The Rebel Age (also known as Tay) was originally a failed age discarded by Gehn, Katran (Catherine) was given the book by the Moiety and managed to rewrite a stable age in which they could hide, eventually Tay was to become the refuge for the entire population of Riven, except for Katran of course whose sole aim was to get back to her beloved Atrus.

In reality the design of Tay owes a great deal to the talents of Richard Vander Wende (Cyan) who came up with the idea of making the ‘rebel hive’ look like a giant wasps nest, the ‘nest’ and its tree-like base was meant to resemble the great Tree of Riven when it was still intact.

It is the iconic image of Riven that was to appear on the cover of every boxed variant of the game (although you never actually get to explore the Rebel Age) and on multiple fan websites, including Cyan’s own site cyan.com.