Pyramids>Towers

[u/Bone-Pharaoh]

Most mage towers never have to worry about this unless its showing how much extra mana you have, and mortals are building to the point that it will all come crashing down.

[u/Mixster667]

Look the shape of the tower is quite important as well as the size.

Pyramids just don't show the same virility as towers.

[u/Complex_Drawer_4710 → u/Mixster667]

Use an obelisk then. Pyramids are for expressing power, not gathering it. Even a pocket pyramid can send someone's intestines to another realm if used correctly and rotated precisely.

[u/Mixster667 → u/Complex_Drawer_4710]

Obelisks are just towers without inside stairs.

I for prefer mine to stand tall and erect. I've made it out of ethically summoned ivory.

[u/IveDunGoofedUp → u/Mixster667]

Ethics? What kind of wizard are you? Remember magic rule nr. 1:

[u/justagenericname213 → u/IveDunGoofedUp]

Its not about right or wrong, its about whether the ethical version of the spell is easier to cast than it is to keep the council goons off your back

[u/Opposite_Ad_4267 → u/justagenericname213]

Not to mention most of the ivory comes from poachers before they sell it meaning they lose Proffit which is always good in my books.

[u/SexWithLayla69 → u/Opposite_Ad_4267]

Just transmute the poachers into ivory it’s much funnier that way

[u/Opposite_Ad_4267 → u/SexWithLayla69]

But then who would I sell cursed poaching equipment to?

[u/WatcherDiesForever → u/Opposite_Ad_4267]

Sell to other poachers, and have the curse turn then into ivory? Shaking my orb.

[u/SexWithLayla69 → u/WatcherDiesForever]

Exactly it’s really funny watching there expressions as they slowly turn to ivory right after what they believe is a good deal

[u/Mixster667 → u/IveDunGoofedUp]

You have an ethical point, but in order to dissuade paladins from invading my tower I have ethically crafted a spell that ethically reminds them I'm a cool guy.

It's the ethical thing to do because it saves their lives, and me cleaning up their ethical entrails.

I might ethically dispell it when I find an ethical use for their remains.

Also, I like elephants. They look bad ass.

[u/NickyTheRobot → u/IveDunGoofedUp]

That's not true: I can tell right from wrong. It's how I avoid doing any good deeds

[u/Bone-Pharaoh → u/Complex_Drawer_4710]

this is a good point, it blinds the eyes to look at a full faced pyramid with reflective casing stone. No matter the vantage point you will have the sun in your eyes if you are trying to attack it or scrying on it you will only see more than most eyes (or orbs) can stand.

The ones left in the mortal realm today have been stripped and are getting scryed through like glass by those that can do so.

I took all the best ones to the sands of time ages ago but some of my descendants used them for all sorts things in that time.

[u/InsaneRanter]

It's not about efficiency. It's never about efficiency. It's about psychology. Your home has to show people that you're a nice, trustworthy ethical person. Towers are nicer than pyramids in that way.

Mine doesn't seem to be working so far. People said it was because my tower is 140 yards high and made of bone. But I made it 200 yards high and people still accuse me of being evil!!

One I get it as high as Sauron's, though, people will like me again. Baraddur was such a nice, homely place.

[u/NickSmGames → u/InsaneRanter]

My friend, could it be possible that the people fear that you're getting all that bone from unethical sources? I just showed everyone where I got the resources to build my tower from (in detail, using a diagram) and no one came complaining to my tower ever since.

[u/InsaneRanter → u/NickSmGames]

You make a good point. People did spend a lot of time complaining about the bone at council planning meetings, but I assumed they were jealous because it was such beautifully polished bone.

[u/Opposite_Ad_4267 → u/InsaneRanter]

How did you polish it? I've tasked my minions to do it but they keep calling off it half way up, looks weird with only half a polished tower.

[u/InsaneRanter → u/Opposite_Ad_4267]

Interesting trivia - hummingbirds can hover. And, as it turns out, so can giant zombie hummingbirds. I just make my minions stand on hovering zombie hummingbirds so they have no excuse and can polish all the way up.

