Ginaz
the Swordmaster world
Ginaz was an ocean world of scattered archipelagos and the ancestral home of House Ginaz. Its fierce warrior culture, ruled by the Council of Veterans, produced the legendary Swordmasters of the Imperium.
Ginaz was a water-covered world of scattered sandy archipelagos, made famous throughout the Imperium for its Swordmasters. It was the ancestral home of House Ginaz, a warrior people ruled by a Council of Veterans, and the seat of the Ginaz School whose graduates carried the planet's name into the service of the Great Houses, including House Atreides. Frank Herbert names House Ginaz and the Ginaz School, but the planet itself and most of its history come from the Legends of Dune books by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. (Dune (appendix); Dune Messiah; Expanded books: Dune: The Machine Crusade)
A world of islands#
Ginaz was similar in size and atmosphere to Old Earth, though its surface was covered in far more water, more than ninety percent of the whole. The land that remained consisted of scattered sandy archipelagos bearing minimal vegetation. It was the ancestral home of House Ginaz, and it became renowned across the Imperium for the Swordmasters it trained. The Great Houses sent their warriors to the Ginaz School, a connection remembered in the service of the Atreides line: Duncan Idaho is a Swordmaster of the Ginaz. (Dune; Dune Messiah; Expanded books: Dune: The Machine Crusade)
History#
The world had long been home to a small but ferocious culture of warrior humans. These people played an important part in the Butlerian Jihad, where they fought as mercenaries in close combat against the thinking machines. In 164 BG an asteroid fell upon the planet and raised a massive tsunami that engulfed most of the colonized islands, but after seven decades the civilization was rebuilt. Over the millennia these people evolved into the renowned Swordmasters. (Expanded books: Dune: The Machine Crusade; Dune: The Battle of Corrin)
Frank Herbert's own note on Ginaz is short. The glossary of Dune calls House Ginaz one-time allies of Duke Leto Atreides, defeated in the War of Assassins with Grumman, the world of House Moritani. (Dune (appendix))
Culture#
The people of Ginaz were a warrior culture, ruled by the Council of Veterans. Each warrior was required to father at least three children, one for himself, one for his mate, and one for those who could not have children of their own. Children seldom knew their parents, being raised instead in crèches, communal training groups devoted solely to the making of fighters. By custom each fallen warrior was held to be reincarnated in the body of a new one. When warriors graduated, they took part in a ceremony in which each drew a coral disk inscribed with a name, their hand guided, it was believed, by the spirit that inhabited them. The record of each fallen Swordmaster was preserved in a database buried in vaults. (Expanded books: Dune: The Machine Crusade; Dune: The Battle of Corrin)
Frequently asked questions
- What is Ginaz?
- Ginaz was a water-covered world of scattered sandy archipelagos, made famous throughout the Imperium for its Swordmasters. It was the ancestral home of House Ginaz, a warrior people ruled by a Council of Veterans, and the seat of the Ginaz School.
- Why was Ginaz famous?
- It was renowned across the Imperium for the Swordmasters it trained. The Great Houses sent their warriors to the Ginaz School, a connection remembered in the service of the Atreides line.
- What was the surface of Ginaz like?
- Ginaz was similar in size and atmosphere to Old Earth, but its surface was covered in far more water, more than ninety percent of the whole. The land that remained consisted of scattered sandy archipelagos bearing minimal vegetation.
- What was the warrior culture of Ginaz like?
- The people of Ginaz were a warrior culture ruled by the Council of Veterans. Each warrior was required to father at least three children, children were raised in communal crèches devoted to making fighters, and by custom each fallen warrior was held to be reincarnated in the body of a new one.
- What happened to House Ginaz?
- In the expanded books its warrior people fought as mercenaries against the thinking machines during the Butlerian Jihad and over the millennia evolved into the renowned Swordmasters. Frank Herbert's glossary says House Ginaz, once allies of Duke Leto, was defeated in the War of Assassins with Grumman.
Sources
- BookDune (appendix), Frank Herbert, 1965; Terminology of the Imperium printed with Dune
- BookDune, Frank Herbert, Chilton Books, 1965
- BookDune Messiah, Frank Herbert, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969
- BookDune: The Machine Crusade, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, 2003 (expanded universe)
- BookDune: The Battle of Corrin, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, 2004 (expanded universe)
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
Followed from this entry
House Atreides
House Atreides was a respected House Major of the Galactic Padishah Empire, ruled by a Duke and seated for twenty-six generations on the ocean world of Caladan. Through Paul Muad'Dib and his son Leto II, the Atreides line rose to rule the Known Universe before passing into a bloodline scattered across the millennia.
