Pendragon Fiction

These stories are the inspired fictions that came from the role-playing chronicles. Inspired by the intensity and excitement of the game, the players wanted more; they wanted to create a larger world than could be encompassed in their game alone: a world that went beyond the mere boundaries of defeating evil physically, but of forming a larger supernatural community. Wisely, their storyteller gave them the lattitude to do this, and the result has been a very rich collection of stories, which is really the reason to game in the first place: to create great stories. The links below represent a short summary and the author's intent for each story. Click on the links by each summary to read the whole story.

MONKEY POWDER COMEDOWN (read the story)

Originally scripted as a writing sample to the White Wolf Gaming company, Michael Wawrzycki never placed much emphasis himself on the significance of this tale. It was written as an experimental, attention grabbing short story, in a stream of consciousness style similar to the musings of Sebastian's own favorite, William Faulkner. The tack did not work for Wawrzycki, but later critics have taken particular notice of this piece.

The story is more accurately short short fiction and details Sebastian's coming off of an Ecstatic-tailored drug called 'Monkey Powder.' As his consciousness struggles to reorient itself, we are given a rare glimpse of Sebastian's past, casting a different spin on even his own 'autobiographical' story: not just his associations with the mages and kindred of New Orleans, but also how he felt about them. Monkey Powder Comedown thus supplies a backdrop for the city as a whole and firmly relegates Sebastian's psyche in the troubled outcast world he lives in. Yet the story also gives glimpses into the ambition and cares that Sebastian would not manifest until years later.

Presumably, Monkey Powder Comedown takes place in the late winter of nineteen-hundred and ninety-six, mere months before Sebastian is forced to leave New Orleans. The apocalyptic undertones in the glimpses of his own future and his struggle to become something better that what he was seem to hint an affirmation of this date. Certainly, Wawrzycki did not know how this story fit into the larger picture for Sebastian Duvalier and critics still debate the issue. Yet arguably, it is one of the most dense and rhythmic works involving this character.

ORPHAN EXILE (read the story)

For a long time, Michael Wawrzycki let the past of Sebastian Duvalier remain as much of a mystery as the man himself. Yet as Sebastian became more than a brash, brazen, political thug, and started to develop into a leader—a rebellious icon of sorts for the underbelly of the World Of Darkness—Wawrzycki wanted something more for the character; he wanted a deeper flesh for Duvalier than just the thin, dark skin.

It was at this point that Wawrzycki scripted the 'autobiographical' account of Sebastian's origins, detailing his awakening, and reveals his late youth, growing up in the supernatural community: how Sebastian interacted with certain factions and why. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it describes the circumstances surrounding his self-exile from New Orleans in the spring of nineteen-hundred and ninety-six.

While Orphan Exile itself is neither Wawrzycki's best or most detailed story, it does fill in crucial gaps in the life of the enigmatic mage, supplying a new richness of character that completes a sense of existence for the brash mage. Or at least it appears to, until The Jagged Pill reveals even more at work in Sebastian's past than even Sebastian himelf realizes (see below).

CABAL OF THE PHOENIX (read the story)

Cabal of the Phoenix is laid out in eight chapters, each of which take place in a specific order, though not necessarily in a linear time frame. The internet framework of hyperlinks allows a reader to choose one's own order if one should choose, creating a vantage point unique to that experience.

This story is one of Wawrzycki's longer Pendragon fictions. It comes at a low point in Sebastian's career, where the introduction of Dylan Brindamour creates an insurrection in the cabal. Dylan's objection to Sebastian causes his other teammates, Chip Zelinsky and Martin Scorcese to doubt him as well. Sebastian nearly walks out on the team, fearing the same anarchy that led to the death of his cousin in Rochester.

As a result, Wawrzycki casts him with a new group of associates in the late summer of nineteen-hundred and ninety-six, a mercenary unit, known as the "A-Team." They form an immediate symbiosis, as Sebastian fills the role of the team's recently deceased leader. This interaction builds in one of the A-Team members a comfortability that he had not shown as a leader before, and ultimately allows them to return to Los Angeles, a more complete and independent cabal.

