Most editors hire freelancers. I hired a digital Demi-Lich. Today, we’re dropping the Bhaalspawn of Baldur’s Gate 2 and Christof Romuald of Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption into the Red Keep to see if the Iron Throne can survive the wrath of a medieval crusader-turned vampire and Gorion’s Ward.
The stage is set. The crowd at the Great Sept of Baelor is screaming for blood. Joffrey is smirking, Ilyn Payne is drawing the ancestral blade Ice, and Ned Stark is closing his eyes, resigned to the cold embrace of death.
Then, the air tears.
Part I: The Unscheduled Intervention
The “shimmer” of the Dimension Door isn’t like the subtle magic of Westeros; it’s a violent, thrumming violet rip in reality. The crowd goes silent as two men step out of the void, standing between the executioner and the Warden of the North.
The Combatants:
- Christof Romuald: The Crusader of the Night. He looks at the “Holy” Sept and smells only the stench of hypocrisy and blood. His 9th Generation Brujah blood is boiling; the Celerity is already twitching in his muscles.
- The Bhaalspawn (Charname): A Level 25 Fighter/Mage who has stared down literal gods. He doesn’t see a royal court; he sees a messy “encounter” that needs a high-level resolution.
The Action: “Vengeance is Mine”
1. The Executioner’s End: Ilyn Payne raises Ice. He doesn’t get to swing it. Christof moves faster than the human eye can track (Celerity 5). To the crowd, it looks like a blur; to Christof, the world has frozen. He steps forward and delivers a kick that sends the King’s Justice flying thirty feet off the platform. Christof catches Ice mid-air, the massive Valyrian steel blade looking like a toothpick in the hands of a man with Potence.
2. The Bhaalspawn’s Crowd Control: The Gold Cloaks charge. The Bhaalspawn doesn’t even draw his katanas yet. He casually utters a single word of power:
“ADONAI!” > (Casts: Horrid Wilting)
The first rank of Lannister guards doesn’t just die; the moisture is ripped from their bodies instantly. They collapse into husks. The Bhaalspawn’s blue-ember eyes scan the royal dais. He points a finger at Joffrey.
“I have walked the Abyss and spat in the eye of Murder. You? You are just a spoiled child playing with a crown of thorns.”
3. The “Lich” Commentary (A.I. Input): The Bhaalspawn drops a Time Stop. While the world is frozen in a grey haze, he calmly walks up to Ned Stark, cuts his bindings with a +5 Katana, and casts Heal on him, mending the broken legs and the months of starvation in a second. He then places a Contingency: Fire Shield on Ned.
When time restarts, Ned is standing, fully healed, surrounded by a swirling cloak of blue flame.
The Dialogue: A Clash of Ideals
Christof Romuald: (Snarling, his fangs fully extended as he glares at Cersei)
“I see the mark of the beast in your eyes, woman! You plot in the shadows while the innocent bleed? I have spent centuries hunting monsters… I think I have found a whole nest of them here.”
The Bhaalspawn: (To Joffrey)
“Your ‘Seven’ are silent because they are afraid of what I am. If that blade touches a hair on this man’s head, I will pull this city into the sea and let the krakens feast on your ‘Iron’ chair.”
The Aftermath:
The Lannister army is paralyzed. They are facing a man who can move faster than sound and another who just turned their comrades into raisins with a hand gesture.
Varys is already recalculating his entire life’s work. Littlefinger is looking for the nearest exit. Joffrey has likely ruined his expensive royal trousers.
Ned Stark looks at his two saviors—one a literal vampire and the other a demi-god of murder—and for the first time in his life, he thinks: “Maybe the Old Gods have a very strange sense of humor.”
The dust from the “Horrid Wilting” is still settling, and the smell of ozone and dried husks hangs over the Sept. Ned Stark is standing, healed and bewildered, looking at his two monstrous saviors. The royal court has scrambled back into the shadows of the Great Sept like cockroaches.
Part I Conclusion:
The Verdict: There is no execution. There is only a very confused, very terrified King’s Landing. The “Game of Thrones” just got its first expansion pack, and the level cap was raised to 40.