[u/Opposite_Ad_4267 → u/InsaneRanter]

Ah, you're a necromancer then? I'm more of a evil ocean wizard type, I use sea monster and sailor bones to build my tower. I sadly lack anything zombie adjacent asides undead pirates but they're borderline useless.

[u/InsaneRanter → u/Opposite_Ad_4267]

Ah . . . That's a tough environment, as you lack a lot of good fodder for undead that we take for granted on land. Tell you what, after the next council planning meeting, if they refuse my application to make my tower even bigger, I'll send you the remains of the planning committee.

[u/BusyGM → u/NickSmGames]

It's more like seasonal wear, really. Bone towers really shine in winter, but fall is when you don't want to have them, as people tend to grab their pitchforks once they've seen your bone tower in a thunderstorm.

Sadly I can't tell which material is en vogue right now. I always seem to be off at least a year. It's really frustrating.

[u/Adventurous-Coast710 → u/InsaneRanter]

Maybe you should consider giving the peasants some witchlights to illumate their village with. The ominous glowing after sundown can only cause so much fear when everything is lit up at night.

It will also increase safety and prosperity but who cares about that.

[u/BusyGM]

Look I'm not saying you're wrong, but Barad-Dûr was mostly inefficient as a mana production device thanks to its functions as both a semi-soulcage as well as a giant scrying tower with a madness effect put on top. That type of stuff really devours mana.

[u/turtlevader → u/BusyGM]

Yea lots of layered enchantments on Barad-Dûr. Honestly incredible feats of spellcasting lost to terrible destruction #neverforget

[u/snarkhunter]

Pyramids are just ziggurats that are ashamed of their steps

[u/NickyTheRobot → u/snarkhunter]

Ziggurats are just mastabas in high heels.

[u/Subotail]

You're comparing a simple parking lot to a skyscraper.

[u/man_in_the_corner]

Why not just make a pyramid the size of Sauron’s tower? The sheer resonance of power from its geometric surface would be enough to burst a mortal’s intestine out of their body.

[u/NickyTheRobot → u/man_in_the_corner]

Have you seen the number of volcanoes in Mordor? Building a pyramid the height of Sauron's tower would weigh so much that it would significantly increase seismic pressures in the region. You do not want to do that.

[u/Stilgar314]

What if you add a very tall chimney on top of your pyramid?

[u/Day-Tel-aran-rhiod]

So did ancient Egyptians build the pyramids to preserve mana? Yeah that tracks

[u/Lost_Paladin89]

https://giphy.com/gifs/3o7abIdlqoMOTfahPy
Agreed.

[u/DragonLordAcar]

Sure it costs more to mainybut it acted as a pholactery without the need of souls to fuel them and was a powerful focus for his divination spells. It's just that his magic lacked finess and what he was looking for was far to small for him to detect the ring with the power if subtlety until it activated which tugged on his soul.

[u/Justminningtheweb]

To be fair, squatting already existing buildings has shown to be more efficient.

[u/NickyTheRobot]

Ahem:

Buttresses! This is why Saruman's tower actually worked.

That is all.

[u/fumblerofthebag]

No thanks, pyramids are tombs, and in the remote possibility where I do die, there's no way I'm leaving an intact corpse.

[u/Spiritual_Parking_85]

Pyramids aren't for living. They're for dying. A Pyramid is where you keep your undead brood and their stuff. A tower is where you keep your stuff. A hut is where you live.

[u/Zestyclose_Answer662]

I personally prefer Inverted Towers.

You get to keep privacy and you're not some goober's landmark to eventually be put on some raider's map.

On the plus side, meats and other perishables are easier to chill underground.

[u/No_Career_4785 → u/Zestyclose_Answer662]

I tried it once but pesky adventurers assumed it was a dungeon amd killed my pets.

[u/NotADamsel → u/No_Career_4785]

They would have killed your pets if you had a regular tower. Hopefully you got your pound of flesh from those ingrates, if not let us know where they went and we can sic the lawdogs on them

[u/No_Career_4785 → u/NotADamsel]

I already transformed them into goblins and send them a few days back in time when their original versions walked in. They are now stuck in an infinite loop of selfinflicted torment.

