The Towers

Towers are the traditional place for the practice of laran. Within their walls, potential telepaths are officially tested in order to determine their psi abilities. Afterwards, the telepaths are instructed in laran use, and a matrix is keyed to that particular user. Once a matrix is keyed it can not be touched by anyone but a Keeper, and it is one of Darkover's most serious cultural taboos to attempt to take a keyed matrix from its owner.

The practice of laran is costly in human terms: it is extremely draining and, above all, very dangerous. During the Ages of Chaos a huge number of weapons (among them clingfire, bonewater dust, etc.) were made within the Towers. These weapons devastated large sections of land which are still uninhabitable to this day.

After the adoption of the Compact, the knowledge of laran-based weaponry was deliberately erased, turning what had become a quasi-science into something akin to sorcery. By the time of Danvan Hastur's regency, the Towers completely dominated the practice and teaching of laran.

During the Ages of Chaos there were as many as fifty Towers, now down to five understaffed shells of their former glory. The only Tower that still retains its Veil, preventing the non-Comyn, non-psi gifted from entering, is Arilinn Tower. Arilinn, in the times after the Forbidden Tower, is desperately holding a death grip on the culture of laran use.

The most important member of a Circle, the primary working body within a Tower, is the Keeper (tenerésteis), usually female, who for her term as Keeper must be chaste. By tradition they must be female virgins and would be male Keepers (tenerézu) or Keepers that attempt to marry, are often lynched by fanatical commoners. To touch a legal Keeper against her will is an automatic death sentence, that is, if they survive the touch.