| The imperium presided over by Emperor Muad'Dib is rife with powerful entities competing for political, military and economic advantage. Alliances are forged and dissolved as the competing noble houses of the Landsraad conspire to undermine the reigning House Atreides; merchants, priests and politicians become strange bedfellows as they hatch sinister plots that can take years or even decades to unfold.
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| Arrakis, also called Dune, is a desert world. With its two moons, it orbits the star Canopus, far from the galaxy's centers of population and commerce. Devastating sandstorms scour its surface, and beneath that surface lurk enormous, deadly sandworms. The planet supports no natural open water and very few indigenous lifeforms. To those lifeforms, water is the most precious commodity. To live on Arrakis is to struggle constantly for survival. Despite its harsh climate and remote location, Arrakis is the most vital planet in the galaxy: It is the only known source of the precious substance known as Spice. It recently was governed by House Harkonnen, until stewardship of the planet's Spice-mining operations was transferred, by imperial edict, to House Atreides. Soon afterward, the Harkonnens, empowered by a secret alliance with Emperor Shaddam IV, violently overthrew the Atreides regime. Ultimately, control of Arrakis and the Spice trade was seized by the planet's native Fremen and their long-awaited messiah: the Atreides scion, Paul, who is known among the Fremen as Muad'Dib. When Muad'Dib became emperor, he built his keep in Arrakeen, Dune's oldest city, transforming the planet into the seat of imperial government. Emperor Muad'Dib has promoted a transformation of Arrakis' climate; the desert is now dotted with small oases of green plants and blue water. However, as dissent begins to divide the Fremen of Arrakis into bitter, warring factions, it seems likely that Arrakis will endure far uglier changes as a consequence of Muad'Dib's imperial dynasty. |
| Bene Gesserit Sisters strive to achieve a profound awareness of the universe itself, and all that exists within it. The Sisters turn this same intense scrutiny inward, training themselves to have preternatural control over their own bodies and minds. For example, by speaking with The Voice, a set of carefully modulated intonations, they can command instant obedience. Reverend Mothers, the most powerful of the Bene Gesserit, have further abilities, many of which are enabled or enhanced by the Spice. The Bene Gesserit wear their quasi-religious reputation like a veil. For centuries, hidden behind their rituals, they have worked on a single project: a program of selective breeding designed to produce a "supreme human being." The founding sisters of the Bene Gesserit believed that if they culled, nurtured and combined the best human bloodlines over many generations, the result would be the Kwisatz Haderach — a man able to surpass even a Reverend Mother's perceptive power. |
| The third planet of Delta Pavonis, Caladan is the ancestral home of the Atreides family. Its vast oceans and temperate climate make it rich with green and fertile lands. Paul Atreides — a.k.a. Emperor Muad'Dib — was born on Caladan. He spent his childhood in and around Caladan Castle, at the House Atreides orchards and the sea markets, before his father, Duke Leto, moved the Atreides family to Arrakis, also known as Dune. |
| Face Dancers possess chameleonlike shapeshifting abilities. These adepts mimic their subjects down to the smallest details of gender, appearance and voice. Only the most careful observers are able to discern the miniscule signs that betray a Face Dancer's impersonation. Face Dancers are one of several terrifying creations of the Tleilaxu. |
| The Fremen tribes are Arrakis' natives. Their eyes are tinted solid blue by the Spice, which permeates their bodies. Their lives and customs are shaped by the demands of the desert in which they live. They prize strength and independence and have no mercy for weakness, in themselves or in others. To the Fremen, water is sacred. They have invented countless technologies to gather and preserve it, particularly in their homes, the desert-cave systems they call sietches. To show respect or fealty, Fremen spit — sacrificing their water to another. They measure wealth with water. They shed tears rarely, and only with deep significance. When a Fremen dies, the tribe drains their bodies of it's water and pours it into the tribal cistern; even in death, a Fremen serves the good of the tribe. The Fremen have traditionally revered their Reverend Mothers (spiritual leaders in the Bene Gesserit tradition) and Shai-Hulud, their sandworm deity. |
| Gholas are, essentially, clones. While growing a new ghola in their tanks, the Tleilaxu educate it in any manner that they desire, molding it to suit their whims or to fit the desires of their clients. Once re-awakened, gholas may retain skills from their past lives, but they cannot remember who they truly were. Though they are living, feeling human beings once more, they remain, at an essential level, sinister Tleilaxu creations. One of the most famous of all gholas is that of Duncan Idaho, who was slain in Arrakeen during the Harkonnen coup that ousted House Atreides from its governance of Arrakis. Years later the Duncan ghola was presented by Spacing Guild Ambassador Edric as a gift to the Emperor Muad'Dib. |
| Fremen history speaks of Sietch Jacarutu, which was the origin of the Iduali tribe. The Iduali were despised as water-stealers, "the first and greatest sin" under Fremen law. Eventually, the other Fremen tribes banded together to make war on Sietch Jacarutu. The Iduali were slaughtered and "their water was spread upon the sands." Their sietch was declared taboo, and all Fremen were forbidden to search for it. However, there are legends among the Fremen that not all the Iduali were slain — that some escaped the battle to become "the Cast Out." If the Iduali continue to exist they do so secretly, hiding within Fremen society. If their true nature were ever discovered, the Fremen would kill them — "take their water" — without hesitation. |
