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...in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

"Then at last his gaze was held: wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant, he saw it: Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron."

After the Elaborate Underground Base, this is perhaps the most common form of a Supervillain Lair. A jaw-droppingly massive tower that, well, towers over everyone and everything around it.

In Heroic Fantasy, a castle like this, situated in Mordor or a similar wilderness, is often the home of the Evil Overlord.

In a modern setting, Corrupt Corporate Executives and Villains With Good Publicity usually roost in skyscrapers right in the middle of town, so as to flaunt their power.

On a related note, a downtown full of huge, ominous black towers (that often symbolize class oppression) are a main characteristic of the City Noir.

In video games, this building will almost always be The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, frequently involving It's All Upstairs From Here.

In mythology, often used in a desperate ploy by an Boyfriend-Blocking Dad to (unsuccessfully) prevent his daughter from getting pregnant. This results in a Girl in the Tower.

Because Evil Is Bigger, any towers frequented by the good guys will almost always be dwarfed by this. The villain in these cases is almost always male. Many come equipped with a Den of Iniquity for the Mooks during their downtime, and are not so well guarded against heroes who decide to Storm the Castle.

Such buildings are highly likely to be blown up, torn down, or set on fire. Sometimes, it's even all three at once.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • Creed from Black Cat has a big, tall tower as his evil hideout. He's shown moaning impatiently for Train to hurry up and come to him while taking a rose bath inside.
  • The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Digimon Tamers. Any scene the building is shown, ominous music plays. One character even remarks he gets a creepy feeling from it, despite the structure being a well-known landmark. It becomes even creepier when its assimilated by the D-Reaper after the latter invades the real world, eventually creating the Mother Reaper out of it.
  • In FLCL, Medical Mechanica owns a factory shaped like a gigantic steam iron, that looms over the town of Mabase.
  • The immortal Marcus Octavius from Highlander: The Search for Vengeance lives in a giant skyscraper which is the center of his empire.
  • The leader of Akatsuki in Naruto has his base of operations in Pain's Tower, the tallest building in the Land of Rain. The tower has intestinal exterior plumbing, ominous spikes, and demon faces.
  • The main villain of Revolutionary Girl Utena lives at the top of a massive white tower that, well, towers over the campus. And Utena being Utena, the phallic symbolism is very much intentional here.

    Comic Books 
  • Arawn: The main character is an Evil Overlord, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he calls a giant scary tower his home. We eventually learn that it's actually built from the bones of a slain goddess.
  • The Post-Crisis version of Lex Luthor holds bragging rights to the tallest skyscraper in the world, even beating out the Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur. The original towers were a riff on Manhattan's World Trade Center, except with the towers shaped like Luthor's initials. This was later retconned into a giant claw-like monstrosity hanging over the city. Various incarnations of the LexCorp/LuthorCorp building appear in Superman: The Animated Series, Lois & Clark (in which Lex commits suicide by jumping from it) and Smallville, of which the exterior shots were of the Government of Canada building in Vancouver, which is right next to the Marine Building which serves as the Daily Planet.
    Lex: I must confess that I love the fact that everyone in the city has to look up in order to see me. (Lois & Clark, "Pilot")
  • Wonder Woman (2011): The New 52 did away with Olympus' former Bizarrchitecture to replace it with an onimus huge tower that reflects it's current ruler. When the First Born kills Apollo the whole thing ends up covered in dripping shifting Meat Moss.

    Fairy Tales 
  • In many fairy tales, the villainess put the heroine in a tower and gets herself in and out by climbing the heroine's hair. "Rapunzel" is the most familiar of these, but there are many others, such as "Snow-White-Fire-Red". These are always the work of the villainess, and the heroine is always eager to escape.

    Fan Works 
  • Burning Black: There are eight Dark Spires dotting Dimmsdale's skyline that all work together to nullify fairies and their magic, a Master Spire and its seven Support Spires. They're to be upgraded later to National Spires, and it's this upgrade that Timmy and his friends are trying to prevent.
  • The Night Unfurls: Downplayed for the Black Fortress, which is not a "tower" per se, but fulfils its purpose nonetheless. It is situated in Garan, a Mordor in the north, as well as the home of Evil Overlords like Olga (former) and Vault (present).
  • Queen of Shadows: The Shadowkhan fortress has at least one of these, which contains the Queen's personal living quarters. Jirobo is later revealed to have his own tower as well. But since he's General of the Bat Khan, it makes sense.
  • The Tears of Gaia: On the middle of Burzkala's crater, there is a very tall black tower. Inside the very top of the tower is inhabited by the Blight.

