WHY AM I HERE?

The alien that regenerated you is not God nor even a god. The experience of being reborn in adult form out of the ground, seems miraculous--but only until you understand that this has been accomplished with sophisticated and impersonal machinery. All the forests and jungles, all the multitudes of animals from every era of life on Earth, all the dinosaur herds, whales, and even bacteria and viruses, are products of a machine. The alien that operates this giant machine is a mortal being, albeit one whose time-span is enormously longer than ours. It is known as Gai, the Rimstalker, the World Maker, and the World Eater. By whatever name you call it, this being is an alien, inhuman and indifferent to human affairs. The alien is not a spiritual being. Many lives have been lost disputing this issue. The truth is, this being regenerated you to save as bait for yet another alien intelligence, its enemy, a species of sapient, winged spiders called zotl. Zotl eat people.

Your life belongs to you. You owe no debt to the being that roused you to this second life. Neither must you expect this being to guide you or benefit you in any way. It will not. You must find your own way now. This manual is designed to help you understand and survive any of the fifteen worlds as well as the Overworld itself, wherever you may find yourself.