake with an elevator car strapped to its head who slithers up and down the elevator shaft, and a gladiator arena in which the strange spiky beast that the gladiators must fight doubles as both the emcee and the VIP in the Cubiculum.

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## Quertus

> Using this. Using this SO HARD, because its SO COOL!


Thanks!  :Small Big Grin: 

Its probably the tower of mine that has seen the best feedback, which is why I listed it first.

I certainly wasnt expecting *that* enthusiastic of a response from anyone, so, if you love it that much, youre *more* than welcome to use it!

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## Vahnavoi

If you can get your hands on it, Seclusium of Orphone of the Three Vision, from Lamentations pf the Flame Princess catalogue, is one existing supplement for this. Tower of the Stargazer and Monolith From Beyond Space and Time are good fleshed-out examples from the same publisher.

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## Sapphire Guard

If you have played Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, the bosses (insane mages) have some interesting themed dungeons. Might be helpful.

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## Bohandas

*Philosopher/The Weighty Issue Collider*

In his early youth the master of this facility scoffed as moral philosophy, until one day he saw the power of a spellcasting cleric firsthand. That day he saw that good and evil were tangible forces of the universe, and from then on dedicated his life to the study of philosophy. He found frustration however with the works that were available on the subject, the great majority of them amounted to little more than idle speculation or hearsay. Undaunted he set out to rectify the situation himself. At the cost of his family's entire fortune, together with loans from a number of rich noblemen and grants from several potentates, he built the world's largest and most powerful philosophy accelerator, and now works to settle thr great questions of right and wrong once and for all.

The external tower is only a few stories tall, but the facility in the basement spans many miles and contains many rare items and substances from the other planes serving either as test subjects or as parts of the experimental apparatus itself.

Anyone of non-neutral alignment descending into the basement is required to have their aura magically dampened to avoid disturbing the delicate equipment

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## KineticDiplomat

So, these mages a nigh on gods. What keeps them in check? And why shouldn't it just curb stomp the players dead for helping the enemy?

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## Bohandas

*The Shadow Tower*

This tower is owned by a powerful illusionist specializing in shadow magic. Most of the tower is not real or only partially real except for one modest building and an underground storage area/bunker. The real building is effectively much larger on the inside because it's main room has been ensorceled to function like a holodeck. The underground storage area is accessible from a staircase in an anteroom of the building, but the staircase is a shadow illusion that can be dismissed if the place needs to be locked down

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