Preface
It is with no small amount of trepidation that I have decided to finally taking up the task of putting this gargantuan tale to paper. Some people reading this right now may know me; others may simply think that I'm wasting space on with a pathetic little "Author's Notes" chapter and should get right to writing about Oblivion. Well, all in due time; in any case, I have a couple of things to explain and people to thank in the interim.
Dragonblood started its life as an RP ("roleplay", for the uninitiated) on the TES Forums in the summer of 2007. It was, and still is, one of the most ambitious roleplays of its type; it sought to give players a post-Oblivion setting to work with that was realistic (for TES), lore-friendly, and ripe for player-controlled intrigues and plot twists. The RP, however, soon evolved into a labyrinthine plot of epic proportions, with a dozen dedicated players helping to create a story that surpassed all my expectations. This, paraphrased, is what I intend to share with the community now.
A special thanks to everyone who was involved in the original RP; it is your characters, your scenarios, and your awesome personalities that were the fuel behind this work, and I can only hope that I've done them justice.
Of course, at this point, there is a large group of people who are simply staring at disbelief at the computer screen and wondering when the hell this blabbermouth author is going to get on with his damned story. Allow me, dear readers, to make this quick then:
Dragonblood will be subdivided into three Acts: Bloodlines, Bloodsworn, and Bloodbath. Each Act will have its own "introductory chapter," serving as both a title card and a brief prologue to the events of that act. All subsequent chapters (up until the next Act prologue, of course) will be designated with lower-cased Roman numerals (i., ii., iii., etc.) and primarily follow their eponymous character. Expect each Act, when completed, to be quite lengthy.
And now, without further ado, Dragonblood.