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History of the Tower

The Tower of Wayreth had been, for centuries, the last outpost of magic upon the continent of Ansalon. Here the mages had been driven, when the ordered them from the other Towers. Here they had come, leaving the Tower in Istar, now under the Blood Sea, leaving the accursed and blackened Tower in Palanthas.

- Lore of the Tower,
Time of the Twins

Towers of High Sorcery once stood in Palanthas in northwestern Ansalon, Daltigoth on Southern Ergoth, Wayreth within the Qualinesti Forest, the Goodlund Peninsula in the east, and doomed Istar in the northeast. Although the Tower at Wayreth is the only one still standing in the Fifth Age, these magical constructions all share a common history - one that begins long ago, in the Age of Dreams, when the power of High Sorcery came to the land of Ansalon.

High Sorcery is Born

Three thousand years ago during the Second Dragon War, when the First Born Five dragons ravaged the land, three mages summoned potent magic and commanded the elements to swallow these Evil wyrms forever. The spell defeated the dragons, but the mages unleashed. The spell ran wild. Thou- sands died in the earthquakes, storms, fire, and floods that raged for months.

Fearing for their lives, the mages retreated to a tower and called upon the gods of magic - Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari - for aid. The gods heard their pleas. They seized the tower and moved it to a place beyond the world where they could teach the three mages a new magical art: High Sorcery. The gods of magic then clouded the minds of other mortals so the wild mages left after the war could escape into the wilderness.

For a century, the gods tutored their three disciples in the ways of High Sorcery. This arcane power, much more controllable than the wild magic that came before, was a powerful way for spellcasters to harness Krynn's primordial magic. The mages ultimately mastered this new magical art and became the first wizards of High Sorcery. They returned to Krynn at the gods' command to lead other wild mages out of hiding and to teach them the new magical art. To this end, the wizards formed the three Orders of High Sorcery to train, protect, and govern wizards.

Each order dedicated itself to one of the three gods and to the magic that god had bestowed upon the world. The Order of the White Robes followed Solinari, the god of good who held dominion over quiet and constructive magic. The Order of the Red Robes pledged itself to Lunitari, the goddess of Neutrality whose domain was illusion and reshaping magic. The Order of the Black Robes followed Nuitari, the god of Evil who held dominion over commanding and destructive magic.

Once the three wizards had returned to Krynn, the gods of magic closed the way to the original tower so no ordinary mortal or wizard could learn the secrets it harbored. This tower became known as the Lost Citadel. During the Fourth Age, at least two wizards - the former head of the Red Robes Belize and the renegade wizard Lyim Rhistadt - attempted to locate and enter the Lost Citadel so that they, too, could learn secrets from the gods of magic. Both attempts failed, however, and the Lost Citadel was completely cut off from Krynn when the gods departed after the Chaos War. It might even have been destroyed - no mortal knows for sure.

Building the Towers

To carry out their mission to spread magical knowledge and to protect their new art, the wizards built five towers that would serve as bastions of magic in a hostile world. These Towers of High Sorcery also would serve as neutral ground where the wizards could meet and practice their magical arts, free of the enmities and concerns of the wider world.

Building a Tower was no small undertaking. Besides being an impressive structure, each Tower also was a powerful artifact. A committee of wizards from all three orders set the general design: a multi-spired tower surrounded by a magical forest. The construction was left to wizards living near each Tower's site, so each of them was unique in its details.

In constructing the Towers, the wizards wished to honor the gods of magic who had taught them the art of High Sorcery. They also wanted to make the enchantments they used to create each Tower as strong as possible. Therefore, they chose possible Tower sites only after carefully observing Krynn's three moons, which represented the gods of magic in the heavens and exerted great influence over wizardly magic.

Once their astronomical observations were complete, teams of three wizards, one from each order, visited every potential site, making further observations of the moons and examining the a fragmentary manuscript penned by one Megistal, a wizard of the Red Robes, an ideal site was a place:

  - Where high was low and low was high;
  - Where yesterday, today, and tomorrow formed a perfect circle; and
  - Where Krynn's three moons periodically formed the points of a perfect triangle whose exact center would fall directly over the Tower.

In addition, arcane lore claims the sites were all linked through the flesh of Krynn and the spirit of the Conclave. When one Tower was destroyed - as were those at Daltigoth and Goodlund - the others became stronger.

Though the early astronomical observations indicated that the continent of Ansalon held at least seven sites with favorable magical properties, the wizards initially chose to build only five Towers.

When planning a Tower, the wizards also had to weigh such mundane considerations as the number of wizards living near each site (to help with the construction both magically and physically), the availability of building materials, and whether anyone living nearby might object to the wizards' presence - the dwarves ofThorbardin thwarted one attempt to build a Tower. Still, some wizards insisted that magic would never be properly balanced until Towers stood at all seven locations, and attempts to construct the two additional Towers continued sporadically for centuries.

