I don't know where the trope of wizards dwelling in lonely towers originated (some readers probably do). Saruman undoubtedly has something to do with it, and David Eddings' Belgariad was heavily pro-tower. I've read early pulp stories featuring Conan et al raiding towers wherein dwell sinister sorcerers and the priests of evil gods* and that probably contributed to the mix.
One explanation that often comes up is peace and quiet. The wizard, so runs this theory, needs solitude. Separation from the common run of humanity and their petty concerns. He (usually he) does, indeed, he should hold himself apart and not meddle in mundane affairs, occupying himself with the pursuit of pure knowledge. The tower provides him with a sanctuary within which he may seek wisdom and arcane power.
* a concept about which I should write something another time
This explanation is so wizard-centric that we must suppose it to have been promulgated by some long-forgotten wizards' guild.
Occasionally one does run across a wizard who is genuinely a scholar and humble seeker of knowledge, and does not entertain vague thoughts of overthrowing the gods and reshaping the world as his utopia. It's not a particularly common occurrence, though. Wizards, so often depicted as having the ability to bend reality and mastery of both mundane and supernatural knowledge, tend heavily towards the megalomaniacal. It's not that surprising; having the ability to engulf anyone who offends you in a sea of flame or transform them into a duck tends to instil a sense of superiority and rightful authority, just as soldiers and gun nuts in our own world tend to get ideas about coups and bossing people around.
"Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?" --Harry Lime, The Third Man
Governments small or large tend to look askance at people who threaten their stability. The ancient Greeks and Romans had laws forbidding carrying weapons willy-nilly, as did mediaeval Britain and other nations. Knives might be acceptable, but bows and swords were often restricted, and armour certainly was. Bows were suspicious both because they were useful for poaching (mostly poaching from the people who made the laws) and because they were deadly at long range. When swords did show up in great numbers, we had a surge in duelling and the sort of pointless slaughter you see in Romeo and Juliet.
There were various complications - high-status individuals were often exempted, or restrictions might apply to specific social classes. But if you're running a city, for example, you don't want people in plate armour and swords strolling around the place. At best, they're a risk for arguments escalating into full-blown armed combat, particularly when drinking and feasting is going on. At worst, they're planning to strike against the legitimate authorities - you. Somewhere in the middle you have the likeliest option of Doing Crime, whether that's armed extortion, murder, or simply needing armaments to defend themselves against the citizens and guards who might otherwise catch them mid-crime.
In short, cities like to keep dangerous things out. Things like armour that can hold off the strikes of the guard, or deadly weapons, or the tools thieves use to break into secure locations. Or, for example: wards of magic that can hold off the strikes of the guard, or deadly firebolts, or lock-opening spells, or invisibility enchantments, or rings that ensnare the minds of honest citizens (let alone city councillors).
First thing we do, let's ban all the wizards
It's quite likely that a settlement will get fed up of dealing with wizards - who have a tendency to be smug and defy mundane laws - and ban them from the city. They did it with armour, they did it with swords, and they did it with tanners, actors, and other civic nuisances. Armour and swords can at least be surrendered at the gate, or peacebonded, or placed in the safe of the hostelry you were required to name on arrival. Most fantasy settings don't include a means of peacebonding wizards, though.
Wands and staves can be confiscated, which sometimes prevents spellcasting. Magical components needed for rituals are likely to be rigorously controlled, even in a city that's abnormally full of wizards - in fact, perhaps particularly there, since a mageocracy knows just how much damage you can do with those elemental salts. But brains? Those are hard to restrict.
That needn't be the case. A setting could feature items, drugs, or even spells that can lock down a wizard's spellcasting ability - perhaps with quite a degree of finesse. The trouble with these is they're very useful for adventurers trying to assassinate a wizard, or for anyone trying to assassinate a wizard, but they're likely to become expensive and unwieldy if you're routinely applying them to mages as part of allowing them access to the city.
Fireball Control Act (Amended), Year of the Startled Rodent
It's worth noting that normal spellcasters don't need to learn how to set enemies on fire or surround themselves in shields of arcane force. They don't need these things in the same way that a physicist doesn't need to own or train with an anti-materiel rifle or build a mech, and an architect doesn't need to master demolitions or battlefield fortifications.
A research wizard is, one would assume, occupied with magical theory. Theoretical research is generally notable for being, y'know, theoretical. It involves rigorous experimentation in controlled conditions, and writing the same research parchment dozens of times until the Journal of Thaumaturgical Elementalism deigns to accept it. Thinking, reading, writing, and small-scale experimentation are key. Theoretical scientists do not generally engage in war as part of their job.
A town wizard is in high demand because of her magical talents. People want her to repair things, divine the future, expunge curses, remove deep-rooted phobias, scry out stolen goods, cast binding spells to ensure contracts are not broken, compel witnesses to speak the truth, remove ailments, exterminate vermin that have taken up residence in the attic, and craft magical items. It's very rare that they want somebody to create a cloud of poison gas or conjure a hail of bladed stones, just as very few people in Loughborough will pay you to hurl grenades in the street.