The Introduction: Two Gods in a Kingdom of Dust
The two figures turn to each other, ignoring the thousands of terrified eyes fixed upon them.
The Bhaalspawn: (Sheathing his katanas, the blue embers in his eyes dimming to a calm, piercing azure)
“That was… a clumsy portal. I was in the library of Candlekeep one moment, and in this pit of vipers the next. I am Abdel, once of the Sword Coast. I have turned away the mantle of the Lord of Murder, yet it seems fate still finds use for my steel.”
Christof Romuald: (Planting the stolen blade Ice into the stone like a tent pole, his voice a gravelly, Gothic baritone)
“I know not of your ‘Sword Coast,’ traveler. I am Christof Romuald, Knight of the Sword of St. James… and a cursed son of the Clan Brujah. I was in the arms of my Anezka in Prague, finally at peace, before the shadows dragged me to this place of sin.”
They look at Ned Stark.
The Bhaalspawn: “You, Northman. You have the look of a man who values honor more than his life. A dangerous trait in a place that smells this much of rot. Who are these children playing at execution?”
Ned Stark: (Voice trembling but steady) “I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell. I… I do not know what sorcery you wield, but the ‘children’ you speak of are the Kings of the Seven Kingdoms.”
Christof: (Snarling at the Red Keep in the distance) “Kings? I see only tyrants and gluttons. This ‘Flea Bottom’ I passed through on my way up the hill… it is a festering wound of poverty and vice. It reeks of the same filth I fought in the dark alleys of Vienna.”
The Divergence: A Tale of Two Tasks
The Bhaalspawn looks toward the Red Keep, sensing the faint, cold resonance of the Iron Throne.
“Go then, Crusader. Tend to the ‘wounds’ of the poor if it eases your soul. I wish to see this chair of swords. I have sat upon the Throne of Bhaal; I want to see if this mortal trinket lives up to the blood spilled for it. We meet at sundown at the city gates. If the city still stands.”
Christof Romuald: The Scourge of Flea Bottom
Christof doesn’t walk to Flea Bottom; he descends upon it.
To the criminals, the rapists, and the corrupt Gold Cloaks who prey on the weak in the slums, Christof is a nightmare made flesh. He uses Potence to punch through stone walls where kidnappers hide and Presence to make the cruelest gang leaders fall to their knees in paralyzed terror.
- The Scene: He finds a group of city guards shaking down a baker’s daughter. Before they can blink, Christof is among them.
- The Action: He doesn’t use a sword. He uses his bare hands, snapping spears like dry kindling. He feeds on the most wicked, the “Beast” within him relishing the taste of corrupt blood, but he leaves the innocent untouched.
- The Result: Within three hours, Flea Bottom is the quietest place in Westeros. Word spreads of a “Vampire Knight” who skin-changes into a blur and leaves the bodies of the cruel hanging from the rafters. The poor begin to whisper that the “Stranger” has come to walk among them.
The Bhaalspawn: The Throne Room “Visit”
While Christof is cleaning the streets with blood, The Bhaalspawn walks through the front doors of the Red Keep.
The Kingsguard try to stop him. He doesn’t even break his stride. He casts “Mass Suggestion,” and the elite knights simply step aside, convinced that he is the rightful owner of the castle.
He enters the throne room. Joffrey is gone, hiding in his mother’s skirts in the Maegor’s Holdfast. The Bhaalspawn stands alone before the Iron Throne.
He climbs the steps and runs a hand over the melted, twisted blades of Aegon’s enemies. He senses no magic here—only the lingering psychic echo of a thousand petty betrayals and the cold sting of mundane steel.
The Bhaalspawn: (Scoffing to the empty room)
“All this for a chair of scrap metal? My brother Sarevok had more ambition in his pinky finger than this entire line of ‘Kings.’ It isn’t even comfortable.”
He sits. Not to claim it, but to insult it. He pulls out a scroll of “Teleport without Error,” waiting for Christof to finish his crusade so they can find a way back to their own worlds—but not before they leave Westeros fundamentally broken.
