The Dual Corruption is the law of succession that governs the twelve zodiacal platforms of the Game of Shadows: whoever defeats the guardian of a platform becomes that platform’s new guardian and inherits its corruption.
| Type | Concept (cosmic law) |
| Scope | The twelve zodiacal platforms |
| First documented case | 835 A.D.A., Venice |
| Spanish entry | La Corrupción Dual |
Description
There is no option to refuse the inheritance. The victor occupies the platform, waits, and is in time defeated by another adventurer who believes he is winning what he is in fact inheriting. The system does not reward victory with freedom; it conscripts.
The clause behind the rule belongs to the primordial doctrine of the platforms: “La plataforma es la prisión del guardián” (“The platform is the guardian’s prison”). Abstract axes called columns cross all dimensions; each is the essence of a concept, such as violence or vanity, constant as a concept but not in style, and each is bound to the platform’s chief inhabitant, its guardian. The guardian does not live on the platform: he cannot leave it, because the column holds him as a magnet holds a nail. Whoever frees him replaces him.
For this reason Gabriel remains on Aries although his nature pulls at him, and Erzebeth will inherit Taurus when the cycle comes. The platforms manifest in the Lands of Crystallization.
Documented cases
- 835 A.D.A. — first case in the Archive: a relay in the body of Mago, in Venice. It is the Table V entry of the Calendar of Amitlai.
- 1717–1784 A.D.A. — Les Libertateurs activated and closed Aries, Pisces and Virgo (Virgo closed by Gideon at the end). Each closure left new guardians, recorded only in fragments.
- 1888 A.D.A. — the Regulators reactivated Aries under Gabriel’s declared guidance, opening the modern succession.
- The pattern repeats in every group that takes part in the Game from 1715 A.D.A. onward.
- In the present cycle Gabriel holds Aries; other guardians occupy their columns.
Readings
- One reading holds that the system conscripts: the guardian suffers.
- Some theologians of the Decadian read the relay as cyclical purification: each new guardian brings fresh blood to the column, which renews itself without losing its essence.
The Sentinela proposal
GRDT once proposed a voluntary modulation of the system, called Sentinela: a coordinated fusion of the twelve guardians instead of inheritance by killing. It was judged operationally unviable, since it would require coordinating twenty-four entities at once (the twelve sitting guardians and twelve candidates). The proposal was recorded but not entirely discarded.