#(not to put myself down. there are a lot of things i love about auredil's fic and i think i did a lot of it well)

[yansurnummu]

ok I lied I'm gonna talk about it more

90% of the narrative changes I made to the necrom story in my fic are mostly because when put into the format of written word, they don't go over as well as they do within the context of the game (mostly stuff that boils down to fetch quests, or quests that rely heavily on game mechanics like combat & exploration) I wanted to keep the core ideas and essence because I did really love it! I have a real love for cosmic/eldritch horror and high fantasy and mystery, and I think they did a fantastic job of blending those elements together in a way that still felt very ESO. Some details I don't really vibe with and think they could've done better (why put such an emphasis on the dusksabers being vampires if you're not going to use that in any interesting way, for example)

Mostly what I think it boils down to is the kind of story I want to focus on vs the focus of the story in-game. Like I could go for a one-to-one novelisation, but frankly I would find that boring. In shifting the focus to drals and his self-discovery journey, I do feel like I've had to pair down on some other elements (having gadayn as more of a background character, cutting out meln's ghost and leaving him as a figure of drals' past) in order to keep the focus on drals' relationship with azandar and friendship with leramil. Also dialling back the world ending-ness of it and just having apocrypha and mora being the ones in danger, lowering the ultimate stakes but still giving them all a reason to be extremely invested in the Plot.

Haven't planned as far ahead as The Reveal yet, but honestly? I might leave out the whole ithelia thing and come up with some other big dangerous secret mora's hiding. Not because of anything against ithelia, but because it does end on that kind of cliffhanger and sense of impending doom, and I think I'd prefer it if I could just end the story there and allow the characters to rest after a bittersweet victory.