The history of the Tower of Wayreth is one of death and necessity. It reaches as far back as the Second Dragon War, and the formation of the orders themselves. Buy Towers of High Sorcery: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2940/Towers-of-High-Sorcery-35?affiliate_id=50797
Transcript
Cold Open
It all began at the end of the Second Dragon War…
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about The History of Wayreth, the first Tower of High Sorcery. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. I am referencing the Towers of High Sorcery sourcebook for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!
Discussion
The Tower of Wayreth is the most notorious of the Towers of High Sorcery. Not only is it the most impregnable, as it only appears when it wants to be found, but it’s also the first. Of course the history of this tower dates back to the Time of Light in the Age of Dreams. When the dwarves uncovered the Dragon Stones that the elves had buried deep in the Khalkist Mountains after the First Dragon War, the first five dragons regained their physical forms and sought to reclaim their homeland that the Silvanesti Elves took from them. The Second Dragon War would last for more than fifty years with countless losses and the near extermination of the elves. An elven sorcerer named Corenthas knew that without powerful magic, his people may be completely wiped out, so he searched for magical aid for nearly a decade, at last finding the enchantress Eriane, and the dark-hearted archmage Shaud. Together, the three commanded wild and powerful magic which opened the earth and swallowed much of the Dragons army. This turned the tide of the war, and drew the attention of the three gods of Magic.
The fallout of the spell would affect all of Krynn. Volcanoes came to life, mountains crumpled, and forests burned. It was the single greatest disaster the planet had experienced up till then, and the creators: Corenthas, Eriane, and Shaud were powerless to stop it. They called out to the Gods of Magic for aid from their Citadel of Mysteries hidden in the Khalkist Mountains. The gods answered, and slowly recalled the magic they had loosened, and ripped their citadel and the mages within from the world. There Solinari, Lunitari and Nuitari appeared before the mages and taught them the path to High Sorcery. When they returned the mages to Krynn, they quickly found new devotees of magic who wished to learn from them. They decided they should have a home for arcane knowledge and study and made plans to construct it in the unsettled forest west of Silvanesti. They called it Wayreth, which means ‘First Home’ in Silvanesti. This is a long and proud tradition of the Silvanesti Elves. Claiming land that is already populated for their own, then defending it as if they had lived there since the beginning of the Age of Dreams.
In the five years of researching magical spells in order to erect this new tower, the resident tribes of Goblins, Hobgoblins and human barbarians would attack the mages in their temporary village seven times, completely burning their camp to the ground twice! But the resilient mages persisted in their work. It would be these battles and the loss of Eriane in them, that inspired the need for their new home to be undetectable. Now, with the new head of the red robed mages, Kharro, Corenthas and Shaud devised a plan to craft their tower entirely from the magic itself. It would take two more years, and three goblin raids, for the spell to be completed. The wizards convened in the Glade of Blue Shadows deep within Wayreth Forest, and joined their power to focus the spell. The ground trembled beneath them and a ghostly form of twin towers enclosed by a triangular wall with a great dome at its base began to take form in a silvery mist.
The spell would take time to complete after having been cast, and the result put Corenthas in a six month coma. This was the most perilous time for the wizards, as the Ut-Kiri barbarian tribe were insistent on removing the wizards from their forest once and for all. Their chief Wolf-Fang massed his tribesmen and they assaulted the wizards encampment on what would come to be known as the Cha Quetai, or Night of Snakes. As the wizards joined together to turn away the tribesmen, Shaud went missing. Without their combined power, the wizards saw defeat as imminent and Wolf-Fang saw his opportunity for victory. He brought his horn to his lips, summoning his reinforcements to finish the wizards and instantly his horn, along with the swords, spears and bows of his fellow tribesmen all transformed into serpents and attacked their wielders, decimating the tribesmen’s army. The wizards were baffled at this turn of events and upon searching for Shaud, they discovered him on an outcropping overseeing the decimated army. It was he who cast the spell, at the cost of his own life, to protect the future of the Orders of High Sorcery, and their Tower.
By the time the descendants of the slain army came to seek retribution, the tower was completed, and its defenses intact. They could not find the tower and the forest changed around them as well. For the next twenty five centuries, the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth would be the preeminent location of study and growth of magic on Krynn. Wizards seeking power and unity would all work together from the tower to protect and further the influence of magic on Krynn, until the Age of Mortals. Within twenty five years of its founding, the Orders of High Sorcery came into their own, and wrapped their figurative hands around magic, calling in all renegades, or destroying them, and gaining total control of all magic on Ansalon. Corenthas, who never recovered from the loss of his founding companions, retired and Kharro the Red stepped up as highmage of the Conclave. It would be under Kharro’s guidance that the orders would grow to such a degree that more Towers of High Sorcery were required. It would take over sixty years for the planned additional four towers to be complete, but Kharro would not see it as he would pass due to a stroke three days before his fiftieth life day.
Kharro was replaced by the black robed sorceress Gadrella of Tarsis. In the years that followed the construction of the other Towers of High Sorcery. Wayreth would fall into obscurity, only sought out by the most powerful of wizards who would serve the conclave. This would all change when the Kingpriest of Istar turned his eyes on the Wizards of High Sorcery. He would have the wizards’ emissary Marwort murdered after being summoned under the guise of peaceful negotiations with Istar in Nineteen Prae Cataclius, and this would be the spark that started war. The Lost Battles would ensue, and the wizards would destroy two of their four new Towers of High Sorcery, to prevent Istar from stealing their power, abandoning all but the Tower of Wayreth in the process.
In the years after the Cataclysm, the ranks of mages would come dangerously close to extinction. And after the gods’ true abandonment following the Chaos War, Palin Majere would become the head of the Orders of High Sorcery, and convene the Last Conclave. The Tower of Wayreth itself would manifest the Master of the Tower, who oversaw its protection while the Dragon Overlord Beryl searched for it. With the revelation that Takhisis was the Shadow Sorcerer, and her ultimate death in the Age of Mortals, the Tower of Wareth once again became the home to the Orders of High Sorcery with the return of the gods. Though the orders are currently in their weakest state since its founding in the Age of Dreams, the Tower of Wayreth has and will continue to stand as a testament of the pact between the gods of magic and mortals as a place of study, conraderie, discovery and unity. As the Orders of High Sorcery argue about how they will deal with Sorcery, they are safe thanks to their ancestors in magic, and the tower they built to protect and preserve that most ancient of practices, arcane magic.
Outro
And that is all I have to say about The History of Wayreth, the first Tower of High Sorcery. Do you think the Tower of Wayreth will ever fall? Should the Orders of High Sorcery demand sorcerers join their ranks? And finally, which Tower of High Sorcery is your favorite? Leave a comment below.
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Lunitari’s idish, shirak, damen du! For god’s sake, light, damn you!
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