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A Visit to the Tower

The High Sorcery at Wayreth is at the best of times... difficult to find. Guided by the powerful Wizards of the Conclave, the tower roams its enchanted forest, the wildest of the wild creatures within its boundaries. One often sees young mages standing, hovering, on the outskirts of Wayreth Forest, their breath coming fast, their skin pale, their hands nervously clenching. They stand hesitating on the outskirts of their destiny. If they are bold and enter, the forest will permit them. The tower will find them. Their fate will be determined.

- Approaching the Tower,
"The Silken Threads" in The Reign of Istar

As one of the very strongest magical artifacts on Krynn - perhaps the strongest artifact - the Tower possesses an array of powers that most people, even sorcerers, don't fully appreciate. The Tower is best known for its legendary mobility, but that's only one of its abilities.

Note: Unless noted otherwise, the information presented in this chapter is for the Narrator's eyes only. Stories about the Tower abound in Ansalon, but the real details remain elusive to heroes.

The Approach

The Tower's legendary mobile nature (see sidebar, next page) poses a challenge to those seeking the magical fortress. Many have tried to locate someone who has been there, thinking such a person could describe the route through Wayreth. Honest folk usually refuse to answer such requests, but the unscrupulous might pretend to have useful knowledge. The fact of the matter is that:

- No one knows where the Tower of Wayreth truly lies; and
- Only the Tower of Wayreth can guide visitors to itself.

Clearly, a sorcerer who has visited the Tower a hundred times has no more knowledge of its true location than a gully dwarf would.

Only once in the history of Krynn was anyone able to approach the Tower without permission. During the Fourth Age, the renegade wizard Lyim Rhistadt used Ventyr - a powerful, antimagical artifact - to paralyze the Tower's defenses and attack it. Bram DiThon, a nobleman from Northern Ergoth, helped the Conclave thwart Rhistadt.

The wizards presented Ventyr to the dwarves of Thorbardin in gratitude for their aid during the assault. At the same time, they altered the Tower's defenses to defeat any future attempt to circumvent them. The gods might also have strengthened the Tower before withdrawing from Krynn for, in the Fifth Age, anyone wishing to visit this magical refuge must do so on the Tower's terms.

Setting Out

When any person or creature within 6ve hundred miles of the Tower desires to visit or resolves to locate it, the Tower instantly detects this intent - even if the creature's mind is magically shielded. The Tower decides whether to allow the individual to enter and determines how hard he must work to get there. It's quite possible for Palin Majere to step out of his Academy of Sorcery near Solace, enter the Forest of Wayreth, and pass into the Tower with Just a few steps. Indeed, Palin often makes just such a trip - because the Tower lets him.

In game play, the Narrator must decide which heroes and characters the Tower admits. As a general rule, a visitor must have a Reason code of "A" to be welcome there, but the Tower often admits members of the Qualinesti resistance and other individuals who might benefit from a visit or help further its own interests. A magical entity, the Tower usually does not admit anyone who seeks to harm its residents, steal items in its stores, or seize control of it. Occasionally, the Narrator might encounter a hero who seems to have a legitimate desire to enter the Tower, but proceeds to misbehave once he gets there. Anyone who breaks the Tower's rules of conduct (see sidebar on page 20) either finds himself confined to the dungeon or expelled from the Tower.

Within the guardian forest (and within its own walls), the Tower controls direction and distance. A visitor might continuously traverse the same stretch of ground, move in circles, or reverse course. However, the visitor perceives nothing unusual - his movement seems perfectly normal to him.

Nothing a visitor does can foil the Tower's manipulation of space and direction. Flying over the forest proves just as uncertain as walking. Summoning spells and devices intended to whisk the user to the Tower fail no matter where the traveler starts from - unless the Tower wishes to admit him, of course.

Uninvited Visitors

Trespassers in Wayreth Forest often find the surroundings unpleasant. No matter what the weather, the forest can appear gloomy or blacker than a moonless, starless night. Wind can whip through the trees, creating a low, eerie roar - enough to make even a kender feel uneasy. Sometimes the trees seem to speak among themselves, murmuring angrily.

Most unwelcome visitors who fail to leave of their own accord suffer attacks from the trees; the Master orders such assaults with a thought. The trees have the following game characteristics:

Wayreth trees: Animated plants, Co 6, Ph 36, In 6, Es 8, Dmg +12, Def -5, also thrown weapons (nuts, fruits, broken branches).

Rooted in place, the enchanted trees cannot change range, but they can oppose attempts to change range by using their branches to impede others' movement. They prefer not to assail trespassers directly but to merely trap them in their branches, which inflicts only 12 damage points. Someone pinned in this way must perform a daunting Strength action to get free. As the trees are not actually gripping the victim - he is merely entangled in their branches - they cannot oppose the action. While trapped, a victim can attempt no action other than trying to get free. A captive who does not get free finds himself rapidly handed from tree to tree until he has suddenly left the forest (see below).

The victim does not suffer additional damage while caught, but the tree can keep attacking others while holding him. A victim's companions can wrench him free with a daunting Strength action of their own, or they can hack away at the branches with sharp weapons. Ten damage points inflicted by sharp weapons will free the victim, though this attack does not otherwise affect the tree.

The Tower can direct a virtually unlimited number of trees at a group of invaders, but usually employs only one tree per two trespassers. Once the victims defeat or evade the trees, the Tower usually waits about an hour before ordering additional trees to attack. Wise intruders leave the forest before they must face the trees again.

Sometimes, the Tower opts for a more subtle approach when discouraging unwanted guests. On these occasions, it simply manipulates distance and direction so the intruders unwittingly move out of the forest on their own. It's possible for someone traveling south to cross the Ahlanlas River bound for the Tower and suddenly find himself walking out of the woods on the Cape of Caergoth, though the Tower usually doesn't displace anyone more than a mile or two.