    Films — Animation 
  • In Igor, the country of Malaria, where mad science is the main export, there's a tower extending into the perpetual storm that blankets the land, topped with giant metal skulls that shoot electric beams every which way in the sky, ostensibly as a beacon to the world of the evil over their heads. The climax reveals that it's actually a weather control machine, and the beams are drawing in clouds to perpetuate the storm that makes farming impossible and forces Malaria to threaten the world with mad science to support itself.
  • The LEGO Movie: Lord Business has a soaring, infinitely-floored Octan office tower built overlooking a swirling vortex of nothingness, complete with thunder and lightning. Also includes a Think Tank to imprison and torture Master Builders in. It's so absurdly tall, certain floors have spaceports for spaceships to dock onto.
  • The first Shrek movie did a Lampshade Hanging; when Shrek sees the towering castle of Big Bad Lord Farquaad (an ill-tempered, short tyrant), his first thoughts are "Do you think maybe he's compensating for something?"
  • Richard Williams's The Thief and the Cobbler has Zigzag's tower, which is ominous and foreboding from the outside, but is ridiculous in the end because all those hundreds of meters of height are just stairs, insanely long stairs leading to only one messy room at the top where Zigzag lives and works.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Inspector Gadget (1999): A gothic-looking skyscraper houses Sanford Scolex's corporate headquarters. Although it looks like something created for a movie baddie, it is actually a real building, the PPG Place in Pittsburgh.
  • Land of the Dead: Paul Kaufman's headquarters are located at a top of the tallest building of Fiddler's Green, and it's fittingly given an ominous feel.
  • Left Behind: In the third movie, after an implied jump forward in time, the new way of things has been established and Nicolae Carpathia resides in a central "GC"-emblazoned building which dominates the DVD menu and blows up at the end
  • Once Upon a Warrior: Sorceress Irendri's citadel is located in the middle of a wasteland, which used to be a lush valley full of life until she uses her supernatural powers to have the tower manifest in it's very middle. It's also modified based on a serpent's head, befitting Irendri's nature being a snake-themed villainess.
  • The Shop on Main Street, shot in Nazi-allied, fascist Slovakia in 1942, has a wooden tower being built in the central square. It turns out to be a monument to the fascist Hlinka Guard militia, and it is dedicated in a chilling ceremony.
  • Spider-Man has the Osborn Penthouse, which really is an Evil Tower of Ominousness, Big Fancy House, Big Fancy Castle (slightly, as it's gothic in design), and even Haunted Castle (with the eerie Green Goblin spirit haunting it) all at once.
  • Star Wars:
    • The second Death Star has a tower at its north pole, containing the Emperor's penthouse suite, complete with handy-dandy bottomless pit that leads into the reactor core for some reason. The first Death Star has a similar tower in it, according to The Force Unleashed.
    • The aptly, and affectionately nicknamed "Wizards' Tower", the prominent observation platform aboard the Confederate flagship Invisible Hand in Revenge of the Sith. It's clearly meant to be very evocative of the Death Star spire, too.
    • Rogue One shows that Vader has a personal Supervillain Lair on Mustafar, which includes a tower overlooking a vast wasteland.
    • Darth Sidious uses an abandoned industrial tower of some kind during the prequel era. He later has it refurbished into the headquarters and hangout for the Jedi hunting Inquisitors.
    • Star Wars: Ewok Adventures: The brutal Sanyassans live inside a large castle which is introduced in a creepy fashion.
  • Koopa Tower in the 1993 Super Mario Bros. (1993) film is the most imposing landmark in Dinohattan, and is where Koopa is holding Princess Daisy.
  • Tomorrow Never Dies: Elliot Carver's building in Saigon dwarfs everything else and has a giant poster of his face on the side.

