By Rodney Thompson
The sorcerer-kings of Athas maintain private storehouses of treasure and magic under tight lock and key. Security is essential, and for this reason, powerful wards and dangerous traps guard these storehouses, designed to fend off intruders powerful and creative enough to find the caches in the first place.
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By Rodney Thompson
Teaching the Way, the art of manipulating psionic power, is forbidden in the city of Draj. By the sorcererkings decree, the only place to learn psionics is at his own academy, called the House of the Mind. There, Tectuktitlay personally oversees the training of future masters of the Way. Though none but Tectuktitlay can know his motivations, whispers spread throughout the city-states that the sorcerer-king is cultivating a private army of psionicists to unleash upon his enemies. Other rumors claim that Tectuktitlay is building a psionic priesthood to speed his transformation into a dragon and thus challenge the Dragon of Tyr.
The schools headmaster, an elderly human named Ixtabai, oversees a staff of lesser and greater masters of the Way, as well as a handful of templars who act as the schools instructors. All the masters at the school are former students who managed to graduate to advanced ability, and each is said to possess secret techniques that only he or she is privy to. Many of the students regard Ixtabai as a figurehead, but the rest of the staff obeys his instructions with good reason: Ixtabai has planted subtle psionic traps in the minds of his students, so that if one becomes problematic the aging mentor could simply trigger the trap, rendering the subject mindless.
The House of the Mind DDI article (subscription required)