#ti'ana

[shoomlah]

Some of my character/costume designs & models for the Riven remake!

When I joined Cyan last year it was primarily to figure out what the next game was going to be—I was going to letter the journals for Riven, sure, but then buckle down and focus on the company's future. But it turns out when you're a tiny indie studio, and your entire art team is swamped, and you have a ship day LOOMING in the not-so-distant future, maaaaaaybe it makes sense for Claire to stretch her concept/3D legs and fill in some gaps. 😅

(Credits to my collaborators: Cho's boots & helmet by the lovely Lance VerMeer)

[redwoodrroad]

"It's just us."

[witchklng]

actually gehn they hate you for all the atrocities, but sure keep telling yourself that it’s because of the ytram pipe frog bong

inspired by x

alternate version under the cut:

**i decided to have katran drag gehn in the actual post, but i had to include this version as well**

because nothing is funnier than gehn's own mother dunking on him

[myst6]

Ti'ana III

[veovis-of-kveer]

Veovis of K'veer

[void-critters]

This game has me in an absolute vice grip.

[witharsenicsauce]

Thank you to @brookriver for humoring my funnie meme ideas.

[mazitdynasty]

Anna ❤❤❤

[magpies-gold]

Back From Mysterium

I did a very small couple of posts before this, but Saturday at Mysterium blew my expectations out of the water, and so I decided I needed to circle back around and try again as a much bigger post.

First, foremost, and coolest - yes! I got to meet Rand Miller (bonus infamous RAWA just to the left as well)! Even better, for once in my life my social anxiety didn't turn me into a non-verbal lump and I was able to say a grand total of two full sentences and a greeting. If you know me at all, then you know that that's quite the accomplishment. Usually @timmcosplay has to do the talking for me when I inevitably choke on my own tongue, but by a quirk of fate we got separated (he wanted to get our Book of Ti'ana signed and got yoinked into a different line up from me, who wanted photo evidence) and I had no choice but to attempt to be a functional human. My theory is that I've talked to Rand's face so many times during the intro to Riven (I always talk back) that it was just second nature to say hello the second he looked at me. Genuinely, though, he's so kind and so patient and I'm stoked that he made time to meet all of us and then spend a couple hours even after that being a presenter and answering heaps of questions.

Tim may have not been with me directly, but he was still creeping in the sidelines getting photos of me getting photo'd and briefly chatting. ;)

Ultimately, we were split into three groups and everyone ran through the events of the day in a different order.

Tim and I were on Team Ytram (or Team Forg as I insisted on calling it) and had little Rivenese froggos on our badges.

After the meet and greet, we got lunch. It was simplistic fare, but the fact that we got hot dogs and Cool Ranch Doritos out back of the Cyan HQ means that they were very special hot dogs and Cool Ranch Doritos. Legendary!

And then... they actually allowed my wee goblin self and Tim to go through the iconic archway entrance and to scramble around their actual studio. I've seen pictures of the place on the internet before and knew how neat it would be to some degree, but now I know where everything is!

In no particular order....

Iconic signage and that giant honkin' Moiety dagger that Adam Savage apparently worked on?? It is truly large in person!

Costumes from Riven! Including Catherine's dress, which I remember my mom was always cooing over when I was playing the game on my clonky PC in the late 90's, and Gehn's costume, with Tim posing (and having not totally slightly held up the rest of the group by getting detail shots for cosplay purposes, no, no, he wouldn't do that....)

Art! Design sketches and THE MAP.

The infamous elevator wherein you'd better know your D'ni numbers if you want to get anywhere (I would get stuck).

And then... artifacts!

They had THE LEVER from the beginning of Riven. Did it never occur to me that the lever was a real lever? THE LEVER IS A REAL LEVER.

Plus there were goggles and books and Gehn's gun (AKA the only Game Over inducing object in Riven) and more character design sketches with actual costume fabric swatches! That last bit made Tim make high pitched glee noises, as someone who both designs and makes costumes himself.

There were presentations after all of that. Trailers, talks, a non-profit project to digitize over a hundred hours of behind the scenes footage from the making of Uru and Riven and other things, which we got a sneak peek of. They showed off a snippet of the remake of Riven. There was just so much. It was hours and hours and I was practically vi-bra-ting by the time we finally were ushered back to the bus and back to Spokane.