    Gamebooks 

    Literature 
  • The Belgariad has the gigantic tower of Cthol Mishrak, raised by the Mad God Torak after his Face–Heel Turn. He purposely built it taller than his older, kinder brother's Mage Tower, which leads Belgarath to snark that he must be Compensating for Something. It took a good eight hours to climb to the top floor, before Belgarath burgled it and Torak leveled it in a temper tantrum.
  • In Bronding's Honour, there's the Bright Tower which can apparently only be seen as far as the Bronding's Hold, making a lot of other clans believe the Brondings are seeing things. It's ominous, but is said to be a 'good' place.
  • Ridjeck Thome (aka Foul's Crèche) from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a combination Evil Tower of Ominousness and Elaborate Underground Base in the tradition of Angband; though it features a truly ominous tower, the bulk of the structure, including Lord Foul's throne room, is below ground.
  • The Shadow King in The City of Dreaming Books has a tower. Located in a huge vault in the deepest reaching of the city-spanning catacombs.
  • Jessica Meats' Codename Omega stories have Grey's Tower. It's not much of a skyscraper but it is in the middle of York and there were planning permission issues — they weren't allowed a helipad. The fact that Mrs Grey was able to build it at all implies evil influence.
  • The Blood Spire which is the MacGuffin for the protagonists of Diamond Dogs. It's an alien-build tower on an uninhabited planet that 'tests' anyone who enters it with increasingly complicated deathtraps as they work their way to the top. The POV character thinks it might have been deliberately designed to look this way as a deterrent but he later thinks it's actually designed to lure in intelligent beings and 'harvest' them like a sentient Venus Fly Trap, so you could say it is just plain evil.
  • In Going Postal, anti-hero Moist von Lipwig looks up at the Tump Tower, the nearest thing Ankh-Morpork has to a skyscraper office block, and reflects that the modern Dark Lord doesn't need the expense of an army of Orcs and ten thousand ogres camped around the Evil Dark Tower. All he needs to spread the maximum of evil and misery are amoral accountants and sympathetic lawyers. And they can work from indoors, inside the Tower.
  • In Gorgo the Ogre, the citadel where the evil Black Ogres live is composed of a series of black towers, with the biggest one in the middle being the site of the throne room.
  • Most examples in The Lord of the Rings stand out as being former Nice Towers of Goodness before they fell to evil.
    • Minas Morgul, aka the Tower of Dark Sorcery, was built as Minas Ithil by the exiled Númenóreans to protect Gondor from Sauron's forces. Then the Witch-King of Angmar, The Dragon to Sauron, showed up with an army and made himself at home.
    • The indestructible tower Orthanc was built by descendants of the Númenóreans as part of Gondor's defensive network, eventually abandoned, and finally given to the wizard Saruman. Pity he turned out to be a Fallen Angel in human form.
    • The Towers of the Teeth at the Black Gate of Mordor were constructed by Gondor after Sauron's defeat to watch against his return. Continuing Gondor's poor track record of Tower maintenance, the armies of Sauron eventually took them over and incorporated them into Mordor's defenses.
    • Dol Guldur in Mirkwood, formerly a capital of the Forest Elves before Sauron overtook the place in the Second Age. The ruins then became Sauron's hideout during his early return to power before the White Council join forces to drive him out. It later gets razed to the ground by Lady Galadriel when lesser agents of the Shadow move in.
    • Sauron's personal tower Barad-dûr, raised by his magic in the heart of Mordor to become the greatest stronghold of all Middle-Earth. With the final destruction of Sauron's power, it promptly fell apart. A massive castle with steel gates and a keep made of black diamond, set into a mountain-sized deposit of iron, surrounded by a moat of lava from the local volcano.
  • The Lyra book Caught in Crystal has the Twisted Tower, a black, bent tower inhabited by a shadowy evil creature. Our heroine was part of the first disastrous expedition to the Tower, and now must return, sixteen years later, to discover what really happened the first time and finally set it right.
  • In Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, the Final Battle take place atop Green Angel Tower, a place of inhuman beauty and the sole above-ground remnant of the ancient Sithi city of Asu'a (humans built the Hayholt atop the old city after capturing it). It's also not coincidentally the location of the Storm King's attempted Heroic Sacrifice five hundred years ago, and the place he chooses to reenter the world in the present. It's still a big-ass tower where the heroes fight the Big Bad, though.
  • Lord Dreadgrave the Necromancer's castle in Mogworld is affectionately referred to as a "Doom Fortress" by its undead staff, and is said to bear a resemblance to "an incontinent titan squatting over the river."
  • The Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four is an "enormous, pyramidal structure of white concrete, soaring up terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air." Not a wholly inaccurate exaggeration of Stalinesque architectural ambitions. It's somehow an eerily prescient description of the real-life Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang from 1992 to 2008.
  • Most of the conflict in Otherland occurs within the title network, but a significant portion of the climax takes place in the real-world skyscraper that forms the headquarters of J Corp. Black, ominous, and massively taller than anything else nearby, it's a suitable home for Corrupt Corporate Executive Felix Jongleur and gets spectacularly flattened when the Other decides to commit suicide via Death from Above.
  • A Practical Guide to Evil has the palace of the Dread Tyrant of Praes, known simply as the Tower. It has a footprint the size of a castle and rises hundreds of floors, some only accessible by flying, and each floor is more dangerous than the last, starting with an Eldritch Abomination built into the front door. It's been destroyed twice in Praesi history, only to be rebuilt even taller each time.
    No wonder they all go mad. How could you live in that without coming to think of yourself as a god?
  • The Riftwar Cycle has the Sorcerer's Isle, which holds an ominous castle that has a cold blue light shining from its tower's windows and sends sheets of silver light into the sky overhead. A subversion in that it's designed to be maximally ominous to scare people away, but all the lights and sounds don't mean anything. It's even largely left empty; the entire point of the tower is ominousness so the sorcerer in residence can be left alone.
  • The Dark Tower from the Tale of the Unwithering Realm series is the heart of an entire multiversal empire, and it's absolutely colossal, inhabited by possibly the population of a country, many of which never even left it all their lives.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire has a couple of examples:
    • Harrenhal was originally built by a man named Harren as a fortress/monument to himself. It consisted of five towers, said to be among the tallest in Westeros. Then Aegon the Conqueror showed up with his three dragons and melted much of it, turning it instantly from some Jerkass's self-congratulatory monument to a cursed White Elephant of a fortress that brings bad luck to whoever makes it their seat of power. The "curse" actually has a fairly mundane in-universe explanation: the size of Harrenhal makes it an sought after by rivals for the prestige of holding it, yet is so big it is hard to effectively defend. No wonder it keeps changing hands and bringing ill fortune to those who try and hold it. The only person who prospered after sacking Harrenhal thus far has been Roose Bolton, who's such a Magnificent Bastard he's apparently even capable of subverting curses.
    • The Targaryen fortress of Dragonstone is the most exotic castle in the realm, located on an island in the middle of nowhere. Many don't see the wisdom of shaping its towers to look like dragons.
    • Then there is also the city of Oldtown and its leading house, the notoriously overlooked Hightowers based on the Hightower — a gigantic lighthouse/castle and the highest stand-alone structure in Westeros (even higher than The Wall) — the Hightowers are the patrons of both two of the most important organizations in Westeros, namely The Faith Of Seven and The Order Of The Maesters.
    • Casterly Rock, the home of the Lannisters has all the above beaten. The fortress is three times the height of the wall. The Wall is 700 feet tall, Casterly Rock is 2100 feet high,note  stretches for two leagues (seven miles) and has never been taken before in battle. A fitting home for the likes of House Lannister.
  • The Black Rose Tower in Tasakeru is not so much evil, but definitely ominous. Originally built by a would-be world conqueror, it was quickly abandoned when said conqueror did a Heel–Face Turn. It was revealed later to have strange magical properties, including repairing itself when damaged and limited shapeshifting. The inside is even weirder: it adapts to the needs of whomever calls it their home.
  • In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines novel Dead Sky Black Sun, the end point of their quest is an evil tower, bordering on Ominous Floating Castle because it is suspended over a void.
  • In Anthony Reynolds’ Warhammer 40,000 Word Bearers novel Dark Apostle, the Word Bearers enslave the population of Tanakreg and force them to build a tower called the Gehemehnet. Its bricks are mortared with the liquefied bodies of countless slaves, its mere presence thins the veil between the real world and the Warp, and it is so impossibly tall — almost fifty kilometres — that one of the slaves realizes the tower is actively breaking the laws of physics by not collapsing under its own weight. It is also sentient and evil, corrupting the work force so that they become utterly devoted to completing the tower. The Word Bearers normally use them to convert ordinary planets into Daemon Worlds, while Jarulek is using this particular Gehemehnet to shatter Tanakreg’s surface so that he can get at the Necrons ruins buried within the planet’s crust.
  • The White Tower in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time books, especially after Elaida's Face–Heel Turn. Mazrim Taim builds and rules the Black Tower, but this is actually a village; the name was chosen specifically as a reference to the other one. Taim does build a palace that he rules from that counts though. And that's not including the Tower of Ghenji, which is probably a portal to a dimension with Alien Geometry. Or the Towers of Midnight, which were the place where the a'dam, a collar to enslave magic users were made. Or, for that matter, the tower that Moridin has recently started using in the Blight. While the 13th book probably won't show the (for the series) literal Towers of Midnight (they're several thousand miles away), it's probably not called Tower of Midnight for no reason. There's a lot of ominousness to go around.
  • The Iron Tower of Carcë in E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, lair of the sourcerous King Gorice of Witchland.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Angel: Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles branch corporate building. Angel partially lampshades this: "You set things in motion, play your little games up here in your glass and chrome tower, and people die — innocent people."
  • Babylon 5 — Z'ha'dum, the home planet of the Shadows, has rather ominous-looking stone spires jutting out of the Mordor-like landscape.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Battersea Power Station becomes the London headquarters of Cybus Industries in "Rise of the Cybermen."
    • The Tower of Rassilon. When the Doctor spots it he knows he's in the Death Zone, which is unpleasant as its name suggests.
    • The Daleks' headquarters in "Day of the Daleks" is a tower surrounded by post-apocalyptic wasteland. The original broadcast portrays it as a windowless tower block, while the Enhanced on DVD edition makes it far more intimidating.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • The five massive towers of Harrenhal are all the more ominous for having been melted by dragonfire.
    • The House of the Undying in Qarth is intentionally shot at angles that leave its summit unseen to make it seem more imposing.
  • House of the Dragon: The towers of Storm's End look quite intimidating during stormy nights, as Lucerys Velaryon finds out. Add the fact that the Baratheons side with his mother's enemies, and it's definitely not a welcoming place for him.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: After climbing a sheer cliff in the Forodwaith, Galadriel finds one of the fortresses Sauron used to hide in, just when everyone was ready to give up. The fortress is enormous, made of conical and tall black towers. There, she finds a redoubt where dark magic has been practiced and the sigil of Sauron, recently carved in cold stone. The fortress is implied to be, Utumno, first outpost of Morgoth.
  • In Once Upon a Time, Rapunzel is trapped in tower which is in fact just an old tower of no special significance. Rapunzel is only trapped there by a physical embodiment of her own fear, created when she ate an anxiety-curing vegetable called Nightroot. It would have appeared to stalk her whether she was in the tower or not.
  • Only Fools and Horses: Rodney Trotter has a dream in the episode Heroes and Villains where Rodney walks into Trotter Towers, an intimidating looking building, set in an alternate future where his brother Del Boy and Del's Corrupt Corporate Executive son Damian basically rule the world with an iron fist. He's relieved when he wakes up and realises it was all a dream.
  • Super Sentai and its counterpart Power Rangers have a few of these as villainous lairs.

