Linking Book "rules"

[D'Lanor]

True however there is still some debate whether that was supposed to be in Gahreesen or another Age, given the linking mechanism used to get there wasn't the usual D'ni fare.

The link back was by book though.

[GPNMilano]

These should probably be put on the Wiki, to help future writers but, these are the main rules of linking as I understand them, and how they're related to us. (This is just my opinion based on RAWA's rules of linking and how they're applied to Fan Created Ages.)

1. You cannot link to another area of an age, from within that age. (this is a rule that, cannon wise, has only been broken by Yeesha, having learned from the Bahro, and the Bahro who can link at will for reasons we do not yet know. An exception to this is the Great Zero book in the hoods, which was placed there by Yeesha (or at least has her mandala, and thus is left in a grey area)

2. Once a linking book has been written to an age, the descriptive book for that age cannot be changed. The D'ni were big on this rule, and breaking it was a huge no no. It throws the links to that age off balance. In Doc Brown's own words "The results of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's a worse case scenario. The destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy." Obviously OOC we're going to make changes to an age after its release, so its important to remember that any such changes are a result of our own work within that age, and not changes in the descriptive book (IE, you want to add a building after you've released the age. You built the building, you didn't change the book to make it be there. OR someone else built the building, if your age has inhabitants. The weather or time of day changes, are environmental affects of that age.

3. Number 2 leads into this one. No writing of man made structures into an age. The D'ni were big on this one too. Their buildings they built, the ones they didn't build, the inhabitants of that age did. Simple as that.

4. An age's inhabitants are not written by the writer. (IE, you wrote the descriptive and linking book, you didn't write about the inhabitants of the age, as that's far too specific, even Atrus didn't do that, all of the ages that are inhabited were there before you wrote a book to link there, you just made a link to that age. Since we can link to any amount of worlds we want to of course, they could all be inhabited, or none of them can. You can make them whatever you want, just as you establish that they were there before you got there.

5. No Time Travel. This was a thing laied out by Cyan for the Grower alone, and was what Kadish was out to prove with Ahnonay, that he was the Grower. The D'ni couldn't link to the past or future of an age, neither can we. But, since an age can have a wide array of anomalies, time can flow differently in one age than another (IE, day can become night very quickly, as long as you make sure to point out somewhere either visually or in a book, a reason for this. IE a short day night cycle, etc.)

That's the five main ones I believe.

[Trylon]

Maybe it's good to distinguish these rules into limitations (limits of what we can physically do with the art) and (man-imposed) restrictions (what the D'ni or we thought/think one should never do).

E.g. "You can't change a descriptive book after you linked to it..." was a D'ni restriction, not a limitation.
- In Riven, Atrus has been shown to change the descriptive book
- In the Book of Ti'ana Aitrus changed a descriptive book.
- In the Book of Atrus, both Ti'ana and Gehn change a descriptive book after it has been written.

Changing a descriptive book should not be done - since according to the limitations, it needs to be very very very carefully done, because on major changes it shifts the link to another instance that matches the book better, and on minor changes it actually affects the age to which the current link has been established.

IC it would be admissible to link into an age regularly during the writing process, as long as the link-shifting quality of changing a descriptive book is taken into account. (Though it would be a messy process, as any stuff left in an instance would be left inaccessible after the link shifted)
It would also be admissible to "show" experiments with careful changes to the descriptive book - as long as the intricacies of the process would be emphasised.
It would not be admissible to treat changing a descriptive book as commonplace, or to make it seem easy.

As to writing in man-made objects - it also is a restriction, because the limitations make it unpredictable and near-impossible to control.
The D'ni had it as a rule not to do this, because the process could not be controlled very well. Atrus' example of Stoneship showed us what could happen when one tries to do it anyway. This should also be something that should be considered off-limits for commonplace use. However, IC'ly controlled experiments showing the problems with it (or flukes in an age) should be admissible.

Those are my few cents of input.

[Tweek]

True however there is still some debate whether that was supposed to be in Gahreesen or another Age, given the linking mechanism used to get there wasn't the usual D'ni fare.

The link back was by book though.

Ah ha! Yes, that it was. I had forgotten about that thanks.

[Nadnerb]

Posting for agreement with Trylon. I think that only 1, 4, and 5 should be considered hard and fast rules for writers. The inability intra-age link is generally accepted to be a physical limitation of the book method of linking, and time travel is one of those things that only happens by either a 1 in a gazillion random chance, or by virtue of being the grower, so we can't expect any writer to do it. We can, however, expect them to try, in which case we would simply follow the rules of linking whereby the link leads to a place matching the description, but not a particular instance that would allow the link to be considered time travel.

2 and 3 would be "more like 'guidelines'", meaning that we consider them possible, but must account for the consequences of attempting to do so, such as random merging of pieces of age, and general instability. Also, the only reason I'm keeping #4 as an actual rule is that we have no canon precedent for what the consequences of attempting to write inhabitants would be.

