Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance request (m for f character) - in discussions

[Cold Heritage]

Edit: 8 July 2018: talking it out with a few interested people. Will see how it goes. Thanks for the views and responses!

Hello fellow Elliquiyan! Thank you for taking the time to peruse (contronyms are fun!) my humble thread.

So like, urban fantasy, yo. All the magical stuff is 110% real but it's 99% secret and under the radar of most people. Like, all the magical stuff. Even the magical stuff that contradicts the other magical stuff. Especially the contradictory parts. For the purposes of this story, anyway. Because . . . reasons.

A big reason is that I really liked Simon R. Green's Nightside series. The Nightside is a place that gives the series its name. It's a magical place where it is always 3 a.m. Here's a few quotes from the novels to help set the tone:

The Nightside is the sick, secret, magical heart of London, where gods and monsters go to make the deals and seek the pleasures they won’t find anywhere else

The Nightside. A dark and corrupt place, a city within a city, where the sun has never shone and never will. In the Nightside you can find gods and monsters and spirits from the vast deep, if they don’t find you first. Pleasure and horror are always on sale, marked down and only slightly shop-soiled.

You want to summon up a demon or have sex with an angel? Sell your soul or someone else’s? Change the world for the better or just trade it in for something different? The Nightside lies waiting to oblige you, with open arms and a nasty smile. And yet within the Nightside there are many different lands and principalities, many private kingdoms and domains, and even more private heavens and hells.

In the Nightside, the night never ends. Hidden away in the dark, magical heart of London, dreams go walking in borrowed flesh, and temptation and salvation are always on sale. You can find anything you want in the Nightside; if it doesn’t find you first.

Hot neon, dark shadows, more sin than you can shake a credit card at, wild clubs, and madder music. Put on your dancing shoes, and dance till you bleed. The night goes on and on, and the fun never stops. And someone, somewhere, has a bullet with your name on it.

In the Nightside, alternate pasts, presents, and futures meet, albeit imperfectly. A frequent event is the main character remarking on media from alternate timelines, such as a famous musician performing in a different genre or historical figures become artists instead of going into other professions. There's demigods, cyborgs, werewolves, demons, and all of that kind of stuff. It's a kitchen sink. It's also fun because in the Nightside weird is the normal and you can rub shoulders with devils and witches and the like without it being a setting shattering event. This story wouldn't necessarily need to take place in the actual Nightside as set out by Green, but I'd want to set it in a place that's similar that fell off a truck but with the serial numbers conspicuously filed off.

There's a lot of other sources that I'd be drawing on subconsciously or consciously. Some of the ones that I know influence me a lot are the Old and New World of Darkness by White Wolf/Onyx Path, the Anita Blake series, Immortals After Dark, and . . . there's probably more but I can't bring any names to mind now.

So we have this city that's 'separate' from normal space where it's always 3 a.m. Let's call it 'Midnight City.' It's neutral ground, where all types can walk openly and deal, but that doesn't mean it's peaceful. The Authorities ensure that there's no truly widespread violence, but as long as the wheels of commerce keep spinning and the right wheels get greased there's very little standing in the way of one business taking out another. The only thing that is truly forbidden is anything that would depose the Authorities or make Midnight City subject to Powers Above (i.e. Heaven), Below (i.e. Hell), Beside (i.e. Pagan Pantheons and like Powers), or Beyond (i.e. Cthulhu style monstrosities and like Powers). By all means, Angels and Demons and non-eucledian beings may walk the streets, peddle for influence and souls, but if they try to take over? All bets are off those beings find that someone doesn't have their back as much as they think, and the Authorities have means to impose rigorous, summary punishment upon them. Midnight City is a strange nexus where many - arguably all - timelines, planes, and dimensions intersect. One does not, generally, run into one's self unless it is some sort of alternate version from a different timeline or dimension, because there are some paradoxes that time abhors too greatly to abide.

My character, I'm thinking, is like an Immortals After Dark style Berserker: Dorn Snaersson. Born a mortal man, sworn to Odin, gifted with the ability to enter into a rage that bestows untold superhuman might, all of that jazz, maybe some extra stuff to make him more interesting. And like an IAD-style Berserker, he's won his two hundred battles and earned immortality. He's been around since the days of the Great Heathen Army, and he fought with the sons of Ragnar, helped forge the Danelaw, left after the Battle of Stamford Bridge (where he was the lone axeman who held the bridge; though he obviously survived), went on to serve in the Varangian Guard, fight as a gallowglass, and have other adventures before leaving Earth for Midnight City. He despairs of ever finding his fated mate, and there was some very dark times for him when he first his Midnight City. Like, centuries spent in a lotus eater machine that worked by sucking his blood and life force kind of dark. But things happened and he's sort of turned his life around a little, but he's still got some problems opening up and making real connections (things that your character could help him with - she's able to get into that shell and her love helps him move past his past). In Midnight City, he's a freelance muscle for hire type; legs broken at fair market rates (no cheques). He's down on his luck at the time the story begins - several people owe him because they overstated their ability to pay for those legs they wanted broken and/or my character got suckered in by sob stories and got played by more savvy individuals who know how to play the game. And so he, in turn, owes people - things - money.

