1. The challenge:
At a party I suggested to a friend that there's no such thing as a clichéd plotline- no such thing as an idea which has been done to death. My friend responded by suggesting that I see if I can write a fan fiction love-story between a vampire and a werewolf who have to save the world and make it not trite. I could choose what it would be fan fiction of, so I chose Vampire the Masquerade from the Old World of Darkness line, since a Gehenna scenario fits saving the world nicely. This is the story of Luke, Jake & Riverstone.
Don't worry if you haven't read much or any old world of darkness fluff, things are explained as the story progresses although reading the wiki article on Vampire the Masquerade couldn't hurt.
Inspirations for the fic (beyond Whitewolf obviously) include Harry Dresden, The Watch Trilogy, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and Thelma & Louise. Genre-wise it has elements of horror, black comedy, romance, action and even a little mystery.
2. Characters & places
2.1 Luke Baker
History/Personality: Vampire (ninth generation Toreador though he's hardly an exemplar of the clan). He was completing a degree majoring in literature and history when he was embraced. Quiet, small, reserved and frustrated by a sense of powerlessness, it probably didn't help that he was a sickly, weedy and quite obviously gay kid in country town for the first eighteen years of his life. He discovered the supernatural world independently and was disappointed to find few answers and many new strings attached to him. He feels like he is going slowly mad under the drudgery and nagging guilt of his new existence. Post embrace, his only real friend is his sire, and despite her obvious (and strange) compassion he's never really felt that close to her. The prince considers him a promising servant because of his strong affinity for the Auspex discipline (discipline of insight), immediately upon embrace he could yield it up to the fourth degree and could do so with considerably subtlety. However he has been slow to learn other powers of the blood.
Physical description: Short and skinny with blue eyes and brown hair he has dyed black in order to help disguise his appearance from friends and relations of his old life.
2.2 Jake Datsik
History/Personality: Silver fang werewolf and third generation Russian migrant. His paternal grandfather had been a silver fang too, before he fell to the black spiral dancers. Jake wasn't raised under the best of conditions, working for Pentex as a biochemist after college; he soon chipped onto what was what. Fortunately for him he underwent his first change and sought refuge with a local Caern of Gaian loyalist werewolves. Six months later he's viewed with suspicion due to his origins- and because as yet he's never had occasion to kill or even fight an agent of the Wyrm. He's been sent into the city to kill one of the vampires who frequent the night-clubs as a sort of test. Like Luke he feels trapped in a hierarchy, by which he is the natural bottom rung. Something of a junky for risk (he'd probably be into extreme sports if he had the time or money) and with an overwhelming drive to do something meaningful, preferably something that would upset his black spiral dancer parents. When there is no movement in his life, his mood tends to blacken and he takes to his cups.
Physical description: Tall with wiry muscles he's neither especially attractive nor unattractive. He has green eyes and tawny blond hair.
2.3 Riverstone
History/Personality: Mage focusing on life and spirit. A little bit eccentric to say the least Riverstone hasn't seen people in over one hundred and twelve years of her subjective time (two of ours.) as such she can be a little difficult to follow in conversation. Heir to a pocket realm based on the theme of "The beautiful nature" she has more or less complete omnipotence within it, and has thus neglected to develop her powers in the world outside it. We'll find out more about her history as the story goes along.
Physical description: None in particular, she changes bodies much the same way others would change clothes. Usually she's good looking- if you could pick wouldn't you be?
2.4 Calvin city
Calvin is the every-city. Population three million. For the most part it has the features of an American city, but also some aspects of an English or Australian city. Native language is English and it's on a coast. Just imagine a generic city and you'll probably have a good image of it in your head.
3. Author's notes
The story has a fair bit of fidelity to the background of Vampire the Masquerade, but fairly little to the contemporary meta-plot. I wanted to make a Ghenna scenario in which a vampire, a low ranked werewolf and a weak mage are important players- that's just not possible based on the standard fluff.
The story has very little fidelity to the background or metaplot of Werewolf the Apocalypse, and even less to Mage the Ascension (the mages are probably as much based around Awakening as Ascension.)