Tuesday, May 12, 2015

A Warhammer Fantasy Vampire in Westeros?

The alternate history forum I've been a member of since high school has gone and done it again. There's a new A Song of Ice and Fire fan-fic out there. In this one, entitled "A Game of Fangs," a Warhammer Fantasy vampire (an original-character named Sybelle Von Carstein, specifically) and her immediate entourage due to a magical mishap end up in Westeros as the War of the Five Kings breaks out. I'm guessing in terms of the story timeline, it'd be early in A Clash of Kings.

Highlights:

*The vampire and her entourage materialize in the vicinity of Harrenhal and the first major character to encounter them is Arya Stark. The relationship between Sybelle and Arya is nice to read and sets an interesting path before Arya later on.

*Sybelle herself is an interesting character. She's undeniably ruthless and dangerous, but she's not malicious or sadistic. Yes, she's a magic-wielding vampire with imperial ambitions, but she's not gratuitously mean.

*Sybelle's arrival in the world and the magic she invokes to return to her full power causes all sorts of portents and freak occurrences to happen. Including some unpleasantness with Ned Stark's skeleton. :)

*Melisandre views Sybelle as an agent of the Great Other and things proceed accordingly. She's one of the few actual sorcerers in Westeros, so this is going to be fun.

*Sybelle's arrival causes enemies to become allies, but Sybelle herself becomes a cunning player in the Game of Thrones. This has some interesting consequences...

*We get POVs from characters who never got any in the ASOIAF canon, including Robb Stark and Sandor Clegane.

*Speaking of Sandor Clegane, he gets a very surprising Crowning Moment of Awesome.

The story is still ongoing, so hopefully it'll continue to be fun. Enjoy!

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