Pendragon Adventure terminology

This article explains the terminology from The Pendragon Adventure by D. J. MacHale.

• Acolyte: A native of some territory chosen by that territory's Traveler as their own personal aid and, specifically, the receiver and keeper of that Traveler's journals. Acolytes receive journals and may communicate with the written word via the flume-like tunnels that appear out of special rings worn by them and by all Travelers.
• The Convergence: The event toward which Saint Dane manipulates Halla during which all the territories reach their critical turning points simultaneously. It therefore can be envisioned as the turning point of all Halla. The Convergence is deemed successful approximately around the time of the Bronx Massacre on Second Earth. Immediately after the Convergence, the spirits of Solara, desperate to keep the territories separated, destroy the flumes. The Convergence may also be related to the phenomenon of Solara splitting into a "dark" and "light" Solara.
• Dado: Any humanoid robot who acts as a member of the security force and police under the monopolistic mega-corporation Blok (on Quillan) and which Saint Dane later mass-produces on Third Earth and other territories into his own personal armies that he deploys to First Earth and Ibara. Dados were first created by their namesake company D.A.D.O. (Dimond Alpha Digital Organization) on First Earth, using Mark Dimond's forge technology. Dados tend to carry golden electroshock guns and, appearance-wise, are almost indistinguishable from actual humans.
• Flume: Any of the tunnels that link each one of the territories with the other nine. At the entrance to a flume, a Traveler must speak the name of the territory they wish to visit, causing the flume to writhe to life. When flumes are thus activated, their rock walls turn into see-through crystal, a jumble of pleasant musical notes is heard, and the Traveler is lifted up and gently pulled by invisible energy into the flume. Once in the flume, the Traveler experiences distortions of time and may look through the transparent crystal at the cosmos beyond; as the Convergence nears, Travelers experience more and more images of the territories floating eerily through the cosmos. It is revealed in The Soldiers of Halla that Saint Dane actually created the flumes himself in order to unite all of Halla and that their destruction was a desperate move by the spirits of Solara to delay Saint Dane's conquest over all of Halla.
• Forge: A technology patented by D.A.D.O. (though seemingly actually invented in Third Earth and stolen from that territory by Saint Dane) that consists of an object with flexible, elastic skin that can expand and contract so that the shapeshifting mechanical parts within allow the object, though solid, to take various simple forms including a pyramid, a cube, and a sphere; it also includes computer technology that is voice-activated. Forge was first introduced to the series in The Quillan Games by Mark Dimond and Andy Mitchell as a science fair project for their high school. Mark and Andy have big dreams for it, as it would jump-start technology's evolution by about 50 years, especially since the introduction of it would be taking place in 1930 (when Mark travels to First Earth, unaware that Andy, manipulating him, is actually Saint Dane). Because of this enormous jump in technology, in the present time (approx. 2006), there are robots, called dados, that do all human labor, and they all look suspiciously like Mark. It is later discovered that the basic technology responsible for dado production is forge. Bobby recognizes that the fact that the dados are on Second Earth is a horrible problem (there is even a dado cat), and is now setting out to fix this crisis with Mark and Courtney. After being taken to First Earth by Saint Dane, Mark is convinced by Courtney to destroy his forge prototype, and Mark crushes it under his shoe. However, the mass production of dados has already begun on other territories and, essentially, forge technology becomes Saint Dane's perfect tool for driving multiple territories (and thus, perhaps, all of Halla) toward doomsday.
• Gar: On Eelong, this is name designated for any member of the human race. The gar of Eelong tend to be of smaller stature than the humans of Earth and many are not educated, but rather, kept as slaves in klee society.^[1]
• Halla: The multiverse, including every person, thing, time, and territory there ever was. Press describes it also as "what separates order from chaos." ^[2] It is divided into seven universes, each with one world that contains sapient life forms (so, essentially, seven key worlds); Halla, however, is also physically divided (by Saint Dane) into ten distinct territories.
• The Jakills: a group of seventeen teenaged friends whose most prominent members include Loque, Krayven, Twig, and their leader, Siry Remudi. The Jakills (pronounced /ˈdʒækɪlz/) form an inquisitive gang of the youth of Ibara who help Bobby Pendragon seek the world beyond their island's oceanic boundaries. Their headquarters lies in the Ibaran jungle and they sport well-worn clothing and hold a rebellious philosophy, creating a kind of subculture. The name of the group derives from their idol, Aja Killian.
• Klee: A species of sapient living beings on Eelong, klee are bipedal felines that live in treetop village societies.
• Pentagram: The shape of a five-pointed star made by interlocking lines. This is a common symbol in the series and is used by the spirits of Solara to designate the entrance to every flume. This symbol is later also adopted by Alexander Naymeer's cult, Ravinia.
