The Death Gate Cycle is a seven-part series (heptalogy) of fantasy novels written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

Centuries prior to the events of the series, the Sartan attempted to end the conflict by sundering the Earth into four elemental realms, and imprisoning the Patryns in a fifth prison world, the Labyrinth.

The books follow the fiercely independent Haplo, a Patryn agent sent to scout the elemental worlds and throw them into chaos in preparation for his Lord's conquest of them.

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman had finished their Dragonlance and Darksword series prior to The Death Gate Cycle, which may be considered their most ambitious work yet,[1][2] as they created multiple fully realized and distinct worlds.

Along a similar line, the authors continued to explore the theme of men becoming gods—in this case with the entire Patryn and Sartan races clamoring for that throne.

Each novel contains appendices giving further detail on various aspects of the story and its world, often summarizing (or occasionally laying the groundwork for) information related in the narrative proper.

Finally, most of the novels also contain a musical score at the end, documenting a song (or sometimes a Sartan music-based rune-construct) featured in that particular volume.

The Sartan used magic by drawing runes on the ground and in the air, augmented by singing and spoken word; they believed that their power gave them responsibility and stewardship over the lesser races, whom they called mensch.

The Vortex (or the Sixth Gate) was the entry point to the Labyrinth, where the mensch were temporarily housed during the Sundering itself and where the captured Patryns were eventually placed.

Cut off from communication with the other worlds (Chelestra specifically and the Council), the Sartan were slowly dying of some unknown cause, quickly becoming vastly outnumbered by the mensch.

The dwarves, known on this world as Gegs, not truly understanding its purpose, effectively became slaves to the machine, worshiping it after a fashion as an artifact of their gods, the Mangers, (known to others as the Sartans) who had placed them there as its caretakers.

The elves became tyrannical lords of much of the mid-realm through manipulation of the dwarves to obtain a monopoly on water, whilst constantly waging war with the humans.

Great Citadels collected the energy from Pryan's four suns and beamed it through conduits to the other three worlds (the Colossi on Abarrach, the Kicksey-winsey on Arianus and the seasun on Chelestra).

Covered entirely by miles-thick jungle (only the dwarves had ever seen the legendary 'ground') the Citadels were to be the bastions of civilization, where the Mensch would live a life of plenty and comfort.

The Sartan and mensch lived inside its honeycombed tunnels—designed to provide minerals and metals to the Kicksey-winsey—but they turned out to be loaded with poisonous volcanic fumes.

Huge columns called Colossi had been created by the Sartan to provide light and keep the world warm in the long run, but they began to fail almost immediately (because they did not receive the necessary energy from Pryan).

Instead of forcing a hard existence upon the Patryns and teaching them to care for others through relying on one another, it created a lethal, murderous hell where survival was the cruel torture of having hope dangled in your face, only to have it ripped away.

There, Lord Xar discovered a wealth of books (written by Zifnab in the Sartan language) that detailed events preceding and following the Sundering.

Patryns are represented as having the same height and build as humans, but the current generations of the series are all in excellent physical shape due to the hardships of the Labyrinth.

The Sartan use of runes is portrayed as more elegant than the Patryn, involving singing and dancing in prescribed tones and movements to affect the Wave.

In some instances, Sartan inscribe runes, mainly to permanently enchant an object or location, such as when creating barred gateways or magical weapons that can then be used by mensch.

Human magic is considered part of the Spiritual Masteries, tending towards "the emotional and mental manipulation of the world about the magician.

"[6] A human of sufficient magical talent can perform a variety of feats, including the manipulation of the elements, creating illusions, healing, compelling other life-forms, transforming shape and size, translocation and overcoming physical limitations such as gravity.

Humans, especially when compared to elves, are "lacking" in their connection to the natural world and spirituality and their magical skills serve to balance this deficit.

Their longer lives tend to breed a lack of urgency in their outlook, sometimes problematic in dealings with the comparatively impatient humans.

In Dragon Wing, this explains how humans have been able to use songs to trigger a nostalgia so intense that the elves of Arianus have formed an open rebellion against their ruler.

In contrast, the Kenkari, an isolated group of powerful elven magi on Arianus, also employ a very specialised form of magic based on the spirit which allows them to communicate with the souls of others, living or dead and on one occasion have been shown to change their forms into their order's symbol; the butterfly, which is a glaring exception to the mechanical focus.

As is typical in portrayals of dwarves, they prefer to live in dark, underground areas, and they also possess an innate sense of direction superior to that of humans or elves.

Zifnab makes a few references to Fizban during the series (when he's asked for his name he said "Fiz..., no can't use that one", or such as the importance of a Wizard's Hat) and he is described with a similar appearance.

He makes references to the Pern series of books, The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Arthurian legend, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and soul music; within the context of the books, these are historic references to the former Earth.