Gehn's 37th Age
From MYSTlore
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|---|---|
| 37th Age | |
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Written by Gehn | |
| Type | Inhabited Age |
The 37th Age was an island resting on a column of rock above the rest of the seabed and geothermally warmed. A wall of mist was formed where the warm water surrounding the island met the cold ocean beyond. The inhabitants were made to worship and serve Gehn. Like most of Gehn's Ages, it was unstable, with crevices opening and smaller islands vanishing into the ocean. Atrus spent some time on this Age, studying it under Gehn's tutelage.
After an incident with the Mist Wall that the inhabitants had formerly worshiped and still regarded with fear and awe, Gehn altered the Age to make the ocean warm, eliminating the mist. However, this led to a lowering of the sea level, stranding the island and draining its lake. At Atrus's request (the child had made a friend in this Age), Gehn took the opportunity to teach his son a valuable lesson and negated his earlier changes. This forced the link to shift to a parallel Age--the world now appeared precisely as it once did, but the inhabitants were not truly the inhabitants the pair had first met (e.g. Atrus's friend no longer knew him as Atrus had never visited this Age before). Gehn, in character, blamed the Age itself for its failure, claiming inherent defects, and destroyed the Descriptive Book. The peoples of both Ages were thus abandoned forever, those of the original 37th Age presumably facing a lingering death from drought and starvation.
This was a major event in Atrus's childhood that would change the way he viewed his father, and The Art, forever.