Imago: Changes from the Original Story

WARNING: Spoilers for most of Imago and a few minor ones for Divided

The original story of Imago was written back in 2021, whilst I still played on XBox. The bulk of the plot was still the same, but the story was held back by it a) being my first challenge-less Sims story that was carried 90% by my own attempts to plot without a challenge helping and b) without mods or CC, so a lot of effectiveness was lost. The people who read it still enjoyed it a lot, but I decided it would really benefit with a fresh lick of paint given mods, CC, GShade, and having written Divided as a prequel to it.

Originally, it was part of a trilogy, written like this:
Chronologically storywise: Morgyn origin story > Arcane Academy Challenge story > Sequel
Writing order: Arcane Academy Challenge > Morgyn Origin Story > AAC Sequel

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING LINK WILL SPOIL THE ENTIRE PLOT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 90% of the plot is inspired by a comment from the official forums by ryttu3k. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS / HAVE NOT READ IMAGO YET.

Some of the text in Imago is lifted straight from the original with a few edits to fit the Divided canonical story lore, which is why it's getting done quite quickly. A rough overview of differences to the original are below for the curious.

Changes from Original

- The original title of the story was different. Imago was the name of Chapter 3 in the original, and the subtitle The Birth of a Spellcaster was the title of the original Chapter 2.

- Many scenes originally confined to text now have pictures because of mods, CC and poses.

 - A big question of readers in the original was: who pays the Sages and where do they get all their funding from? This was answered in Divided when Owen swore his lineage would fund the Magic Realm for as long as they could. For three-hundred years they've been running mostly off the Annorins' billions, with each student getting a bursary for educational supplies, arcane supplies and other living needs.

- Leo, Cecilia, Louis and Miles Viridis are all at the ages they were in the third story as opposed to the original Morgyn story, where Leo was thirteen and pre-transition. This is to flesh out the students at the Magic Realm for scenes and a few story elements.

- Familiars now speak telepathically all the time to fit some lore in story 3 of the magic trilogy and in Divided.

- A scrapped plotline in the remake that was in the original involves a disgraced former Practical sage, the grandmother of the Viridis siblings, was scrapped. This woman's actions (forcing Practical students to work for her dodgy potion-selling work, killing some of them with overcharge from all the magic overworking) led to the Viridis family being bullied and hated despite all the siblings hating this woman. It was scrapped for the remake. Ethren and Simeon both expressed worries of whether or not they could make Practical magic have a better reputation after her in the original.

- In the original, Morgyn did their first Inferniate in front of an Annorin teenager to defend a little girl (said little girl was the now-transitioned man Leo Viridis from story 2 and 3). Morgyn also lifted him with magic and threw him to the ground. 
This connected to old Viridis lore that got scrapped for the remake, and the Annorins of the remake are generally a bit more agreeable and in the background, so this was instead changed to Morgyn scaring off a boy who was hassling Leo's teenage sister Cecilia instead.

- A lot of established original lore was changed to match that established in Divided.

-  A lot of the duelling scenes have been removed, in part for pacing and with keeping with new lore. Morgyn originally duelled Áine numerous times and L Faba once, but their condition, witches' pallor, has since been fleshed out in ways that make them somewhat similar to a chronic illness, hence those duels not happening as much. Also I decided that it was likely the Magic Realm had rules about age brackets and duelling, and that under-18s probably aren't allowed to actually duel with over-18's.

-  Áine's original surname was Sídha, and this lasted right up until about late Divided Act Four. I retconned it after reading an article on people fucking around with languages like Irish, Welsh, and Scottish and often not learning them properly before writing about them in Fantasy (part of the article was to do with the mispronunciation from the author of Gaelic-based dragon names in Fourth Wing). I changed it to an authentic surname, Ó Sé.

 

-  The design of a character flashed back to who is in Divided has been updated, as this character was originally designed with no Sim or design for the father in mind. 

 

- The scene of Ethren sharing their concerns with Morgyn about their wellbeing is exclusive to the original.

 

- Morgyn finds out earlier than the original that Áine is 300 years old.

 

-  In the original, Áine implied there were some circumstances where Morgyn potentially using one of the necromancy spells would be necessary. This was terribly worded and is changed in the original.

- I cannot remember whether the original lore for Áine's immortality being 'potion recipe lost to time' was a cover-up for her stealing life forces, or if this was a retcon that kicked in in story 3 of the original trilogy. I don't quite remember. Either way, I left it in so Áine doesn't have to tell Morgyn too much about her past.

 

- Morgyn originally nicknamed Áine's wolf form Shadow. They don't do it in the remake as the original Áine wolf was pure black and more fitting for the name.

 

- Morgyn originally caught an angelfish at the botanical gardens. This time they kept catching rainbowfish, so that is a little minor change.

