Towers Of High Wizardry

For reasons apparent to some and not to others, Towers of High Wizardry as an idea have become important.

Some questions for your pondering:

• Across civilised continental Europe, how many ToHW would you expect to exist?
• Should they specialise in part or whole to a School of Magic? For example, the ToHW at Rheims is recognised as the place for Conjuration, even though they are strong on Evocation and Divination too.
• Should they specialise in a wizardly "portfolio" (similar in idea to cleric domains - war being a prominent one)?
• Should they specialise in a particular magical Prestige Class? That is, there is one Tower per PrC, and that's the only place (in Europe) to learn how to be that PrC.
• Should membership and/or entry be restricted? By level? By race ("I told you before! We're not letting the kender in!")? By socio-political circumstances ("You can't see the High Mage until you've paid your union fees! He will only accept appointments from fully-paid members!")?
• Should usefulness to classes be restricted? Wizards win everywhere, but Warmages and Duskblades are only welcome at some.

The ball is rolling!

Idea 1

Location	School	Exclusive Prestige Classes
Mykines (Faroe)	Abjuration
Neapolis (Italia)	Conjuration	Malconvoker
Dodonna (Greece)	Divination
Alexandria (Egypt)	Enchantment
Lapurdum1 (Gaul)	Evocation
Near Zeurich	Illusion
Lowland swamps2	Necromancy
Cordoba (Iberium)	Transmutation

1: Modern Bayonne, at the foot of the Pyrenees.
2: near modern day Zwolle, Netherlands.

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Add A Comment!

Wes Prosser 17 Apr 2011 13:42

Malhavocc 17 Apr 2011, 18:46 GMT+10

• Major cities i believe should have one each (greece for example) with maybe one or 2 near very dangerous areas (protecting the weak/gaining knowledge fluff)
• I think specialize in 1, maybe 2 schools, with lower level scrolls available in most scrolls (a random roller maybe?)
• Do you mean damage or control and such? i think that the school separation is more than enough in that regard.
• I dont think EVERY tower should have a separate PrC, either (depending on how many towers you set up) 1 or 2 PrC, so there are 1 or 2 places to learn that PrC. making them too exclusive could cause the party to travel too far out of the parties destination and just plain be annoying to the other ppl in the group
• Yes. Race/Class should be more than ample. race should be able to be overcome via a quest. "No half orc, you cannot come in here and see the high mage unless you show yourself a worthy master of the arcane order! (insert optional quest here, with maybe a stone that can teleport you back and forth between the tower if its very far, working 2 times)"
• I think warmages should be allowed in only the evocation school towers as only they may understand the plight that is the warmage.

Hope it helps, i can clarify if you need.

Wes Prosser 17 Apr 2011 13:43

Paul Bellenger 17 Apr 2011, 19:38 GMT+10

Well I think some PrC's should be only one tower.

Something like master specialist shouldn't even need a Tower of High Sorcery as its just based on the fact that you are devoting yourself to one school of magic to a greater extreme. Its also a Wizard only PrC and the one I would like to see in the game the most as its essentially a separate prestige class for every school of magic you might specialize in. Or if you really want to make them need a tower just have each type of master specialist limited to a tower. This also hurts the game though as the party is having to travel massive distances. (Oh wait probably not you can probably just pay for a teleport between the towers!!)

It really depends on the PrC. Some might have 1-2 members in every tower others might be exclusive to a particular tower or region of the world. Like the initiate of the sevenfold veil is stated to travel around and have regular meetings to discuss what they have learned. So they might have a home tower but they would have members in every tower.

Otherwise Stoy's ideas are basically in line with mine.

Wes Prosser 17 Apr 2011 13:44

Paul Bellenger 17 Apr 2011, 22:01 GMT+10

Honestly I think it should be 8 towers for the entire continent of Europe, 1 for each school. You can have academies dotted around the world of course but the towers should be quite rare. After all the followers of the arcane would not be huge in numbers. Also we can just teleport between towers or buy teleports between towers or even from an academy if necessary. This does mean though once you find a tower of high wizardry you have access to the trainers for all the PrC's. However that doesn't mean you have convinced your way into the particular order etc.

Wes Prosser 17 Apr 2011 13:45

Malhavocc 17 Apr 2011, 22:13 GMT+10

Honestly I think it should be 8 towers for the entire continent of Europe, 1 for each school.

I think i agree with paul here.

Reasoning:

• It decreases the workload
• it does give the feeling of a more unique structure

Maybe 9, 1 per school + High Mage for the continent, where the superior train

If teleporting between towers, maybe you can only teleport to the ones you've been to, each one you gain access to maybe increases how many levels in the PrC you can take (PrC limit=Towers visited+1?) a small quest with each tower is more than reasonable, if you want 2 PrC's, you do 2 quests… or something