    Pinball 

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Cyberpunk 2020, the skyscrapers of the Megacorp Arasaka are black and very high, often the highest building of the cities where they're based.
  • Parodied in the Discworld Roleplaying Game article "Call No Man Happy Until He Is Dread", which notes that the aversion Dark Lords have to outbuildings and courtyards presumably indicates that they keep their black horses indoors, and they must feel that maintaining the ominousness of the tower makes up for the smell.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • In the Ptolus setting, the city of Ptolus lies in the shadow of the impossibly tall Spire. Though not many people in the city realize it, the entire spire is hollow and holds a vault of evil artifacts, and on top of that is the castle so tainted by its former Big Bad occupant that the gods themselves still keep it locked tight thousands of years after his death.
    • Halfway up the Spire is the fortress of a Slightly Less Big Bad. He plunged most of a continent into winter for years as a weapon of mass destruction, created monstrous laboratories in which to create monstrous armies, and generally was bad news for everyone and everything. And he measures up to the halfway point of the original big bad.
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • The Darksteel Citadel on the plane of Mirrodin is the lair of the Big Bad Memnarch.
    • Nicol Bolas also creates a giant citadel that looms over the buildings around it when he tries to conquer Ravnica in "War of the Spark". This is no mean feat given that Ravnica is already a City Planet with giant towers everywhere.
  • Warhammer:
    • Nagash, the lord of the undead, has not just an evil tower, but an entire mountain that's been turned into a gigantic fortress of evil!
    • Towers stick out of Naggaroth, land of the Dark Elves, like it is a pincushion.
    • The Chaos Dwarf settlements, while not as slender as the ones of the Dark Elves, also tend to take the form of giant towers with the sole exception of their capital which, despite being often referred to as the Tower of Zharr-Naggrund, is actually an enormous ziggurat.
  • Warhammer 40,000:

    Theme Parks 
  • Doctor Doom's Fearfall at Universal's Islands of Adventure consists of two massive industrial towers that stand at 199 feet tall.
  • The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at the Disney Theme Parks. The ride's setting, The Hollywood Tower Hotel, is all broken-down and haunted after a lightning strike and is meant to look like this to oncoming riders.
    • Sometimes the Tower will really drive this home as the building is equipped with lightning rods to deflect any bolts away from the riders while adding to its theming. Check out this amateur footage.
    • Hotel Hightower, the Japanese Tower of Terror at Tokyo DisneySea has exuberantly gothic architecture.

    Toys 
  • Over the years, LEGO has produced a few different evil castles with towers looming over them: the Bat Lord's Castle, for example.

