Place:Dark World

This content is a tentative addition to Hyrule Castle, and is still undergoing revision. It is not yet available to player-characters.

Believed by many to be myth, the Dark World is a twisted parallel dimension to the world inhabited by Hyruleans. Though most Hyruleans don't realize it, the world in which they live is the Light World. The two dimensions are, in a sense, two sides of the same cosmic coin. The Dark World and Light World are indeed parallel in a very literal sense of the word, as the landscape and even artificial structures are often similar in shape--where Death Mountain resides in the Light World, an almost identical mountain appears in the Dark World in the same. Kokiri Forest is similarly paralleled by a shady forest. Indeed, the entire Hyrulean continents and surrounding seas are mirrored in this bizarre sense.

However, to a Light Worlder, the Dark World is just that--dark, sinister, and dangerous. The sun itself rarely peeks beyond the dark clouds which fill the sky. Monsters and criminals run rampant across the landscape in a land devoid of law and order. What few towns are found are usually occupied by brigands and thieves, or outright ruins. A kingdom known as Lorule supposedly exists here as a parallel to Hyrule, though little more remains of it beyond a well-guarded castle parallel to Hyrule's Castle Town. Some say Ganon himself came from this realm, leaving utter evil and chaos behind as he emerged into the Light World.

Travel between the two worlds is virtually impossible with some sort of powerful magic or bizarre coincidence, though it is possible. Tales tell of adventurers finding magic portals hidden beneath heavy rocks, or hidden in the depths of caves, connecting the two worlds. Old wives' tells say children who get lost in the woods end up in the Dark World.

Whenever a native Light Worlder enters this parallel dimension, however, a strange transformation takes place. The being's body begins to reflect an aspect of that person's personality, usually of something they wish to keep hidden, often in a monstrous or bestial aspect. A courageous individual may turn into a wolf, for instance, while an innocent and pure-hearted person may become a bunny. By contrast, a bully could become a monstrous fiend, while a weak-willed boy may become naught but a pile of living slime. Presumably, a similar transformation would occur if a Dark Worlder entered the Light World. In either case, the transformation is undone if the foreigner returns to his own world. Supposedly, anyone who comes to own a mythical Moon Pearl won't be transformed at all.

Seemingly because of these transformations, creatures native to one World are rarely found in the other. The humanoids which exist in the Dark World are often monstrous figures not recognized by even the most ventured of Hyruleans.

The relationship between these two worlds and the Twilight Realm is unknown, though some sages suggest the realm of Twilight is some dimension that exists between the two--while others perpetuate it is completely unrelated.