Saving the world on a Sunday afternoon
IC: Welcome to the TowersTo our newest Wizard of the Towers,
The Towers of Magic are known throughout the Kingdom as one of the leading sources of magical knowledge and expertise. In their chosen school, a Tower mage has no equal outside of the guild and as a new member you too will be aided and helped along the path to becoming an expert in both your school and your chosen area of specialism within it.
Principles
As a centre of learning, the Towers only require that you dedicate yourself to your chosen school to the exclusion of all other magics and aid other members of the Towers when they’re in need. Any desire to learn magic that is not within your chosen school will need special approval from the relevant Tower before being permitted.
Skills
Every mage has a school to which they are most closely aligned, and the Towers will allow for this affinity to be pursued to the fullest, learning spells more easily than any others through the benefit of teaching from experts in every spell. Later in the career of a member of the Towers they will be expected to specialise in and eventually master a spell of their school, becoming able to cast this more effectively and efficiently than any other mage as they become adept in the higher levels of power.
Build your knowledge
If you intend to start patrolling, I suggest you review A Basic Guide to Magic for Patrollees, which will give you a good understanding of the practical and useful spells each school has. Whilst research is very interesting, patrols are more interested in what you can do than what you know. We have a friendly rivalry with the Circle, so do us proud!
I look forward to seeing you in your Tower,
Archwizard Ignatius, Tower of Fire
The Towers, The Circle and You! – a Tower of Light Promotional Illusion on behalf of the Towers and Circle (Flickr).
Towers tend to encourage a subtle isolationist trend in their students. Whether this is created deliberately by Master Mages to stop students straying to study of ‘lesser’ magics, or is just a by product of their dedication to their own schools, this choice of isolation is sometimes evident in the meetings between Tower mages and it is rare for Tower mages to spend major festivals with those of other Towers.
Steve E.
Tower of Earth
The Tower is as much a subterranean complex of rooms as the physical tower on top of it, and there are sections of the Tower which can only be entered through use of magic designed to pass through earth and stone. It is in one of these areas that the main library is kept, making entry to it by anyone not both capable in Earth magic and knowledgeable of the Tower’s symbolic guide stones very difficult.
Steve E.
Tower of Air
The Tower maintains a network of courier mages, who use pre-established Recall points and items of Recall to move people and books between places quickly and safely. The Tower have even used a pair of mages using Airform and an Air Elemental to establish a far distant new Recall point in times of needing a fast connection to an unusual spot.
Needless to say, the expense in power and effort means this service is usually restricted to the Tower and those of other Towers who ask for it and can show good grounds to have use.
Steve E.
The full rules for The Towers can be found under:
Player Rules – The Kingdom – Guilds – Towers
The Towers are a guild that require their members to focus on learning spells from only one school of magic, to the exclusion of all others. To support this, they get a discount on every spell they buy in their element, which means they can grow in ability very quickly. They also have the unique ability to specialise and master a particular spell chain at higher levels, allowing them to cast it more effectively than others.
As a guild, the Towers have no striking themes other than focussing on learning from one school of magic is good. Whilst many people roleplay the Towers as an academic institution, focussing on the exploration and discovery of magic within their chosen Tower, any role which relies upon a deep knowledge of a single element or school would find the Towers a good fit for them.
The strengths and weaknesses of a Tower mage are highly dependant upon the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen school. A Water Tower mage would do well when they can control the minds of their enemies but suffer on a mission with lots of undead. An Earth Tower mage would do well on missions with lots of fighting mundane enemies, but run into problems when they encounter enemies destroying weapons or using miraculous/magical power. A Fire Tower mage will be very good at buffing characters, but will lack spells for getting out of trouble or interfering in a battle beyond direct damage, whilst an Air Tower mage will be very good at moving themselves and other people around and controlling a battlefield but will lack defences if actually hit.
As a Tower Mage, your character would probably know: