The Purpose and History of Rularuu

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Aspects of Rularuu

It is known that Rularuu is currently divided into seven aspects:

• Aloore the Watcher
• Faathim the Kind
• Lanaru the Mad
• Uuralur the Mirror
• Kuularth the Scavenger
• Chularn the Slave Lord
• Ruladak the Strong

Each of these aspects are responsible for certain domains of Rularuu's existence. In addition, each of these aspects have a type of creature associated with them and a physical domain which they preside over. This information is presented in the table below.

Each type of creature shares the purpose of its associated aspect; this is apparent from the creatures' dialog or from their descriptions. However, Faathim's associated creature and Uuralur's associated purpose are exceptions, as these associations are not explicitly supported by City of Heroes canon. These are speculations based on the fact that Faathim looks after the safety and interest of the native humans (as described in the Sara Moore Task Force and his description), and that the Reflections are created of beings of dimensions that Rularuu has consumed (thus would serve a purpose as memory; reflections of things that were).

Purpose of Rularuu

Yet, while the purpose of the aspects relative to Rularuu are known, it is not known why Rularuu the Ravager exists. However, Rularuu's only known goal is to absorb dimensions, and to fully understand Rularuu's true raison d'être, the act of absorbing a dimension must be defined. In an attempt to define it in the most general sense, when Rularuu absorbs a dimension, he removes the target dimension from its current state and the target dimension becomes a part of Rularuu.

The true process of absorbing a dimension may be extrapolated from his invasion in 2004. It is known that Rularuu's only known goal is to absorb dimensions. Thus, when Rularuu invaded Paragon City in 2004, we must assume that the invasion must have been an attempt to absorb the dimension in which Paragon City resides. The invasion began with an attack by the Soldiers of Rularuu that attacked everything in sight. The result of a Rularuu attack appears to be the destruction of that which they attack; thus, the act of absorbing a dimension involves destroying that which resides in the target dimension.

Still, the target dimension must become a part of Rularuu according to the above definition of absorbing a dimension. If all that resides within the dimension is destroyed, then only the space of the target dimension and indestructible constructs of the target dimension would remain. However, note that Uuralur is responsible for remembering all that Rularuu witnesses by creating Reflections of all that Rularuu witnesses. Since all Reflections are a part of Rularuu, then anything that is “reflected” is a part of Rularuu. Thus, when Rularuu witnesses a dimension, that dimension becomes a part of Rularuu as a set of Reflections and is thus absorbed by Rularuu.

Assume that Rularuu absorbs all dimensions but his own (and that Rularuu cannot absorb his own dimension). When all other dimensions are absorbed, all dimensions will be reflected by Uuralur and will thus be a part of Rularuu. At this point, all is Rularuu, and Rularuu is all, and the goal of absorbing dimensions becomes impossible. While this may not be Rularuu's true purpose, given that his only known goal is to absorb dimensions, this is the only logical conclusion that can be inferred as a result of Rularuu. Thus, the coalescence of the multiverse is the ultimate form of Rularuu.

Theoretical History

After World War II, The Dream Doctor furthered his magical powers, and in a journey into his own mind, he learned that his dreams were not merely dreams, but true visions of the universe. Through this great revelation, The Dream Doctor began to ascend his own being as a force of cosmic intelligence.

Yet, as The Dream Doctor explored the metaphysical space on Earth, he became aware of another great intelligence in the world. He followed the energy to Paragon City where he continued to trace it underground. Far beneath the city, The Dream Doctor met a great sorcerer whose mystic mind rivaled his own. Together, they realized that they could explore the entire realm of existence. This sorcerer's name was Rularuu, and Rularuu and The Dream Doctor would spend years helping each other understand all that could be understood.

However, one fundamental quality separated the two minds: the vision of potential. The Dream Doctor realized that such a great power could be used to observe and predict all forces that would threaten the world, but Rularuu realized that such power could be used to become a more significant force in the universe. Aware of the true power available to him, Rularuu attacked The Dream Doctor in a grab for power. The unsuspecting Dream Doctor would be left for dead in the underground, and Rularuu would draw upon his immense power to become an omnipotent being capable of ascending the universe.