I will never entirely get over the fact that I was able to go see all that with my own two eyeballs. As someone who's been enamoured with the universe surrounding Myst island for the full 30 years of its existence, ever since I was 8 years old, who used to make big calligraphy posters of passages from The Book of Atrus and The Book of Ti'ana and tape them up all over Thorhild Central School whether my fellow students and teachers wanted me to or not, and who was so solidly influenced by the idea of books as literal doors to other worlds that it became a foundation for how I view my own characters and stories (namely that I'm no god, and they do have a life all their own), this is a treasured memory.

[runawaymun]

I wish there was more fantasy books with mroe feminine female main character

All the main characters who are female "don't like drsses" or "acts more like a boy" and the author tries to make them more reliable this way but I can't relate. Because I like pretty dresses and "acting" like a girl. Also theres nothing wrong with that either. A female main character can be girly while also being interesting.

Another note I wish to see more female character in fantasy books who don't fight. They can still be a strong character without needing to wield a sword. I want to relate to characters who are girly and can't fight because if I was in a fantasy world I would absolutely suck a wielding weopons lol.

There's nothing wrong with female main characters being traditionally girly and not being a fighter. Im tired of authors using the "not like other girls" trope for their female characters.

YES YES YES

The strong female character(tm) is rooted in misogyny. There's nothing wrong with female characters who present masc or pick up swords or engage in traditionally masculine activities, but it becomes a problem when it becomes a trend that in order for a woman to be strong, she must pick up a sword, fight, be outspoken/loud/brash/assertive etc. etc. etc. It becomes a problem when we pit these characters against other female characters with more traditionally feminine traits. (Favorite personal example is the way the fandom -- not necessarily GRRM but the fandom -- treats Sansa Stark vs Arya Stark and Danaerys Targaryen, and Alicent Hightower vs Rhaenyra Targaryen)

IDK you didn't ask for these but here are some recs of books & other fiction who present actually well-rounded and and awesome strong female MCs not all of these are fantasy novels but they're just personal favorites of mine.

Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine

Fairest - Gail Carson Levine

The entire everything ever that Brandon Sanderson has written. My personal favs include Navani and Shallan from Stormlight Archive.

Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (and just in general anything by Jane Austen ever)

Orlando - Virginia Woolf (and in general anything by Virginia ever)

Stardust - @neil-gaiman

A Discovery of Witches - the show, not the book. The book is kind of terrible.

Room - Emma Donoghue - both the book and the film are excellent!

Antigone - Sophocles

She Stoops to Conquer - short play by Oliver Goldsmith

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket

A Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare

Macbeth - " (strong female characters are allowed to be antagonists)

Emily's Runaway Imagination - Beverly Clearly

Ramona series of books - Beverly Clearly

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Uglies | Pretties | Specials - Scott Westerfield

Julie of the Wolves - Jean Craighead George

The myth of Inanna

Naya Nuki, shoshone girl who ran - Kenneth Thomasma

A Little Princess - Frances Hodgeson Burnett

Secret Garden - Frances Hodgeson Burnett

Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery. I'm personally fond of both the old version & the new netflix show as well as the books.

Myst: Book of Ti'ana - Rand Miller

Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell

Coraline - also @neil-gaiman

dishonorable mention on the topic of feminist fiction: Handmaid's Tale. Fuck that.

[refractedglade]

finally hung up one of our favorite possessions, a poster that came with Myst: The Book of Ti'ana

[shoomlah]

And just because I was having fun with it over on twitter:

A Bunch of My Work on Riven (2024) Alongside Comparable Riven (1997) Fanart from My Childhood

Model/materials for Gehn's costume | My middle/high school art of Gehn

Model/materials for Cho's costume | My 9th grade art of Cho

New Marvelous Designer pattern/drape for Atrus' costume | Various high school drawings of Atrus (including chibi Atrus, what a moment in time)

Concepts for Catherine's hair styling in Riven | 9th grade art of Catherine for my "Myst: The Animated Series" website on Geocities

Costume concepts for Aitrus & Ti'ana's imager recordings | Early college art of young Aitrus & Ti'ana

My model for the Gate Room beetle viewers | My own childhood Age concepts where I just inserted myself as the megalomaniacal false god figure instead of Gehn

Concept/model for the Moiety's shrine to Catherine in Tay and modular designs for Rivenese grave markers | Some of my college concepts for traditional Rivenese masks

Models for the chalkboards in the Jungle Island schoolroom to teach local Rivenese children the D'ni language | My own D'ni language notes from when I was a kid