Cabal of the Phoenix is a dynamic tale of relationships and teamwork, giving short glimpses into the characters of each of the five new mages, showing their strengths, as well as their weaknesses: ultimately demonstrating how their sum is greater than the whole of their parts.

DUVALIER FOUNDATION (read the story)

While this short treatise is not truly fiction, it details Sebastian's origins into the business world and what he did with the grand amounts of money he found himself possessed with suddenly.

BLACK SUMMER (read the story)

Black Summer is the previously untitled story, which was originally dubbed the origin of Bail Braddock. However, the story does not detail his background and prelude, as much as it gives an odd glimpse into who his diabolic mentor might have been and what Bail did with some of his younger years.

Wawrzycki wanted to branch out his stories and flesh out his secondary characters in the Mage Chronicles: in particular, not wanting to neglect the character who was the student in the shadow of Sebastian Duvalier. Black Summer gives plenty of hints and suggestions, but confirms little, mirroring the typical White Wolf literary style.

CITIES OF ANGELS (read the story)

Although largely a political venture, Cities of Angels also serves to offer important insights into the character of Sebastian Duvalier. It is a story of cycles, as Sebastian and Chip renounce their wealth and businesses (at least publicly), Sebastian all but hands over the Duvalier Foundation to Fernando DeGaulle, and the the duo leave their mansion and the Harbingers they had lived with for so long.

Yet at the same time, it is a beginning of a new cycle, one where Sebastian travels to see Lee Rossdale of the A-Team, as well as Dylan Brindamour and Rayne: each formerly of the Cabal of the Phoenix, offering them each the opportunity to join his craft, to try and offer them all the opportunity to make something more of the world around them. In doing so, the relationships of Sebastian to each of those three mages is re-examined. Cities of Angels also demonstrates Duvalier's unflagging commitment to his nascent craft.

Also, in this summer of nineteen-hundred and ninety-seven, the author shows his readers Sebastian's reunions with old friends Jesse D. Edmond, a Garou, and Rebecca, an elder vampire. These encounters too, Wawrzycki uses to serve the continuing evolution of Sebastian's character and to add depth to the political machinations within.

PENDRAGON RISING: THE HOST (read the story)

The Pendragon Rising: The Host short story takes place in a unique form. It takes place in the fall of nineteen-hundred and ninety-eight, during the time when Sebastian Duvalier and Chip Zelinsky's cabal are on a search for the Holy Grail. The story does not revolve around them per se, but rather consists of a collection of e-mail messages between Sebastian and the others of their craft.

In the story, Duvalier is trying to organize the efforts of the Pendragons into a more active role. Sebastian communicates his wishes for Lee Rossdale, Dylan Brindamour, Rayne, and Leander to take charge of their prospective lives, to focus them on purposes furthering the craft: each doing what they can to play to their natural strengths.

It is in this story also, that Wawrzycki reflects on Sebastian's choice to take the Pendragons, named after Chip's kingly avatar, and organize them by the mythical hosts of heavenly angels. This symbolism plays out in both obvious and not-so obvious manners, demonstrating once again Sebastian's attempt to make something more out of the Pendragons, to make them a real force in the World Of Darkness, not just a name, not just an idea.

LAST OF THE DUVALIERS (read the story)

Written much later than it was set, Michael Wawrzycki placed the Last of the Duvaliers in the late winter of nineteen-hundred and ninety-seven. This perhaps was the darkest story ever written about Sebastian Duvalier. It details his pyrrhic search for a family and the bitter discovery of his true father: a man who turns out to be one of the most murderous villains of his era. Ashamed and hurt, Sebastian must deal with this revelation and come to terms with it.

This story also casts a different type of battle adversary, allowing Sebastian to demonstrate his battle superiority over mundanes with a terse display of magick wizardry as the Pendragon cuts through his father's bodyguards for the final, fateful confrontation with his sire: a culmination of events that will change Sebastian forever.

