STORY BACKGROUND..."THE DEATH GATE CYCLE"
A 7-volume series by Margaret Weis/Tracy Hickman

Two super magical races, the Sartan and Patryns, battled for
dominance of the world and its peoples, the Mensch, made up of human,
dwarven and elven races. The Sartan, a unified body, were afraid that
the Patryns, loners by nature, would incite the Mensch against the Sartan
and cause the ruination of the world.

The Sartan decided to create the "Seventh Gate," a hugely
powerful magical arena, from which the Sartan would implement
a most desperate plan...they would divide the world into its four
elemental parts (air/sky, fire, stone, water/sea)then repopulate the worlds
with the Mensch.

The Sartan would also attempt to reform the selfish, conniving Patryns
by casting them all into a reformation realm, the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth
was designed to impose "challenges" and "character-building" events for
the Patryns to conquer before they emerged from the realm, reformed, to
live in the beautiful paradise known as the Nexus, just outside of the
Labyrinth's Last Gate.

As the Sartan Council gathered within the Seventh Gate to begin the
Sundering, they encountered unexpected events and almost immediately,
their magic went awry. The machinations that were planned to shuttle
needed supplies such as power and heat among the four newly created
worlds failed, and in desperation and fear, the Sartan closed the pathway
between the worlds, Death's Gate, sent the Seventh Gate into oblivion
and hid themselves away in hibernation to await rescue.

**THE MAGIC FAILS**
While the Sartan slept in their crystal coffins, the realms deteriorated.
The machine on Arianus created to "pump" the vital supplies to the other
realms known as the Kicksey Winsey worked without purpose, unable
to fulfill its role. The neverending suns on Pryan could not deliver their
energy to the dying worlds because the Tytans no longer workedthe
Citadel power stations. Abarrach, a lightless world populated with
animated Sartan dead raised through forbidden necromancy, proved
fatal to the Mensch. The world began to freeze as the great Conduit, the
Colossus, lost power, forcing the inhabitants to flee to underground
caverns, filled with toxic gases and superheated air. Chelestra, world of
water/sea, also began to freeze, as the roving Seasun failed to stabilize
and warm the waters properly, while the Sartan entombed there, slept on.

**THE PATRYNS RETURN**
The Patryn race also suffered in the "reformation" realm. The
Labyrinth, a magic-filled prison which has transformed into a deadly,
self-aware entity, becomes bent on destroying the Patryns within its
gates in order to preserve its own twisted magical life force.
The first Patryn to escape the Labyrinth, Lord Xar, now works
from the Nexus to aid his fellow Patryns still trapped in the prison realm.
Haplo, another successful Labyrinth escapee, becomes Lord Xar's
agent in a mission of chaos. Burning for revenge against the Sartan and
to gain dominance over the mensch races on the other worlds, Xar sends
Haplo through the newly re-opened Death's Gate to Arianus, Pryan,
Abarrach and Chelestra. Haplo's orders are to cause instability and
upheaval in the 4 realms in preparation for Xar's eventual appearance
in the world as a "saviour" and restorer of order. Lord Xar also charges
Haplo with finding the Sartan and discovering what happened to the
Sartan's grand plan.

**THE PRESENT, HAPLO'S MISSION BEGINS...
The Death Gate Cycle adventure begins with Volume 1, DRAGON
WING, as Haplo takes his first journey through Death's Gate, to the
world of Arianus...

Copyright (c)1995 Dee Schlatter. All Rights Reserved.
dee@schlatters.net, March 1995