Even if you were interested in doing it, it's not a profitable line of business. Moreover, it's a line of business that the neighbours and the authorities would very much prefer you not to be dabbling in, because (and this may come as a surprise to you, gentle reader) people generally prefer not to be in constant danger of death.
A likely starting point would be outlawing the teaching and learning of certain spells, just as we outlaw certain weapons*, wild animals*, and other dangerous items. Nobody is allowed to have scrolls or books that contain the gaze of skull-detonation, except actual military wizards. Invisibility spells are probably highly restricted as being extremely exploitable by criminals; mind-influencing magic is even more so.
* I realise this is not universally true, but that isn't really relevant to my point and I'm not going to write in an unnecessarily convoluted way just for that reason
Memory-altering magic could be applied to strip illicit spells from the minds of criminal wizards, those of unsound mind, and those discharged from the armed forces. In some settings, wizards need to regularly study and practice each spell to maintain their grasp of it - if spellbooks and other materials are confiscated, they would slowly lose their capabilities.
Of course, in all these cases, you're going to want methods of detecting wizards, spellbooks, scrolls, spellcasting paraphernalia, and if possible, identifying which spells a wizard knows. This is an extension of the existing need to, in most of these settings, detect the various nefarious magic items that adventuring types bring into the city. Admittedly most fantasy settings don't seem to take "not letting people into the city with weapons of magical mass destruction" terribly seriously, particularly when those people are player characters, but that's not my fault, is it?
Unfortunately, those methods are probably expensive - just like airport security is expensive. The guards at the gate already struggle to spot contraband and are susceptible to bribes. You know who's good at influencing people and concealing the true nature of things, or moving them from place to place? Wizards, that's who. You'll have wizards teleporting spellbooks into the city, or hiding them in extradimensional spaces, or polymorphing them into horses, or brainwashing guards to let them through, or turning invisible and flying over the city wall. It'll be a magical arms race to keep wizards out of the city, and wizards generally have an enormous advantage here on account of a) stereotypically being extremely clever; b) being spellcasters, which is normally a lot cheaper than making magical items and training a large number of guards to use them; and c) they only have to be lucky once, but you have to be lucky every time.
No, there's only one really reliable solution. A Wizard-Free City.
Back to the Tower
So, how about those wizards' towers I was talking about? Well, one obvious reason for them existing would be that wizards are simply not allowed to enter towns. Why go to the trouble of having elaborate measures to search wizards for contraband spells and ensure their compliance, when you can simply ban them from passing through the gate?* It's a nice simple rule, and prevents the possibility of shenanigans. We all know wizards are going to be infuriatingly legalistic about precisely how their obviously unacceptable magical behaviour was "not technically against the law" if you let them inside.
* Or over the wall, through the wall, under the wall, into the city via an intermediate dimension, etc etc ad infinitum.
Deprived of access to the town, a wizard in a fantastical world will find somewhere else to live. Normally the wilderness. Towers are a natural evolution from the humble shack: they're defensible if the world is somewhat dangerous, and building up requires purchasing less land than building out. All that land belonds to somebody, after all.* There'll be land purchase and land tax and building permits and all sorts. No, you won't be exempt from them for being a wizard. The people who get tax money look very unkindly on people who challenge their authority to collect taxes, and - crucially - they have all that money to hire armies, assassins, and indeed, other wizards.
Something else often overlooked in fantasy settings with a vaguely mediaeval veneer. This isn't the wild frontier, edge of the wilderness. And even if it were, generally you'll find that land also belongs to somebody, c.f. colonialism
This makes a wizard's tower less of a fortress of solitude, and more somewhere wizards are permitted to live at a suitably safe distance from respectable citizens. Think of it as a sort of leper's colony. Wizarding towers might cluster together in a designated Mage Zone that's useless for farming. If nothing else, it helps with mutual defence against thieves and wizard-hating mobs, with networking, peer review, and borrowing a cup of gnat essence when you find you've run out at the worst possible time.
The wizard exclusion needs to be enforced, of course. This probably means specialist elite magebuster squads, or adventurers dedicated to capturing spellcasters who breach the city or otherwise break the rules. They'll have expensive one-shot magic items that are otherwise not worthwhile, and unique training. Settlements will want magical defences that prevent wizards from flying, invisibily entering, stone-sliding, rat-forming, teleporting, or otherwise getting through without passing through the gates. Luckily, these are the same defences they'll want against anyone else doing the same thing! It might not require actual magic; in the right setting, a sufficiently skilled mason's work might prevent the use of magic to breach it, and keeping the right gods happy might protect your town from magical intrusion.
For powerful wizards, this might not be enough. In many worlds, a powerful wizard is a force on the level of an army. Governments are likely to require very serious oaths of fealty from such wizards (and anyone else of sufficient power), backed up by magic and witnessed by the gods. The wizards might be compelled to provide a minimum amount of support to the government, abide by sumptuary laws and residence requirements (no more than one month a year away from the designated tower), and refrain from all manner of activities the authorities don't care for.
All of this is, of course, a reason for Player Character wizards to become adventurers. Avoid registration, avoid being stuck in a tower miles from town, move from place to place before the authorities can track you down. It implies that adventuring wizards might be outlaws, or at the very least dubious characters who are choosing a wandering life to evade legal restrictions.
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