Kingdom of the Crossovers: The Dune series and the World of Darkness

The Dune series and the World of Darkness

Okay, this one's really flimsy: let's assume for a moment that the expression "Wyrmsign" that appears so frequently in both the Dune novels and Werewolf: the Apocalypse supplements means more or less the same thing. It also assumes that the events of the Apocalypse, Gehenna, etc, etc, did not occur in 2003-4.

In which case, the great sandwyrms of Dune and all their associated eco-system - the spice, the sandtrouts, all of it - are a part of the Wyrm. But not a part of the Wyrm of destruction. Oh no. They're a part of the the Wyrm of Balance.

Ever since the great Butlerian Jihad destroyed the "machines-that-think" (or at least, most of them), the Balance of the Triat has been more or less restored. The Butlerian Jihad was, after all, the final war against the Technocracy. It even saw the increasingly embattled Virtual Adepts return to the Technocratic fold, but even with that boost the Technocracy lost. After all, the Jihad was directed at "machines that think" - and without their computers, the Technocracy would have been easy prey for their enemies. It probably didn't do great things for the Glass Walkers either, but they had more chance to survive it. Those few other servants of the Weaver that remain - the Sons of Ether and the Nockers, mostly - are dedicated to visions of technology that owe as much to the Wyld as the Weaver.

The Weaver's all-encompassing domination - the Pattern Web - has been shattered, and the Wyrm and the Wyld each have space to be themselves once more. Which means, for the Wyrm, a gradual but definite return to sanity. Of course, not all the servants of the formerly-corrupt Wyrm would go along with such a thing. Oh, no. And, likewise determined, some of the servants of the Weaver will not let its ways go either. And what of the various races of the Bete? Do they all agree that the Wyrm is truly reformed - or do only the Kitsune know the truth?

It's fairly obvious that the majority of the Weaver's remaining servitors gathered together on a distant planet, where they eventually became the Ixians of the Dune setting. Less obvious is the origin of the Bene Tleilaxu, although their emphasis on genetics leads me to think that the Glass Walkers, and possibly the Progenitors, are involved somewhere along the line.

The Space Guild is clearly an outgrowth of the Wagnerians - the spice-trances that Navigators enter in order to shift space are an obvious variation of the Umbral travels the Wagnerians once engaged in. The Triatic Nature of reality is reflected in the structure of the Imperium (at least, prior to the Fremen Jihad) - the Space Guild representing the Wyrm of Balance, the Emporer serving as the Weaver's proxy and the Wyld aptly represented by the eternally-feuding Great Houses. (Alternately, there could easily be a connection between the Space Guild and the Void Engineers.)

The Spice itself is an enigma. Although it is clearly associated with the Wyrm and thus must somehow be an agent of Balance, how exactly it serves the balance is unclear. (As Paul Atreides points out, the Spice itself is also delicately balanced - it can give life or give death.) And what of its mutagenic properties? The mystery of the true nature of the Spice can drive campaigns for quite some time - is it an error, or a gift of Gaia or the Wyld, is it a device of the old Wyrm of Corruption? (A nasty variant is that the Spice is actually a very old vampire - one who used Vicissitude to merge with the substance of Arrakis. The visions and space-warping abilities that the Spice grants would be outgrowths of the Disciplines this vampire once possessed - Auspex, Obsfuscate, maybe even Chimersty - just as the mutations the Spice causes are outgrowths of the Vicissitude.)

The Fremen are less enigmatic - they are very clearly descended from the Silent Strider tribe of the Garou. Their culture, their determination, their mysticism and their endurance are all evidence of this - and the desert of Arrakis is not unlike that Egypt. Other influences are also apparent: the Fedaykin are a sect of Fremen who have taken much from the teachings of the Assamites and the Hem-Ka Sobk. (It's possible that the Ahl-i Battin are also involved somewhere in the Fremen back story.).

The all-female Black Furies may well have been the origin of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, although their theology has changed a lot along the line - possibly the influence of the Stargazers, or maybe even the Celestial Chorus. If this is so, what exactly is the Kwisatz Haderach? An all-Garou game suggests that the ultimate goal of the Bene Gesserit breeding program may be to create a Metis that is not a Metis - a Garou who can breed true with other Garou, without fear of mutation, insanity or sterility in his offspring. (Why the feminist Furies would want a male in this role is a matter of simple mathematics - one man can sire a lot more children than one woman can bear in a single lifetime.)

What of the other tribes? The Atreides House, reaching back to ancient Greece, already suggests a tie with the Black Furies or the Children of the Gaia - or both. To say nothing of the ancestral spirits that Alia is somehow able to contact. For their part, the Harkonnens act a lot like latter-day Shadow Lords and one assumes that the corrupt and decadent Imperial House of Corrino have ties to the Silver Fangs. The other tribes may be extinct - the Red Talons seem particularly likely not to have survived thousands of years into the future - or they may be related to other Great or Minor Houses not depicted in the novels.