I have been to the Guild of Writers in Uru and here to read what you are all about. My impression is that you all want really bad to write Ages all explorers would enjoy. I give my idea freely away to those of you that want to invoke passion in, and add majesty to what you create. It's either a good start or not, you decide. Run or drop, your choice.
Aside: This was posted on MOUL forum Christmas day and recieved ONE (1) post that I answered. Lot's of looks, no comments. There may be a clue in that.
The Post 'What if an emissary comes?'
People, I decided to add an idea in regards to explorer driven content. It doesn't actually fit the threads already there 'cause pretty much all the 'can do can't do' talk has been said and is still being bantered about.
My input is this. With two examples, the Cate and Marie slapfest and the Stolen artifacts drama being quite well done, you have to compare them to the 'Yeesha shows up in K'veer with the Bahro' segment. It really does blow the other two away. Not because of anything Cyan versus Explorer content but because of scale, impact. You want to do great stories, think big and dream bigger and add a lot of humanity and majesty along the way.
hence the idea that follows;
ahrotahntee- outworlder, beast people (Bahro), the least.
Terahnee -part of the same origin as D'ni.
The D'ni Desk reference says the 'people' found in Ages the D'ni wrote were cruelly enslaved. Nothing found, to this point, suggests they were all 'beastly looking' as we see the bahro in MOUL.
---I submit that, through time, Yeesha has accepted and mentored an ahrotahntee, an outworlder, as her emissary, that lived in an Age that the D'ni did not try to escape to, and was spared the plague that was set loose and followed the D'ni people and ruined Terahnee.
In any case, she, yes a young woman, who has the same heart for her people as Yeesha does the D'ni, accepts and believes in 'the dream' and understands 'Find a Way, Make a Home', and yet is not so mystical and prophetic as Yeesha yet has a very good sense of the humanity of the D'ni people and is eager to bring that back into the lives of the new D'ni inhabitants (Explorers).
This emissary, let's call her Trie'Lahnay (Tree LAH,nay) comes from Averone. She's is one of the children that were tutored by the returning Merrim, and accompanied later by her daughter Anna, who were helping Atrus and Catherine in the rebuilding of D'ni, after Atrus sealed the book between D'ni and Terahnee.
Her purpose in D'ni, as she has learned, was for rebuilding the culture within, establishing Yeesha's vision of the Great Tree in the hearts and minds of new inhabitants (Explorers). Those that are coming to find a way, make a home, while others (DRC), who were tasked with the rebuilding of the city and the Ages of the D'ni, are busy and secretive about their task.
Included with Yeesha's tutoring of all things D'ni,Trie'Lahnee learned the art of writing. She practiced and practiced, wrote and re-wrote a single age strictly as her new home that she named Valishay.
Valishay, is a deeply forested land with rolling hills, lakes, great rock outcroppings, vast cloud studded skies, seems to be one magnificent valley. There are finely set, wide stone paths that meander over the land, near the waters and the base of the rocky buttes. They connect grass to forest as they rise and fall over the low hills. Certainly great care was taken in the formation of the stone and it's setting to have such a firm unbroken ribbon set before the traveller. As the rocky cliffs are more closely examined, some are found to have crevices that split their exposed face from earth to sky. It seems as though the entire land was struck a blow by some cosmic hammer. The light glimmers back from the stone in an amazing range of colors from blue and light green, to red, milky white and black. Some of the breaks in the cliff faces are blocked to exploration from the valley floor by large boulders that have fallen in from the great high walls on either side.
Investigation of another brings one to a narrow path in the split, soft underfoot, with water trickling down the slop towards one of the lakes, that leads deeper and gently upward into a large, very irregular pear shaped canyon. At the large roughly circular end there is a modestly large building. There are arched niches on two levels of the face of the canyon wall. Many worn stone steps lead up to connect the two levels. Each level is set back, as on a shelf, such that the canyon wall above is a protection for the level below. the shelf itself is a grand wide sunny promenade that weaves the darkened arches together. The arches have heavy wooden doors to the residences built deep within the wall of the canyon. The Valishan mark is every where, like a crest of the great craftsman that worked the stone and the wood. The wood must come from the immense forests of the land. Forests of cedar and fir and various hardwoods. Skilled jewelers must have been counted among the Valishayans also. Pieces are found in variuos unique designs that turn the colors of the rock around them into glistening gems.