The reaons for which Wawrzycki scripted this story much after it happened are largely unknown. It is thought that the discovery of the actual identity of the character's namesake contributed to a hindsight establishment of a link between the two. Because the story adds an intense, yet tragic, aspect to the character of Sebastian Duvalier, it is among the finest of the stories involving him.

 

 

HARBINGER ASSOCIATED (read the story)

Similar to the Duvalier Foundation, this short treatise details how Sebastian's comrade Fernando DeGaulle revamped the Duvalier Foundation, to make it less visible to the Technocracy. These changes took place in late winter of nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine.

BOYS NIGHT OUT (read the story)

This short story was a different kind of Sebastian adventure, set in the summer oif nineteen-hundred and ninety-eight. In Boys Night Out, Wawrzycki shows more than the violent or political aspects of Sebastian's character, by choosing to focus on his social attributes. It is a tale of going out on the town with friends, his student Kahn and Ragnar the Garou, as they go out to the club that Sebastian owns, Electrica. In the story, Sebastian has to come to grips with a world that has changed under him, and now his small craft, the Faulknarians, has transformed into something larger: the Pendragons. He must also come to deal with the fact that his girlfriend, Lotus, is in a death-like coma, when there appears to be no reason for it, and certainly no cure for it.

Between the drinking, drugs, Kindred company, and the female attention given to his friends, Sebastian must find his own path: walking the dark spirals of the underground labyrinth of the club, trailing a Gangrel acquaintance, fighting through the blood-induced homoeroticism, and finally seducing a woman who actually recognizes him from his more active business days with the Duvalier Foundation.

THE PRINCE (read the story)

A story of rescue and betrayal, redemption and defection. In this work, Wawrzycki scripts Lee Rossdale and Carr Stanton of the A-Team as rescuers of a Syndicate defector. Of particular note, the epilogue hints at the future importance of this act, when the new Pendgragon, "Machiavelli," is placed under the aegis of Fernando DeGaulle, as part of the expanding Harbinger Associated. The Prince takes place in the late spring of nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine.

FASCINATING EFFICIENCY (read the story)

Fasinating Efficiency stands out as a lighter, comedic, tale in the dark repetoir of Pendragon stories. Taking place in early summer, nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine, this story introduces Jenny Slater, an ex-Etherite. Damon Nevard of the A-Team brings her to Detroit to join the Pendragons. This story also hints at several larger things, including future plans for the mansion, Devon's role in the Pendragons, and Leander's Dealings with the Kindred Prince of the City.

FALLEN FROM THE TREE (read the story)

Fallen From The Tree is possibly the most intense and well written of Wawrzycki's Pendragon fiction. It is a non-stop literary thriller: one which boggles the mind and senses, drop-kicking the reader at the same time with jaw-breaking action: all of which is redeemed by the heart of a hero.

This story is a coming of age story about Detroit's new lead mage: Leander. When Sebastian and the Seraphim depart on a globe-spanning quest, Leander is left to maintain the peace of Detroit, to bargain with Kindred and Garou and to fight off the disparate, yet cumulative forces of the Wrym, the Sabbat, and the Technocracy.

Cast alongside the Garou Kaitlin Fairchild for most of the story, this tale is told in a non-linear fashion: alternating between Leander's machinations with the Kindred Prince of the city, his battle against a Black Spiral where he is saved by Kaitlin, and ultimately their capture and torture by the Sabbat. Yet the back and forth fashion works to maintain and heighten the tension at times and to fill in crucial gaps at others.

Fallen From The Tree, which takes place in early spring, nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine, holds perhaps the most consistent and poetic narrative among the ensemble around it, distinguishing itself above the rest. While Sebastian Duvalier may be the center of the Pendragon world, Leander has surely made a large step to win over many fans in this powerful work.