The Verdict: Flea Bottom is now the safest neighborhood in the world (out of sheer terror), and a Neutral Good Demi-god is currently taking a nap on the most contested seat in the world. The Lannisters aren’t just losing the war; they’re losing the reality.
Part III: The Lion’s Pride and the Hound’s Heart
Tywin Lannister does not believe in “monsters.” To him, magic is just a story told by peasants to explain things they don’t understand. When the ravens reach Casterly Rock claiming a “Blue-Eyed Sorcerer” is sitting on the throne and a “Blood-Drinking Knight” has seized Flea Bottom, Tywin sees only one thing: An Insult.
He assembles the Westerlands’ host—sixteen thousand spears, three thousand knights, and the most terrifying weapon in his arsenal: Ser Gregor Clegane, The Mountain That Rides.
The Unlikely Alliance
Inside the walls of King’s Landing, the atmosphere has changed. The fear hasn’t vanished, but it has crystallized into something else.
Sandor “The Hound” Clegane has been watching. He watched Christof snap the necks of Gold Cloaks who were mid-assault on a tavern girl. He watched the Bhaalspawn turn a column of Lannister elite into salt without breaking a sweat. For a man who hates knights and their “false vows,” seeing Christof Romuald—a man who actually is what a knight claims to be, despite being a monster—has broken something inside Sandor.
The Hound: (Growling at Ned Stark as they stand on the battlements)
“Your ‘Lord of Winterfell’ honor didn’t save you, Stark. It got you a date with an axe. But them? They don’t talk about honor. They just… do it. If the old man is coming with my brother, I want to be standing next to the vampire when the big man hits the line.”
Ned Stark: (Looking at his own hands, now glowing with a faint residual magic from the Bhaalspawn’s heal)
“I fought beside Robert to end a dynasty of madness. I find myself now fighting beside shadows to prevent another. If Tywin brings the Mountain, this city will become a graveyard.”
The Arrival of the Lion
The gates of King’s Landing are thrown open—not by surrender, but by The Bhaalspawn’s command. He stands at the entrance to the city, alone. Christof stands on a nearby rooftop, silhouetted against the setting sun, his claymore resting on his shoulder.
Tywin Lannister rides to the front of his army, his golden armor blinding. Beside him, Ser Gregor Clegane towers over his horse, a man-shaped engine of slaughter.
Tywin Lannister: (Voice cold as a winter morning)
“I do not know what mummer’s farce you are playing, but you have trespassed in my city and touched my blood. Surrender now, and I may allow you the mercy of a quick death.”
The Bhaalspawn: (Stepping forward, a Spell Turning aura shimmering around him)
“Your ‘mercy’ is a currency I do not trade in, Lannister. I have stared into the eyes of Bhaal himself. Your threats are like the buzzing of a fly to me. And your ‘Mountain’…”
He gestures to the rooftops. Christof Romuald drops down, landing with a bone-shattering thud that cracks the cobblestones. He stands up, his fangs lengthening, his eyes turning a deep, predatory crimson.
Christof: (Pointing at Gregor Clegane)
“That one… his soul is a blackened husk. He tastes of nothing but screams and stale blood. I shall enjoy returning him to the earth.”
The Clash: The Demi-God vs. The Army
Tywin raises his hand. “Kill them. All of them.”
The Mountain roars and charges. But before he can even reach the gate, the Bhaalspawn speaks a word that ripples through the very air:
“Wail of the Banshee!”
The front line of the Lannister army simply… stops. Men drop dead in their saddles, their hearts failing from sheer metaphysical terror.
The Bhaalspawn: (To Tywin, while casually casting Improved Alacrity)
“You brought an army to a duel of souls, Tywin. A mistake. You think you are the apex predator? I am the son of Murder, and I am breathtakingly bored with your pride.”
The Brother’s Duel
In the chaos, The Hound leaps from the battlements, landing in the mud. He doesn’t look at Tywin. He looks at Gregor.
“Hey, Gregor! Remember the fire? I’ve brought a friend who knows all about the dark!”