Thus, the sorcerer Rularuu became Rularuu the Ravager, and he then shed his veil of secrecy and began to assert his power over the world. The Midnight Squad rose to the occasion and battled against this fearsome being, but as they quickly discovered, he was too great to defeat outright. So, the Midnight Squad opened an impromptu portal into a dimension that they had discovered long ago known as The Shadow Shard in which to imprison Rularuu the Ravager. They succeeded, but not without a price—a portion of the Paragon City population was swallowed into the Shadow Shard with Rularuu. Of course, this price paid was not publicized, and as a unanimous judgment of the Midnight Squad's best interests, the entire organization decided that the event of Rularuu's rise to power was best kept a secret . . . that is, all but one member of the Midnight Squad approved.

Darrin Wade was genuinely interested in understanding more about Rularuu. However, he was a one-man minority in this interest. The Midnight Squad expressed some disdain over his insistence to explore this being further, as they feared that Rularuu was an evil power that was best kept imprisoned, not to mention that they didn't want to expose the collateral loss of citizens they had caused. So, beneath the notice of the Midnight Squad, Darrin began to assemble other dark magicians who were interested in this being. Many responded, and so the cult known as Rulu-shin was born. Darrin authored a text about this cult a short time after its founding, and he introduced this book into the annals of the Midnight Squad's library. Once the text was discovered, the Midnight Squad became furious with Darrin for furthering his probe into the forbidden lore of Rularuu. And so, Darrin left the Midnight Squad to seek his own path to Rularuu, and the Rulu-shin followed in the shadows behind him.

Meanwhile, in the Shadow Shard, Rularuu the Ravager brooded over his rapid defeat. Yet, he realized that his being was not altered, and that his powers were still as great as they had become before his banishment. And so, he began his effort to transcend the universe; in essence, an effort to become the universe, the sole universe of all existence.

To facilitate this conquest, Rularuu divided his sentience into a council of beings, each much like Rularuu the Ravager himself. In fact, this collection of beings was Rularuu, collectively. To drive the human victims as slaves, he created Chularn the Slave Lord; to bring work for the slaves, he created Kuularth the Scavenger; to oversee this operation, he created Ruladak the Strong; to execute the dissident humans, he created Lanaru the Mad; to care for the willing humans, he created Faathim the Kind; to observe all that can become Rularuu, he created Aloore the Watcher; and finally, to create real manifestations of all that would become Rularuu, he created Uuralur the Mirror. Many of these seven aspects of his complete being would each create hordes of creatures, each type of creature sharing a purpose with its creator aspect.

These aspects immediately went forth and ravaged as Rularuu willed. Although the Shadow Shard was intended as a prison dimension, it was not able to suppress Rularuu's vast power, and so, many aspects of Rularuu broke through the dimensional boundaries to begin the coalescence of the multiverse. A few aspects went into conflict and soon found themselves forced into slumber (Ruladak), trapped in a floating prison (Faathim), or left to rage within a zone of pure chaos (Lanaru). Over the course of the next 40 Earth years, Aloore would send forth the sentries to bring the multiverse into view of Rularuu while Ruladak's Brutes would dismantle these worlds. All the while, Kuularth would send the Natterlings to gather remains of the destruction while the Wisps commanded their activity. Lastly (and perhaps most importantly), Uuralur would create manifestations of all that Rularuu witnessed through the Sentries. Thus, thousands of dimensions would be destroyed and would simultaneously become a part of Rularuu's vast being as Reflections.

