I've been posting to the "What's The Story?" feature since literally day one, and recently I was lucky enough to have one my entries chosen: General Yavid, the short Marauder seen in several scenes of Ewoks: The Battle For Endor.

I thought a few of you out there might be interested in a brief glimpse into the mad scientist's laboratory known as my creative process.



I-- In my original submission, the last line of the third paragraph was as follows:

"He even secured a ceasefire treaty with Morag the Tulgah witch--who, if she put her mind to it, could probably have wiped out the Marauders with her arcane Force-magic that Charal feared and envied."

And it was changed to:

"He even secured a tentative peace with Morag the Tulgah witch, who -- if she had put her mind to it -- could probably have wiped out the Marauders."

As you can see, my attempt to officially nail down the Ewok series magic as Force-derived was nixed, which I pretty much expected (retaining that air of mystery, I guess). As well as the suggestion Morag was more powerful than Charal--I guess they didn't want to let me paint any future stories, however unlikely, into a corner.

It doesn't bug me much; in most of my WTS entries I toss in stuff like that, that I don't really expect to survive if that entry is ever chosen.



II-- At least one person (TalonCard on the TFN boards) has complimented me on the Phlogs reference. But I can't take credit for that: the draft I submitted said Dandelion Warriors instead. Duloks and Dandelion Warriors--maybe "They" just didn't like the alliteration, who knows?

I figure the Marauders would be enemies of everybody (not likely to be making any new friends on Endor, I'd wager!) and that if it had come to an outright war, the Phlogs could have literally stomped them out. Combined with the fact the Phlogs came from the other side of the moon (I read somewhere), I decided it was easier if they and the Marauders hadn't had much contact. Looks like I was overruled on that, though.

As for Morag, I knew she and the Marauders would be natural rivals. But even though they both were enemies of the Ewoks, neither seemed likely to join forces, and indeed the Marauders even depended to some extent on keeping the Ewoks around for pillaging.

My original submission said "ceasefire treaty", only going as far as implying Morag and the Marauders weren't actively at war any longer, but the substituted "tentative peace" seems to imply a little more.

Incidentally, I originally wanted to mention Morag's Yuzzum warriors as well as the magic, but I didn't have space.



III-- At the time I wrote the story, I didn't think the Marauder saga had been taken past BFE, and my ending was meant to imply they'd fought each other and dissolved into smaller bandit groups, accounting for their absence later on. I left it intentionally vague, though.

After I'd submitted my entry but before it was selected, it came to my attention (via The2ndquest) that the Endor entry in the Geonosis & the Outer Rim Worlds sourcebook "gives Terak's bio and stats- as a footnote it basicly says anyone wishing to use them in a campaign set after Terak's death can use his son, Zakul, instead."

Thus it appears the civil war I described did not encompass the Marauders' end, and that Zakul emerged the victor and reestablished order. Perhaps this connection can be made official in a future article or sourcebook somewhere down the line.



OK, so that wasn't so brief. Anyway, thanks for reading, folks!