The Tower doesn't discourage all visitors. Occasionally, it even beckons to sorcerers who might have second thoughts about making the trip. Travelers have reported hearing an alluring birdsong that promised to fulfill their hearts' desires. Others have fallen asleep on the outskirts of the forest, only to waken surrounded by trees and unable to leave the forest.

Before the Fifth Age, uninvited visitors meeting hostile receptions have been known to convince the Conclave of their good intentions by braving the assault from the trees and explaining themselves aloud while steadfastly moving through the forest. If the Narrator thinks the heroes have a good reason for approaching, he can allow them each the following action (accompanied by appropriate role-playing):

Persuade the Tower

Difficulty: Average (8)
Action ability: Presence
Opposition ability: None

Comments: Heroes can convince the Tower to let them find it through their words and actions. Success allows the traveler(s) to reach the Tower without further harassment, while failure means he must struggle further.

Mishap: The Tower displaces the hero(es) someplace inhospitable at the far limits of its reach - perhaps the Plains of Dust or glacial Southern Ergoth.

Limitations

Though no one can find the Tower if it doesn't want to be found, the magical structure's ability to control other activities in its vicinity has some limits.

First, it can shift the guardian forest only once each minute, and can allow it to touch Krynn in just one place at a time. The Tower can, however, decide exactly how much of Krynn the forest touches at once, from a few square feet to its entire ten-mile area.

Likewise, the Tower can manipulate direction and distance in only one section of Wayreth Forest at a time, though it decides how large an area to affect. If many different individuals try to find the Tower at once, it might be several hours before it can attend to them all. This is why Beryl's patrols have been somewhat effective in isolating the Tower - the Green Dragon uses so many troops, the Tower can't thwart them all at once.


Mobility

Most folk of Ansalon believe the Tower of Wayreth can move about its forest, literally evading any intruder it declines to meet. The troth is even more bizarre than that.

The Tower and its guardian forest (see Chapter One) actually exist in a transdimensional world of their own, magically anchored to Krynn but existing outside of the world's normal dimensions. Travel between Wayreth Forest and the rest of Krynn is possible only where the two worlds touch, and the Tower decides where they touch at any given moment. This ability makes a mortal observer see the forest seem to shift - both in its layout and in its location relative to landmarks on Krynn. The Tower can even appear somewhere without the forest.

This unique trait, conferred upon the Tower by the Conclave members who built it, is the most effective of all the abilities of the guardian forests - after all, it is the only Tower left. Wayreth's ability may have been devised to offer special protection for the seat of the Conclave and has also made it the wizards' last refuge throughout the ages. No other Tower of High Sorcery ever enjoyed its own transdimensional field.

Wayreth Forest fills an area ten miles in diameter, with the Tower standing at its precise center. However, the guardian forest can touch Krynn at any spot within five hundred miles of the Tower's construction site, where three thousand years ago the wizards planted the stone of threes. As a result, Wayreth Forest can appear to onlookers anywhere from the edge of the Icewall Glacier north to Abanasinia, and from Qualimori east to just beyond Tarsis. (The poster map illustrates the range of Wayreth's transdimensional field.)


The Tower's Defenses

The guardian Forest of Wayreth and the ability to shift its apparent location are not the only defenses the Wizards' Conclave granted to their most important Tower of High Sorcery. Other special abilities help make it nearly invulnerable.

Concealment

Neither the Tower nor anything inside it can be detected with a divination or sensitivity spell or with any ability or item that creates a similar effect. A hero with a crystal ball, for example, can learn nothing about the Tower or anyone inside it.

The Tower renders individuals and objects inside its outer walls immune to most spells and magical effects created outside the Tower (described in the sidebar titled "Magic and the Tower" on page 32).

Indestructibility

Another of the Tower's defenses is that no force on Krynn can mar or alter it in any way - unlike the other Towers of High Sorcery. The walls, floors, and ceilings are impervious to all spells, magical items, and weapons. Even in the alternate future witnessed by Caramon Majere and Tasslehoff Burrfoot, when Raistlin Majere ravaged the entire face of Krynn in his attempt to become a god, the Tower and its forest remained intact. If some force pulverized Krynn into dust and chunks of rock, Wayreth Tower and Forest would still occupy one chunk, thanks to its transdimensional existence. (Trees in the guardian forest fall prey to damage only when animated to attack.)

Things within the Tower do not share its invulnerability, however. For example, a blast of magical fire inside a chamber wouldn't even scorch the walls, but it could incinerate tables, carpets - and heroes.

The Tower's Exterior

Most visitors are surprised that the Tower at Wayreth is not a single tower at all, but a complex of seven spires surrounded by a protective wall. Some guests wonder why it isn't called the Towers of Wayreth," but residents just smile and note that the Tower inspires many such unanswerable questions.

Nevertheless, most people find this bastion of magic an imposing, if not unnerving, sight. The enormous complex seems shaped from one unbroken piece of obsidian, polished to a mirror shine. The walls are indeed formed from one seamless block of gleaming black stone, but not obsidian. The wizards who built the Tower drew their materials from the very essence of the world, magically forming a granitelike stone as tough and dense as the planet s core.

Though mostly smooth, the exterior walls bear thousands of powerful magical runes, testaments to the arcane power of a bygone age. These carved, untinted runes range in size from symbols no larger than one might write in a letter to characters as tall as houses.

The glossy walls gleam brilliantly in the sun, despite their blackness. At night, they mirror the moon and stars, though their curves distort the reflections and seem to create new constellations among the runes.

