Prologue
Prologue
To understand Duende, one must go back, back before the Era of Desolation, back to the beginning, before time itself came into existence with all of its potential reality. In the creative process, whatever its origins, Mana became the binding agent for the information, mass, and energy that became reality. Galaxies, stars, black holes, planets, all bound by the interaction of mana with fundamental elements, like some celestial dream from a dreamer that is beyond our ability to conceive.
Time began and time passed. Civilizations came and went; some terrible, some beautiful. Galaxies collided and stars exploded, and more time passed. No one knows which was the first race to discover mana, nor does it matter, I suppose. In all likelihood, regardless of who discovered it, the outcome would have been the same.
Without mana, it is not possible to journey among the stars; the distances are too vast and the power required too great. Those that did venture out among the stars used mana to power their voyages, and when something becomes fuel, the demand grows to meet the available supply.
Mana was no different. Despite the fact that mana permeates all physical reality, it is tightly bound up with information, and not easily used. Free mana, mana that has not been so laden with information that it becomes part of physical reality, is not readily available in the material plane. It pools and collects deep beneath the surface of planets and deep in the hearts of stars where it's own gravitational pressure drives its tranformation into reality.
It is well known that mana and life are intrensicly related, though the nature of that relationship is scarcely understood. Sadly, the best predictor of high mana density on a world is mana's strong correlation with the presence of life. The more abundant a planet is with life, the more mana is likely to be freely available. As soon as that truth was discovered the regrettable war to follow was a foregone conclusion.
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