So when Dorn gets a call from someone who wants him to protect their daughter and offers a ludicrous amount of filthy lucre to do it, he is both skeptical but not in a position to turn it down.

Which brings us to your character. Who and what is she? That's your choice, but probably someone who has some significance. Maybe she's a witch who is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Maybe she's a Chosen One of some stripe. Someone that other people would want to capture/manipulate/sacrifice to an elder being. Or it's possible if you really wanted that she could just be mistaken for someone special, and ended up in Midnight City as part of a series of bizarre and highly unlikely series of events. Either way, it's also up to you if your character's someone who would need protecting.

But I'd like it if she could be someone who's vulnerable in a way that triggers protective instincts in Dorn. Maybe she could be this cute, petite slip of a girl who's never raised a hand in anger in her life, and having dark forces coming after her isn't something she ever thought would happen to her. And while at first she's a little scared of Dorn, too, she doesn't really have anyone else to turn to. I'd hope for some cutesy, fuzzy scenes to happen between them. One that comes to mind is her, wearing a large quilt all around herself with only her face exposed, poking her head into a room where Dorn is doing something. Afraid of rejection but in need of human contact and comfort, she reveals that she's had a bad dream and can't sleep. Dorn is maybe initially a little vexed but pushes past that and tells her to join him, and she scampers in joyfully and he holds her and in his arms she's able to sleep through the night without further bad dreams.

I had some ideas for supporting cast NPCs, too, to help flesh out the world and Dorn. Here's a few quick thoughts:

Avery Hickenstock, also known as Tex or Big Tex, is a werewolf from a timeline where the American Civil War was fought between vampire clans over human rights. A country-fried good old boy, Tex is someone that Dorn goes to when he needs help tracking someone down. Tex is also racist against vampires, and has a special prejudice against werewolves who have anything more than a professional relationship with vampires. He doesn't wear shoes and takes hospitality seriously.

Samuel Conspiracy, alias Hardballer, alias Golden Boy, is an Anointed Initiate of the Illuminated Order of the Eye and Pyramid. In simpler terms? He's part of the Illuminati. A pretty low-ranking member, but still part of it. He's a magicker of some potency, but where he's really packing is that he's heard sweet flowing wisdom of the Buzzing. Chosen by Gaia. Golden wisdom flowed so sweetly and suffused to the core of his being. Plus he's got a gang of psycho killers at his beck and call: Hotline, a masked serial killer active in Miami during the Miami Vice era; Mr. Candy, a pyro-mancer/maniac clown; Chainsaw, a masked man without a shred of humanity; Pyramidion Head, a monstrous flesh automaton with an uncomfortably large murder-knife. Typically found in a nightclub called Glitz, Samuel is a low-level information broker and talisman peddler on the side; his main gig is as a blunt instrument applied with brutal, overwhelming force when the Talking Heads of the Illuminati wish their displeasure known.

Galahad, more commonly Al, may or may not be that Galahad. What's known for sure is that he's a beautiful cinnamon roll, too good and too pure for Midnight City and possibly world at large. But that's exactly why Al's in Midnight City. When Dorn was at his lowest, it was Al who reached down deep into the gutter, pulled Dorn up, dusted him off, and gave him back his pride. Al's an agent of Above, and it's never stopped him from helping Dorn, a pagan through and through. For his part, Dorn's always been at Al's back when Al asked and Dorn's never refused anything Al's asked of him.

Sally the Succubus. She feeds on emotions. Bad ones. She could feed off of happiness and other good emotions but chooses not to. Don't ask why. She's exploited Dorn in the past; feeding off of his negative emotions when he was a wreck, selling his blood for money and favours, getting him to sign bad cheques, that kind of thing. She's nominally an agent of Below, but she's not really interested in one side coming out victorious and in fact prefers the status quo viz a viz those two sides. Sally has a mad hate-boner for the Forces Beyond. Dorn still consorts with her because she'll accept negative emotions as payments for information and sometimes for talismans.

These characters can show up as much or as little as it interests. Not all of them need to show up. None of them need to appear or even be mentioned if they're not of interest.

As far as sexual content goes, I'd aim to put this in the Light section.

For posting, I'd aim for once or twice a week, and a couple paragraphs per post. Of course, the rigors of real life demand and I like to think I'm not the type who hounds others to post, so if something IRL makes it so a partner can't post it's not likely for me to bother them about it.

If you're interested, please send me a PM and we can go from there. If not, thanks for taking the time to view my topic! Have a good one!