The complex's outer walls come together to form an equilateral triangle, with each side nearly three hundred feet long. Three small towers, less than a third the height of the main towers - stand at the points of the triangle. In the center rise the two main towers, each almost as high as the surrounding walls are long. These main towers have an almost imperceptible bow and appear to curve slightly inward. The shape makes some visitors blink and ask themselves, "Aren't those crooked?" More imaginative viewers liken the towers to a pair of dark talons or blackened, skeletal fingers clawing their way out of a grave.

Two smaller towers between the great ones, one in front of the main pair (the foretower) and one in the rear, hold the entrances. Together, these four form Wayreth's central towers.

All the towers and walls have smoothly curved tops. The complex has no battlements - it has no need of such mundane defenses. Of course, from time to time, visitors with a larcenous streak have tried to climb the walls. Climbers always find the smooth stone as slippery as soap, utterly unscalable.

The Outer Towers

The three outer towers at the points of the complex's triangular surrounding wall are mostly solid stone. However, each contains a central floor with two small laboratories. Tower residents whose experiments might produce noxious or destructive results do their work here, some thirty feet above the ground.

Each tower's top floor contains a single large room whose windows admit plenty of sun and afford lovely views of Wayreth Forest. Sorcerers come to these chambers to lounge and meditate.

The Gate and Courtyards

A gate in the center of the east wall provides the only ground-level entrance to the complex. The gate has two valves that swing outward, each standing almost twenty feet tall - just a little shorter than the wall itself. The valves look as delicate as great spider-webs spun from silver and gold. Nevertheless, they share the Tower's invulnerability and can withstand endless pounding from the greatest battering ram. The gate opens with the slightest touch to a welcome visitor, and even swings open as travelers approach, as if to invite guests inside.

Beyond the gate, a visitor finds the front courtyard, a vast, empty space paved with pale gray stone. Before the Fifth Age, anyone entering the courtyard saw fleeting glimpses of other visitors hurrying about their business-the Tower's distorted space rendered them all but invisible. Today, the courtyard stands silent, and a lone visitor crossing the flagstones has only the echoes of his footfalls for company.

The entrance to the Tower proper lies in the foretower directly opposite the gate. However, visitors choosing to skirt this main entrance and peek at the rear courtyard find a slightly more welcoming sight. A few Tower residents grow fruit trees, culinary herbs, and flowers here. Long rows of tubs and pots hold the greenery, and one or two apprentices here tend the plants throughout the day (except in winter). These individuals seem friendly enough, but they quickly recognize outsiders when they see them and direct all visitors to the foretower.


Rules of Conduct

The Tower has two basic rules of conduct all visitors must obey: no fighting, and no going where you aren't invited.

This bastion of magic has no need for a garrison or guards. As visitors can reach the Tower only if they are welcome, they usually pose no threat. Nevertheless, all visitors are expected to treat the Tower as neutral ground. No fighting is tolerated, no matter what enmities residents or visitors might have in the outside world. People who break the peace usually find themselves in the dungeon (see page 23). Anyone who knows the rule against fighting and launches an attack anyway is struck dead on the spot - no resistance is allowed. (Fighting during a Test of High Sorcery or in the dream world of the dungeon does not technically offer violence to another visitor or a resident.)

As for the second rule, most visitors never find themselves where they shouldn't be - the Tower can manipulate space within its walls just as easily as it can shift the forest without. When left to explore, guests are simply told not to enter any door that doesn't open itself to them.

Folktales say that no door in the Tower is ever locked because the wizards of the Conclave always trusted each other there. In fact, every door seems to be locked, though one might open on its own or with the help of someone who has passed a Test of High Sorcery. Heroes faced with a door that won't open by itself can attempt normal actions to force it open or pick the lock.

However, after the kender Tasslehoff Burrfoot visited in 354AC and got into mischief, the Tower became more sensitive to unauthorized exploration. If anyone breaks into a room where he doesn't belong, the Master of the Tower sends someone to investigate or does so himself. Trespassers receive one warning; further violations result in expulsion from the Tower or a trip to the dungeon.

Expelled visitors magically emerge five hundred miles from the Tower - usually in unpleasant terrain. Those who have severely vexed the Master may find themselves swimming in the chilly waters of Ice Mountain Bay.

Anyone with a Reason code of "B" or higher knows the two basic rules. They are part of Ansalon's magical lore - as are the consequences of breaking them.


The Central Towers

The two main towers have seventeen floors each - a height that certainly required magical assistance to build and maintain. Unless noted otherwise, ceilings are fifteen feet high and floors consist of rough slate tiles. Most areas are unlit, so windowless spaces remain completely dark throughout the day. The small windows in other rooms do little to dispel the prevalent gloom.

Despite its great age (nearly three thousand years), the Tower remains unblemished-its invulnerability makes it immune even to normal wear and tear. Unused areas can accumulate lots of dust, but the entire complex remains free of vermin: Such animals are no more able to enter the Tower than any other unwelcome visitors. The resident wizards keep public areas scrupulously clean.

The following paragraphs describe areas that casual visitors might enter within the four central towers. Floor-plans of each area appear in this chapter or on the accompanying mapsheet.

Directions Indoors

The Tower's ability to distort spatial perceptions can produce some strange results for guests. Walking down a straight hallway within the Tower does not necessarily take visitors in a straight line. Walking up a north staircase does not necessarily take them up, or even north. It may not make sense, but that's just the nature of the Tower's reality. Things are usually not as they seem.

