Glossary
Places, peoples and terms
The fortresses, peoples, orders and powers that recur across Gemmell's novels, explained briefly and without spoilers. Each entry names the books where you will meet it.
A
- The Armour of Bronzeobject · Drenai
The armour of Orien, the Battle King who founded the Drenai nation: a winged helm, a breastplate engraved with a spread eagle, and gauntlets. When Orien gave up his throne he hid it in a mountain cave in Nadir country, to wait for a chosen one in the Drenai's darkest days, and Waylander is the story of the search for it. Afterwards it passed down with the title of Earl of Bronze. Whatever enchantment surrounds it, its real force lies in what the sight of it does to soldiers who thought the fight was lost, which is why the defenders of Dros Delnoch need it in Legend.
- Atlantisplace · Stones of Power
Gemmell's lost civilisation, and the hidden history behind the Sipstrassi books. In Ghost King the warrior Culain and the enchanter Maedhlyn are immortal survivors of Atlantis who have wandered the world for thousands of years, using Sipstrassi and being taken for gods. The Last Guardian goes back to Atlantis itself, eight thousand years before Jon Shannow's time, when its power reaches through a gate into his world, and treats its sinking as the flood remembered in the story of Noah. Echoes of the Great Song, a standalone, also deals with the end of an Atlantean empire.
- The Avatarspeople · Standalone novels
The immortal ruling race of Echoes of the Great Song, once masters of a great empire and still living like kings over their human subjects, the Vagars, after a cataclysm buried their old world under ice. Their long lives depend on magic crystals that are failing, and they have kept them going by draining the life out of humans. The novel follows what happens when that cruelty meets an invading power, the Almecs and their Crystal Queen, and the Avatars have to decide whether they can make common cause with the people they have ruled.
D
- The Dark Brotherhoodorder · Drenai
The sinister opposite of the Thirty: an order of warrior-sorcerers who serve the Chaos Spirit and use a drug to send their spirits out to spy and to kill on the astral plane. In Waylander they serve the invading Vagrian general Kaem and hunt both the assassin and the priest Dardalion. In the Realm of the Wolf has them in the pay of a Gothir sorcerer as his Knights of Blood. The Dark Templars who keep the emperor Ceska in power in The King Beyond the Gate are the same kind of order, and just as dangerous.
In The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf
- The Darothpeople · Standalone novels
The enemy race of Dark Moon. Long ago they destroyed the gentle Oltor and then vanished in a single night, leaving only a great northern desert behind, and for a thousand years they have been history. Then a dark moon rises over the desert and the Daroth return, city and all, as immortal killers whom spear and sword cannot harm and who want humanity wiped out. They arrive while the human duchies are worn down by a long war of their own, which is where the novel's heroes, Karis, Tarantio and Duvodas, come in.
In Dark Moon
- The Dragonorder · Drenai
An elite Drenai regiment formed after the siege of Dros Delnoch, trained to the highest standard and regarded as the finest soldiers the country had, with its barracks and training grounds in Skultik Forest. The Dragon belongs to The King Beyond the Gate, where three of its former officers, Tenaka Khan, Ananais and Decado, are at the centre of the story. By the time the novel opens all three have left it behind, and the regiment stands in the book for a lost, more honourable standard of Drenai soldiering.
- Drenanplace · Drenai
The capital of the Drenai, a large city of white stone in the south of the country, built across a cluster of hills and known for its trade, libraries, theatres and arenas. The name is also used for the nation as a whole, much as Rome could stand for its empire. Drenan is where Drenai politics happen: rulers rise and fall there, the mad emperor Ceska governs from it in The King Beyond the Gate, and heroes are sent out from it or summoned back. Rek is in Drenan, with his friend the innkeeper Horeb, when Legend begins.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Quest for Lost Heroes, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, Winter Warriors
- Dros Delnochplace · Drenai
The fortress that guards the Delnoch Pass, the only route through the mountains between the northern steppes and the farmlands of the Drenai. It has six great walls, one behind another across the pass, and a keep, with the small town of Delnoch inside them; each wall carries a name in the old tongue that matches the mood of defenders forced back to it. Waylander describes how it came to be built, by Egel, the first Earl of Bronze. Legend is the story of its great siege by Ulric's Nadir, and later Drenai novels measure much of their history against it.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Quest for Lost Heroes, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, The Legend of Deathwalker
E
- Earl of Bronzeidea · Drenai
The hereditary title of the lords of Dros Delnoch, first given to Egel, the general who wore the Armour of Bronze and then built the fortress. The armour passes down with the title, and the Earls' bloodline runs through much of the Drenai series, sometimes in unexpected directions: the Nadir Khan Tenaka descends from one of them. Earl Delnar holds the title when Legend begins, and who wears the armour after him is part of that book's story. The King Beyond the Gate and Quest for Lost Heroes follow later holders, some of them in exile.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Quest for Lost Heroes, The Swords of Night and Day
- The Eyes of Alchazzarobject · Drenai
A pair of jewels of great power, hidden for centuries in the shrine of the Nadir hero Oshikai Demon-bane and said to be able to heal any wound. In The Legend of Deathwalker they draw everyone to the shrine at once: Druss wants them to save a dying friend, the Nadir warrior Talisman believes their recovery will herald the Uniter, and the ruthless Gothir minister Garen-Tsen sends an army to seize them. What finally becomes of the Eyes matters a great deal to the later history of the Nadir.