The five sites all had outstanding magical properties and stood in wilderness areas, far from civilization. Three of the sites, however, also proved ideal for settlement and, as the centuries passed, the cities of Daltigoth, Palanthas, and Istar grew up around these Towers. Only the Towers at Wayreth and Goodlund remained remote.

Stones of Threes

To speed construction, the wizards created seven stones of threes. Each stone looked like a large, conical gem with rapidly switched between red, white, and black. As a team of wizards planted a stone of threes at a Tower site, they initiated a series of spells to raise the Tower's foundations from the bones of the earth and create a magical field where the Tower's surrounding forest would grow. These forests sprang into existence overnight, complete with their protective magical qualities (see page 7). The building's magical foundations were complete in a week. The process of creating the foundation and forest consumed the stone of threes.

With these two elements in place, the wizards completed the structure with a combination of physical labor and magical effort. However, it took decades to actually finish a Tower. The forest protected the wizards and their assistants while final construction proceeded.

The wizards used only five of the seven stones of threes to create Towers. One stone fell into the hands of the dwarves of Thorbardin sometime between 2150 and 2000PC, when the dwarves stopped a group of wizards from building a Tower on their land. Only the dwarves' account of the dis- pute survived the Cataclysm, and then only in the form of a myth featuring exaggerated tales of dwarven heroism and prowess. Not even the dwarves know exactly what happened to the stone, but divinations cast during the kingpriest of Istar's siege on sorcery (which commenced in 19pc) revealed that the stone had been destroyed. The seventh stone was lost during the Cataclysm, and its whereabouts remain a mystery.

Through the Ages

The Towers of High Sorcery proved effective in sheltering and nurturing magic throughout the Third Age. The wizards primarily used them as centers for teaching and study; each Tower contained a substantial library, a stockpile of enchanted items and materials useful in magical research, and a series of chambers where aspiring wizards could undergo the Tests required to enter the Orders of High Sorcery.

Almost a century passed before most residents ofAnsalon became aware of the Towers' existence; by the time the Towers' function and locations became widely known (c. 2400pc), magic's reputation had improved. Memories of the terrible destruction loosed by wild magic at the end of the Second Dragon War still lingered, but sensible Ansalonians began to understand that magic had changed into something that could be controlled and harnessed to useful ends.

Guardian Forests

Many people still feared magic, however, and others seemed curious about what the Towers held. Inevitably, people tried to approach the Towers without permission from the wizards, intending either to spy or destroy. The protective forests surrounding the Towers demonstrated their value by discouraging unwanted visitors.

Each forest had a different effect. The one protecting the Tower at Daltigoth caused trespassers to fall into dreamless slumber. Intruders approaching the Tower of Istar forgot why they had come. The forest of the Tower in Goodlund filled uninvited guests with all-consuming passion.

Surrounding the Tower at Palanthas was the protective forest - called the Shoikan Grove - with the most sinister reputation. This small grove of oaks generated an aura of fear so powerful no intruder could penetrate it. Only visitors with special talismans could traverse the Shoikan Grove and approach the Tower. Perpetual twilight brooded under the grove's branches.

The forest surrounding the Tower at Wayreth proved to be the most potent of all, however. It looked like an extensive stand of normal hardwood trees, but actually was a transdimensional field - a pocket of space that did not actually exist on Krynn, but adjacent to it. The apparent size and exact location of this forest varied from one moment to the touched Krynn at the time. While the details of the transdimensional field's workings were quite complex (see Chapter Two), the upshot was this: Nobody could find this Tower unless the wizards there had invited him to visit.

Members of the Order of the Black Robes took primary responsibility for - and special pride in - Shoikan Grove. In the other four locations, the duty of maintaining the guardian forests fell to wizards of the Red or White Robes.

The Greatest Towers

The Towers at Palanthas and Wayreth proved noteworthy for reasons beyond their protective forests. The Tower in Palanthas was widely believed to be the most potent magically, and it was there that the mages worked their greatest feats of wizardry. During the Third Dragon War, all three orders met at this Tower to create the five Dragon Orbs that called the dragons to their doom.

From the start, the Tower at Wayreth was intended to serve as the seat for the Conclave of Wizards. This body consisted of twenty-one wizards - seven from each order - and governed all three factions. Three Conclave members served as heads of their respective orders, and one of these three also bore the tide Master of the Conclave.

The Tower of Wayreth also proved the sturdiest of the five - even when Heroes of the Lance Caramon Majere and Tasslehoff Burrfoot visited an alternate future in which most of Krynn had been obliterated, they saw that the Tower of Wayreth remained untouched.

Kingpriest and Cataclysm

By the end of the Age of Might, the wizards had made a place for themselves. Thanks to their Dragon Orbs, they could claim to have saved the world during the Third Dragon War. Suspicions of wizards and magic still city neighborhood had its resident wizard. People respected wizardly power, even if it made them uncomfortable.