Despite this unique reality imposed by the transdimensional field, the Tower always maintains its proper orientation. That means compass directions are always as they appear on the maps in this chapter. The Tower cannot change its floorplan or physically shift the location of any rooms within it. All it can do is confuse people by altering their perceptions. Visitors may lose track of the direction, but north is always north - no matter how things may seem to have moved!

Underground Chambers

The imposing appearance of the cen- tral towers causes many visitors to for- get that the Tower contains important underground facilities.

Crypts

About fifty feet below the central towers lies a complex of crypts where many Conclave members enjoy their eternal sleep. During the Fifth Age, any veteran of the Test of High Sorcery also may claim a burial site here.

The main crypt is a round chamber some sixty-five feet wide. This central chamber contains two dozen vaults, where past heads of the Conclave and others who have rendered great service to the Conclave lie. Each of the twenty occupied vaults is marked with a golden slab enameled in red, black or white, according to the occupant's order.

The domed ceiling here bears a representation of Ansalon's night sky as it appeared above the Tower before the Chaos War. This fully animated scene shows Krynn's three moons and old constellations rising and falling with the passing hours. The depiction represents one of the continent's most complete records of Ansalon's old stars.

Extensive catacombs spread out from the central crypts in three spokes, one for each order in the Conclave. The entire complex contains several acres of tunnels. Anyone desiring burial here must agree to donate all his writings and items of magic to the Tower. Then he may choose his final resting place from the extensive catacombs. Only the Master can grant the right to interment in the main crypt.

The Dungeon

Unruly guests find themselves cooling their heels in small dungeon cells carved from the bedrock far beneath the Tower. Like the rest of the Tower, the walls here are impervious to harm. Unlike the rest of the structure, however, summoning magic cannot transport a prisoner out. (See the sidebar titled "Magic and the Tower" starting on page 32.)

One strange thing is that the dungeon cells have no doors. In fact, there is no physical access to the entire dungeon area-the only way in or out is through magic, and will of the Tower itself.

The lack of doors is not the only feature that makes these dungeons differ from cells in normal fortresses. The Tower is, after all, a bastion of magic. Chapter Two of Adventures in Magic details the various sorcery-inspired experiences that prisoners might undergo during their stay in the dungeons.

Foretower and Rear Tower

The Master expects visitors to enter his domain through the foretower, a four-story just beyond the main gate. The equally tall rear tower contains a back door leading into the Tower's small grove and herb garden. Upper floors contain the Tower's kitchen facilities and a scriptorium. The resident sorcerers keep these two small towers spotless.

Front Entry

The plain wooden door leading into the Tower's front entry opens by itself when someone approaches. Inside the foretower, a visitor finds a windowless room with a door leading out to each of the great towers. Smokeless torches provide nickering light enough to reveal a row of hard, straight-backed chairs standing opposite the entry. A look around reveals only a fifteen-foot ceiling and a wooden stand bearing a well-thumbed book.

The torches look like fresh pine branches in bronze holders set into the wall. In reality, the torches and holders are one-piece bronze castings; the torches have been enameled to look like pine. They burn with a flame that makes no heat or smoke and never goes out. As these torches are part of the Tower, visitors cannot remove or destroy them. The heatless flame cannot harm or set fire to anything.

At least one Tower resident remains on duty here at all hours. An aging sorcerer named Grevasse (human elder male, eccentric demeanor, Master) usually fills the post. (See Adventures in Magic, Chapter One, for a description.)

The Guest Book

The book mentioned above is a magical device that the wizards who built the Tower created to facilitate communications inside. This guest book magically records the full name of anyone entering the Tower, showing the day and time of arrival. The name entered in the book is the name the visitor would give if asked to identify himself, so someone using an alias finds that the book records the false name, not the actual name. When a person leaves the Tower, his name fades from the page.

The writing in the book at first seems indecipherable, but the proper mental command allows anyone with a Reason code of "A" to read the names. Without the proper command, no one can read the book, even with a divination spell. Only the Master, residents, and frequent visitors such as Palin know this command, but no one but the Master will give it out.

A second command allows the reader to mentally contact anyone whose name is recorded and ask up to three questions. The person contacted has no special obligation to answer, and the reader can contact any particular person only once each hour.

If the person contacted chooses to answer a question, his reply appears in the book, then fades after five minutes. Should someone remove the book from the Tower, the book goes blank and doesn't function until returned.

Rear Entry

windowless rear entry usually stands empty; it serves merely as a back door into the Tower for residents. The torches in this chamber resemble those in the foretower's entry but generally go unlit; only when a veteran of a Test of High Sorcery enters the chamber do they magically light up.

On occasions when a member of the Conclave has died, his body lies in state here until the funeral rite in the crypts below the Tower. At such times, the torches remain continuously lit until the residents have removed the body for burial.

A spiral staircase leads from this entry chamber down to the crypts; as a matter of custom, coffins are not carried down the stairs, but transported magically. The stairs merely provide a mundane alternative for individuals to reach the crypts.

Viewing Areas

Unlighted, windowless viewing areas on the second floor usually stand empty. Alcoves along the south wall contain magical panels of stone that become transparent when the Master so commands. From here, people can look through the clear panels and watch the activity in the Hall of Mages below.

When viewed from the Hall of Mages, the panels always seem opaque, so that no activity in the viewing area can disturb those in the hall below.

Note: Looking at a subject through one of the viewing panels does not qualify as seeing it with normal sight for purposes of spellcasting (see "Magic and the Tower," page 32). Looking through the panels actually uses magical sight, not normal sight.

Scriptorium

The scriptorium on the third floor of the two smaller central towers serves as a work and study area for Tower residents. Niches in the outer walls hold writing desks, with windows in the niches providing ample light for sorcerers to copy books from the library in the south tower or compose works of their own. (Similar niches in the outer walls of the main towers at this level also hold desks. Storerooms in the north tower adjacent to the scriptorium hold writing supplies.)