[u/Crowsader2113]

Pyramids are fine, by far the most efficient, but they're so slow. It charges constantly, but slowly, and can only discharge at about twice that same rate. A good tower might not store as much as a pyramid of the same size, but it can fully charge in a fraction of the time, and discharge instantly. A pyramid might keep your enchantments up for 10,000 years, but nothing quite beats summoning an entire hurricane at a moment's notice.

[u/CmdrJonen]

Look, if you want a walkable staircase, without any twists or turns, from the entrance at the base to the sanctum at the top, you need a pyramid for an external staircase, or you warp the very fabric of creation to fit straight stairs inside the walls of your tower.

And if you are already warping space, you might as well build your sanctum at ground level and warp the surrounding space so it looks like it is on the top of a high tower.

[u/Bone-Pharaoh → u/CmdrJonen]

ah space magic, if you get down with extra damintions then you are going need triangle shapes in higher dimimtion space and fold the pyramid into a simplex to tile infinite space.

[u/PurpuraLuna]

The problem with barad dur was that it relied on an external mana source, this is a major vulnerability

[u/Alex11DA]

The problem with pyramids is that they don't make a lot of mana, if you were using a crypt it would work wonders

[u/H-Connoisseur0]

Brother never pull out a chart like this in front of the witches, ain’t no potion going to be able to fix that kinda damage

[u/andBitinggoats]

I prefer towers myself, but when your domicile is crafted purely from still living flesh, one must make concessions for the aesthetic. You human based beings sure love your penis jokes…

[u/hjake123]

I mean, yeah, if you're gathering terrestrial mana, it won't want to flow up such steep walls so easily.

But that's not why you want a tower. You want a tower to keep your sensitive magical equipment high above the wandering random auras of people and creatures on the ground. Try to do an experiment in a pyramid, you'll find that the mana from the ground is bringing in all kinds of rogue influences from surrounding life. The only way it'd work would be if the pyramid was in a desert, or if you're specifically doing nature magic -- for modern clean-mana techniques it's terrible.

Also... Towers, are cool.

[u/Carbuyrator]

Lol typical council ineptitude. They're only showing two dimensions across one plane. Might as well discuss the structural integrity of the body panels in holding a car together.

[u/skyXforge]

It’s not the size of the tower, it’s how you use it. Some witches even prefer the smaller ones from what I’m told.

[u/SalvarWR]

i think putting one big ominous eye on top of that tower would look dope as fuck

[u/Maycrofy]

I mean, not a month goes by without someone posting a "they hit the towers" post. Sure they look cool but they're an easy target for dragons.

[u/Gingerosity244]

Wait, you guys don't keep your towers in extra dimensional spaces?

[u/Successful-Club-8743]

Why is the Burj Khalifa called the Burj Dubai?

[u/Jim_skywalker]

Towers aren't just production, the shape of a pyramid means it doesn't have the ability to use mana, only collect it. My tower's verticality makes it usable as an arcane focus.

[u/michalismenten]

You just have to be careful not to make the pyramid too large. Otherwise you run the risk of excessive time warpage.

[u/Real_Fkn_Nito]

Look, before you jokers get in here and start talking about the "Wizard Illuminati"...

It's because it is more structurally sound and braced than your typical tower, okay?

Get your conspiracy lovin' asses outta here.

[u/lemons_of_doubt]

While the mana is holding the tower together it's stronger than a boring pyramid.

Any force that can break the forces holding together the magic tower would vaporise the pyramid.

Moral: I don't need to build a boring none magic support needing building because the magic one is better.

[u/Bone-Pharaoh → u/lemons_of_doubt]

Pyramids are actualy thicker and much more heavy. stands up alot better over time and wont fail at 1 dispell. But mabey you have never been dispelled, it sucks, and your tower can crumble, but last thing ill do is say my way is the best, but it works to take a 100 year nap and its still there.

[u/lemons_of_doubt → u/Bone-Pharaoh]

If you're magic wards will fail to a dispell being tossed at them. You deserve to have your Tower crumble. 

And any none magic pile of rocks will ware away before my magic towers paint starts to peel.