BSC2024 Wirelizard's halfling wizard tower ("tower"?)

[Wirelizard]

So, probably weird fantasy.

I've been having fun recently with buildings carved from pink insulation board (need to start a freestanding thread on that) so probably that as the core of the thing.

Designing it for a halfling, goblin, or brownie magic user lets you shrink the floors and get more details in the same space. And allows for even weirder architecture, generally, than a default human building.

The gloriously weird little Toadstool Brownie range from Fenris Games inspired a trash bash tower two years ago (blog link here) so perhaps it's time to build something to accompany that?

For the rest... we shall see.

[has.been]

Good idea to go non human. I look forward to the result.

[marianas_gamer]

oh really? You know that Wizard towers have defeated the most mighty in this contest? you are challenging fate 

[Wirelizard]

oh really? You know that Wizard towers have defeated the most mighty in this contest? you are challenging fate 

One of these decades OSHIROmodels (pretty sure that was who had the infamously forever incomplete wizards tower?) will live down that story, but this is not yet that decade. 

I'm planning a much, much, MUCH more modest thing, probably CD-based and maxing out at six or eight inches tall for reasons of storage and transport.

Will see just how much picturesque Weird I can pack into that space. Probably a lot. The tower is smaller than that in every dimension and very pleasingly Weird.

[syrinx0]

I thought he finished that project before the challenge even started? Or did the wizard's powers already confuse me?

Anyway best of luck with your more modest tower...

[marianas_gamer]

Picturesque Weird is always good 

[Daeothar]

...I'm planning a much, much, MUCH more modest thing, probably CD-based and maxing out at six or eight inches tall for reasons of storage and transport...

That's what they all say, and before you know it, holes are cut into ceilings to accomodate the 'just a little bit more' height. Madness lies that way, I tells ya...

But good luck regardless 

[Wirelizard]

Today on my bike commute to work (all my best ideas occur while riding, it's a thing) my idea jelled.

Wizards, as we all know, tend to be considered eccentric among their own folk. The more powerful the wizard, the more likely they are to be eccentric, or just straight up scary weird.

Halflings, as we all know, tend to be considered eccentric among other intelligent races.

So what happens when the halflings spin off a genuine, no fooling archmage, who goes on to wealth and power, as powerful wizards often do, and then decides to retire from mercenary archmaging to his own corner of some Shire where he can quietly commune with demons, collect his regular Skull of the Month Club parcels, and continue to instruct a random assortment of students and apprentices of various species?

So what does a halfling archmage's wizard-tower-halfing-house look like, anyway? How does the internal struggle between "wizard must have a tower" and "halflings like to live in snug low-slung cozy dwellings" play out in a wealthy halfling archmage's mind? Where do the apprentices live? Where do the demon familiars live? What, in fact, do the neighbours think?

[Daeothar]

A huge warren in a large mound? It'll have the required height often associated with great wizards, while still being underground.

Added advantage would be the ability to cage the demons safely underground, so disapproving, nosy great-aunts (twice removed) can't poke their umbrellas where they shouldn't be.

Also keeps the silverware safe and the neighbours unsuspecting...

[McMordain]

So what does a halfling archmage's wizard-tower-halfing-house look like, anyway?

An illusion of a big tower, with a cosy underground home and a dungeon for the dangerous stuff?

[snitcythedog]

Another idea might be a disused windmill on top of a hill that the Halfling Mage has taken over.  It can have both above and below ground entrances. 

[syrinx0]

A tall tower for the dangerous spellwork with comfortable hillside dwellings.  The neighbours just hope he doesn't notice them.

[Wirelizard]

Love some of the ideas you folks are coming up with, a bunch of which would mean a much, much larger project than I'm currently planning!

Current plan, which lives only in my head and for which I haven't yet done any sketching or real planning at all yet, is a stone tower base that then supports a platform that has a sod-roofed "hobbit hole in the sky", out of which pops a stubby tower/study for our archmage.

Apprentices and servants live in the tower levels, archmage has his cozy "sky burrow" plus required archmage tower, demons and other things that might scare the neighbours generally kept in the below-ground dungeon levels somewhere.

I might suggest the dungeon levels by having a chimney popping up right out of the grass a few feet away from the actual building...

An illusion of a big tower, with a cosy underground home and a dungeon for the dangerous stuff?

It would require more 3d design/digital sculpting skills than I currently have, but I love the idea of 3d printing an entire building in translucent materials then painting it with translucent glazes it so it's almost there but not quite as an illusionary building...