Troy Denning — American Author

Troy Denning is a fantasy and science fiction author and game designer who has written more than two dozen novels... (wikipedia)

'Crucible' was going to be a 'passing of the torch' story. So something that was big enough to be worthy of that, that could show these characters being changed - along with their respective outlooks about life, the galaxy, and the Force - was Mortis.
With 'Crucible,' any big changes I wanted to make I only had to run by Lucasfilm, not other authors whose stories I might affect.
In any story universe, you don't just want to keep adding to it when there are places and planets that exist that will already achieve the same thing for you story-wise. You don't want to just keep making it bigger for no good reason.