And I'll have to do a WHOLE thread about the complexities of making all the journals for Riven, but for now:

My hand-lettered pages for the journals in Riven | My own childhood Myst journal

[redwoodrroad]

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandom: Myst Series (Video Games) Characters: Anna (Myst), Gehn (Myst), Aitrus (Myst), Original D'ni Character(s) (Myst) Words: 3,762 Summary: Excelling young Guild students finishing their first term of their studies are hand-picked by Guild Masters to speak at a recital sometime during the year. As one of these chosen few, Gehn, the infamous son of Aitrus and Ti'ana, is about to give his speech, and should things go well, he may even make a friend afterwards. For the September Mysterium prompt "Back to School."

i wrote something! just a little one-shot where Gehn and Kirin get to meet in D'ni :,)

[witchklng]

gehn meeting his 14yo son for the first time like

can’t kidnap the son you abandoned at birth if you ain’t cute

[myst6]

Ti'ana II

[veovis-of-kveer]

Post-Riven Ideas

Been thinking about what kinds of games I'd like to see from Cyan after Riven's launch in a week. Cyan mentioned at Mysterium that they'd like to make smaller more experimental games in the Myst universe partially to revive the franchise but also to avoid too much financial risk. For instance Firmament had a rough launch and stretched the company thin and many of the devs I spoke to mentioned their frustration with the project and the backlash it received. What was also mentioned to me was Cyan's interest in rekindling the magic of the early Myst games in the same way Star Wars: Andor did recently for Star Wars.

They also mentioned that a smaller more Myst-sized game or even smaller would be much less of a financial risk compared to say a massive sprawling epic like Firmament. Some ideas that were tossed around at Mysterium were: Pre-Fall D'ni Post-Fall D'ni A stylized Myst game A Myst horror game Anything involving new characters and time periods A Myst dating sim (not joking)

Here are some of the ideas I'm interested in:

A game about Veovis and his downfall featuring Anna and Aitrus. Set on K'veer and maybe some small ages. Could be either post-Fall or pre-Fall. It would allow us to explore the whole island and read his journals and explore his personal rooms and inspect his belongings. If set pre-Fall we could interact with him as a character along with Ti'ana and Aitrus and uncover his dark plot right on the eve of the Fall while delving into his not-so-subtle romantic love-triangle with the other main characters. The point is it would allow us to finally explore K'veer in its entirety. Bonus would be also remnants of Gehn's stay on the island if set post-Fall.

A game set on Releeshahn centered around Marrim. This would take place after Revelation but before Uru, roughly sometime in the mid to late 1800s. A new cast of characters with occasional Atrus and Yeesha cameos but ultimately centered around Marrim and her uncovering of the secrets of Releeshahn. Book of Marrim would be the tie-in novel for this game. This might be a bigger project since it would be set on Releeshahn and might require several years of dev time so maybe not the first thing Cyan focuses on after Riven but I know its a story Rand and RAWA had planned for a long while.

Garternay and the Exodus or alternately the origins of the Art. This could be a weird one and possibly unlikely one but it could be a really deep dive into the story of Ri'neref and the founding of D'ni or alternately the origins of the Art and how the bahro were enslaved. Did the bahro create the Art initially? How was the tablet made? Etc. I know Robyn Miller has a whole design document for a TV show pitch he did a few years back that would have focused on Garternay and from what was posted on his site and twitter we can see that Garternay was most-likely a barren scorched age in the final days of its red giant sun. There's a lot we could delve into here. We also know that Gehn's timepiece likely shows the planetary map of Garternay possibly before its sun went red giant, although this is something Gehn was told when gifted the timepiece so it's not 100% verifiable. In any case Garternay could be an interesting left field game to produce but I honestly doubt Cyan would reveal that much. Maybe if Robyn is involved.

D'ni Renaissance era. New D'ni character drama set at the height of D'ni civilization. This could be smaller game set during the height of the era of Kings during the reigns of Rakeri or Kedri or maybe one of the bad kings like Tejara or Ti'amel. I'd like to see another heavy character driven narrative but set in this peak period of D'ni civilization. Maybe the story of an exiled Writers Guild Master who's been framed for murder wanting to reconcile with his best friend who now wants revenge etc. I'd like to see more human stories about people in this universe and their personal and interpersonal struggles a la Myst/Riven/Exile with a clear goal in the game to resolve these issues.

Ok but I do really want a D'ni dating sim where you get to romance Veovis and maybe some other D'ni guild master hotties >:)