G
- Gulgothirplace · Drenai
The capital of the Gothir, the northern kingdom that borders the Nadir steppes, and the seat of its God-King: a grand city of palaces and arenas around an older, crowded quarter. The Legend of Deathwalker puts it at the centre of the action, when Druss comes to Gulgothir for the Fellowship Games, a contest between the champions of different nations, and is caught up in the court's intrigues. In the Realm of the Wolf, set centuries earlier, shows a Gothir emperor being talked into a war of extermination against a Nadir tribe. By the time of Legend the Gothir have fallen to Ulric.
In Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, The Legend of Deathwalker
J
- The Jerusalem Manidea · Stones of Power
The name Jon Shannow goes by in the ruined world of Wolf in Shadow and its sequels. It comes from his quest: he is searching for Jerusalem, the city of the Bible, long since destroyed, and many people take the search as proof that he is mad. The name carries fear as well as mockery, since the Jerusalem Man is also the most dangerous gunman in the land. Wolf in Shadow was first published in the United States as The Jerusalem Man, and collected editions use the name for the whole trilogy.
- The Joiningspeople · Drenai
Creatures made by fusing a human being with an animal. The results range from nearly human to little more than beasts, and most are made for killing. In Waylander a Nadir shaman creates them by ritual and sends them after the assassin. In The King Beyond the Gate the emperor Ceska makes them with ancient machines and uses them to terrorise the Drenai, even setting them against men in the arena. Hero in the Shadows has beasts of the same making, and The Swords of Night and Day, a thousand years later, calls them Jiamads and fields them on both sides of its war.
In The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Hero in the Shadows, The Swords of Night and Day
K
- The Knights of the Gabalaorder · Standalone novels
The knightly order at the centre of Knights of Dark Renown. The Knights of the Gabala once protected the realm's ordinary people, until the last of them rode through the Black Gate into another world to fight a great evil and never came back. In their absence the king has turned tyrant, and his Red Knights persecute anyone with foreign blood. The novel asks whether the order can be remade from the outlaws and refugees hiding in a forest, and what the knights' oath would mean to such men.
- The Krayakinpeople · Drenai
Demon warriors in Winter Warriors, among the deadliest of the spirit race banished from the world thousands of years earlier. Called back by the demon lord Anharat, they ride out as a band of undead knights to hunt the pregnant queen Axiana and the heir she carries. Each is more dangerous than all but the greatest human fighters, and steel cannot kill them, though they are vulnerable to natural things such as wood and running water. Their pursuit drives the second half of the novel.
N
- Naashanplace · Drenai
An empire of the eastern lands and the homeland of Skilgannon and the Witch Queen Jianna. In The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend the Naashanites are the enemy the young Druss fights in Ventria, in the service of the emperor Gorben, and one of their generals becomes a man Druss cannot simply hate. White Wolf shows Naashan from the inside, through Skilgannon's memories of a princess in hiding and the war to win back her throne, and of the sack of the city of Perapolis that gave him his name, the Damned.
- The Nadirpeople · Drenai
The nomadic tribes of the northern steppes, and the Drenai's great enemy through much of the series. Their legends trace them to Oshikai Demon-bane, a hero who led his followers into the wastelands; after his death they split into feuding tribes and suffered centuries of raids and contempt from the Gothir, holding on to the prophecy of a Uniter who would bring them together. Gemmell writes them with more sympathy than their role as the horde at the gates might suggest. Legend sees them at Dros Delnoch, and The Legend of Deathwalker and The King Beyond the Gate take the reader inside their tribes and among their shamans.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Quest for Lost Heroes, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, The Legend of Deathwalker
- Nadir steppesplace · Drenai
The harsh open country between the Drenai lands and the Gothir, much of it sand or volcanic dust, and home to the Nadir tribes. The steppes are where Waylander goes looking for the Armour of Bronze, hidden in a mountain cave in Nadir territory, and where Druss defends the shrine of the Nadir hero Oshikai in The Legend of Deathwalker. Tenaka Khan goes back to them to claim his Nadir inheritance in The King Beyond the Gate. For most Drenai characters the steppe marks the edge of the safe world.