Then in 2004, Portal Corporation unwittingly opened a portal to the Shadow Shard. The Soldiers of Rularuu promptly attacked Paragon City as they once again saw access to Paragon City's dimension. Since the Midnight Squad had long faded from the public eye, and jaunts into foreign dimensions were commonplace to Portal Corporation, no communication was had between the two organizations to prevent this discovery. During this new invasion, the Midnight Squad would remain in the background while the heroes of Paragon City would rise to the occasion to stop the invasion. The Soldiers of Rularuu were prevented from absorbing Paragon City's dimension, but Portal Corporation did not destroy their portal to the Shadow Shard; instead, they sent a military and scientific expedition into the Shadow Shard to uncover the secrets that lay within.

Sometime during this sequence of events, The Dream Doctor regained consciousness, having not been killed by Rularuu after all. Seeing that his powers were still with him and that Rularuu had been imprisoned, The Dream Doctor continued to ascend reality and become a being of cosmic intelligence. To this day, no one is sure what form The Dream Doctor has taken or where he is, but in his final memoirs, he made it clear that he is still among us as he searches “dreamspace” for the answers to our future.


So there it is. I welcome discussion and criticism, and at the very least, I hope it would have at least piqued your interest. In any case, I hope that the new Cathedral of Pain will fill in a little more of Rularuu's story. One can only hope. Last but not least, thanks to ParagonWiki for having such a great deal of information available; it was invaluable to my research.

EDIT: Word choice

Why does Galactus exist?

To force Blue Steel to use a slightly harder verison of his knock-out blow?

Prodigal is not a spelling error; prodigious and prodigal are two distinct words.

Of course, I'm too lazy to go look where it was used to think about which word is correct

Prodigious would be correct. Prodigal would be something that is wasteful - the "prodigal son" was the one that blew his inheritance partying.

I personally would probably have said "immense" power instead.

The writeup is interesting. Something bugs me about it, but it's been long enough since I've looked into the Ruularu/Shadow Shard lore that I can't put my finger on what (or if it's based simply on remembering something wrong.)

Edit: I'd put in links to the source of specific information, as well. I don't recall the "Ruularu was a sorcerer the dream doctor found" bit, for instance. And IIRC one of the books in the Midnighter Club has some bearing on Ruularu, or is hinted at it (cutting off a piece of his consciousness.) Ahh, here -
I end up reading that more as Ruularu being an "alternate dimension, could-have-been" of the Dream Doctor.

Plus, as far as the "council" mentioned,

To me this reads less as a created "being" and more as having forced itself into existence (something seen here and there in other myths - an idea portrayed with will giving itself shape as a godling.) But again, that's my read of it, and I may be piecing it together differently and missing or misremembering some info.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Thanks, Ironik. I might shoot Durakken a PM, but I'm not sure this is all concrete enough yet. Also, you're right about "counsel" needing to be "council," looks like I missed it in my revisions. "Prodigal," however, seemed appropriate in that my theory suggests that his power was newfound and very great, and he unleashed it in a blatantly extravagant manner. I might be able to use a better choice of words there, though.

I was working on an AE arc for this, but the information is expressed more completely like this, I felt, although I may finish it in the near future.

As for your concerns about inconsistencies, let me try to explain. I believe that Rularuu was intended to be a prisoner in the Shadow Shard, but he is not really held captive within. The Midnight Squad may have thought that the Shadow Shard would be sufficient to banish him, but given how quickly they had to react to his sudden and unexpected attack, they had no way of knowing that Rularuu was too great for dimensional imprisonment; they knew no better at the time.

Also, I doubt a being that is capable of consuming entire dimensions really needs Portal technology.

As for not seeing Rularuu in other dimensions, I believe that it's just a matter of chance. It's not really that Rularuu can't get to our dimension, it's simply that he didn't. For a being whose only purpose is to consume dimensions, what makes Paragon City's dimension so special? What makes any dimension special? How fast can he consume dimensions? What is the topology of the multiverse? We don't know his motives for choosing dimensions, nor should we assume any motives for consuming any particular dimension.

As for coming back to Paragon City's dimension, I believe it was simply a matter of Portal Corporation opening a portal to the Shadow Shard, at which point the Sentries saw the opening and attempted to consume our dimension, strictly according to their purpose.

