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D'Ni FAQ Who are the D'ni? Atrus, the main character of Myst, is one quarter D'ni. The D'ni were a society with the skill and technology to write books which would allow a person to link to the different worlds described in those books. The book of Myst is just one of those many books, as is Channelwood, Mechanical, Selenetic, and Stoneship. The D'ni have a rich history, and as one learns more about them it is easy to see just how much they do have to do with Myst. How long have the D'ni been around? D'ni itself spans some 10,000 years of history and millions of Ages. What is the average D'ni lifespan? The average D'ni lives about 325 Earth years. How long can a D'ni person go without food? The D'ni's food and water requirements are similar to surface dwellers. What happened to the original home of the D'ni? We have found only hints as to what exactly happened to the original home of the D'ni. The habitat was apparently on a direct path to destruction and nothing could be done to stop it. A linking book always links to the original spot in which it was written. If this is true, then how do the Myst library linking books always link you to the library on Myst even though Myst Island is assumably on a planet that rotates, within a universe, etc...i.e. the library is never in the same place in the universe? The Descriptive Books and Linking Books somehow compensate for that motion. (The Books would be pretty useless if they didn't - a planet is never in exactly the same position and orientation twice, relative to the rest of the universe.) You always link to the library, even though the continental plates are moving; the planet is rotating and revolving around its sun; the sun is moving through its galaxy; the galaxy is moving through the universe; etc. But if Atrus were to move the library, you would not link to the library at its new location, you'd link to the old location where the Book was written, which would now be a vacant lot. How did Atrus destroy the red and blue book? The D'ni manuscripts describing the story of Atrus and the final fate of the prison books only state that he destroyed the books - there is never a description of how. The usual D'ni method of destroying books was by burning them, so for the game we simply visually indicated that. Why, and how, would pages from the red and blue books come to be in the other ages of Myst? This is perhaps one of the most perplexing questions in the story of Myst. Our interpretations of the facts of the history indicate that the pages were not carried to the other ages by hand. In fact, it appears that the mechanism for distributing the pages to the other ages was built into the prison books themselves. Why are the names of the ages of Myst not written on the books you use to link to them? Linking and Descriptive books used in D'ni were usually labeled with the names of the ages that they described and/or linked to, but numerous cases have been uncovered where no names were provided, or only representational symbols were used to entitle books. Since the events described in the D'ni history of Atrus did not indicate what Atrus' books looked like, we provided our best guess in the game itself. If linking books always take you to the same place, how is it that when you first enter Myst, you're on the dock, rather than in the library? A Linking Book will always take you to the place it was written. The Linking Book you use at the beginning of the game was written at the dock (before the library was built). The other Myst Linking Books were written in the Library, so that's where they take you. Does one have to be D'ni to "create" an age? No, one does not have to be D'ni in order to create an age. This is easily proven by the fact that Anna and Catherine were able to write. If, as you say, the average lifespan of a full blooded D'ni is 325 years, then are the life expectancies of both Gehn and Atrus lessened because they are only part D'ni? Also, since Gehn is half D'ni and Artus is only a fourth, does that mean that Gehn will outlive Atrus, or will they both grow old at the same time? Life expectancies are calculated by taking a large sample of people, and averaging their ages when they died. Since Gehn and Atrus are the first beings in the D'ni record to be part human, it is impossible to accurately figure out what their lifespans will be. The sample size of two (or even four, if you count Sirrus and Achenar, being half Riven, 1/8 D'ni, 3/8 human) is simply too small to give you meaningful data. And getting that data in the first place is impossible, as there is no way to get to them to find out their ages when they die. Why is the name "Atrus" sometimes spelled "Aitrus"? "Atrus" is how Atrus spelled his name when he wrote in English, but he also knew how to pronounce his own name. Aitrus Sr. never wrote his name in English (to the best of our knowledge), so we'll never know how he would have chosen to transliterate his name. Adding the "i" to Aitrus' name - apart from making a definite distinction between grandfather and grandson - also was an attempt to literally convert his D'ni name to the English alphabet. The D'ni have a different character set than we do. They have separate characters for the "a" in "hat", the "ai" in "bait", and the "a" in "car". The character at the beginning of both their names in D'ni is a long "ai" like "bait". Why was "D'ni" spellled "Dunny" in the credits at the end of Myst? In the credits of the game, our translators attempted to over-Englishize the word by spelling it "Dunny". When writing the first book (The Book of Atrus), we decided to go with the more correct spelling (see the above question for an explanation of why "D'ni" is the correct spelling). I want more information on the D'ni language. Where can I find it? This website and Cyan's website has the most up-to-date information available to the public. Where can I learn more about the D'ni, besides what's on this page? There is more information about the D'ni, as well as Atrus, Gehn (Atrus' father) and Anna (Atrus' grandmother) in the novels Cyan has written. Most of the information here has been grabbed from the official Cyan site c/o Rawa. |