In the Fourth Age and earlier, these desks were occupied from dawn until dusk every day as wizards copied spells. These days, residents spend comparatively little time here, as modern-day sorcerers need no formal spellbooks to cast their magic. Still, a few enterprising sorcerers endeavor to fix some of their spells into written form. Others work to preserve the old magical lore - either out of respect for the past or hope for the future.

Because these central chambers are sunny and pleasant during the day, they also serve as residents' favorite place to read or just relax. A visitor here seldom hears a noise louder than a whisper or a quill scratching at parchment.

Kitchen

The residents prepare all their food in a small kitchen on the fourth floor of the rear tower. The Tower at Wayreth contains no central dining hall; the residents either retire to their room to take their meals or eat off trays wherever they happen to be working. Consequently, the kitchen stays busy about eighteen hours a day.

The kitchen staff uses a big central fireplace to do the cooking. The brickwork contains several ovens, and a veritable forest of spits and hooks hangs over the open flames. The staff feeds the hearth-fire from a supply of firewood stacked beneath a great round work table. A big set of shelves along one wall holds utensils and supplies.

Two hard, straight chairs - the only other kitchen furnishings - allow the staff to sit down for an occasional rest.

The Head Cook

Olon, an aging minotaur with one broken horn, oversees most of the cooking for Tower residents. A small staff assists him with kitchen chores and helps him serve the food.

Olon: Minotaur mature male, bel- ligerent demeanor, Champion. Ag 5c, Dx 5c, En SB, St 9B, Re 6c, Pe 5B, Sp 7D, Pr 5c, Dmg +2 (improvised weapon), Def -2 (leather).

Olon served on a minotaur privateer for several years until he suffered a broken left horn in a boarding. Among minotaurs, a broken horn is a sign of disgrace, and Olon's status rapidly diminished. By the time he reached middle age, the only job he could get at sea was as a cook on a merchant ship.

The minotaur developed a talent for cooking, though his shipmates never appreciated his skill. Because of his disfigurement, Olon found himself fighting constant brawls with younger minotaurs looking for someone to pick on. One night shortly after the War of the Lance, in the port of Kalaman, Olon met the wizard Dunbar Mastersmate, who persuaded the minotaur to join him on an expedition. When Dunbar became Head of the Order of White Robes some years later, Olon accompanied him to the Tower at Wayreth, where he served as the wizard's personal chef and later as the head cook for the entire Tower.

Even after all these years, Olon is very sensitive about his broken horn. If anyone asks about the injury or comments on it, the minotaur's eyes burn with fury and he replies, "What broken horn?" Wise folks drop the subject immediately. Fools who press the issue witness a demonstration of Olon's strength, which usually involves bending a fireplace poker. The Tower whisks the offender away before true violence can erupt.

Storeroom

A storeroom on the foretower's fourth floor backs up against the brick fireplace of the kitchen in the rear tower. This storage chamber holds bulk supplies and a large tub of water for cleaning. Tower residents magically empty and refill the tub as necessary during the day. Junior staff members assigned to cleanup duty often experiment with hydromancy and transmutation spells to help with the job. Olon doesn't mind, as long as the cleaning gets done.

Every so often, a spell goes spectacularly awry, leaving the storeroom drenched with water or covered with broken crockery. Olon simply fixes the offender with his baleful gaze and demands that the sorcerer clean up the mess before the next morning. Usually, the minotaur makes sure to mutter something about "slow-roasted sorcerer" or a similar threat as he stomps back to the kitchen, just to make sure the offender applies himself to the job.

He has never had to follow through with a threat, because the residents always pitch it to set things right. Nevertheless, the hapless sorcerer must endure taunts from his fellows, including fictional accounts of what happened to the last poor fool who failed to have things spic-and-span when Olon came for his morning inspection.


The Master

The Tower of Wayreth has always been sentient It was created to respond to the will of the Conclave of Wizards, which determined who would be admitted to the Tower and who would not. In the Fifth Age, those familiar with Tower lore assume it retains some connection with Krynn's sorcerers - a reasonable assumption, but not an entirely accurate one.

When the gods withdrew from Krynn after the Chaos War, this sentient Tower gained independent will. Whether this transformation was a parting gift from the gods of magic or a latent ability that manifested itself in the absence of the practice of High Sorcery, no one can say for sure. The limits of the Tower's intellect remain unrevealed. At the very least, it can monitor and react to everything going on within its confines. It also has limited awareness beyond its walls.

The Tower's intellect and magical powers spring from its whole being; it has no seat of intelligence - no "brain," so to speak. The Tower has an alter ego, however, in the form of the Master of the Tower. The two exist simultaneously, but form two different aspects of the same entity. Where one is, the other is also, though the Master is the more mobile of the two aspects. When someone looks at the Master, he is actually seeing the Tower itself. (See the Master's entry in Chapter One of Adventures in Magic for his physical description.)

Physiology

In most respects, the Master functions as a normal human being, though he does not need to eat and he never actually sleeps. The Master can eat, though, and often joins Tower visitors in a meal to help them feel at ease. He can feign sleep as well, but if the Tower has no need for its human aspect, the Master just ceases to exist until needed again - but no one ever sees him disappear.

Regardless of his amazing origin, the Master is flesh and blood. He has all the vulnerabilities any other living being has. However, if stain, incapacitated, or subjugated to another's will (such as through a mentalism spell), the Master temporarily ceases to exist. When a hostile force destroys him, he cannot manifest himself again for one hour.