| Galactic law and tradition prohibit the manufacture of machines that think like humans. To compensate, certain gifted humans are trained from childhood to think like machines. These people are Mentats, the "human computers." Their years of study and practice imbue them with astonishingly precise memories, vast stores of arcane and technical knowledge and supremely fast mathematical-computation skills. Although Mentats are experts at drawing accurate conclusions from all available data, they are not always unemotional, objective or infallible. A Mentat's conclusions are only as accurate as the data he or she has received. |
| If mothers-to-be ingest too much of the Spice, their unborn children may become "pre-born" — awakened prematurely to full intelligence and consciousness. Some of the pre-born exhibit remarkable prescience, but they are highly sensitive to the effects of the Spice, and the emotional and psychological trauma of being pre-born can drive some people to madness or despair. Lady Jessica unintentionally brought this fate upon her daughter Alia by drinking the Water of Life (the liquid exhalation of an Arrakis sandworm, produced at the moment of its death from drowning) while Alia was still in the womb. As the Water of Life swept Jessica into an awareness-expanding trance, it transformed Alia as well. Alia awoke in Jessica's womb with fully developed Bene Gesserit consciousness, instantly aware not only of her mother's thoughts but of the memories, experiences and personalities of most of her biological ancestors. By the time she was born, Alia looked like a normal baby but her mind was that of an adult. |
| To his Qizarate priests, also known as the Quizara Tafwid, Emperor Muad'Dib is the mahdi, the Fremen messiah. Though Muad'Dib might privately deny his godhood, the Qizarate remain convinced that he is a deity in human form. In his name, they have followed his legions from planet to planet, proselytizing and converting the conquered. |
| The arid climate of Salusa Secundus is nearly as harsh as that of Arrakis. Salusa Secundus is the exile home of House Corrino, following the usurpation of the imperial throne by Paul Atreides, a.k.a. Muad'Dib. |
| The giant sandworms of Arrakis are inextricably bound to Dune's ecology; they might even be the cause of the planet's dearth of water and abundance of sand. Certainly, over the course of their complicated life cycle, the sandworms generate much of Dune's oxygen — and all of its Spice. |
| The ancient Spacing Guild arose at roughly the same time as the Bene Gesserit. In the wake of the Butlerian Jihad, which banned the creation of computers designed "in the likeness of the human mind," both organizations aspired to wring every last drop of ability from human muscles, nerves and brains. The Guild experienced a shock when Paul Atreides, a.k.a. Muad'Dib, threatened to destroy the Spice supply regardless of the consequences. Because those consequences would have included the extinction of the Guild and the end of the imperium as it had been known for more than 10,000 years, the Guild was forced to accept Muad'Dib as their new emperor. They resented this deeply. |
| The Spice, also known as "melange," is Arrakis' only crop — but it is enough to make Arrakis the most strategically vital planet in the imperium. Found nowhere else in the universe, melange is nearly beyond price. Those who eat it gain health and longer lives. In certain people, it confers an ability to see visions of both the past and the future. The Spacing Guild's Navigators cannot function without melange, because it allows them to see and create safe routes through interstellar space-time. The Spice also triggered the latent prescience of Paul Atreides, a.k.a. Muad'Dib, granting him startling clairvoyant powers. His usurpation of the imperial throne from Emperor Shaddam IV was made possible by the Fremen's absolute control over Arrakis' sole export. No one — from the Bene Gesserit to the Spacing Guild to the major houses of the Landsraad — dared risk their supply of Spice by opposing Muad'Dib and his Fremen army. Melange is mildly addictive when imbibed in small doses, but it becomes highly addictive and transforming when ingested daily in quantities greater than two grams per 70 kilos of body weight. The Fremen of Arrakis, however, live totally infused with melange because they cannot escape the Spice: It is in their food, drink and air. Their blue-on-blue eyes betray their severe addiction. The Spice is a by-product of the life cycle of sandworms. While a worm lives beneath the sand as a "Little Maker," its excretions form a growth known as a pre-Spice mass. This mass builds up pressure, finally exploding out onto the desert surface. Beneath the glare of Canopus, this substance dries and becomes melange. |
| The Tleilaxu are a secretive sect who are notorious for creating Face Dancers and specialized clones known as gholas, and for operating a renegade training center reputed to produce "twisted" Mentats. No one outside the leadership of the Tleilaxu knows the sect's true motives or goals. They are eager students of human nature and evolution. They are also powerful and masterfully deceptive — and, as their complicity in an assassination plot against Emperor Muad'Dib demonstrates, they are extremely dangerous. |
| In combat, warriors trained in Bene Gesserit techniques, known collectively as the Weirding Way, are some of the most formidable in the galaxy. Adepts of the Weirding Way develop an intense attention to detail that enables them to perceive an enemy's strengths and weaknesses with preternatural speed and precision. In addition, their superior control over their muscles and nerves affords them a distinct advantage in hand-to-hand combat. By controlling their own bodies and voices, Bene Gesserit-trained fighters can manipulate how they are perceived by their foes. They might deceive adversaries into seeing them as frightened and weak, lulling their opponents into complacency until the moment comes to strike. The most skilled practitioners can even seem to vanish from their enemies' sight for several seconds. |
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