In The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Quest for Lost Heroes, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, The Legend of Deathwalker
O
- The Outlanderspeople · Hawk Queen
The conquerors of the highlands in Ironhand's Daughter. At the battle of Colden Moor they broke the warlike highland clans and killed their best warriors, and they now rule the region through lords such as the brutal Baron Gottasson, with the highlanders living in sullen subjection. Only one survivor of the old royal line is left, the young Sigarni, and those who can see the future expect a leader descended from the great king Ironhand. The Outlanders are the reason the novel's quiet opening turns into a war.
R
- The Rebornidea · Drenai
People grown again from the remains of the dead, using ancient knowledge rediscovered by the priests of a far later Drenai age. The Swords of Night and Day is built on the idea: Landis Kan uses it to bring back Skilgannon a thousand years after his death, and other Reborn, some made from famous heroes and some from less welcome figures, play their parts. A Reborn has the body of the original but not necessarily the mind, which gives the novel its questions about memory and identity. The rulers of that age use related arts to extend their own lives.
- The Rigantepeople · Rigante
A Keltoi people of the northern Isles, herders and fighters with a close bond to the land and its spirits, and the heart of Gemmell's four Rigante novels. Their customs matter to the stories: sons are named for their fathers, and every child receives a soul-name. Sword in the Storm and Midnight Falcon show them facing the expanding empire of Stone under Connavar and his son. Ravenheart and Stormrider jump some eight centuries, to a Rigante people long ruled by the Varlish, with only the northern clans still living the old way.
In Sword in the Storm, Midnight Falcon, Ravenheart, Stormrider
S
- The Sathulipeople · Drenai
A proud, deeply religious people of the Delnoch mountains who follow the teachings of an ancient prophet, Mehmet. Their ancestors fled persecution in the deserts of Ventria and settled in the mountains beside the Drenai, and the two peoples have skirmished over the range for generations. Sathuli warriors wear flowing white robes and favour the curved tulwar. Rek's father died fighting them, and the Sathuli prince Joachim matters in Legend, where old enmities complicate the defence of Dros Delnoch. Waylander has to cross their territory in In the Realm of the Wolf.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf
- The Seidhpeople · Rigante
The spirit folk of Rigante belief, beings of great magic who live alongside the human world, some of them in the Wishing Tree Woods near Connavar's village. They include the Thagda, the old man of the forest, and the washerwoman at the ford whom doomed warriors see before battle. The best known is the Morrigu, a goddess of death and mischief who grants what people ask for in ways they come to regret. She appears across all four Rigante novels, and the later books change how readers see her.
In Sword in the Storm, Midnight Falcon, Ravenheart, Stormrider
- Sipstrassiobject · Stones of Power
The golden stones of power that link seven of Gemmell's novels. A Sipstrassi stone can heal, create food and objects, and extend life, limited mainly by its user's imagination and by its own reserve: dark veins spread through the gold as its power is spent, until it turns black and dead. It can be recharged with blood, but a stone fed that way turns red, can no longer heal, and pushes its user towards rage and greed. The stones run through the Jon Shannow books, the Arthurian pair and the two Greek novels.
In Wolf in Shadow, Ghost King, Last Sword of Power, The Last Guardian, Lion of Macedon, Dark Prince, Bloodstone
- Skeln Passplace · Drenai
A narrow pass on the Drenai frontier and the scene of one of Druss's most famous fights. When the Ventrian emperor Gorben invaded, a small Drenai force under the young Earl Delnar, with Druss among them, held back his army, including his undefeated Immortals. The battle is told in the epilogue of The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend (in the United States, The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend), where it closes that book as much as it crowns Druss's career. Readers of In the Realm of the Wolf will also meet the mountains of Skeln, where Waylander has made his home.
- Snagaobject · Drenai
Druss's double-bladed battle-axe, known as Snaga the Sender, with silver runes on the haft. It came to him from his grandfather Bardan, a notorious killer, and it was never just a weapon: something lived in it that fed its wielder's hunger for battle, and The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend takes that seriously. The axe goes with Druss through Legend, The Legend of Deathwalker and White Wolf, and a thousand years later it turns up again in The Swords of Night and Day. Skilgannon's swords carry a similar taint.