    Video Games 
  • The Big Bad Master Brain from 8Bit Killer oversees the extermination of humans from a simply-titled Mega Tower looming over the ruins of a human city. The gameplay limited to a single plane of movement doesn't quite convey the player's ascent through it, though the battle with The Dragon does take place on on a giant lift leading to the Master Brain's lair.
  • After the War has the Portal, an Eldritch Location from where the Aliens spawn, located in a giant, bottomless tower.
  • Astalon: Tears of the Earth takes place in the Tower of Serpents, a black tower in the desert that the game's protagonists traverse to stop it from poisoning their village's water supply. The tower itself is filled with fleshy abominations imprisoned in stone faces known as gorgons, as well as statues of hideous demons. The characters remark that the tower itself seems to give off evil energy.
  • Baldur's Gate:
    • Both Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II have towers as the Bonus Dungeon of the add-ons. Tales of the Sword Coast has Durlags Tower, a deathtrap dungeon build by a mad dwarf king, while Throne of Bhaal has the Watcher's Keep, which sits atop the prison of a Demonic Overlord of Hell. The Watcher's Keep is entered by climbing a massive set of stairs to reach the main door, located at it's top.
    • In the expansion for the first game intended to bridge the gap between it and its sequel, Siege of Dragonspear, the final battle with Belhifet takes place atop a large basalt tower in Hell itself. Complete with a long elevator ride beforehand where you're flanked by demons.
    • In the first console-exclusive Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance game, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is in Onyx Tower that has something like fifty floors, though you actually play in less than half of them.
  • Banjo-Kazooie has the upper building of Gruntilda's Lair while Banjo-Tooie has Cauldron Keep. The respective final boss battles take place at the top of them.
  • Baroque: Nuero Tower, where most of the game takes place. It doubles as an Elaborate Underground Base in that while it is a tower, you're actually going down. And it's constantly changing shape too.
  • Castlevania:
    • The Castle Keep in nearly every game is a site of confrontation with Dracula. There are several towers in the games, including the infamous Clock Tower where Death is usually fought, but the Castle Keep is always the tallest one.
    • In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow the final battle takes place on the Lord of the Dead's Tower (Its a giant pillar that is larger even then the others, and is flanked by two massive lion statues.
  • Chrono Trigger: Magus attempts to summon Lavos inside his lair towering over the surrounding forest. Entering it is accompanied by a cutscene panning the camera up to show the dragon statue atop the lair in front of a full moon.
  • Chrono Cross:
    • It's only the most chilling part of either Chrono series where the party first enters the Dead Sea and sees the creepy-as-hell Tower of Geddon looming on the frozen waves.
    • Fort Dragonia, site of very dramatic events that change the protagonist's life forever.
  • City of Villains:
    • Ghost Widow's base is a tall tower in the first area (it's also a Clown-Car Base). Several zones in the game have a skyscraper draped in Arachnos banners that acts as a base for them.
    • Lord Recluse's Broadcast Tower in Grandville is the biggest and most ominous of the towers on Primal Earth. It's big, red, spidery, and is designed to steal the powers of every Hero on Earth. In Praetoria, the honor goes to Emperor Cole's Watchtower in Nova Praetoria, which is supposedly visible throughout the city. It's not so much an Evil Tower of Ominousness as a Shiny Tower of Gray-and-Gray Morality, but it fits the bill.
  • Clive Barker's Undying: One of the manor's towers has an unearthly purple halo stretching into the sky, marking the portal to Oneiros.
  • Agency tower in Crackdown 2 is an example. In the end it turns out to be a giant flashlight, killing every freak in the city and causing an "Earth-Shattering Kaboom".
  • The final island in the first Crash Bandicoot (1996) is a giant tower built on a rock. Mount Grimly in Crash: Mind Over Mutant counts as both this and Death Mountain.
  • Cyberpunk 2077: Arasaka Tower is taller than all other buildings in Night City, Red and Black and Evil All Over, home of the most powerful, capital-E Evil organization in the game, and contains what is only describable as the closest thing to a gateway to Hell in a world without the confirmed existence of interventionist deities.
  • Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: The Tower of Sin, if the name wasn't scary enough, collects the energy of Akoron and can be used as a weapon.
  • The Tower of Babel in Doom, final location of the second episode. Actual tower properties are not apparent when you get there, though, as all you do once you get there is fight the Cyberdemon at the base of it, with the player character not climbing it until the end-episode text once said demon is killed.
  • Dragon Age: Origins:
    • Fort Drakon. Technically it's simply part of the city of Denerim, but effectively turns into an evil tower once the Darkspawn invade the city at the end of the game, which also turns the sky red and gives the tower an even eviler look. It also serves as the final dungeon after one of the Archdemon's wings is damaged and must land atop the tower.
    • The Circle Of Magi's tower comes complete with a large full moon in the background, and like Fort Drakon, basically turns into an evil tower after a demon invasion from within. It gets better after you beat the mission, but still looks just as ominous as ever.
  • You can tell the bad guys are serious in Dreamfall: The Longest Journey when they take over Marcuria and build a massive doom tower in the middle of it.
  • In Dwarf Fortress, the Dark Fortresses the goblins build are bastions formed entirely from obsidian. Emphasis on formed: they're essentially giant, hollow pillars of solid obsidian.
  • Dungeons in The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall have random outsides but most of them involve a mound with inlaid stairs (going down, supposedly). However, it also includes full and ruined castle-like backdrops, some in what appear to be former cities or towns, or cut into giant trees. Rarely are their names correctly descriptive. All of the main quest dungeon exteriors are unique (Orsinium is the most unique one), save for the first and the last dungeons of the main quest. In fact, a plainclothes entrance to the Mantellan Crux is accessible on a very small island off of the main map, northwest from your ship.
  • The Watcher's Tower in El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, which makes up the bulk of the game. As it was created by fallen angels, the interior is so mind mindbogglingly large, it's not so much divided into individual floors, as into individual worlds.
  • Loren Darith, the Master's tower from Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles, a tower so high that the top and bottom are always shrouded in mist.
  • The Tattered Spire from Fable II, which, when completed, can be seen from any beach in Albion.
  • The Dunwich Building in Fallout 3 is a foreboding tower in an already Used Future, especially in contrast to the uncommonly bright and shiny Tenpenny Tower nearby. The entire site is an homage to H.P. Lovecraft.
  • Fallout: New Vegas has the Lucky 38 Casino (based on the real-life Stratosphere Tower), home to Mr. House.
  • In Faria, every tower in the game can be considered ominous, given how often townspeople mention that they're terrified of the monsters there. The tallest of the towers is the lair of the Final Boss.
  • Geese Tower in Fatal Fury is the tallest building in Southtown, and the location of Geese's demise in every continuity.
  • Towers such as these are staples of the Final Fantasy series:
    • Mirage Tower in the original Final Fantasy is a spiral-shaped structure whose very top contains a teleporter into the Sky Warriors' Floating Castle.
  • In Final Fantasy III, the Big Bad Xande awaits in the Crystal Tower at the center of the Ancients' Maze. It stretches upwards far, far above the clouds (it takes both of the Nintendo DS' screens to show just part of it) and holds the altar/ teleporter to the Dark World at the top.
  • Final Fantasy IV has the Tower of Zot, the lair of Golbez floating high in the sky; and the Tower of Bab-il, which extends into the center of the planet and has immense powers, triggered by the game's Plot Coupons.
  • Fork Tower, Phoenix Tower, and the four Barrier Towers that maintain the shield around Exdeath's castle in Final Fantasy V. Fortunately, the party only needs to visit one; Fork Tower and Phoenix Tower are also optional. Walz Tower, where the Water Crystal resides until shortly into the game, sinks into the ocean and becomes an underwater dungeon for the party to traverse from top to bottom, but it's not exactly "evil" per se.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, President Shinra's office sits on top of Shinra HQ, which rises from ground level and serves as the Midgar Plate's central pillar.
  • Lunatic Pandora in Final Fantasy VIII, a gigantic floating tower.
  • Final Fantasy XI has Delkfutt's Tower, an immense structure made of white bone-like material ("cermet") where one of the major bosses of the Rise of the Zilart storyline resides. Castle Zvahl Keep might also count, especially since it leads to the Throne Room of the Shadow Lord, the game's first Big Bad.
  • Final Fantasy XII's massive Pharos Lighthouse is based on the real Pharos Lighthouse, except much, much bigger, and filled with vicious monsters. There's also Sky Fortress Bahamut, which has the appearance of a floating tower but you only get to travel in a small part of it. It eventually crashes just outside of Rabanastre and becomes a tower by default.
  • Taejin's Tower in Final Fantasy XIII has a very Barad-dûr-like look to it, however in the 500-some years after the extinction of humanity on Gran Pulse, the top half of it has toppled over. Despite that minor detail, it's creepiness factor is not in any way diminished.
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: The Temple of Chaos isn't evil, but it is definitely ominous. You also get to go all the way to the top to fight a storyline boss.
  • These are all over the place in Final Fantasy XIV. There are the Castrums built by the Garlean Empire, the Crystal Tower, the Pharos Lighthouse, Eulmore, and the Telephoroi's towers.
  • The Tower of Valni is taken over by monsters early on in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. More and more floors are unlocked for you to clear as the plot progresses.
  • Flower has a large one at the end of the dream 6 which is basically nothing more than a metallic spire with grirders. It is turned into a giant blooming tree at the end.
  • For the King: The final dungeon of the main campaign is Harazuel, a spiky black tower on an inaccessible island, where the Big Bad is attempting to summon a God of Chaos into the world.
  • God of War II has the Spire of the Fates, which can be seen in the distance for most of game. On closer inspection it turns out to be not just an ordinary tower, though.
  • In Golden Sun, there are four elemental lighthouses whose beacons can be lit with gems called the Elemental Stars. Lighting these beacons is the objective of the villains of both the first and second games, and every time you enter one of the lighthouses you'll have to fight a boss battle at the top. They're not really supervillain lairs, per se, but supervillains do tend to congregate there.
  • Millenion's Tower in the original Gungrave. The Final Stage takes place inside of it. After an elevator sequence full of reveals, things get really weird from there.
  • Half-Life 2.
    • The Citadel is a massive skyscraper built in City 17 by extradimensional invaders called The Combine. Supposedly one of many around the world, it serves as a dimensional teleport beacon, dark-energy reactor, storage for synths, and a cushy office for Combine collaborator Dr. Breen (and oh, it's also The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in Half-Life 2). It's so ominous and huge that its top is obscured by clouds, and the next two episodes in the game focus almost entirely on delaying its exploding before so everyone can evacuate, and when it does anyway, cleaning up the mess — and superportal — afterwards.
