I have a group of immortals (they all got it one way or another) who travel from plane to plane quite aimlessly. Started with a PC in one DM’s setting, popped into another DM’s setting as an NPC, and has been wandering the multiverse accumulating passengers ever since. Look upon my wall of text and despair!
This mysterious wide column appeared from nowhere in an empty lot. Its magical stone surface is broken only by a door in the front and a metal dome on top, which opens to reveal a telescope.
The whole thing is warded to ungodly levels, in that it was made explicitly as a bunker against a greater god ripping all arcane magic from the world (long story from a longer campaign). It’s able to shrug off most damage and negate most spells against it, to a point. In dire situations, it has a teleport function that has yet to be made more accurate than "similar location"; whenever the tower is under genuine threat (typically a world-ending cataclysm), the denizens pile in and teleport to a random vacant lot in a random city on a random plane. Anyone except Jimmie or Dania (below) who try to teleport to a location within the tower arrive in "The Lifting Room". The interior also suppresses others' magic a little (cantrips and 1st-level spells are negated unless upcast), a measure implemented to suppress chaotic interactions between the many magical books and other items stored in close proximity.
The Lifting Room: A small room that can move between floors using ropes and pulleys. Secretly, it has a weighted ceiling and can detach from the ropes, falling to the ground floor and another 50ft into the basem*nt, ensuring 2x fall damage (regardless of flight or Feather Fall) by forcing the victims into the ground then crushing them.
The ground floor consists of a library and museum. Jimmie charges admission for any who wish to peruse his collected knowledge, though the good stuff he keeps for himself. This includes pages from several spellbooks, some from wizards much more powerful than he.
The second floor is a gambling den; Jimmie enjoys a good dice game.
The top two floors and the basem*nt are private. Intruders will be dropped.
The owner of the tower, this sharply-dressed young-looking man sports a top hat, mustache, scepter with a large red gem on one end, and for some reason one metal gauntlet in the style of a fletcher's glove (left hand). He has a monocle in his right breast pocket which he takes out to examine things, as it allows him to identify magic easily. Jimmie is a powerful and charismatic Master Enchanter (not just a normal wizard specialized in enchantment, he’ll insist), as polite and tactful as he is cunning. To the casual observer, he’s very friendly and generous. To the discerning eye, he’s a politician and businessman.
Jimmie’s first objective is to smooth over the sudden arrival of the tower, in case of illegality. His next task is to start giving out quests for knowledge and relics, ideally of the magical variety. A new arrival to the plane, he seeks to uncover anything unique about it before moving on, collecting its magical secrets.
Jimmie’s wife. While she appears physically frail and has several prosthetics, she’s a powerful witch and knowledgeable to an unsettling degree. She’s been through a lot, and sacrificed a lot.
She spends much of her time reading and avoiding eye contact, a quiet introvert in contrast to Jimmie’s aggressive glad-handing and elbow-rubbing.
A truly ancient caster (from before last names were invented) who stuck his soul inside a statue as his way of circumventing age. An expert in reinforcing objects with magic, who helped turn the tower into a bunker, his body is nearly as durable against physical attacks. An Abjurer and a Druid, he focuses on protection and the preservation of the natural order (and yes, is a bit of a hypocrite).
Anekitos’ strongest belief is that immortals should not assert their wills over the shorter-lived. He equates them to boulders in the river of progress, slowing the flow and creating festering backwaters of outdated perspectives. He feels this so strongly that he will actively subvert and even assassinate those who would tyrannize mortals.
On the other side of that coin, Anekitos seeks to aid mortals in their endeavors, whatever they may be. Progress is wrought by putting all ideas into the spotlight to be judged and iterated by the whole, no matter how you personally feel about those ideas.
Anekitos spends almost 24/7 polymorphed into humanoid forms, assuming various identities to socialize and befriend mortals. While he lost any attachment to his previous body and gender long ago, he still fancies men.
(Pronounced “Sick zib slick licks is ur driff heh”) When the tower first appears, a man in a belted short white robe and wizard hat carrying a long white staff with a large blue crystal on the end leaves and doesn’t return until the tower is soon to depart. However, there is magic upon him that makes it more difficult to notice him. It’s not quite invisibility, and people will subconsciously reroute themselves to avoid bumping into him, to the confusion of no one.
The man and the staff are two parts of a whole, the ultimate weapon against anyone who would dare venture Outside the known multiverse. His one and only desire is to track down those powerful enough and foolish enough to trespass beyond the realm of gods and mortals, and judge whether they can be trusted with their own lives. In a word, he’s boring. But with staff in hand, he’s also an impossibly powerful force.
A boisterous, brazen half-drow, with a grab-bag of abilities that make her quite the effective generalist both in and out of combat. Dressed in tight, efficient clothing for unrestricted movement, her favorite game is lethal combat and her fighting style is a cross between dancing and playing with her food. She excels one-on-one, so bounty-hunting and tournament-hopping are her forte.
Her headstrong, outgoing attitude makes her an inspiring leader (and popular with both men and women), and she easily assembles adventuring parties wherever she ends up. Although she’s utterly fearless, she doesn’t go underground. To her, it’s common sense: If you go there, you die. End of story.
Liz has an animated cable on a spool strapped to her hip, which she named Francois or “Frank”.
Liz’s second cousin, a partially-undead human necromancer. Not that you’d ever know it; he’s so paranoid that he goes everywhere in black full-plate with a half-dozen zombies in identical armor, to turn his true location into a shell game. He only speaks telepathically so that the sound doesn’t give him away. A telepathic network allows him to command and control his minions in unison, even taking direct control to do more complicated things through them. In a way, he’s created his own small hive-mind.
Randy has a strong sense of duty, guarding his cousin and the tower. However, he’s got a twinge of sadism in him, and gets a rush out of control and domination. Not a nice guy, to say the least, and Liz gets on his case for being “no fun” in shutting down foes with cold, brutal efficiency.