In Legend, The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend, The Legend of Deathwalker, White Wolf, The Swords of Night and Day
- Soul-nameidea · Rigante
A Rigante custom. While a mother is in labour, the father climbs a sacred mountain and waits for an omen, and what he sees gives the child a second name that binds it to the land. Connavar's soul-name gives the first Rigante novel its title, Sword in the Storm, and Gaise Macon, though raised as a Varlish lord's son, is known by the soul-name Stormrider. Everyday Rigante names follow a separate pattern, with a boy's name built from his own and his father's, so that Connavar means Conn son of Var.
- The Sourceidea · Drenai
The benign god of the Drenai books, worshipped as the source of all things and believed to act through inspiration and the quiet steering of events. Its priests are healers and strict pacifists, which is why Dardalion's decision to fight in Waylander is such a break, and why the warrior-priests of the Thirty are unusual. Source priests and priestesses turn up across the series, from the temple of the Thirty in Legend to the midwife Ulmenetha in Winter Warriors. Its dark counterpart is the Chaos Spirit served by the Brotherhood.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Winter Warriors, White Wolf
- Stoneplace · Rigante
The expanding southern empire of the first two Rigante novels, with disciplined legions and an appetite for other people's land. Gemmell modelled it closely on Rome, and the Seidh describe it as one version of a conquering empire that appears in many worlds, Rome among them. In Sword in the Storm the young Connavar learns its methods by fighting in its army, and sees what it does to the conquered. In Midnight Falcon his son Bane sees it from the arena floor, as a gladiator, while its armies prepare to cross to the Isles.
- The Swords of Night and Dayobject · Drenai
Skilgannon's paired blades, curved and mirror-polished, one golden and one silver, carried together in a single long scabbard. They were made by the Old Woman, a sorceress of great age, as copies of an older pair, the Swords of Blood and Fire, and like Druss's axe they push the man who carries them towards bloodlust. Skilgannon took them with him when he vanished after the sack of Perapolis, shortly before White Wolf begins, and they give the second Damned novel, set a thousand years later, its title.
T
- The Thirtyorder · Drenai
An order of warrior-priests of the Source. Ordinary Source priests are sworn pacifists, but Dardalion, after his time with Waylander, gathered priests prepared to fight evil with swords as well as prayer, and the Thirty grew from them. Its members are telepaths who can join their minds as one and fight on the spirit plane in silver armour. Their rule is severe: when their help is asked, thirty of them ride out expecting to die, and one is sent away to found the order again. Legend shows them at their height under Serbitar.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf
U
- The Uniteridea · Drenai
A Nadir prophecy that one day a leader will arise to join the feuding tribes into a single nation and lead them against their enemies. Nadir shamans work towards it for generations, and the Gothir try to stamp it out. Ulric, the Khan who besieges Dros Delnoch in Legend, is the Uniter the tribes had waited for. In the Realm of the Wolf and The Legend of Deathwalker show earlier stages of the prophecy at work, and The King Beyond the Gate, a century after Legend, makes clear that it was not finished with the Nadir.
In Legend, The King Beyond the Gate, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, The Legend of Deathwalker
V
- The Vagrianspeople · Drenai
The people of Vagria, a kingdom bordering the Drenai to the south-west, and the invaders in Waylander, where Vagrian armies under the general Kaem have overrun most of the country, with the sorcerers of the Dark Brotherhood fighting on their side. The Drenai resistance is led from Skultik Forest and the besieged port of Dros Purdol by the generals Egel and Karnak, and the Vagrian war is where the Thirty and the Armour of Bronze enter Drenai history. Vagrians turn up elsewhere too: Serbitar, leader of the Thirty in Legend, was born to a Vagrian noble family.
- The Varlishpeople · Rigante
The ruling people of the later Rigante novels, descended from the Rigante's ancient enemies. By the time of Ravenheart, some eight hundred years after Connavar, they have governed the Rigante lands so long that their laws and their contempt for the highlanders feel permanent, and the old ways survive fully only among the free clans of the north. Their lords include the Moidart, ruler of Eldacre. Stormrider turns to a civil war among the Varlish themselves, which drags the Rigante in.
In Ravenheart, Stormrider
X
- The Xanthosobject · Troy
Helikaon's warship in the Troy trilogy, about twice the size of an ordinary galley, with eighty oars and a black horse on its sail for Dardania. Sailors expected the sea god to destroy a ship so big, and it was nicknamed the Death Ship before it had fought at all; after Helikaon turned its fire-throwers on an enemy fleet, the name took on a darker meaning. The Xanthos gives Helikaon his reach across the Great Green, as Gemmell's Bronze Age sailors call their sea.