Wait. What? This isn't Skyrim.
No, no it's not. Far from it, actually.
I had played Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines (vanilla and modded) a few years ago and continued to play it when the spirit moved me. I loved the story line, of your life being on the line and having to prove yourself to someone who has no qualms to kill you (and tries to more than once), learning the politics and being used as a pawn by various factions. I loved Sebastian, the odd French born Ventrue with an English accent, yet I was bothered that there couldn't have been...more, I guess. In all endings save one, he dies- I'm not taking the Unofficial Wiki Page on Fandom into account, because while it says that he does die on November 1, 2004, it does not take into consideration what happens after you turn the key over to Strauss and side with the Camarilla.
In December 2019, another VTM game came out, this one called Coteries of New York, a mainly text based game with interesting characters, though lacking the depth of Bloodlines, made for an interesting playthrough. It had gotten me to wanting to play Bloodlines again, especially after learning Bloodlines 2 was soon coming out on Steam. And as I started yet another Ventrue playthrough, the idea came to me to take my character and cross the two storylines together, finding a way to blend the Kindred of Los Angeles with their East Coast bretheren.
The works started as two songfics, both of which are still being worked on. Then the idea for this came into my head and I haven't been able to shake it for the most part. There's more of a cross between Bloodlines and CoNY, more interactions and history between the characters involved.
There are some liberties that will be taken. For example, the game takes place in the space of a week. I'm having more time between her embrace and end game. Also after the events of Bloodlines, Strauss left Los Angeles, reasons unknown. He returns in 2018 (in the live-play chronicle done first produced by Geek and Sundry and then by someone else) after being appointed Keeper of Elysium by Vannevar Thomas. For purposes of this story, using the Camarilla ending where we don't know truly if LaCroix dies, Strauss stays on in LA first as interim Prince, then returns to his position as Regent of the Chantry for reasons known to him and some of the characters in the work. Clan circumstances will require him to leave the city – I will be shifting the Second Inquisition raiding of the Prime Chantry in Vienna around 2008 to maybe five, ten years later, perhaps to be promoted to fill in a gap caused by the moving of elders after the supposed destruction of the Inner Council of Seven and the upper levels of leadership.
I can only hope that I can do both of these games and their characters justice. I hope that whoever reads this enjoys it as much as I did and do writing it. I can't promise it will be exceptional, or even good- heck, it could be as cringy as Sebastian whining about how he's not respected in his role as Prince. I just ask that you read it with an open mind as I'm trying to branch out of my comfort zone of just writing Skyrim- don't worry, I'm not ignoring those, but I needed to step away because I was trying to force something that just wasn't coming with a lot of them.
Enjoy!
Sephraem