Equilibrium... the keyword to understanding the nature of Duæl, a world based on duality and balance. Everything that exists does so doubly, in two opposing and, at the same time, completing forms. Two eternal rivals - good and evil, dark and light, top and bottom, wisdom and foolishness, existence and non-existence, matter and emptiness, body and soul... Everything bound and connected with essence, permeating through all and allowing the transformation of forms. The Fool may become wise, dark becomes light, void filled and vice versa. It is through the essence that things are moved or stopped, life is granted or taken; essence can put things together or shatter, and scatter them. Without essence, the world would be static, as everything that happens, every motion or change is connected with its flow.  And it depends mostly on the inhabitants whether the essence is evenly distributed amongst all the world's parts and elements, and whether the balance is preserved. Yes, the balance...

"To create the ideal world" - this thought must have bothered Master when calling his next design into being, the realm based on the everlasting struggle of opposites. Unfortunately, despite his great wisdom and boundless imagination, he did not appear to be far-sighted enough. But, what can you expect of someone known as the Persistent Experimenter, whose mind is completely possessed by the desire of the realm of perfect harmony, and who searches for the right formula through the creation of many different worlds?

All the realms founded so far disappointed Master, as after a millennia of existence they have turned to devastated scrap-heaps, remnants of the extinct races and civilizations, who have destroyed themselves in violent wars for power and domination. Others, quite the contrary, have become the oases of prosperity, overflowing with luxury and pleasure, where nobody had to strive for life, as everything was available at their beck and call. A lack of problems and everyday challenges transformed the inhabitants into lazy and floppy beings without emotions, dreams and passions, to put it bluntly - they were extremely boring. And that also wasn't what Master wished for... From his desire to create a world, which would last for a millennia without losing its initial dynamism, Duæl has been born. The world of two realities: physically perceptible Duul and ethereal Ael; both suffused with essence. Material Duul is composed of lands and waters capped with the firmament, where two moons and a thousand stars wander in the night, and a blazing sun shines during the day. Ael consists of the Soul Circles, for it is the home of spirits and has no clearly determined shape. The whole world is driven by the Great Contraption, a sophisticated mechanism that connects and synchronizes both realities, allowing the continuous flow of essence.

No decent world could do without dwellers and so Master created Guardians - the Sarhu and the Avals, powerful spirits of Ael, inhabiting the Abyss and the Heavenly Thrones respectively. Of different natures, attitudes and temperaments - two opposing forces supposed to maintain balance in the world. The material part of Duæl - the planet Duul with all its oceans and continents was filled with a variety of species of flora and fauna. Amongst them, Master put three intelligent races: the forest dwelling Lidds, the Dwarves living in caves amongst the frozen mountains and the Elves - Children of the Sun, wandering the warm open plains.

The main source of essence fuelling the Great Contraption is Duul's immense core, consisting of pure Ayzat-Tol, a mineral containing the primal magical energy; it is sometimes called the Icy Crystal as it resembles ice and is cold in touch. The core radiates with essence so strongly that no one except the Master could ever get close to it and avoid instant annihilation. Fortunately for Duul dwellers the core is confined inside the planet, under a thousand miles of rock. Thanks to this insulation its influence on the world above is very slight. The opposite of Ayzat-Tol is Dagor-Tol - the Ardent Rock; glittering with fiery orange and yellow it resembles the animated flame and burns when touched. As Ayzat-Tol is solid and stable, Dagor-Tol is like lava - thick pulsating liquid that seems to live it's own life. It is also a rich source of essence, but its radiation is even more intense than that of Ayzat-Tol, thus it causes stronger and more rapid changes in its surroundings. The Sun is made of the Ardent Rock and suspended high above Duul's surface to illuminate and warm the world amidst the cold and empty cosmic space. To limit the direct constant influence of such a strong source of essence, Master established the night: when the Sun hides behind the horizon and all beings living in Duul can rest and regenerate. But he left the stars - small droplets of Dagor-Tol to light up the darkness for late travelers and creatures of the night. There is also the pale afterglow of the two moons that periodically emerge in the firmament to light up the murk. Before the Great Invasion there were two portals connecting Ael with Duul, both fueled with Ayzat-Tol but now, with both gates destroyed by Sarhu, the moons seem to wane slowly.

Both magical minerals can be transmuted into each other with the proper enchantments or rituals. And sometimes, it happens uncontrollably when the essence, being in constant motion, accumulates randomly in some place, frequently close to the large deposits of Ayzat-Tol. When such transmutation takes place in Duul's core, Dagor-Tol is instantly pushed out and a violent volcano erupts with fire, smoke and rock, devastating the surrounding area. When Ayzat-Tol is accidentally created inside the Sun, it falls to Duul in the form of glowing meteorites.

 

 

 

 

 

In order to prevent any sudden disturbances of the world's balance, Master hindered the Guardians' ability to directly use the essence from the Ayzat- and Dagor-Tol deposits. As their ethereal tissues absorb it very slowly, they cannot just seize the deposits and consume the essence. At the same time bodies of material, living beings absorb large amounts of essence very quickly. Thanks to this ability they can live, move and shape the world around them. So only after descending to Duul can the Guardians use the essence contained in both "Tol" sources and other living beings. While digging the planet in search for deposits needs a lot of effort, the easiest way to get the essence is to suck it out of the unfortunate creatures, which mostly causes their death. A more sophisticated way is to subdue the living being and through some special rituals absorb only some of its essence; such a method requires more time but is much better in the long run, not to mention that subdued mortals can simply dig for Ayzat-Tol for their masters. And probably this was the main reason for the Enlighteners arrival in Greatland. But, there was one important hazard connected with their incarnation - when an immortal Guardian assumes a material form he can be killed as well as any other living being in Duul. That was the Master's idea to prevent excessive interference of the Guardians with the mortals' affairs.