    • The Depot at Nova Prospekt. When viewed from outside, it towers over the entire complex. Up close, it has the same kind of prisoner transport system as the Citadel's, and is literally made from the old prison's materials, thanks to the giant crushing walls nearby.
    • In Black Mesa, the Fan Remake of Half-Life, throughout the Xen level you can see a huge tower hovering in the distance, with an enormous red portal over it that gives it an appearance strongly reminiscent of Barad-dûr. You finally reach it in Interloper, and spend much of the level making your way up through it. After you defeat the Nihilanth, it explodes.
  • Hype: The Time Quest has the Black Tower, final area of the game (which was previously visited when still in construction).
  • Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II: The one in the middle of the city of Baron's Hed which the player has to get to the top while pursuing 8t88. It's black and sticks out high above everything else.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
      • The Clock Tower serves as the gateway between Link's home dimension and the world explored in the game, the ominous clock ticking off the time until the moon crashes, a representation of which appears on the screen throughout the game, the point where you reappear each time you rewind to the first day, the arena for both the first and the penultimate battle against the Skull Kid wearing Majora's Mask, and the point from which you travel to the moon for the final dungeon and final battle.
  • In Little Nightmares II, an ominous signal tower looms over the horizon of the Pale City, emitting all sorts of weird signals responsible for the nightmare monsters you encounter. The worst part is when Mono and Six finally reach it near the end of the game, and not only is it in fact sapient, it's not even made out of concrete and steel, but living, pulsating flesh.
  • Lonesome Village's story begins with the appearance of an ominous-looking tower near the village, which coincides with the disappearance of all the villagers.
  • Lost in Shadow starts with a boy's shadow being cut from his body and being tossed of a giant tower. That tower isn't this trope, the Dark Tower is.
  • Lionheart Castle in MapleStory was at first inaccessible — It was just a looming, black castle in the background, outside of the El Nath deadmines. It's accessible now.
  • Thane's recruitment mission in Mass Effect 2 involves fighting your way to the top of a pair of towers connected by a skybridge owned by a ruthless business-asari Nassana Dantius. Though since you take high-speed elevators most of the way you only actually fight on about five floors.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in Medal of Honor: Airborne is the Flak Tower, a giant concrete tower the size of a large town. Although the Flak Tower is a real WWII German war structure, the Allies never actually attacked one during the war (and the Soviets could only siege them until the people inside ran out of food).
  • Metal Warriors: The eighth mission takes Stone into the Axis Communications Tower, a very tall building that serves as the base of operations of the enemy forces (though it's only the penultimate level). Save for a high spot having a brief switch Stone has to activate to open a passageway found within, the whole level has him enter the tower without being able to take his Mini-Mecha with him, so he has to make it alive on foot (he does has a Jet Pack to hover, though) until he finds another mech inside, and then proceed to go up until he meets the level's boss.
  • Metro 2033 has the relatively intact Ostankino Tower serve as the game's finale. It not only overlooks the Dark Ones' hive, but also seems to serve as a nest for the game's flying Goddamn Bats.
  • Might and Magic VII features William Setag's Tower. It's not actually that tall (any ominousness comes mostly from the fact that there are very few towers period in Deyja), and except for one specific optional quest all you do with it is talk with William Setag, self-proclaimed Villain — but it is definitely a tower that looks out of place and is controlled by evil (Setag does things like kidnap 'the fairest lady in Erathia' just for the sake of doing it).
  • Miitopia has the Nightmare Tower from the first world, the Sky Scraper which is used by the Darker Lord to admire the mayhem he causes in the land from high up and The Tower of Dread from New Lumos.
  • The Shard in Mirror's Edge is a skyscraper which doubles as the Very Definitely Final Dungeon. It's a game based around Le Parkour, and in a city full of skyscrapers, it absolutely dwarfs everything else, and it's just generally made clear in every possible way that you are going up that thing at some point.
  • In Mother 3, the Pigmask Army builds the Thunder Tower which send lighting bolts down on any dissenters. There is also the Empire Building, which is the home of the Big Bad.
  • The most prominent feature of the Fire and Brimstone Hell plane of Stygia from Nexus Clash is a giant field of lava containing the dark fortress of Gulag Magnificent, seat of worship of the Manipulative Bastard demonic god Tlacolotl. Since the current iteration of Stygia is the evil Mirror World counterpart to the angelic plane of Elysium, the angels actually have a holy Ivory Tower in the same approximate place, though it's not any safer to visit.
  • No Straight Roads has the NSR Tower, a massive skyscraper that looms over the rest of Vinyl City and is where the corrupt CEO Tatiana resides, so the main goal is to confront her there.
  • Professor Layton and the Curious Village has a big dark ominous tower, which townspeople say eats people.
  • Dr. Loboto's tower lab in Psychonauts is what remains of a ruined insane asylum. It's incredibly twisted architecture can be seen already from Camp Whispering Rock.
  • Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc's Tower of the Leptys is the last level that requires you to get on top of it to fight the final boss.
  • Rengoku: Rengoku towers are combat arenas for ADAMs with an explicit Hell analogy.
  • Runescape has the main tower of Castle Drakan, whose foreboding presence looms over the Sanguinesti region. It's also upon its roof you face off against Lord Drakan and the Wyrd at the end of "The Lord of Vampyrium" and "River Of Blood" quests.
  • Saints Row IV has a huge alien tower that serves as a docking point for the Zin mothership.
  • The Secret World features the Orochi Tower, the Tokyo-based headquarters of the Orochi Group. A Burj Khalifa-esque monolith of steel and glass, it's ultimately The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of the Tokyo story arc: for good measure, it ends with a confrontation with Orochi Chairwoman Lily Engel AKA Lilith on the penthouse balcony.
  • Shadow of the Colossus has the Temple that holds the 16 icons, which is a huge tower which can be seen from miles away. Also, the last colossus actually IS a tower.
  • Shining Soul features a massive evil tower called, creatively, "Dark Tower". Filled with harpies and robots; the remnants of of civilization long since past.
  • Shounen Kininden Tsumuji has a huge tower called the Shadow Tower which leads to the floating Demon Castle in the sky.
  • The Tower of Fate in Shovel Knight is the lair of the Big Bad Enchantress, which can be seen on the horizon already in the introductory level. This tower is where Shovel Knight's partner Shield Knight vanished in the backstory. It also expectedly serves as the location of the last few levels in each campaign, and in Specter of Torment it also serves as player headquarter for Specter Knight.
  • Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers has the Xenon Super Computer dome in the Space Quest XII time period, which now serves as Vohaul's base of operations. It looks like a "vast boil" on the ruined landscape.
  • Meio's Tower in Strider (2014) is the Big Bad's main residence and the symbol of his absolute rule, and is so high that it disappears among the clouds.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Mario Party: Island Tour has Bowser's Tower, which is placed by the evil Koopa king in front of Party Islands out of spite for being left out. It's a tall, cylindrical tower from which Bowser encourages everyone to come and complete his challenges. Its floors are guarded by evil clones of characters, made of bubbles and who will obstruct progress until they're defeated in minigames. Powerful bosses also lurk the tower.
  • The Tower of Tarqaron in Tales of Vesperia is a huge, flying, black city topped with a giant tower housing a Magitek weapon powered by the Life Energy of every human in the world.
  • In The Talos Principle, the centrepiece of the Nexus is a giant tower made of stone and industrial machinery that reaches high into a stormy vortex. Elohim emphatically tells you to resist the temptation of entering it and focus on collecting sigils instead. If you don't want to get stuck with an "eternal life" then sooner or later you will have to enter the tower and ascend it. Even Elohim expects you to; he just grown so attached to the world he created he's reluctant to see it destroyed as a result of your "ascension" (i.e. being uploaded to a physical body).
  • The Tower of Druaga is set in the Evil Sorcerer Druaga's 60-floor tower. The PS2 sequel, Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigino Dungeon, also features this.
  • In Vampires Dawn an invisble tower is the home of The Dragon, while the Big Bad prefers an Elaborate Underground Base.
  • Venture Tower in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines serves as the headquarters of the local Camarilla and Prince Sebastian LaCroix. It dwarfs every other building in Los Angeles' downtown area, and the Prince's office is the penthouse. The climax involves fighting your way to the top, the final boss battle with The Dragon takes place on its roof, and the uppermost floors are blown to smithereens in some endings.
  • Vermintide II: Holseher's Tower is the abandoned lair of a heretical scholar, situated on a rocky crag with a great view of the Chaos Wastes. Dilapidation and ambient magic have twisted it inside out; the player characters have to fight their way up a tangle of exposed rooms and unsupported staircases to reach the exit portal.
  • In the Warcraft games:
    • The Lich King's Frozen Throne is a tall spire of ice. Karazhan, the tower of Medivh, is an ominous tower with evil things inside, including ominous pipe organ music.
    • The Icecrown Citadel is a massive tower built around the Frozen Throne. It's a giant evil tower built around a giant evil tower.
    • Blackrock Spire is a black dragon doom fortress made out of a Blackrock/Black Tooth Grin orc doom fortress made out of a Dark Iron Dwarf doom fortress originally intended to carry out the commands of a chaotic demigod made of lava. And it still houses all of them!.
  • Catacylsm boasts both the Twilight Citadel and the Sulfuron Spire, made of twisted metal and on fire respectively. The latter of which is the little brother of the MASSIVE spire that houses the Elemental Embodiment of aforesaid fire.
  • In the Shadowlands expansion, there is Torghast, Tower of the Damned. In addition to being the inspiration for the aforementioned Icecrown Citadel, it's located at the center of the Maw, which is the Warcraft equivalent of Hell.
  • Syrup Castle in the Wario Land series is an absolutely huge skull shaped castle on a mountain, it's probably big enough to hold a small town, and in both games it appears in has the entire last world inside it. So much in fact the first level inside the area in the second game is actually called 'Get to the Castle' and has an ominous opening cut scene showing Wario looking up at the building.
  • Ka Dingle from Wild ARMs is so feared by the Guardians that it was sealed away for a thousand years until Zeikfried raised it. However, it's not actually the final dungeon or a villain lair, but an elevator to the New Moon Malduke, the actual final dungeon. Thanks to the final battle occurring in subspace (not advised in the Wild Arms verse as you could explode from the energy you produce), Ka Dingle goes up in a ball of fire at the very end.