The Master has normal human senses; he even enjoys acute hearing and eyesight. Because he and the Tower form two parts of one entity, he can see, feel, hear, touch, and taste everything happening there as though he were present in every area in the Tower simultaneously. When the Tower detects that someone is attempting to locate it (see page 16), the Master knows as well.

Though the Tower has limited mobility, the Master can move about Krynn through either normal or magical means, just like any powerful sorcerer.

Spellcasting

The Tower itself does not cast spells, but the Master does. Unlike other sorcerers, he can employ spells from any school of sorcery. Further, he can ignore one of sorcery's most significant limitations: His spells can affect the living.

For example, his transmutation spells can alter the forms of living things (including his own form), and his divination spells can reveal a creature's thoughts or feelings. The Master's enchantment spells can improve a creature's abilities, and they also can place a creature under the Master's control (just as a mystic mentalism spell can).

The Master's identity as a creature of High Sorcery, a relic from an earlier age, also allows him to surpass normal limits of range, duration, area of effect, and spell effects that constrain other sorcerers in the Fifth Age. If he wanted, he could cast a spell with a permanent duration, or one that affects all of western Ansalon. Because the Master represents an alternate aspect of the Tower, the effective range of any spell he casts is automatically reduced if the target or subject lies within the Tower. (See "Magic and the Tower," page 32.)

Forms of the Master

Another of the Master's abilities, which has only begun to manifest itself in the Fifth Age, hinges on the little-known fact that a Test of High Sorcery not only changes the Test-taker, it changes the Tower. Each Test-taker adds his indelible psychic resonance to the very stone of this bastion of magic. So intensely personal are the experiences of a Test, they actually create an unbreakable connection between the wizard taking it and the Tower itself.

This connection between wizard and Tower allows the Master, once each day, to magically assume the form of anyone who has ever taken a Test of High Sorcery. Not only does he look and sound identical to his subject, he instinctively adopts the subject's mannerisms as well as his very essence. While in the form of another, the Master retains all his own powers, but he also knows whatever the subject knew while alive. When assuming the form of a living person, the Master knows only what his subject knew at the moment he assumed the form.

The Master uses this ability to help him handle the myriad problems he faces in the Fifth Age. For instance, he might decide to use the identity of diplomatic Justarius, former head of the Red Robes, to oversee a tricky negotiation. On the other hand, taking on Raistlin's form and thoughts would serve him well in endeavors that require determination and craftiness.

The Master can remain in the new form as long as he chooses - the power lasts until he assumes a new form. However, once he has assumed someone's form through this power, he cannot use the ability again for a full day. This unique power does not require the Master to cast a spell; he simply wills a transformation to occur.


South Tower

Visitors find the Hall of Mages, on the south tower's ground floor, absolutely awe inspiring. In addition, this tower's extensive, five-level library is the envy of sorcerers throughout the land.

Hall of Mages

With a diameter of forty-five feet and a domed ceiling even higher, the Hall of Mages is the largest chamber in the central towers. A permanent magical effect in the air high above the floor sheds a cold, white light - utterly unnatural and completely cheerless - over the chamber. Rather than filling the whole room, this eerie illumination leaves the black ceiling and walls draped in heavy shadows, making the chamber appear even larger than it really is. The room's edges seem as distant as the horizon at twilight.

One cannot stumble into the hall by accident or enter uninvited; visitors who try find themselves in the fore-tower instead. Anyone who has passed a Test of High Sorcery can enter the hall freely through the door on the chamber's north side - unless the Master wishes to keep him out.

The Conclave of Wizards met in the Hall of Mages for nearly three thousand years, until the organization disbanded in 28sc. The wizards also used the chamber for holding regular meetings, deliberating matters of interest to the Conclave, and for any occasion in which they wished to deal with outsiders in a suitably impressive setting.

These days, the Hall of Mages is seldom used, except when the Master wishes to address the whole Tower community or grant an audience to a large group, such as visiting students from the Academy of Sorcery.

The chamber usually contains nothing except twenty-one comfortable chairs reserved for members of the Conclave. (People appearing before the Conclave were expected to stand.) Twenty of the chairs, fashioned from hardwood darkened with age, form a semicircle around the south end of the room. The twenty-first chair is carved from a massive block of gray marble shot through with veins of red, white, and black. This chair, placed in the center of the hall, was reserved for the Head of the Conclave.

By general agreement, only Palin Majere (as the last holder of that office) or the Master of the Tower may take this seat now. Visitors who break this rule find themselves making an undignified tumble onto the floor at the north side of the chamber. The chair's usual central position places it in the brightest spot in the chamber; a viewer standing in the hall's north end would see anyone sitting in the stone chair wreathed in pale light, with the people in the other chairs wrapped in faint shadows, and the walls beyond lost in darkness. Most viewers find the effect quite startling.

Library

The five levels in the south tower immediately above the Hall of Mages comprise the Tower's library. Although each of these floors holds a different room, the poster map illustrates only the largest of the five, located on the fifth floor.

The library's shelves contain books of spells, magical scrolls, and notes on various arcane processes. Veterans of the Test of High Sorcery may freely browse the shelves and carry items down to the scriptorium for study, as long as they tell the librarian on duty what they're taking and when they will return it. No one may remove a book from the Tower proper without the Master's permission. Book thieves get a trip to the dungeon for their troubles.

North Tower

The north tower's entire ground floor serves as a repository for records going back at least as far as the first Cata- clysm. Its upper floors hold storage chambers, the Master's study, and residential areas.

Records Wing

No arcane documents are kept in the records wing - magical writings, such as spellbooks, occupy the Tower's library. The records wing holds supply inventories, personal diaries, lists of those taking Tests of High Sorcery (including the Test date and outcome), minutes of Conclave meetings, and the like. Visitors can find an incomplete index of the records stored here in the library.