In other words, assume that Rularuu is truly imprisoned and cannot consume dimensions while in the Shadow Shard. Thus, to have "absorbed thousands of dimensions" according to his description, he would have had to have consumed those many dimensions before his imprisonment. If he had invaded so much, then it is still possible that Portal Corporation would have seen evidence of Rularuu in other dimensions. Also, for a being possessed of great intellect and that "knows all the tricks" according to his description, then why would he choose to invade a dimension as a single being at a location where he would face the greatest opposition (a point made in an old Rularuu thread by another user, Samuel_Tow)? It just doesn't add up to me.

So it still stands, in my belief, that Rularuu began consuming dimensions after his supposed "imprisonment" and not sooner. I could simply be wrong, but that's why I labeled it a theory. I do appreciate the feedback, though.

I heavily considered a works cited, but as a forum post, I opted to simply answer questions and give references as they're needed. As far as the idea of Rularuu being a sorcerer, that is a speculation on my part not supported by canon. I speculate that he was once a sorcerer being that The Dream Doctor's memoir suggests that he was once human and a counterpart of The Dream Doctor. The memoir that your quoted suggests that there was indeed a close relationship between Rularuu and The Dream Doctor, but I don't believe that the memoir necessarily implies that Rularuu is a fragment of The Dream Doctor's consciousness. The entire memoir follows:

Note that his mention of Rularuu and his mention of having "shaved off a piece of himself" are in two separate paragraphs, and that Rularuu is only mentioned in the first paragraph, not as the subject of the paragraph. They may be related, but I don't believe that the connection between the statements is strong enough to suggest it.

The memoir is very cryptic and could be interpreted in any number of ways, so I don't believe that there can be any one true meaning behind it.

As far as the idea of Lanaru having forced himself into existence, I'm not so sure that is the case. In part of the souvenir received from Faathim the Kind's task force, it tells of Lanaru being a slave to Rularuu.

Thus, it suggests that Lanaru was separate from Rularuu and worked as an executioner, and that Lanaru built himself a palace. In my belief, this suggests that Lanaru was already a separate being but became angry and severed his association with Rularuu. Again, I could be wrong. It's details like this that weren't explained well enough in canon; I hope Issue 18 fills in some of these gaps.


I'm glad to see some discussion going on, though. There's just too much interesting lore surrounding Rularuu and the Shadow Shard to let it fade away.

It could be either. What it does imply is that Rularuu is NOT a dimension-devouring space-god, unless the Dream Doctor has a very high opinion of himself, and everything that is said about him in game suggests that he is quite humble for someone of his implied abilities.

Again, it could be both. Rularuu is stark raving mad. He could have been unable to contain his rage, and subconsciously willed it to manifest as a separate aspect. In a simplified sense, it's multiple personality disorder, in which, at least in fictional portrayals, the main personality subconsciously creates the others, but the others are self-aware. The angry one could very well believe he created himself because he no longer wanted to be part of a guy who allowed himself to be locked up.

Writing actual missions around the lore (canon, speculation, or made up) is difficult, I agree. You have to give the player interesting ways to get all the exposition, and then there are many players who would avoid the arc just because it would necessitate using a difficult enemy group.

The Rularuu try to get it in Quaterfield's abomination of a TF. We're not supposed to let them.

According to your theory, our dimension is special because he is from here. Even in canon, he was imprisoned by people from our dimension. Revenge.

The fact that he can't is again implied in Quaterfield's TF.

If he had consumed them before his imprisonment, they would have been gone before Portal Corp existed. They never say what "consume" means. Does he eat everything in the whole entire universe? Does he just take all the good stuff? All we know is that it's bad. Cue Galactus comparisons.

Let's assume his "consuming" a dimension renders the Earth completely uninhabitable, if it's even there anymore. What does Portal Corp do with dimensions that we can't explore? We are never told. What about a dimension where they find a big expanse of nothing where our solar system would be? That is assuming that the consumed dimensions don't just wink out of existence, in which case Portal Corp would never find them because they don't exist.