Some are necklaces, some for wrist and even ankles. Some look more masculine, as they resemble armbands.
The area of land above the canyon home is approachable from four stone staircases that pause on four covered landings. The land above is open as far as the horizon. The forests are now below the traveler and it is a sea of green that meets the eye.
A small amount of time spent moving southeast reveals that this land is bordered by a great sea, much more exploration is necessary. ----
REF. lazurite(blue), olivine(Light Green, peridot), Black Quartz, spinel (red), Granite and Flint and Shale.
Lazurite is the blue component of a decorative rock Lapis Lazuli, which is a Lazurite-Calcite-Pyrite rock.
This is but a start, meager though it is.
This story is not only a task for the Guild of Writers for they write the Ages. They can write the Age of Valishay. This is also for the explorers, YOU, the storytellers, that are writers, and historians, to make sure the story is plausible through the history that is set already. The explorers who are linguists to verify the D'ni terminology used is always correct according to the various dictionaries, desk references and the Cyan Language.
I am none of these, I am an explorer who is a discoverer, not involved in conversations about doing this, writing that but what about the cyanists restrictions, both copywrite and legal. I don't know what they are, Cyan does.
Cyan has the people that determine all this already. Let them go to work as this story is developed, work in partnership with you, feed back what works and what doesn't. Cooperative effort if that's possible but an Explorer story. Once it develops far enough and is good enough for them to accept, maybe then they can build an Age where this new emissary comes from (Averone), and we can link there and meet new people like us but that are ahrotahntee, Cyanists, trained for this pupose, ex ResEng's ? Or how about some of you, You that can remain 'In Character' so well the rest of us can't even begin to compete. I even know one or two of you maybe.
'Find a way, Make a Home';
Yeesha's mother had dreams of a desert bird. The desert bird dreams the tree will grow again. The great Tree, growing again as in Terokh Jeruth "Tree of Possibility" but New, nee " new, fresh. The Bahro may need to have 'the Arch' for their home. only part of which is open to the explorers. Other parts of the city must be opened for the increase in population from other ages. The DRC again. This involves the Guild of Maintainers get involved sooner than they would
by waiting on New Ages to be written. We must learn D'ni or teach the outworlders our language. Brand new path for the Guild of Linguists eh? The bahro are more like 'beasts' and may require a few explorers with special behavioral and linguistic abilities to learn their body language and what is meant by their 'screeches' and talk to them. Maybe that's best left to Yeesha alone.
The creative genius in YOU decides all of the answers to this and much more.
This all requires a firm committment, a strong leader, with the skill to keep all parts together AND moving coherently, AND a great team, not in size but in love with the story, in love with all things D'ni and the Uru they dream of having.
Let the story unfold, then Cyan and/or the Writers can work on the Ages.
I leave it to you then, My hands are off. You with great imagination, great writing and storyboard skills. Character builders, dreamers, dream builders et al. Have Passion. Create Majesty.
I have no idea how I can help you any more than this. I don't recognize any skills that I may have in this matter other than the creativeness to come up with this much, only to give it away.
Disclaimer start..
All D'ni references and D'ni names are copywrite Cyan Worlds inc. The story line developed so far took a couple of hours reading and studying the information available in the D'ni Desk Reference website with no foreknowledge of any of it when I started.
In all things Myst, D'ni, Uru, I am a NOOB. But I get the dream, I get Rand's and Robin's effort at achieving majesty. And that majesty is there in Myst, D'ni and Uru.
Disclaimer end.
All I want is ownership of the names Trie'Lahnay ,Valishay, Valishayan, should they be used. If not then I reserve the right to keep them for myself, to be used or not, but my choice explicitly.
Go have fun peeps. Happy 2008. Thank You.
Guild of Writers
