Ideas for a Wizards Tower

[M.T. Black]

I'm currently putting together another "Wizards Tower" adventure, and I'm looking for some fresh ideas for rooms. I love having weird and magical rooms in these sorts of towers, and I'm always after fresh inspiration.

Another question... What is the best "Wizards Tower" adventure ever published? No real "classics" spring to mind... what do you like?

 

[Eltab]

- The wizard experiments with pocket dimensions. Some rooms are ... 'it's bigger on the inside'.
- The wizard experiments with elemental power. One room is a sandbox / pool / empty and drafty / aflame
- "Millionaire Next Door" room: an otherwise poor guy has one room (den? bedroom?) full of rich luxurious extravagances. Wondrous objects &c.
- Statue in bath room has a magical necklace. Touch the necklace and the statue animates. It's supposed to carry steaming-hot water to warm the bath, &c. Also protects the wizard's modesty because this way nobody had to be around and see him when he was without clothes.
- Laboratory (totally cliché) that gives the PCs clues about the wizard's real interests - and might help figure out the secret weakness of his 'house guardian'.
- Not far from the front door, a room with "Steal This" stuff scattered around. To distract common thieves from what's REALLY important, deeper inside.
- Garden with an Earth Elemental for a guardian / gardener.
- Chess set, interrupted mid-game. If you examine the set closely, likenesses of the wizard and his companions have been carved into certain pieces. (If you examine the board even more closely, the wizard's side is losing.)
- Library room. Many books are purchased, but a few are hand-written by the wizard himself. The PCs really want to read through them (and do well on their skill rolls to understand what they are reading).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I’d look at what a wizard needs in their tower, and then start riffing on wild ideas from there. The wizard needs to eat, so there’d be a kitchen. But maybe it’s got a portal to the elemental plane of fire to cook food. Or the library's books are all in liquid form.

Not sure on what a good wizard's tower module would be. Does Ruins of Undermountain count? I'd recommend Goodman Games’ Dungeon Alphabet as a great source for crazy and inspiring ideas.

 

[Eltab]

What is the best "Wizards Tower" adventure ever published ... what do you like?

I was inspired enough by "Darwell's Tower" that I stole the building for my 4e Warlock's retirement estate.

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

I've always wanted to do a gravity-themed wizard's tower. The players get to the top expecting to meet the wizard, only to find a switch which reverses gravity. They have to flip the switch (and themselves) and then climb back "up" to the ground floor, where the wizard is waiting in an area that they couldn't previously access.

For just a single room, I've had the idea of a shadow room, where strange shadows drift around the floor. When enough shadows collect under a PC, the character falls through the floor to a room below. The trick for getting through is to extinguish all torches, lanterns, and other light sources so that the shadows disappear into the darkness.

 

[Argyle King]

I like Ghost Tower of Inverness.


I seem to be one of the only people who enjoyed the D&D 4E adventure which had the guy trapped inside of the pyramid. I can't remember the name of it, but I vaguely remember a mage who had been split into several pieces or something to that effect.

 

[M.T. Black]

Yeah, Inverness is just about the only "wizards tower" from the TSR canon that sticks in my mind. A lot of fun to play, though most of the encounters are a bit more "gamey" than I prefer.

 

[ccs]

I've gotten alot of milage out of C3: The Lost Island of Castanimir.
The pcs explore a wizards home & labs.
As written it's not neccecarilly a tower, more like extra-dimensionally linked rooms/floors. But it might as well be.
I've run it straight with the intro provided.
I've had as an actual w.tower in the city & sent an all rogue party to burgle it.
I've placed it as a ruin that the pcs could explore as a side quest during a larger adventure.
I've added/deleted rooms....

 

[M.T. Black]

I've always been curious about Castanimir as I like Ken Rolston's work a lot. I'll pick up a copy - thanks!

 

[LordEntrails]

Unseen servants, of whatever flavor you like, are a must.

- a jacuzzi/hot tub
- a viewing room, like a modern TV room, where you can sit back and scry on others. Think reality TV.
- a glass ceiling or skylight/moon roof.
- walk in freezer/refrigerator
- a shower that has portals to a hot springs and cold waterfall so you can adjust the temperature. Water falls through a grate and into another portal so there's no mess.
- a trampoline room with spongy walls
- eccentric expensive items from all races/locations
- a massaging recliner
- hot and cold ventilation portals
- continual flame lights with adjustable covers (dimmers)
- extra dimensional vault/safe
- escape hatch/secret passage
- construct or golem guards