    Webcomics 
  • In qxlkbh, the zvillains'rg lair is so evil its name is the "Evil Spire of Utmost Evil".
  • In Radio Active Panda, students from a rival ominous tower of mad scientist-type evil (from the OTHER mad scientist tower/academy of mad robotics who has a moon base) pull a prank by stockpiling garden gnomes all the way to the on the 42th floor. The pile of gnomes is a third ominous tower in its own right — considering the pile is probably telescope-visible from earth as a red spot and the largest known nuke wouldn't remove them all.
  • Tower of God is set in a tower that makes up the whole known universe.
  • Templar Towers in TwoKinds are huge, gunmetal grey edifices surrounded by orbiting red panels near the top. They house a barracks, an absolutely huge Power Crystal, giant magic batteries, and a mind-control beacon that interacts with specially made Slave Collars to ensure that those wearing them can't rebel. Even without the collars, they have a dampening effect on non-human minds, slowly turning the brains of Bastins and Keidrans into mush, making their lands ripe for a Templar invasion.
  • Count Disdain's castle in Van Von Hunter. Van, unable to find Count Disdain's lair, asks a local for help. The local asks if he's "tried the ominous fortress on the mountaintop."
  • The Witch's throne in The Witch's Throne rises to the sky like a tower and appears to be visible from very far away, making it not only ominous but threatening, seing as the Witch's sole purpose is to exterminate all living things.

