DT: The Making
Off
Dragon Tears was first conceptualised when
Iyru was sitting in class, one Spring Monday morning. She was rather bored
with the class, it being micro-biology and thus started drawing a map.
Yes, THE map, it was that map that started the whole project.
She started thinking that the map
might be the start of a great story she could send in to her sister Enid.
Lately her wacky psychology student sister had been writing a lot of alien
stories and she thought she could make something equally sf-y.
Now she had this great map, but it was rather empty. Drawing circles on
it, Iyru started dividing her map areas with different climates, just like
a real planet. She named the areas with terms that were readily available,
the words her teacher was speaking. At this time she named:
| *Ankyla
Forest: *Fylaris Mountains: *Arachnida Ice: *Arawn Swamp: |
??? ??? spider-like creatures, ticks and lice ??? |
By this time, Iyru’s drawing had
gotten the attention of her friends around her. They were all very
intrigued since microbiology isn’t all that interesting on a Monday
morning. Eagerly telling them about her map, Iyru started to conceive the
different climates, and her friends started to say where they wanted to
live.
One of them, Iyru’s best friend, Veronique, wanted to live in the left
leg of the M-shape, not knowing it was desert area. When Iyru told her,
Vero answered: "I can take desert." and Iyru immediately named
the area after her, thus making ‘Veryi Desert’.
Later that day, in Anatomic
Studies, Iyru started to think of a good storyline. At that time there
were 4 persona involved: a biologist, a bard, a military man and a hippy
woman. The story started to get more complex as the lesson progressed and
slowly Iyru started to realise that maybe this story was getting too good
to be just a story.
The lesson ended and on her way home, by train, she was still working out
the storyline and the characters. Knowing her sister Enid, she would not
need much urging to draw her a few sets of dragons. And indeed, Enid was
immediately taken by the idea.
That same night Iyru and Enid divided the two couples among themselves,
Iyru taking the lead biologist and the bard, leaving Enid with the
military man and the hippy. Enid, wasn’t too happy about that and
decided to turn the hippy into a psychologist to better suit her
personality. They also decided on names. Iyru, named after her cat and
Oisin (a god of music in pagan religion), Enid and Tasrin (taken because
it resembled the Tasmanian Devil, one of Enid’s favourite cartoon
figures).
Over the next days the map was inked and the remaining areas were named by
Enid who did not really wish to continue the trend of naming them after
icky little parasites. In stead she turned to her old love of naming
landscapes after their feel and traits.
| *Deadly Mountains: *Whispering Plains: |
Iyru just had to have deadly
mountains, though they did move over time across the map. -- |
Of course she also reverted to their native language, Dutch, to name a few areas:
| *Hoorn Cliffs:
*Eiken Forest: *Sparen Forest: |
Ivory Cliffs Oak Forest Pine Forest |
And if that wasn’t enough she convinced her sister to name the ocean-island after their doggies’ surname: Cohuchi. Their first names also feature as Cyatri’s moons: Kayli and Chans. But those were added later.
At this point in time we started
working on the website. The layout (in jade, gold and black), with it’s
lenses and frames proved to be a real challenge. Not only did Enid and
Iyru not agree on the colours, they also did not want to budge on their
own view.
But that only meant the two of them were really excited about the project.
It was also at this time that they turned to their friends for advice.
Enid showed her best friend Mieke the map, who in turn got excited as
well. Since Veronique had gotten her own area, Enid decided her best
friend deserved something similar.
A small, star-shaped island was drawn on the map and dubbed ‘Kunmie’
(the first three letters of both Mieke's Sirname and First name combined) and a small role in the story was created for a hermit on said isle (how
different that would turn out to be, but I’m rushing ahead of the facts).
Finally, after a week of arguing
about the background of the frames they decided to go for the stylish
black, with the green and gold staying, though slightly adjusted to suit
Iyru’s taste, after all she had made the world and used her veto.
Time progressed and exam-season
came upon our two creative sisters. During this time most of the images
were drawn for what was then believed would be the 11 areas with AIDENs. At
this point in time there was no talk yet of rares, though it was
hoped by Iyru that they would come at some point in time.