Christof moves in a blur of Celerity, clashing with the Mountain. The sound of their blades hitting is like a hammer on an anvil. Gregor is strong, but Christof has the Potence of a 9th Generation vampire. He catches Gregor’s massive blade with one hand and snaps the steel with his fingers.
Part III:
The Verdict: Tywin Lannister is realizing for the first time in his life that “A Lannister always pays his debts” doesn’t work when the debt-collector can stop time and rip the moisture from your lungs. The Mountain is facing a predator that makes him look like a lapdog.
Part IV: The Lion’s Fall and the New Dawn
The battle is less of a war and more of an exorcism. The Lannister army, seeing their “invincible” Mountain broken and their Lord captured by a man who controls the very air, breaks and flees toward the Blackwater.
The Death of the Mountain
Ser Gregor Clegane, a man who has never known fear, finally feels it as Christof Romuald grips his throat. The Mountain’s heavy plate armor is crumpled like parchment under Christof’s Potence.
Christof: “You have sowed the wind, monster. Now, reap the whirlwind!”
With a final, snarl, Christof doesn’t just kill him—he uses Burning Wrath, the Brujah fire of the soul, to ignite the Mountain from within. Gregor Clegane doesn’t die as a man; he vanishes as a pillar of ash, scattered to the salty winds of the bay. Sandor “The Hound” Clegane watches the ashes fall, spitting on the ground. The nightmare of his childhood is finally, truly over.
The Justice of the Smallfolk
The Bhaalspawn doesn’t waste a spell on Tywin. He simply casts “Bigby’s Crushing Hand” to pluck the Lord of Casterly Rock from his horse and drop him into the mud at the entrance of Flea Bottom.
The Bhaalspawn: (To the huddled, scarred masses of the slums)
“Here is the man who built your misery on a foundation of gold. He is no longer a Lord. He is just… flesh. Do with him what your hearts command.”
As the Bhaalspawn walks away, the “shame” people of the slums—the bakers, the orphans, the widows of the riots—begin to close in. Tywin Lannister, who always prided himself on his “legacy,” realizes his final legacy will be a nameless grave in the filth he once ignored.
The Farewell: Portals and Promises
At the gates of the city, under a sky that feels clearer than it has in centuries, the two multiversal titans prepare to depart.
Christof Romuald: (Handing a small, blood-red ruby to Sandor Clegane)
“Take this, Hound. If the darkness grows too thick, drop a drop of your own blood upon it. I shall hear your call across the shroud of death. You have the heart of a true protector—do not let this world rot it again.”
The Bhaalspawn: (Handing a shimmering silver whistle to Ned Stark)
“A ‘Whistle of Summoning.’ One blow, and I will tear a hole in the sky to return. Keep this city clean, Stark. If I come back and find you’ve let another ‘King’ turn this place into a slaughterhouse, I’ll be much less friendly next time.”
Ned Stark: (Bowing his head) “I do not understand you, nor your magic. But the North remembers, and the South will never forget. Safe travels, Lords of the Beyond.”
The Final Step
The Bhaalspawn begins to chant, a high-level Gate spell that resonates with the power of his divine spark. Christof stands beside him, his gaze fixed on the horizon, perhaps thinking of his beloved Anezka.
The Bhaalspawn: “Ready to return to the ‘real’ monsters, Knight?” Christof: “Always. At least in our worlds, the villains don’t pretend to be saints.”
The purple light erupts, blinding the onlookers. When it fades, the gates are empty.
Epilogue:
The Verdict: King’s Landing is under the joint rule of the most honorable man in the world and the most cynical bodyguard in history. The Lannister gold is gone, the Mountain is dust, and the Iron Throne is currently being used by Ned Stark as a very uncomfortable coat rack.
But across the sea, a girl with three dragons is starting to make her move. She thinks she has the ultimate power… she hasn’t seen what happens when the Silver Whistle blows.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan-fiction. All characters from Game of Thrones, Baldur’s Gate, and Vampire: The Masquerade belong to their respective owners (George R.R. Martin/HBO, Wizards of the Coast, and Paradox Interactive). No copyright infringement is intended. This was written for entertainment purposes in collaboration with a very helpful Lich (GenAI).
