Sirius wrote:Personally, I rather think Garternay was destroyed. It is clear (well, according to the DRC) that its sun was dying (Myst books+black journal on Tokotah building+more).
It would be nice to see an Age in which Ronay lived (not just a family Age), but I think creating an Age in which they fled would be more appropriate (something like Tehranee, just not as big). This would also fit with RAWa's rules for writing, if you want the Age to be on MOUL.
Before I'm going to continue I wish to preface this post by saying I agree with Sirius on this one. I think the best thing for an age like this would be to create another age that the D'ni fled to, and not Garternay, as it messes up the canon considerably in several ways (which I'll outline below).
I want to point out that I'm not trying to discourage anyone from pursuing whatever age that they want to pursue. You're more than welcome to ignore everything I say and do what you want/feel is right. I just want to put in my two cents and explain why it may not be a great idea to pursue something that in the end will just confuse/annoy players like me who are sticklers for canon like myself. (I should also point out that there's been more than a few times as well that I've screwed up and violated a part of the canon. Or that my own solutions to violations of canon were not satisfactory enough for others. I'm not perfect when it comes to keeping all the stuff in check either.)
Just a quick idea that worths mentionning:
You could say your Linking book links to another version of the Age... a version in which the sun didn't die because a D'ni fixed the link (that would be ok with the theory of the Great Tree of possibilities). The problem is, how do you link to an alternative version of an Age if you don't have the original descriptive Book...
As Sirius points out, you can't create an instance of an age without the original descriptive book. Unless you're Yeesha or the Bahro in which case all the rules go out the window.
Fay wrote:That's a good idea, Perhaps they found the Garternay book and rewritten it.
There was no Garternay descriptive book to begin with. So you can't change something that never existed. The Ronay started on Garternay. It was their original homeworld. Where they discovered the Art. The only way for there to be a descriptive book for Garternay was if you rewrote the canon to say that the Ronay came from yet another empire even older and some of them settled on Garternay. This brings up a whole host of issues in it's own right.
Deledrius wrote:It is a good idea.
Consistent, and non-violating.
As I said above it violates the already well established history of the D'ni by suggesting that there was a pre-Garternay history to the D'ni when we only have minute details of Garternay to begin with.
There was only two ways to write a linking book. One required a descriptive book, one didn't.
The first way (Requiring knowledge of the descriptive book) is off the table. But it involves copying key phrases from the descriptive book to the linking book and establishing the link that way. This particular method didn't require you to be in the age you were linking to, but did require you to have more than a passing knowledge of the descriptive book. It was this method that the Maintainers used to first link into a newly written age via a linking book.
The second way simply requires you to be present within the age that the link will go to, and describe within the linking book your surroundings. This one was the most commonly used and is why we have books all around the ages leading back to the cavern. It allows links to specific places within an age, and no knowledge of the descriptive book is needed. The only drawback to it is you need to be present in the age.
Now, to Fay.
Fay, I hope you understand that I'm not trying to discourage or stymie you creatively. I welcome anyone to write new ages and I want to help as many people I can to write their own ages. However I have also learned that sometimes age projects can get out of control. Especially when you start with a grand idea like this one. My first age will probably never see the light of day because it broke so many rules about canon that I didn't even know existed at the time. (Time Travel, Interage linking and a whole host of history errors). I've often learned when starting with a story idea that it's best to hammer out the details before you get to work in blender. Figure out what you want to do, see if it would work in the context of established canon first. Then move on to the more intricate stuff. This way down the road you're not stuck with nowhere to go and the age just stagnates. I've got about 10 different areas started long before I made any stories for them and now I just don't know what to do with them.
Remember there's no reason you need to stop however. If this is something you feel like you need to pursue than go for it. You're the artist of this work, not me, so what you do is ultimately up to you and you alone. I just don't want to see your efforts wasted in the long run as it can get discouraging.