Ok, that's all fine and good if he's been eating dimensions for a very long time. They were gone before we knew to look for them. But if he is still snacking away in his imprisonment....how many dimensions have we catalogued? Far more than we ever see in game. Whether any of those dimensions would be statistically likely to just suddenly go poof is of course dependent on the number of dimensions out there, but the law of comic-book probability skews the odds of it happening.

Again, revenge. Also, arrogance.

He is and he isn't. They are all separate beings, but they are all Rularuu. He's kinda like the Borg that way.

In a way, the fact that he separates himself like that lends credence to the theory that he was once human. He has god-like power, but his mind just couldn't handle it, so it fragmented itself into multiple aspects, each with more limited power, each with more limited responsibilities, but all ultimately part of the whole. What does a mad god need with kindness? Why would a mad god essentially take pictures of his dinner (the Reflections)? Wouldn't a being of such power be above such petty emotions as anger, pity, and regret?

I still think he is far, far older than the Dream Doctor. I think the quote in the Midnight Club could refer to the fact that he started out much like the Dream Doctor, as a very powerful meta-human able to transcend many of the same limitations, but went too far, went mad, and turned into what he is. The Dream Doctor could be using him as an example of what not to do.

Shoot, you're right. In my eagerness to complete this theory, I overlooked Dr. Q. Although it punches some holes in my theory, it presents an interesting contradiction in Rularuu's abilities.

If Rularuu needs portal technology to travel across dimensional boundaries, then how was he able to invade our dimension in the 1960s, and how were his minions able to invade through portals in 2004? If he requires portal technology to do so, then we must assume that he had it then. However, why do the Rularuu need to build portals (according to Dr. Q) if they already had the ability to travel across dimensional boundaries using portal technology they already had access to?

It seems contradictory to believe that Rularuu used portals but doesn't have access to them, not based on my theory, but based on these events. Perhaps he once had access to it but no longer does, but there is no evidence of this in the lore.

It's true that we don't know exactly what it means for Rularuu to "consume" a dimension. My attempt at a definition is very general, although I theorize that destruction of that dimension is part of the process if his invasion in 2004 was an attempt to consume our dimension. Since his only known goal is to consume dimensions, it can be inferred that this was the case. However, the beauty of inference is that all of your premises can be true but the conclusion is still false. I could be wrong. He could be out for revenge. Who knows for sure? Only the devs (if they do have all of these details worked out, which I sometimes doubt).

Statistically, Portal Corporation might have witnessed a dimension both before and after its consumption, but whether they did or not is anyone's guess.

I agree that Rularuu is a collective being. My theory suggests that he strives to expand his collective to include all reality, assimilating everything as a Reflection until all has become Rularuu.

His apparent emotions are something of a mystery. Intuition suggests that a being of his power and magnitude wouldn't need them, but his aspects embody many different emotions. Perhaps The Dream Doctor was right in that part of him is still human.

The reason I theorized that The Dream Doctor had known Rularuu before his ascension is that The Dream Doctor notes in his memoir that part of him is still human and ponders the same about Rularuu. This suggests that The Dream Doctor knows that Rularuu was once human. Unless The Dream Doctor can see into the past, he wouldn't know this unless he had known Rularuu when he was human.

Exposition is the hardest, in my experience. It's a fine balance to tell a story through missions without resorting to just typing up a bunch of clues full of bland information or having excessively blatant dialogue. Challenging, but kinda fun once you get in the groove. Also, trying to promote soloability while being tempted to include the Soldiers of Rularuu...yeah, not so easy.

Although this could be possible, I refuse to believe it, no offense. I would be devastated if an interesting concept such as Rularuu would turn out to be just some plain ol' big bad whose only purpose is to act as a simple plot device just to give heroes another reason to exercise their powers. I don't think I could cope with that.

Ha! It's no surprise that /SR Scrappers hate those cheating eyeballs. Sentries can see through all stealth and any defense...but can they see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?