-Originally, The Ghost King’s Tragedy was going to be a short story titled The Clock Is Ticking . . . It would have starred Akuna, Oggak, and Kiriah gathered by some mysterious female entity to go to World’s End for a mysterious purpose.

However, the story turned out to need more space than short stories permit, so I decided to make it into a short epic.

-After I made The Ghost King’s Tragedy into a short epic, I originally titled it The Ghost King of World’s End, an old title I believe I have used on BZP before. I changed it, however, because I felt The Ghost King’s Tragedy captured the essence of the story better and is more eye-catching

-Originally, there were only going to be three Toa: Toa Akuna, Toa Oggak, and Toa Kiriah. I decided to add Toa Ahova in at a late stage because I wanted to cover a wider spectrum of personalities. I also wanted to even out the amount of characters I took from my previous epics, so that there were two from the Shika Trilogy and two from Dimension Hoppers

-The Master of Mist was originally simply called “the Master.” I decided to rename him the Master of Mist later because I wanted to give Makuta Teridax a mythological identity he could use to hide his true agenda, which I think worked out pretty well

-The idea that the Ghost King was in fact a Makuta in hiding was something I came up with a little later on. I thought it added more mystery and complexity to the story if it turned out that the Ghost King was in fact a Makuta, possibly a good Makuta depending on your point of view, and that the Master of Mist was Teridax in disguise

-I had planned, almost from the very beginning, for Teridax to be the Master in disguise, manipulating the protagonists into doing what he wanted them to do. It just seemed like something Teridax would do, which is why I had him do it in the story

-I didn’t always intend for the Ghost King to be an antagonist, however. I originally featured a villainous ghost called Tamos, who ate the elemental powers of Toa and could only be harmed by the element of shadow. Another prototype idea for Tamos was that he was supposed to be the spirit of the second Toa to be created (in this case, a Toa of Fire), but I scrapped that idea

-In earlier drafts, before I created the Ghost King, Teridax’s goal was slightly different. He wanted Akuna and the others to go to World’s End to find a stone tablet labeled “The History of Spherus Magna,” which he would have used to give him information on Bara Magna before he went there to defeat Mata Nui

The reason I scrapped that idea was because it didn’t make sense. After all, wouldn’t the Great Beings have already programmed a history of Spherus Magna into the Mata Nui robot’s memory? And why would the Great Beings leave a history of Spherus Magna tablet lying where not even Mata Nui could get it? It was just silly

-Virof was also quite different. Instead of being a Ghost Lieutenant, she was going to be the recording of a dead inhabitant of World’s End who explained the island’s history to the protagonists. While that idea is still interesting (and one I might potentially explore in future fics), I ultimately rejected it for this fic and so gave her name to a different character

-Balon was different, too. He would have been a Skakdi rather than a Siminite, but would have eventually been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant after Tira’s demotion (see below)

-Tira had always been intended to be a Lieutenant from the very beginning. In fact, I originally intended for her to be the only Lieutenant, with intense loyalty toward the Ghost King. She would have eventually gotten demoted (or maybe killed, I can’t remember) after failing to stop the protagonists

-Tira and Virof’s lesbian relationship was not present in any early drafts. I included it because I am trying to include more LGBT characters in my fanfics, so I decided I would start with these two. It’s unfortunate that they both ended up dying, but considering that romances in my stories usually end up with one or both of the characters in the relationship dying, I do not see this as alarming (also no one has complained about it, so I guess it’s not a problem)

-Originally, I intended to have Kiriah come out as a lesbian in this fic and develop a crush on Akuna. In earlier drafts she was a lesbian, but ultimately I cut it out from the final draft because I felt it didn't add much to the story. She is most likely bisexual

-The Ghost King had different minions in earlier drafts. For example, in one draft he had an octopus-like Rahi (the name of which I can’t remember) that was controlled by his mind, similar to the Dark Horses in the final draft

-The Dark Horses were a later addition, one I added because I wanted to give the Ghost King more minions to add more suspense and danger. I’m not sure where the inspiration for the Dark Horses came from

-Also, Ata the Dark Horse was originally going to be called “Twilight.” Add together her purple body, her horn, and her horse-likeness and yes, I was referencing the character Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I decided against it the name Twilight because I thought “Ata” -- which is Maori for “shadow” -- made more sense (after all, she is a Dark Horse. Not a Twilight Horse)

-The Ghosts were originally going to be a mishmash of various species, such as Skakdi and Vortixx, instead of one species. I thought it made more sense to make them one species, however, because then I'd have to convince the reader that dozens of members of many different species were all somehow living on World's End together and none of them were natives, so I decided it was just simpler to make them all the same species

-An epilogue from an earlier draft featured Akuna, Oggak, Kiriah, and Ahova reuniting a few months later, after the death of Teridax, when everyone had left the Matoran universe. I thought about writing such an epilogue in the final draft, but decided against it because I thought it messed up the ending, detracting from the story rather than adding to it

-In some drafts, the protagonists made it all the way up Mount Apocalypse to the Ghost King’s chamber, where they fought him, rather than taking him on in the Field of Skulls

-I always intended for Makuta Trijorn to wear a Mask of Reanimation. We’re told that Toa wouldn’t normally wear his mask because they consider it immoral, but as the canon story has thus far only featured one character wearing the Tryna (and a Toa at that), I decided to feature the most logical candidate for such a mask: A Makuta who studies spirits and the afterlife

-Also, I can confirm that the Makuta Jia mentioned in this fic is the same Jia who appeared in Icarax’s Broken Heart. Makuta Trijorn was most likely in a relationship with her prior to her untimely death at the hands of Icarax and Gorast; in fact, I’d say that it was probably her death that convinced him to go into hiding

-To me, I always felt that the tragedy of this fic was that the protagonists and the Ghost King really did not have to be enemies, if you think about it. They both wanted to defeat Teridax, but the Ghost King’s paranoia and Teridax’s manipulation and meddling made it almost impossible for the protagonists to form an alliance with the Ghost King. I will admit, though, that maybe The Ghost King’s Tragedy is a slightly misleading title, considering the tragedy encompasses more characters than just the Ghost King

-In an early draft, Teridax would have contacted Kiriah via dreams, pretending to be Isarot’s soul contacting her from the dead. I dropped the dressings of the idea, but brought the idea itself back in the final draft when Teridax pretended to be Nastan in Akuna’s dreams and tried to mess with her to make her angry at the Ghost King

-This, I believe, is the first time Toa Oggak’s Mask of Dreams has appeared in any of my fanfics

-Another alternate ending would have had Kiriah sent into a coma by Teridax after she tried to fight him with her mental powers. During her coma, she would have met Jetrupi, the mysterious warrior from Glatorian Chronicles #8: The Stranger, which would have set up Dawn of the New Century, my upcoming epic. I rejected this ending because it I felt it came out of nowhere, thus disrupting the flow of the story (Jetrupi didn't make any earlier appearances in that draft, which is why I felt it was random)