The Stormhold Missionary

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I can see how this might seem to an outsider now.

The main point is that Oblivion employs the LOTR-style storylines and, like LOTR, it's on an epic scale. Therefore, the narrative (and its construction) does not follow a linear pattern. It's expansive. As such, the lore that goes into it forms the bedrock of the whole thing. If the lore isn't set in stone then the storyline will flounder. Likewise, if a central thrusting narrative is imposed upon the whole from the outset then it's likely to have a number of inconsistencies and weak points.

The downside of this is that the central storyline must await the consolidation of everything else before establishing itself. The whole project of creating a large worldspace mod is something that takes years rather than weeks or months. As such, you can lay foundations but you can't confirm everything until later. Many authors do not know the ending of their novels when they start and this project must take the same approach.

Rest assured that the whole thing, however, is more fully fleshed out in my own mind than it appears on these forums. Deeza and I have discussed at length various dimensions of the storyline but a) I'm unwilling to reveal the full details online (that's for the private core forums) and b) there are holes in the plot as yet as we seek to establish the complete worldspace. I don't want others to know what happens because I don't want my ideas stolen and I don't want to develop it further until I know more about other areas of the storyline.

Nevertheless, this particular storyline is one that I have already written. In the Thief storyline I wrote, Constantine is ultimately consumed by his desire for transcendence. I wrote the plot for this storyline for another mod that wasn't eventually created so it's fully fleshed out and the reason why the Nine banish Constantine should be made clear then. Codex Alexius serves to reveal that but, at present, it remains sealed to all but members of the Order.

In the past, I've held people back from contributing to storylines because. hey, everyone wants to write, don't they? The problem is that it's my project and I did a lot of the hard work so no one is going to waltz on in here and finish my story for me whilst I'm doing the hard work. The whole reason I joined here was to write the storylines but it takes far more time to create the thing in the first place.

Welcome to OB storytelling....I'm afraid it may come as frustrating to you....it ain't straight-forward! =) You just have to conceive of the whole thing and build it up. There WILL be a stronger backbone than OB though....rest assured.