Circle of D'ni

Circle of D'ni

The Circle of D'ni is the earliest known group of Myst fans to organize for the purpose of sharing information. It began simply as "the Circle," a name which Myst fans who gathered in the Cyan chatroom (commonly known among fans as "Cyan Chat") in the mid-1990s gave themselves. Beginning with discussions about Myst and then everything released by Cyan related to the game: books, puzzles on Cyan's website, and whatever tidbits dropped on them by Cyanist, Richard Watson (RAWA), they spent hours there on a daily basis, discussing and speculating about the world of the D'ni. Some of them began role-playing and writing journals and Ages as D'ni characters.

The publication of The Book of Ti'ana in late 1996 was a major influence on the group and likely a major turning point for them. Whereas the time periods for Myst and The Book of Atrus were after the fall of D'ni and only provided a glimpse of D'ni life, The Book of Ti'ana was set during the years immediately before the fall and was detailed in its descriptions of D'ni life. This new information provided fodder for their role-playing, many of them adopting names of the characters in the book, setting up guilds, and assigning guild level titles to themselves (although the group members with these adopted names weren't necessarily in the same guild as their namesake). This role-playing would eventually evolve into the Writers of D'ni MOO.

Additionally, The Book of Ti'ana not only had several words and phrases of the D'ni language in the text, but the hardback editions also included a 58x44 cm (approx 22.8x17.3 inches) reproduction of a map with notations in D'ni lettering. This map, Aitrus' map meD'nEbretalEo (From D'ni to the Surface) OR Aitrus' Surveyor's Guild map, Relenah B'retahleeo (The Journey to the Surface), was the first D’ni document to be released to the public. This new information fed the group's interest in linguistics and, using information posted on Cyan's website and bits and pieces from RAWA, they translated the D'ni lettering, language and numerical system, but kept most of the information to themselves in private correspondence for as long as they could. The group would eventually compile an extensive dictionary and grammar book.

Circle member, Telanis (Rickard Johansson) also known as Nahvah Telanis (Master Telanis) created the fan website, Guildmaster Telanis in November, 1997. Considered to be on the cutting edge of web design in the day, the site was IC and welcomed those who "are interested in the Art, in D'ni, in the great Civilization" (the link to the form for requesting membership is labeled, "...are you a true D'ni?") and mainly contained fan fiction stories by Telanis and other members. The site also included some information about the D'ni language, but just enough to pique someone's interest and encourage them to pursue the study of it, themselves. (The site is still currently available (Guildmaster Telanis), but has also been archived to the Wayback Machine (Guildmaster Telanis).)

One member, Nalrac (Adam Carlan) created pages on his own site for The D'ni Circle chatroom and Messages and Information, but it's unclear if either were ever used.

More from Circle member, Erithan

Mentioned in Domareh's History of D'ni Linguistics

Question: Is the following quote a reference to The Riven Journals website or were there two separate sites?

"Cyan, Inc. (now Cyanworlds) created a website that provided English translations of the various D’ni texts on the map" - Domahreh (LeMont A. Nalogue), The D'Ni Student on Scribd.