It's been forever since I've done one of these, so here's some more trivia from my books! Suffice it to say, spoilers abound so if you haven't read them, you might wanna avoid this.

1. Astrid and Gerithor were originally going to fall in love.

This was assuming Gerithor started the story in Dale. Once that idea was trashed, this one was too.

2. Zaskia was an elf in the first draft.

I changed my mind on this once I read a couple other fanfictions that had elf antagonists. The idea is awesome but I didn't want it to seem like I was stealing ideas.

3. Lurkai was going to survive until the Battle of Erebor, where he would be killed by Gilian.

I just changed this because there were already three major villains at the battle and another one might have seemed a bit excessive.

4. I had written an entire vision sequence where Gerithor saw Caledorn's death.

I removed this because it would've been somewhat redundant, and I didn't want the vision scenes to be too clear. They're supposed to be more symbolic than an actual picture of how events play out.

5. The Battle of Mirkwood was in the original draft.

Taliel and Edhael were originally going to arrive in Mirkwood as the Battle was taking place, but the Battle of Erebor was so long that I figured another battle chapter would be too much.

6. Edhael was originally named Elhael and he was going to be purely comic relief.

He's still somewhat fulfilling that purpose, but as the chronicler of the adventure he actually has an important role to play.

7. Taliel was originally Caledwen, Caledorn's sister.

Unfortunately, changing this meant the omission of Caledorn's sister from the entire story, but I felt that Taliel, a natural warrior, would make more sense as a member of Gerithor's army than Caledwen would. Also, Taliel and Caledorn's romance served to bring Caledorn peace to some extent.

8. The defenders were originally at the battle of the Black Gate.

Seeing as Zaskia remained undefeated and there was no dwarven presence at the battle, this was changed very early on in the draft.

And there's some more facts about my books! I'll probably do one of these again at the very end, so keep an eye out! :D