    Web Original 
  • In the Alice Isn't Dead episode "Omelet," the long haul trucker Character Narrator is disturbed by the strange, unreal visual quality of a tower she sees incongruously jutting out of a hillside in the distance, which serves to Foreshadow her far more up-close experiences with the paranormal throughout.
    Narrator: Creepy. Gut creepy, like something gone wrong. Like a terrible crime.
  • Dynamo: Shade Tower, the headquarters of what appears to be the main antagonist of the series as well as the founder of the city of Shade, Les North. The tower, miles-high with neon-like lights running up its sides, is the point at which the police chopper aircrafts of the Superintelligence Agency are located, and the tower is seen in various shots, mostly looking sinister and foreboding.

    Western Animation 
  • Tex Hex's Hexagon from BraveStarr is a giant tower in the shape of an "X," complete with a storm present around it.
  • Courage the Cowardly Dog has the Tower of Dr. Zalost, from which the eponymous doctor launches cannonballs that make everyone depressed. Doubles as a Base On Legs.
  • From Gargoyles; the Erie Building is the world's tallest, located in Manhattan. It's the home and office of villain David Xanatos, and just to crank up the ominous factor, it's topped with a real Scottish castle from the 10th century. Plus live gargoyles, at the beginning and end of the series.
  • Invader Zim: As opposed to Zim, who operates out of an Elaborate Underground Base beneath his house, when Tak arrives on Earth she creates a base inside a giant skyscraper housing a pump set to hollow out the planet.
  • On Kim Possible, Dr Drakken's Caribbean lair, the only one he uses more than once, is a tower, on a mountain, on an island, that's supposedly haunted.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • The Changeling Hive in "To Where and Back Again" resembles an odd combination of a tower and a deformed cave. Either way, it certainly gets the evil part right.
  • In Phineas and Ferb, Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated is headquartered in a big purple skyscraper.
  • Mojo Jojo's observatory in The Powerpuff Girls at the top of a volcano.
  • Aku's Tower in Samurai Jack is shaped similarly to Aku himself on the outside with the inside resembling Fire and Brimstone Hell, it's located at the center of an empty crater. He doesn't need any other infrastructure since anyone on the planet can go there with a teleporter (which Aku himself doesn't even need).
  • The Fright Zone in She-Ra: Princess of Power, home base of the Evil Horde sports Hordak's command center, a massive tower that can be seen easily via wide angle shots of the place.
  • Tom Terrific's foe Isotope Feeney resides in an ivory tower.
  • In Transformers: Prime, the Decepticons created their own evil tower on Earth called Darkmount.
  • In Watership Down (2018), the dictatorship warren of Efrafa is hidden underneath the ruins of a human building. The walls and roof have long gone but the brick chimneys remain standing; along with the "iron trees" of nearby powerlines, it gives the warren an ominous appearance.


 
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Alternative Title(s): Evil Towers Of Ominousness

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MARDEK Chapter 1 Opening

The very first scene of the game itself, MARDEK RPG.

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