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With Mars as its ruling planet, the Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower, as Wang points out, stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." When the Querent gets this card, they can expect to be shaken up, to be blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.(from the article on The Tower at aeclectic.net)

The seemingly unshakeable Tower of old opinions and routine structures is falling down, struck by lightning. People lose what gave them certainty so far and at first take a very deep fall. At the same time, though, they are liberated from the old closed-in grey walls of convention. In a spread, the Tower always means a sudden, often unexpected change. However that change comes to you, whether you're forced to accept it or whether you cause it yourself with the sudden realisation that you can't go on like this: you will be thrown off your beaten track. The balance in your life that you may have taken great pains to achive will falter. Ask yourself whether you might not have suppressed discontent and anger for a long time already. Now is the time to face facts and stop lying to yourself: you have outgrown a phase of your life, you have to let go - of a soured realtionship, of grown-up children, of a work situation that is no longer good for you. You will have to face the fear and uncertainty that comes with such times, and get up your courage to take the steps that are the next on your way, though chaos to liberation and growth.(translated from the Tarot CD-ROM a friend of the mun has been publishing for 4 consecutive versions these last ten years)


The Tower is one of the most misunderstood cards of the entire Tarot, along with the devil, maybe. The Tower does not mean the destruction of all you held dear, or the end of your dream, or a terrible calamity befalling you, unless you are a very conservative person who trusts institutions and defends the status quo. The Tower, on the contrary, may be a symbol of change, of liberation even - the liberation the destruction of old concepts, old unreflected values, old certainties brings. It is a symbol of the new chance that change brings you. It is a symbol of the rude if benevolent forces that will drive you out of your prejudices and preconceptions to allow you to grow as a person.

As a character in Milliways, Tower will behave and be used just like the other Tarot cards that already exist in the bar - as a person who not only embodies the principle the card stands for, but will inflict it on others that he encounters. Tower will be available as a plot catalyst if so required, and comes with a strong warning to ping the mun before attempting anything drastic for a character's plot. Many pups undergo a change or characer development that was denied to them in canon when they enter Milliways; for muns that wish it, Tower can help provide the insights and incentives needed for such a change.

Physically, Tower will mostly be a middle-aged man with a slightly cynical look in his eyes, with little respect for anybody that he might encounter. He will challenge all unreflected concepts and illusions that he is confronted with by others, and will rarely smile or show enthusiasm. He might smirk. He will make you very angry. He is certainly going to incur intense hatred from characters that are fighting change, that are upholding an Old Order of any sort or that stand for rigid values.

At times, Tower make take on other appearances - a young man or a child, an animal, or even a plant. He might look like certain others, or he might be invisible, as plot takes him - he will never do that without good reason. Plotless and left to his own devices, all that he is likely to do is cynically observe the bar and contemptuously challenge the asumptions casual interlocutors make. Again, it is important to contact the mun before casually tagging him for the first time!

More info on this old Backroom post!

Images for the Tower cards from different decks are partially taken from online resources, apart from the Areion deck, which is (c) of an acquaintance of the mun, and used with his agreement; it was designed for a Tarot CD-ROM in the 1990s. The PB for the human face is Dean Stockwell - at all ages.

The Tower is from the major arcana of the Tarot, and thus is in the public domain. He is played by yakalskovich and appears here solely for the purpose of role-playing in milliways_bar, from which no profit whatsoever is being made.