However, late in the Third Age, the Orders of High Sorcery felt the oppressive hand of the corrupt kingpriest of Istar. Starting in 118PC, the holders of this office issued proclamations designed to purge the land of everyone not considered a follower of Good. Inevitably, the kingpriest's suspicions fell on the Orders of High Sorcery. He neither understood the wizards' power nor accepted their commitment to a balance of Good, Neutrality, and Evil. By 19pc, the kingpriest had incited his followers to attack the most obvious manifestations of the mages' power - the Towers.

In response, the Conclave voted to abandon, then destroy, the Towers at Daltigoth and Goodlund rather than allow them to fall into the hands of angry, ignorant mobs. For the first time since the creation of the Dragon Orbs, wizards of all three orders gathered in Palanthas and worked a spell that caused the two Towers to explode.

The blasts caused such devastation, even the kingpriest was taken aback. He decided to negotiate with the wizards, persuading them to withdraw quietly to the Tower at Wayreth and leave intact the Towers in his home city of Istar and in heavily populated Palanthas. The wizards agreed, but they knew the kingpriest would seize the treasures held in those two Towers.

As it happened, the kingpriest captured only the Tower in Istar. Rather than let the powerful Tower at Palanthas fall into the kingpriest's hands, a Wizard of the Black Robes, Rannoch, hurled himself from the Tower's spire. Rannoch's body was impaled on the gates. With a dying curse, he barred all beings from the Tower until the day that the Master of Past and Present should return with power.

Shortly after the retreat to Wayreth, the Cataclysm struck, destroying the city of Istar and with it, its Tower.

Later Ages

Through most of the Fourth Age, the Tower of Wayreth served as the sole bastion of High Sorcery on Ansalon. Even when the ambitious Raistlin Majere - Master of Past and Present - reopened the Tower at Palanthas in 365AC, he used it strictly for his own ends. His apprentice, Dalamar, took over the Tower after 358AC, returning it to the Conclave's service. However, Raistlin's influence did not actually leave the Tower, and the Conclave never fully regained control over it.

Both remaining Towers survived the Second Cataclysm, but in 1sc a mysterious robed figure appeared in Palanthas and caused its Tower to implode. The bulk of the Tower simply vanished, leaving only a few shards of rubble and a great black mark on the ground. The Shoikan Grove still stood - guarding nothing. Curiously, at about the same instant, most volumes in Palanthas's Great Library vanished without a trace. This bizarre attack once again left Wayreth as the sole functioning Tower.

Even before the destruction of the Tower in Palanthas, High Sorcery had left Krynn - it disappeared when the gods withdrew from Krynn after the Chaos War. The magical items created by the old Orders of Magic constituted the last vestiges that arcane system.

The Tower of Wayreth itself seemed unaffected by the loss of magic, however, and continued to serve Ansalon's wizards while they searched for new forms of magic. In 28sc, Conclave leader Palin Majere joined two enigmatic colleagues, the Master of the Tower and the Shadow Sorcerer, at Wayreth to consider Ansalon's magical difficulties. By pooling their knowledge, the trio discovered the new art of sorcery, which draws on the primordial magic of Krynn without the intervention of the gods of magic or their traditional methods. With the discovery of the new sorcery, the Conclave was officially dissolved, though the Tower of Wayreth still holds a wealth of magical knowledge and power and remains an unassailable bastion of magic.

Raistlin and Wayreth's Tower

Although many of Krynn's loremasters are quick to associate the infamous Black-Robed archmage with the Tower of Palanthas only, Raistlin Majere's early life as a spellcaster revolved around the Tower at Wayreth.

Wayreth was the only active Tower during Raistlin's youth: The curse on the Tower in Palanthas effectively closed it, and the others had been destroyed. Growing up in Solace, Raistlin constantly saw hopeful wizards making their way south toward the Wayreth to take their Tests of High Sorcery. In time, he took his Test there as well, becoming the youngest mage ever to do so (his nephew, Palin, would later take his Test at the same age).

A popular legend suggests that the Test of High Sorcery is not the only major event of Raistlin's life to take place in Wayreth Forest. Bards across Ansalon repeat the story of "Raistlin's Daughter," born to his Irda soulmate after a liaison in Wayreth Forest just after his Test. Raistlin, during his brief reappearance during the Summer of Chaos, is said to have refuted the story.

From Wayreth, the Conclave sent Dalamar to be Raistlin's apprentice (and to spy on him) in the days following the War of the Lance, when the archmage served as Master of the Tower at Palanthas. Raistlin only returned to the Tower at Wayreth in an alternate future seen by his twin, Caramon - a future in which he defeated the Dark Queen and ruled Krynn as a god. Legends still speak of this mythic visit, especially the torments Raistlin inflicted upon the old Conclave leader Par-Salian while gloating over his victory.

Even today, Raistlins Room at the Inn of the Last Home remains a frequent stopping point for sorcerers and aspirants traveling through Solace south to the Tower at Wayreth. Although Raistlin has reportedly gone from Ansalon to resume his long sleep, it seems the ties between him and Ansalon's last Tower of High Sorcery will not soon fade away.

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