THE DARK DEAD™ UNIVERSE
From the fall of Earth to Corvus-17, the Izan, the Corriente Negra, Vorakh Prime and Nexus-9 — lore drawn from the novel.
Humanity abandoned a dying Earth, but the survivors carried hunger, fear, ambition and violence into space. Over millennia, gravity, radiation and genetic manipulation changed their descendants, while colonies grew into kingdoms, republics, corporations and interstellar empires.
Source: DARK DEAD — El Origen, pp. 8–10.
From Sethra, the Zeth Empire expanded around a doctrine that treated chaos as the true nature of the universe. Its rulers claimed to have found a living power within dark matter: the Corriente Negra. From that doctrine emerged the Order of the Izan Shadows, whose warriors were shaped by ritual, pain, violence and the state known as Dominio Izan.
Source: DARK DEAD — El Origen, pp. 9–12.
Corvus-17 is the world where Shadiery Ino learned to survive among abandoned factories, ruined districts, chemical storms, hunger and violence. Kael Vhar found her there. Later, Shadiery left the lower levels of Corvus-17 with him; from his ship she saw the planet from above for the first time and discovered that the “sky” over her world was industrial smoke.
Source: DARK DEAD — El Origen, pp. 12–13 and 22–23.
Vorakh Prime is a forbidden world of toxic storms, contaminated air, swamps, black mountains, hostile fauna and gravitational anomalies. It became one of Shadiery’s principal training environments. Under Kael Vhar she faced hunger, polluted air, Gorath, isolation, pain, the Corriente Negra, clandestine hunters and survival trials in which failure could mean death.
Source: DARK DEAD — El Origen, pp. 49–55 and 246–247.
The Corriente Negra is an anomaly linked to dark matter that interacts with living organisms. It can regenerate, mutate, alter genetics and perception, integrate implants and erode memory and identity. Dominio Izan is a state of deep connection to it; it can increase strength, endurance, reflexes, pain tolerance, regeneration and altered perception, but accelerates memory loss, mental erosion and weakening of identity.
Source: DARK DEAD — El Origen, p. 201.
Nexus-9 is a neutral station-planet and hive city approximately 1,200 km in diameter, with more than 380 million inhabitants and over a thousand vertical levels. It is governed by the Nexus Commercial Council and functions as a market for trade, finance, information, smuggling and negotiation between factions. Its absolute boundary is explicit: no child will be harmed inside Nexus-9.
Source: DARK DEAD — El Origen, pp. 138–139 and 251–252.