WINTER RAVEN'S EYE (read the story)

Considered the story that truly brings the Pendragon works full circle, the completion of this story gives nearly every known Pendragon, and each of their allies, their own time to shine. Teaming up with A-Team member Nathaniel Dane, the ex-Harbinger Blade is finally given his chance in the spotlight: his first since his embrace. This story also serves to implicitly show the tightness that the Pendragons have woven around the supernatural community in Detroit.

The tale, which takes place in early winter of nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine, details the protagonists' journey to Northern Canada to recover a lost Garou artifact. In many ways, Winter Raven's Eye follows the typical Pendragon formula, a heroic tale of recovery, intermixed with dark violence. Yet underneath that is the willingness of two unlike persons to work together towards a common goal. It shows an ease and familiarity which is all too common for complete strangers: one that is all too appropriate. In a sense, this is a major theme of Wawrzycki's storytelling: the possible compatibility of all persons who work together, concentrating on all that they do have in common, not on what they don't.

THE JAGGED PILL (read the story)

What is usually considered by critics as the beginning of a new phase of the Pendragon legend, The Jagged Pill begins to tie together the loose threads of the mysteroy surrounding Pendragon founder Sebastian Duvalier. For the most part, the story focuses on the dark mage himself, but Bail and Chip both make short cameos. Although much of the story takes the reader to past events, the 'present' aspect of the work takes place in winter of nineteen-hundred and ninety-eight.

Wawrzycki was looking to bring out aspects of Duvalier's past, as well as to show how those events would affect the present: weaving them all into the same tapestry. What occurs is mind-boggling to Sebastian, and once again he is forced to confront inner demons that he does not even want to know about. Especially when Sebastian is shouted down by the one message that he refuses to hear, but so many others see: that his greatest enemy may just be himself.

 

RAZIEL'S STATUS PERFECTUS (read the story)

Raziel's Status Perfectus is a story Wawrzycki had been wanting to write for long before he did. However, the delay allowed the story to dovetail perfectly into the beginning of the second era of Pendragon fiction. The story is mostly about Pendragon Lee Rossdale and her rise in Los Angeles. However, it also co-stars A-Team member Cortland O'Connell, and introduces the newest Pendragon, Cleopatra. This work takes place in late summer of nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine.

This tale is the beginning of a new storyline based in Los Angeles, where with a darth of mages, Lee and the A-Team find themselves the unlikely allies of Jeremy MacNeil and the Anarch Free State. The story is also a rare mystery among the Pendragon fictions. Who is killing the mages of Los Angeles, and what can be done about it? And just what will Lee have to do to make sure they survive? The longest Pendragon story to date, it may also be one of the most intriguing.

 

ERRANT MEMORIES (read the story)

The penultamate chapter in the Pendragon saga, Errant Memories finally tells the story of Chip Zelinsky. It connects his past to his present and future, bringing together the entire tapestry of his destiny. Errant Memories is the archetypal Pendragon story, as it promulgates an anti-moral. This theme of moral ambiguity aligns well with the other Wawrzycki stories.

The story is told from early fall 1998, as the Seraphim continue their quest for the Grail, but the majority of the story recounted occurs in early 1996, before Zelinsky met Sebastian Duvalier. The story details the fall of his former cabal, as well as why Zelinsky was an enemy of the Brujah clan in Detroit when he met Duvalier. Most importantly, this story is the beginning of the end of the Duvalier era, as Zelinsky begins to eclipse his friend and take control of their craft, as he finally accepts his destiny.

 

A LIGHT IN SEPTEMBER (read the story)

Following the tradition of many great novels, in particular William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Wawrzycki ends the Pendragon chronicles with a host of new questions, and in many ways a new beginning. This approach is meant to mirror the unending saga of life, which often comes and goes without convenient endings. A Light in September does reveal a great many mysteries, and continues GM Edmond's efforts to align the game with the rest of the World of Darkness.

The story takes place in mid fall 1998, directly after Errant Memories. It brings Sebastian full circle, detailing both his acceptance of his growing power and of his place in the destiny of things to come.