> Interesting thought process. I'm currently deeply embroiled > in my first > MMORPG, City of Heroes. This breakdown resonates for me. Well, if you see The Artiste on Freedom server or Hyperdrive on Protector server then stop and give a wave. ;-) > > Without confirming or challenging your thesis, I'll simply > remind us that > Steve(n) has already written a Vlad book set in the past > before the current > "now" (with _Dragon_) and could easily do that again wtihout > jeopardizing > his latest story arc. Oh, I'm sure he'll do that. I started re-reading the series from the beginning recently. I'm about to finish Taltos and I can already see that there are story hooks still waiting to be explored. Eventually, though, Vlad has to come back to the present. In a way, I understand why this happened. The idea of a story about Vlad's return to Adrilankha is an interesting one. He left a lot of loose ends there, not the least being Cawti. What's Cawti done with his "business" in the intervening years? How will Kragar and his associates react? How will the Jhereg react? How will Vlad feel about his place in Dragaeran society? What will he do when he discovers he has a son and that none of his friends informed him? The thing is, how do you write a story like that when logically he should be dead within a few days of returning? The only way is to make him untouchable, or mostly untouchable. The question you're left with is whether doing so means that you've upped the ante as far as dramatic conflict for any future stories. There isn't much other than a god that should give Vlad trouble at this point and, given what Godslayer was designed for and what we saw it do to the Jenoine, even a god might not be that much of a challenge.