[GPNMilano]

2 and 3 were both rules the D'ni held. For us they can be seen as Guidelines, but for them they were rules. (Number 2, was something Gehn taught Atrus, and we learn of course why that is because of Channelwood. The D'ni's structures in their ages were generally ones they themselves constructed. Shomat Story actually brings this up a bit. The structures in the Shomat's gardens were constructed by D'ni architects, not writers. Atrus eventually mastered the ability to write a structure into an age, by altering its descriptive book, as he did with Spire and Haven (making the linking chambers etc) and Catherine was able to alter the descriptive book for Riven placing the daggers on it. But this, so far according to canon, was more of a family trait of Atrus' rather than of the D'ni as a whole.

Rule number 3 was also a rule held firmly by the D'ni, but that was later, again, broken by Atrus and his family. The D'ni felt that changing a descriptive book, after it had been written, could potentially, in best case scenario, simply cause the link to jump to a new age on the Tree (Making the already written linking books to that age no longer effective) and in worst case scenario, destroy that age entirely. (As what happened with Gehn's age of 37. He wrote and rewrote it so much it caused instabilities in the age that nearly brought it to the brink of destruction, and in trying to correct those instabilities, he caused the link to finally jump to a nearly identical new age (maybe even an instance) in which the inhabitants had no knowledge of Gehn or Atrus. Overtime though, as we learned from Atrus' family, it is possible to alter a descriptive book enough that it doesn't damage the age, nor force its link. But it takes a high level of skill to do so, and IC none of us should be able to do it yet.

Number 4 was such a hard rule in D'ni that if an age was actually found that had inhabitants on it, the book was to be burned, as the D'ni felt that an age, if it was inhabited by sentient life upon their arrival, was not their age, that it belonged to the inhabitants of it, and the link to it was to be severed. Which is why few D'ni ages had actual intelligent life on it. The story of Shomat explains this rule, and how the D'ni felt about breaking it. An ages inhabitants are already there, we don't create them, just like we don't "create" anything else we write in an IC sense. We're only making links to the worlds, not the worlds and their inhabitants themselves, but we still must treat them as simply a by product of the naturalness of that age.

[Tweek]

Number 4 was such a hard rule in D'ni that if an age was actually found that had inhabitants on it, the book was to be burned, as the D'ni felt that an age, if it was inhabited by sentient life upon their arrival, was not their age, that it belonged to the inhabitants of it, and the link to it was to be severed. Which is why few D'ni ages had actual intelligent life on it. The story of Shomat explains this rule, and how the D'ni felt about breaking it. An ages inhabitants are already there, we don't create them, just like we don't "create" anything else we write in an IC sense. We're only making links to the worlds, not the worlds and their inhabitants themselves, but we still must treat them as simply a by product of the naturalness of that age.

The D'ni dealt heavily with Ages with inhabitants in it, from Kadish's Gallery of outsider art, to the Pento and Mee Dis (sp?) War, along with other trading. Even the Age that the ruling Guild Council used has a village of natives in it.

I assume your post is based upon Shomat's Story, which kinda goes against the grain of what is already established about D'ni. There are 2 conclusions I can draw from this.

1. When Shomat was in power it was a rule that the D'ni did not deal with inhabited Ages, a rule that was later revoked.
2. It was a rule that was applied to Ages that were to be for Royalty.

[GPNMilano]

Number 4 was such a hard rule in D'ni that if an age was actually found that had inhabitants on it, the book was to be burned, as the D'ni felt that an age, if it was inhabited by sentient life upon their arrival, was not their age, that it belonged to the inhabitants of it, and the link to it was to be severed. Which is why few D'ni ages had actual intelligent life on it. The story of Shomat explains this rule, and how the D'ni felt about breaking it. An ages inhabitants are already there, we don't create them, just like we don't "create" anything else we write in an IC sense. We're only making links to the worlds, not the worlds and their inhabitants themselves, but we still must treat them as simply a by product of the naturalness of that age.

The D'ni dealt heavily with Ages with inhabitants in it, from Kadish's Gallery of outsider art, to the Pento and Mee Dis (sp?) War, along with other trading. Even the Age that the ruling Guild Council used has a village of natives in it.

I assume your post is based upon Shomat's Story, which kinda goes against the grain of what is already established about D'ni. There are 2 conclusions I can draw from this.

1. When Shomat was in power it was a rule that the D'ni did not deal with inhabited Ages, a rule that was later revoked.
2. It was a rule that was applied to Ages that were to be for Royalty.

Or the third conclusion, that each of those times can be explained away like this.

The rule became more and more laxed following Shomat's rule. And the slipping enforcement of the rule caused things like the Pento wars and Mee-Dis War to happen. As a result, the law was enforced more and more, until the Anna came to D'ni where it was so strongly held that the council decided she could remain in D'ni but never return home. In that they were afraid she would tell others. Obviously from this it's easy to see that the Guild Council held firmly to their belief that Outsiders and D'ni should not mix. But exceptions were made for Anna, which eventually led to the downfall of D'ni as a whole. But for the most part the idea of seperation of D'ni and Non-D'ni was held throughout the reign of both the kings and the council. Just the punishment for breaking these rules were lapsed, because of the vocal belief of part of D'ni that the inhabitants of the ages were part of D'ni culture as well.