House Ginaz
House Ginaz was a Great House of the Landsraad renowned across the Imperium for its Swordmaster School, an ally of House Atreides under Duke Leto that was destroyed in a War of Assassins by House Moritani of Grumman.
Old Earth
Old Earth, also called Terra, was the planet of the al-Lat system on which the human species first arose. After the Butlerian Jihad it dwindled to a memory, preserved in ancestral recollection and in the scattered Terran flora and fauna seeded across the worlds of the Imperium.
Butlerian Jihad: the war on thinking machines
It began with a slave rebellion on Earth in 201 BG and ended at Corrin in 88 BG. Out of it came the ban on machines in the likeness of a mind.
Swordmasters of Ginaz
The Swordmasters of Ginaz were warriors who earned the title by attaining a high level of skill at the Ginaz School. Regarded as superior to Sardaukar, they served the Great Houses as commanders, teachers, and personal guards.
Mentioned in23 entries
Armand Ecaz
Armand Ecaz was the Archduke of House Ecaz and sovereign of the planet Ecaz, a high noble of the Landsraad and an avowed enemy of House Moritani who fought two Wars of Assassins against Grumman and stood as an ally of Duke Leto Atreides.
Butlerian Jihad: the war on thinking machines
It began with a slave rebellion on Earth in 201 BG and ended at Corrin in 88 BG. Out of it came the ban on machines in the likeness of a mind.
Duncan Idaho: reborn as ghola after ghola
Leto's Swordmaster died on Arrakis in the Desert War. The Tleilaxu brought him back again and again, serving the Atreides for five thousand years.
Faykan Butler
Faykan Butler, later Faykan Corrino, was a military commander of the Butlerian Jihad who rose through politics to become the last Viceroy of the League of Nobles and, after the Battle of Corrin, the first Padishah Emperor.
Hiih Resser: the Moritani Swordmaster who refused
Hiih Resser was the only Grumman student to keep his place at the Ginaz school when House Moritani was disowned by the Swordmasters, and he went home expecting execution. He served his Viscount through a failed strike on Caladan and then quietly gutted the man's last atrocity by leaving the detonators off a field of buried atomics.
Hoh Vitt: Atreides sergeant and Master Jongleur
Hoh Vitt was a long-serving sergeant of House Atreides and a Master Jongleur raised on Jongleur. Entombed with his platoon beneath the Shield Wall of Arrakis during the Harkonnen attack, he held his doomed men in a hypnotic story of Caladan until every one of them died believing he had drowned in the seas of home, with sea water found in their lungs.
House Ginaz
House Ginaz was a Great House of the Landsraad renowned across the Imperium for its Swordmaster School, an ally of House Atreides under Duke Leto that was destroyed in a War of Assassins by House Moritani of Grumman.
House Moritani: the Feuding House of Grumman in Dune
House Moritani ruled Grumman and is known in Frank Herbert's Dune for one thing, its War of Assassins against House Ginaz. The Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson books add Viscount Hundro Moritani, whose feud with House Ecaz ended with the House wiped out.
Istian Goss
Istian Goss was a Ginaz swordmaster of the Jool-Noret School, believed to carry the reincarnated spirit of Jool Noret. He fought through the Butlerian Jihad and reached the secret final level of Noret's fighting style at the Battle of Corrin.
Janess Idaho
Janess Idaho was a daughter of the final Duncan Idaho ghola and the Honored Matres leader Murbella, raised within the Sisterhood on Chapterhouse. She rose to command the Valkyries and then to Supreme Bashar of all the New Sisterhood's forces during the war against the Thinking Machines.
Jool Noret
Jool Noret was a mercenary of Ginaz and the first true Swordmaster, a legendary warrior of the Butlerian Jihad whose reckless fighting style and posthumous shrine founded the Jool-Noret School of swordmasters.
Kolhar
Kolhar was a cold, barren world near the Rossak system that Norma Cenva transformed into the manufacturing center for the first spacefolder vessels. Decades after the Butlerian Jihad it was reduced to a radioactive wasteland by Manford Torondo's atomics.
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