The wing contains three records rooms: one to the east, one to the north, and one to the west. The corridor connecting these chambers boasts torches like those in the rear tower and foretower, but they remain unlit unless a person who has passed a Test of High Sorcery walks by. The residents manage to keep the corridor clean, but thick dust coats everything in the records rooms, and the musty scent of ancient dust and crumbling parchment hangs heavy in the air. A magical lighting effect similar to the one in the Hall of Mages provides illumination inside each of the records rooms.

West and North Rooms

The Conclave had a system of sorts for organizing its records, but new documents kept crowding out the old, resulting in something of a jumble. The west room contains the newest records: The most recently stored documents are placed in three shelves left of the door. When these fill up, record-keepers clear them out and pile the boxes of documents on the other shelves in the west room or move them to the north room, the repository of Wayreth's older materials.

Anything too old or damaged to be easily read, the record-keepers take to the head librarian for restoration. In order to make room for new documents, the sorcerers resort to magical storage tactics, such as shrinking many boxes of the more unexciting records kept in this wing. One trait most of the Tower's residents seem to share is a great reluctance to throw anything away.

East Room

The east room contains records moved from other Towers of High Sorcery during the siege on magic in the time of Istar. A resident team of historians keeps busy compiling a history based on these documents, but their main emphasis is on putting together a complete record of Conclave members throughout the ages. They forward most of the records to other historians once they've finished with them.

Washing Areas

Tower residents do all their bathing and washing in chambers like the washing area on the north tower's second floor. These rooms, scattered throughout the central towers, have ceramic tile floors. Braziers full of hot coals warm the air for the comfort of bathers. Sorcerers magically empty the wash water from tubs and replace it as needed. Benches provide places for residents to lay out clothing to be washed or to sit and dry off after a bath. Magical light illuminates each washing chamber.

Jaclyn's Suite

The Tower's senior residents enjoy quarters such as Jaclyn's suite on the north tower's ninth floor.

When not hard at work, the Tower's head librarian, Jaclyn (human elder female, resolute demeanor, Master), spends most of her time in her comfortable pair of rooms. This venerable woman's passion for magical items created before the Fifth Age has led her to spend decades studying the numerous enchanted objects stored in the Tower and collecting descriptions of items she has not examined herself. (Her life's work, a tome describing items of magic made before the Second Cataclysm, is excerpted in Chapter Four. A physical description of Jaclyn appears in Chapter One of Adventures in Magic.)

Jaclyn's writings are crisp and tidy, but her laboratory shows the kind of clutter only a dedicated eccentric can create. Unwashed dishes, hastily scrawled notes, dull quills, and stray volumes carpet the room like autumn leaves.

This sorceress has an unusual work table shaped something like the letter "C," which gives her ample room to work and lets her keep more things within reach. Unfortunately, the room's general clutter has invaded the table, but Jaclyn always keeps a fairly clear space at one end for drafts of her book and one or two magical items on loan from the Master. Jaclyn keeps bookbinding tools and supplies at the table's other end: glue, hammers, assorted knives, two vises, cords and needles, leather for book covers, and a binding press (a wooden frame strung with cords for making bindings).

A suit of Solamnic armor of renown (see the Book of the Fifth Age, Chapter Five) stands next to Jaclyn's desk. She intends to study its magical properties someday, but she hasn't quite decided how to apply her usual methods to it - normally she likes to test an item by actually employing it as it was intended to be used. However, the elderly librarian has no desire to "play knight" against a real foe.

Jaclyn's sleeping room features a canopied bed, an expensive woolen rug, and three chests full of esoteric items she has acquired over the years. The sorceress owns several ancient weapons of ogre manufacture, a set of clay pots dating back to the Time of Light, and other objects that might be of interest to collectors and historians.

She also owns several items of magic, including a wand of pyromancy, boots of the south, a night-jewel, and several pieces of cursed money (see Chapter Four). As Jaclyn regards these items as precious historical relics, she usually keeps them locked in her room, where they remain protected and preserved.

Guest Rooms

Visitors to the Tower enjoy accommodations in the middle floors of the north tower during their stays. Each guest room contains a comfortable bed and often a writing table, an armchair, and a chest or closet for storing equipment.

Sleeping Rooms

Also in the north tower are sleeping rooms for junior residents. Each chamber has a cot and a straight-backed chair.

The Master's Study

A two-room suite on the north tower's second floor has traditionally been reserved for the Head of the Conclave. However, it has lain mostly unused since Par-Salian of the White Robes retired late in the Fourth Age. Par-Salian's successor, the Red-Robed mage Justarius, chose to spend most of his time at his mansion in Palanthas and his successor, Dalamar of the Black Robes, preferred to conduct his business from the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas.

These days, the room is used as the Master's study, where that unique character generally meets visitors to the Tower. Drawing from Par-Salian's example, he always has a cheery fire burning in the hearth and a plate of cookies, fresh from the kitchen, ready on his desk when he entertains guests.

The fire and the room's two windows brighten up the study considerably. At night, the Master lights candles to give the room a soft glow. The light makes a pleasant contrast to the dim corridor outside, where the only source of illumination is moonlight spilling through a single window at the north end.

The study's desk contains an odd assortment of items previous occupants have left behind, but nothing particularly valuable or unusual. The Master does keep a personal journal - short notes about his daily affairs - which he stores in the desk along with a few quills and ink pots.

