Mages and their towers

[Nifft]

Incorporeal critters and Earth Elementals can attack you through the ground.

Druids can re-shape unworked stone, so you want to work all the stone -- this is why towers have dungeons as foundational elements.

Your astral and ethereal defenses also have better LoS through air than through earth.

[lightningcat]

I personally like the reasoning used in the Belgariad. The sorcerers lived in towers because their mentor/god lived in one. Most of the towers were actually a single room dwelling on top of the tower with no other rooms. They also used them to observe the stars, and the occasional experiment with flying, but those were mostly afterthouhts. Even those that were trained by others used towers because it was tradition, even though the tradition was entirely accidental and meaningless.

[Vitruviansquid]

Wizards are *******s.

They don't like people. They don't like the way petty non-magical people show up at their door and ask them to do stuff that takes them away from their books and experiments. They don't like the way people ask them to magically make food because the harvest was bad, because these idiots don't understand all the extremely esoteric reasons why you wouldn't, and then they have the gall to accuse you of being stingy. But really, it's hard to understand how people's problems affect them when you are used to casually turning your own problems into frogs with a wave of your hand.

This is why wizards don't like people and people don't like wizards. This is why wizards build towers. Towers physically separate you from other people living below, and also, unlike, say, a pyramid, provides an extremely narrow space so as to limit the number of people who can bother the wizard at one time.

[Segev]

But really, it's hard to understand how people's problems affect them when you are used to casually turning your own problems into frogs with a wave of your hand.

Also, the massive carpet of frogs left over from solving your problems can't hop into the upper floors of a tower nearly as easily as into the ground-level hut or cottage.

[Jay R]

Think about all the problems people have with high-level parties. With scrying spells you can find out anything. Then you can teleport to get what you want, pick it up, and teleport home. So a high enough level wizard can base his adventure out of an isolated home.

Why is it isolated?

Wizards don't like being bothered. They build a tower and hope it and its reputation are enough to keep visitors away. It also puts them above everyone else.

Exactly. In the words of Mar-Grouch the Mystic,
"Hrmf! Smell of people reaches my nostrils! Hagh! --Awful! I saved your lives ... I did not invite you in to foul my air. Begone -- ere my patience curdles as does my nose!"

[Denny O'Neill, "Come Darkness, Com Death", Showcase #84]

[Frozen_Feet]

Traditionally, magicians were also astrologers and astronomers, so they lived in high constructions built on high and isolated places for the purposes of stargazing. Planets and constellations have magically important symbolic meanings and are vital for various forms of divination and ritual scheduling.

[Tyrrell]

With inspiration from Ars Magica:

Other folks don't get along well with wizards. Limiting contact is safer for everybody and isolated towers are ideal for that.

Wizards build their towers where they can find the best magical auras this is rarely on the ground level of a city street

The existent and frequently used magical tower conjuring ritual is much easier to find and use than coming up with an alternative by yourself, especially when you're just starting out. Modifications can be made later.

Towers are a structure that is ideally suited for enchanting with magical defenses. It's far more efficient to craft spells to affect a tidy target such as "this tower" than spells to defend a collection of several small buildings or a portion of a larger structure.

[Nifft]

Wizard towers are giant magical hummingbird feeders.

Nobody knows why, but having giant magical hummingbirds in the area improves magical research rolls.