 

- Morgyn's amazing spellcasting abilities are put down to the fact that Morgyn doesn't have much of a life outside of spellcasting, Morgyn is a dedicated Untamed caster and doesn't have to learn either Practical or Mischief like some of the other mixed-discipline casters, as well as more focus from Áine given she intends to have them succeed her. Hence the fact they have more time to get really good at the one thing, mostly. Originally it was more of a 'gifted kid' angle and I got tired of those stories since. In the new version. education-wise, Morgyn was not doing well in traditional schooling due to not getting on well with the tutors their parents hired for them.

 

- Many of Morgyn's scenes were diary entries in the original, meaning a lot of detail and character thought processes / dialogue got lost. Most of their side of the story is now 'regular' narrative prose.

 

- Áine does not tell Ethren during the argument about going after Morgyn's abusive father, instead saying she went after someone who sought to do harm to them. I made this change as, in the original, she more or less shared sensitive information about a student to another Sage for no good reason, a minor at that. 

 

- Áine's reflection upon her daughter is shorter, since it was originally narration and now is dialogue, so she doesn't want to share all the grisly details of her past with Morgyn at that point.

 

- A mistake was changed with Keisha saying she used Mischief magic on people that hurt her when she was sixteen. She was not ascended until much later than that.

 

- The grave where Chapter 9 stuff happens was in Glimmerbrook and is now in Henford to fit in line with Divided's story.

 

-  The ingredients for the two strong ritual spells used in Chapter 8 and 9, including the other strong ritual spell, are different due to having CC available and be less reliant on text.

 

- In the original, a certain character saw the Reaper. In the remake, the Reaper does not appear.

 

- The scene at the end of Chapter 9 was not in the original.

 

-  A character flashbacked to in Chapter 7 had a different design in the original due to there not being a father Sim back then to use Play with Genetics with, the old genetics only being based on the mother.

 

- A character's concerns about Morgyn becoming Sage are a bit politer even if not entirely, since in the original they were quite out of proportion for what was meant to be genuine, if not blunt concern. They also come earlier than in the original, as they come just before the Sage Acension Ceremony rather than after.

 

- Morgyn is more selfish, big-headed, power-hungry and egotistical in the original. In the remake they're comparatively more level-headed but far more vulnerable. 

- In the original, Áine gifted Morgyn both a version of her default dress and the robes and Morgyn picked the robes. In the remake, she just gifts them the robes.

- Helen Grisswold was meant to appear, and the first chapter of her story, Untamed, was meant to be rewritten and remade for the Epilogue. However, her tray files were on my external hard-drive and it was an hour before bed, so I just went ahead and finished the epilogue differently and I had her mentioned instead.

- Morgyn having Áine's life force within them played more of a part in the original, where Ethren much more angrily accused Morgyn of pushing their mentor closer to her dfeath which caused them to unintentionally lash out and almost hit Ethren with the life-force stealing spell, and then almost doing it in front of Áine when stressed. Áine explained to them that they must have inherited her more specialised witch magic. They also dreamt of being in wolf form because they inherited some of Áine's memories from having her life force within them. This was scrapped due to irrelevance, as in the original trilogy it led to Morgyn having a wolf form in the third story. It wouldn't have led anywhere in this standalone remake, and also Morgyn had no reason to be angry with Ethren as Ethren in the remake just wanted to tell when what Áine didn't tell them.

- A plot line involving Morgyn's familiar, Penumbra, stopping coming out of their orb for them and Morgyn replacing them with a new familiar got scrapped for multiple reasons. Originally, Morgyn had much more of an ego and an attitude in the original story, which tied in with Penumbra getting tired of them. The new familiar was Exaur, a cruel demon forever trapped in the orb in the humiliating form of he bunnerfly for its evil deeds years and years ago. It feeds off casters' negative emotions and causes them to do terrible or at least regrettable things. It would have convinced Morgyn to try and kill their parents, which Áine would have picked up on it (somehow?) on her wolf patrols and talked them out of it, leading to a discussion about how Áine killed before and didn't regret it but doesn't want Morgyn doing it. 

Exaur the demonic familiar appeared in the chronologically second story, Untamed, and since I'm not remaking Untamed the 'oh, god, THIS FAMILIAR AGAIN?' is lost and Morgyn in the remake would not have thought to try and kill their parents without that kind of influence. Also, it was implied Exaur ended up in the Magic Realm's familiar sales reserves twice by accident which was a weak plot point in my eyes now. This is also why you only briefly see Penumbra the raven in the story, since I was preparing to do the Exaur plot and never did it.

- The original ending of the story ended with Morgyn becoming very strict and egotistic and stressed about not being able to perform the Aevitas pendant spell, leading to more and more egotistical-ness coming out of them to the point where they started claiming they made the Magic Realm and Áine sent them a letter asking why they were like this now and trusting they'd eventually make the correct decisions. This was scrapped as Morgyn's ego is no longer as big a thing in the remake.

- Morgyn seeing their parents as an adult is new to the remake. I thought it would make more sense as to why they were as panicked and self-doubting as they were just before becoming Sage for someone who's since found confidence, as their appearance reminds them of how their parents used to doubt them - this is on top of another character doubting them, so it's a bit much in one go.