In July, when the exams were behind them, the two sisters started to think
about expanding the crew of Cyatri. During the exams they had come to the
conclusion that 4 people would not suffice to populate a whole new world.
11 new characters were created and given the rank of lieutenant. However,
that meant there were 15 characters to be written and both of them wanted
to relieve the stress by bringing in their best friend.
Iyru’s best friend Veronique opted out of the project, but did get her
own searchrider later on, to honour her as a friend. The undoubtedly
unique elf Vay Marimanelle will forever remind everyone of that great
person.
An Australian online friend of
theirs, had also been told about DT and he was wildly enthusiast (to say
the least). He was more than happy to accept a character named and
modelled after him. Knux de Econa, Iyru’s assistant with a love for
knowledge and libraries was born. He was awarded Kethoda Isle, to take
care of the abandoned dragons, following the tradition that every new
member should get an island.
Enid’s best friend however would get closely involved in the project.
She spend a few days at the home of the sisters
while their parents were on vacation (Sleepover!). In this time the pets were drawn and
the first two parts of the history were started. Those first two parts
were written within 2 hours, outside on the porch on Iyru’s laptop. All
in all that was one great day, the possibilities were endless and the
three worked together perfectly, completing each other's ideas. Finally
they locked the final storyline for the history in a document only one
page long.
Soon the hermit on Kunmie isle grew
to one of the most crucial, complex characters in the entire history,
Fairlight was created after the image of Mieke and proved to be the favourite of more than one of
what would become the final 4 founders of DT.
Soon after, namely on July 14th
2004,
DT was uploaded for the first time. There were many missing pages, stories
and links, but all the pages were there and during the following month Iyru and Enid worked on the little texts on the area pages and AIDENs, the
pets and the descriptions of lieutenants, the info pages and the images.
Meanwhile there was also the Bunny Run that took up a lot of Enid’s
time. The history that was supposed to be written during summer vacation
was postponed and postponed, until September of the same year when the
bunny run finally hatched.
Slowly, part by part did they upload
the history, the final part seeing the light of the world wide web on
December 25th, Christmas. As the story progressed it got funnier. The whole story reads
as if it was written from a point of view that doesn’t really believe
what is happening. It is mostly cliché stuck upon cliché with a clear
feminist view since three of the four founders are women. But it works and
is probably the best story either of them has ever written.
Somewhere in October, visiting their grandparents, Iyru and Enid started doodling on a piece of paper. One of their doodles was a small bat with a cute teeth sticking out. This critter was mascot material, but remained unnamed and unappreciated till the final days before DT’s opening due to lack of time to work on Quaihd and his lair.
Finally, on December 25th, 2004, DT was announced open to the public. On December 26th, the last missing parts, like this making off, were added to the site and DT was finally completed.
- The DT Team -
Funny Facts:
| * * * * * * * * * |
Never say that school is worthless, it’s great for creative thinking
^_^ Maybe since micro-biology was so boring, Iyru did not pass that class in 2004. But she has not yet regretted making DT ;) Siggie the skull was named after Sigmund Freud, but was originally called Bronfy after Bronfenbrenner, another famous psychologist. Siggie is a Gall skull, an ancient tool for reading characters by comparing bumps and depressions in the skulls of humans. The short love scene between Fairlight and Knux was conceived without their 'real' models knowing and they were both against it. The Evening Tea Part of the history was added because Iyru developed a dangerous addiction to tea during Autumn. Originally, the Deadly Mountains and Fylaris Mountains were switched on the map, but in the end is was decided that the current locations were better. This posed problems for the history and involved making up a storm to make things fit. Cyatri (CA3) was derived from the names ‘Cyan’ and ‘Trix’, Iyru and Enid’s aliases on Lantessama and the rest of the web. The M-shape of the map is a reference to the real last name of the sisters Iyru and Enid Finally: Nobody knows what happened to Enid the hippy.. Maybe she got Lost in Space? |