• Quig: Any variety of yellow-eyed, supernatural animal that appears on a territory on which Saint Dane is present, having been created by him to guard that territory's flume(s) and to attack the Travelers and their allies. Quigs are vulnerable to high-pitched noises, and are frightened away by the activation of a flume, possibly due to the melodic tones emitted when this happens. People of the territories are aware of the creatures' existence, but do not recognize them as being anything more than simple, indigenous animals. The territories each have their own quig animal, listed as follows:
  • Cloral: 20-foot-long (6.1 m) sharks
  • Denduron: spike-backed, bear-like beasts
  • The Earth territories: giants dogs
  • Eelong: cannibalistic gars (humans)
  • Ibara: swarming bees
  • Quillan: robotic spiders
  • Veelox: unknown (possibly swarming bees, as Ibara is the same territory 300 years in the future)
  • Zadaa: snakes
• Ravinia: A cult originating on Second Earth, while led by Alexander Naymeer (under the manipulation of Saint Dane), that professed the need for a civilization in which the elite and talented members of society create a ruling class and all others are ultimately destroyed. Because of Ravinia's essentially societally-destructive ideology, Saint Dane used Ravinia, with its dado armies, as the spearhead for his movement of the territories toward the Convergence. Ravinia's symbol was the pentagram and its name presumably refers to the raven, one of Saint Dane's more notable physical forms. Ravinia quickly began to spread to the others territories, becoming forcibly integrated with their governments and cultures. Because Saint Dane bestowed Alexander Naymeer with supernatural (Traveler-like) abilities, Naymeer was better able to enchant and influence his enormous audiences. Bobby discovered too late that the most prominent resistance movement to Ravinia on Second Earth was secretly, in fact, controlled by Saint Dane as well.
• Solara: "The spiritual reflection of the state of Halla."^[3] Solara is the essence of all positive human sapient thought and creativity (which is what powers the "physical" Solara) and it looks different to every individual. Although it is mentally perceived by Travelers as a physical place, it is described as a purely spiritual one, and it is neither a territory itself nor part of any territory. When every person dies, their spiritual weight is added to the accumulation called Solara. Having been formed through humanity, Solara is now a necessary aspect of Halla and if Solara is destroyed, Halla itself presumably falls into chaos. As Saint Dane manipulates the people of the territories into making self-destructive decisions, Solara begins to split into a weakening "light" Solara and a strengthening "dark" Solara. Solara is often personified as the singular "spirit of Solara" or the plural "spirits of Solara."
• Territory: Any of Saint Dane's divisions of Halla characterized by some particular world in some particular time-period. There are ten territories of Halla (called Cloral, Denduron, First Earth, Second Earth, Third Earth, Eelong, Ibara, Quillan, Veelox, and Zadaa) which exist in the space-time continuum on a total of seven distinct worlds (Cloral, Denduron, Earth, Eelong, Quillan, Veelox, and Zadaa). Halla was split into these ten territories by Saint Dane, who made flumes on specific worlds in specific time-periods.
• Traveler: Any individual who appears to be indigenous to one of the ten territories, though is, actually, a spiritual entity created by Solara to guard over that territory. Saint Dane refers to Travelers as "illusions." Travelers are the only ones who know of the existence of flumes, other than their acolytes, the spirits of Solara, and Saint Dane. There are two generations of Travelers, the first of which more or less acts as mentors or trainers who introduce their successor (a second-generation Traveler) to his or her new life. When a Traveler finds out about his or her purpose, their mentor will oftentimes be suddenly killed at the hands of Saint Dane. When a Traveler leaves their home territory for the first time, all traces of that their existence disappear from that territory, including relatives (only direct family members are mentioned as disappearing), except in the memories of those who knew that family or person. The family members of a Traveler (who are themselves not real people) go to the outskirts of Halla, known as Solara, where they live on as spirits. All Travelers take a normally human form, with the one exception of the Traveler from Eelong, who takes a klee form. Every Traveler has special abilities, though few know of all these abilities until the very end the saga. Travelers have demonstrated any or all of the following abilities at one point or another:
  • The power of persuasion;
  • The ability to hear all speech and read all forms of writing as their own language, although words that describe territory-exclusive items do not change (also known as omnilinguality);
  • Remarkable powers of recuperation, many times faster than normal people;
  • The ability to heal another Traveler or bring them back to life (occasionally) through sheer force of will;
  • The apparent ability to read the minds of those around them (occasionally Travelers and sometimes even acolytes seem to know exactly what Bobby is thinking).
  • The ability to transform to any living being (it was thought that only Saint Dane and Nevva Winter were able to do this, up until the tenth book when it was revealed that all the other Travelers could have been able to use this ability except that the spirits of Solara did not allow them to, until the last book)

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