And what are the Guardians like? The Sarhu are individualists driven by emotions and desires, constantly competing for power and authority. The Avals, on the other hand, were created as social beings; they eagerly cooperate and share their powers for the common good. Of course one faction fiercely fights another - such an arrangement was supposed to ensure the constant rivalry between the Abyss and the Heavenly Thrones; an everlasting duel, making Duæl a balanced and dynamic world. Everything worked according to the Master's plan until the Avals decided to risk their lives and descended to Duul, starting the II Era of its history. They disturbed the world's balance by creating Men and Dragons, which they had to consecutively fight against. Instead of gently guiding the mortals with revelations, miracles and divine interventions, they became directly involved in their affairs, provoking the Sarhu to invade Greatland. And, it was this action, which brought enormous suffering to all of Duul's inhabitants and caused irreversible change to the world's order.

 

 

 

Soul Circles form the main part of Ael and are precisely connected to the Great Contraption, which allows the transmigration of souls. Should a living being pass away, its soul is intercepted by the Great Contraption and directed to the Soul Circles; here it stays until purged from all emotions and reminiscences of the deceased being's life. After centuries of purification it may return into the body of a newborn and continue to participate in the never-ending cycle of life and death. Every intelligent race has its own Soul Circle; Dwarves, Lidds and all other mortals undergo the splitting of body and soul after death. The process is called the Crossing - flesh returns to the earth to participate in matter circulation, and each soul moves to the Great Contraption to be directed to its corresponding Soul Circle. Although purged of the experiences of the previous owners, the soul conserves a part of their main attributes; so together with the soul, a child inherits its ancestor's most distinctive features. In the developed societies, priests, augurs and soothsayers who are able to recognize these features are much revered as they enable the parents to properly bring up the child, to intensify its good qualities and diminish the influence of the bad ones. Some societies, mostly the ones ruled by wicked tyrants, make it the other way round - they try to amplify the "bad" features to produce cruel and ruthless individuals, which then become the perfect soldiers and unhesitating assassins.

Each new soul created in the Great Contraption at the moment of birth is ideally neutral, as it has no "entries" from the past. Such events of spontaneous creation had been very common in the past, when Duul's races quickly developed. Now, in the V Era these are very rare and they give the parents a chance of bringing up an individual uncontaminated by the past. Such persons are much desired by the guilds and fellowships, especially wizards, as they often bring new ideas and inventions as well as stimulate others' creativeness.

The most powerful and influential heroes leave their souls with such strong imprints that even the Soul Circles cannot completely erase their personalities. In such cases we can speak of reincarnation of a long-dead individual in the body of an infant.

Even though Master put much effort into the creation of the Great Contraption, the mechanism sometimes fails, especially when some violent event causes the simultaneous death of many beings. It may then happen that some souls won't find their way to Ael. Such unfortunates become trapped in Duul until some good and compassionate individual will free them by conducting the Crossing. Lost souls wander about the place where they were killed, mourning and wailing. Especially frantic ones may even turn into banshees; a soul which stays in Duul for so long that it loses the last signs of sanity and turns wild. Such an entity can bring any person who encounters it into madness with its shrill howls or even suck the life essence out of an unfortunate who looks into its mad, cold eyes.

One of the most dangerous phenomena in Duul is necromancy - life after death induced through some magical ritual. Various cultists of death not only raise corpses to be their undead servants but willfully disturb the normal operation of the Great Contraption, preventing it from intercepting souls, trapping them within dead bodies. This is a truly gruesome fate for anyone and necromancy is strictly forbidden in all states across Greatland. Unfortunately, with the fall of Irqad all the wicked wizards and necromancers received the ideal proving ground for their mad experiments - the Desert of Dread.

 

 

Among the Dwarves there is a prophecy, which says that the world will one day end. On this day the greatest battle will be fought - the battle of Light and Darkness, of Good and Evil, which shall decide on the shape of the new world that will be born from the remains of this one. That's why the Dwarves cultivate such attributes as righteousness, valour and honour; every Dwarf wants to be ready when he'll be called to arms at the End of Times. At that time all the living as well as the dead will have to choose whether they stand at the side of the Avals or the Sarhu, no indifference, no neutrality - everybody will have to decide. Then the battle shall be unleashed until at last, one side wins.

Truly the End of Times will be the Duæl's judgment day; it will happen when the Great Contraption's main circle - the World Circle - will finish a whole rotation. At this time all civilizations will be annihilated, cities razed to the ground, all works of art and thought destroyed. The world will be cleansed of every trace of its former inhabitants. All souls, even those of the Guardians, will be purged and the World Circle will start its next rotation. Should the majority of the souls conserve the qualities corresponding with the Avals' nature, the reborn inhabitants of the Heavenly Thrones will have the upper hand. If it turns out that the Sarhu manage to win more mortals to their side, the Abyss will be more powerful. In this way the whole of Duæl will evolve until the Sun dies away with its essence exhaustion. Then the eternal night will fall and whole of Duæl will sink into a deep slumber, awaiting the return of its creator. And should Master be satisfied with the evolution of his creation, he will wake up the world in the glare of a new Sun.