The attached sleeping room goes unused, as the Master doesn't actually sleep. Two wardrobes against one wall contain some clothing the Master's predecessors left behind. In addition, the wardrobe on the right serves as a portal. Anyone who steps inside and deliberately walks through the back appears wherever he wished to go in the Tower, provided he has seen the area at least once. If the traveler doesn't specify a location, he winds up in the corridor outside the study. The wizards of the Conclave placed the enchanted wardrobe here long ago to allow their leader speedy access to any chamber in the Tower.

Palin's Laboratory

The Master has set aside the hexagonal chamber at the very top of the north tower as Palin Majere's laboratory - the same room Par-Salian used while he headed the Conclave. The honor was not lost on Palin, for the view of Way - reth Forest from the east balcony of this chamber is among the most spectacular in the whole Tower.

The chamber remains much the same as it was in that White-Robed elder's time, as his successors preferred to use their own laboratories. Palin has not changed it much except to add a coal-fire furnace, which he used in his early pyromantic experiments. The shelves, desk and tables are much as Par-Salian left them, though Palin has scattered a few of his own notes and books here and there. The gallery surrounding the laboratory provides an excellent place for the contemplative sorcerer to stroll and think.

Other Areas

The vast central towers contain many more chambers beyond the handful of rooms described in this chapter. Some of these locales include:

- Shrines to Krynn's departed gods, especially the three gods of magic;
- Classrooms and workshops;
- Additional laboratories;
- More sleeping rooms and guest quarters;
- Strong rooms filled with magical treasures;
- An infirmary; and
- Just about any other chamber the Narrator might care to include!


Magic and the Tower

The Tower at Wayreth, as the greatest concentration of magic on the face of Ansalon, offers various boons to those using sorcery within its bounds. However, the Tower's existence outside of normal space has some unusual effects on spell ranges - for the Master, other sorcerers, and even mystics and users of magical items.

Bonus to Sorcery

The magic embuing the Tower gives a boost to any sorcerous spell cast within it. Sorcerers receive a +5 action bonus when casting in the Tower, as well as up to 5 sorcery points for the spell. If the caster has completed a Test of High Sorcery, he receives a +10 action bonus and up to 10 sorcery points. No matter how simple the spell, casters must always expend at least 1 sorcery point of their own.

The Master's Spells

Because the Master and the Tower represent different aspects of the same entity, any spell he casts at someone or something within the Tower is at personal range, no matter where he is. As the Master is aware of everything and everyone inside the Tower, he can target a spell anywhere easily. Anything within the Tower effectively becomes part of his body, for determining the range of his spells, since he and the Tower are one and the same.

However, if the Master becomes the subject or target of a spell or magical effect, the range is the same as if he were any other being - a hero cannot cast a personal-range spell upon the Master merely by touching the wall of the Tower, for instance. This contradiction results from the Master's unique state of being and the Tower's pervading defensive nature.

When directing spells at targets that lie outside the Tower, the Master has to deal with the same limitations as every other sorcerer. (Of course, distance remains utterly under his control within the forest.)

Other Spells and Effects

In a place where a visitor could literally walk though the front door at ground level and enter an upper chamber with the next step, or find himself walking in an endlessly repeating loop, casting spells can be difficult.

The "See or Touch" Rule

Without touching or seeing the target of his spell, a spellcaster inside the Tower or guardian forest has no idea where it is, thanks to the Tower's ability to alter reality.

To direct a spell at something or someone - inside the Tower or out - a caster must be able to see with his normal vision or physically touch his target. Usually, this forces the caster to stay in the same chamber, hallway, or clearing as the spell subject, or at most in an adjacent area. Within these limits, all normal rules for spell ranges apply. This restriction applies to the effects of items of magic as well as spells,

For example, someone cannot cast a spell that affects the landing at the top of one of the Tower's curving staircases unless he can actually see the landing. In a normal building, someone could infer the target's location and cast his spell successfully. But within this transdimensional structure, he can never be certain.

Likewise, spells and magical effects cannot be directed into the Tower from the outside unless the caster can actually see the target with normal sight. For example, if the Shadow Sorcerer stood outside the main gate, he could cast a spell at someone standing in the courtyard. However, he could not direct a spell at someone inside one of the Tower's chambers, unless that person were standing at a window, easily seen. The spell's range is otherwise calculated normally.

Any kind of spell can be cast from the Tower at someone (or something) outside, as long as the caster can see the subject from the courtyard or a window. In the latter case, the Narrator and the player should determine the spell range based on the physical distance between the caster and his target. For example, if Palin Majere sees someone moving through the forest from a window outside his laboratory, the figure is at far missile range. If the individual were hovering right outside the window, he would be at melee range from Palin.

Any target beyond the guardian forest is outside of spell range in most cases.

Transport Magic

Summoning spells and similar effects that transport the user from place to place are an exception to the above limits. As long as the caster has seen his destination even once, he can use summoning magic to move around in the Tower, taking companions along if he wishes. The caster cannot summon individuals he cannot see, however - he doesn't know where they are.

Magic from the summoning school cast from outside the Tower will transport an individual to the foretower, but only if he has passed a Test of High Sorcery. (The range difficulty modifier for any such spell is 5 points.) But, no matter how well he knows the Tower, he cannot choose any other area within it as his destination.

The Master ignores such limitations, however. Not only can he magically transport himself from outside the Tower to any location within it, all such spells function at personal range - in effect, he is already there.

Divination and Sensivity

As noted previously in the "Concealment" section, the Tower defeats divination or sensitivity effects created outside its walls. However, these effects can work when cast inside the Tower.

If directed at the Tower itself, a divination or sensitivity effect reveals nothing. If directed at the its furnishings or occupants, the spell can work (as long as the caster can see or touch the subject, as described above). Like the rest of the Tower, however, the magical guest book kept in the foretower is impervious to magical effects and any type of harm.


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