Selene and David from Underworld

War of Nytefall: Rivalry will be a major turning point in the relationship of Mab and Clyde.  I feel confident in saying this because anyone who read the first book or stuff about them on this blog knows how they interact.  There’s a friendly, playful tension that stems from their long history and former romance.  It’s clear that there are still some emotions there, but I’ll get into that another day.  This post is about the history and origin of the ‘Mab/Clyde’ relationship.

I talked about Mab and Clyde in their own origin posts way back in February of 2018.  I mentioned that they were characters used by me (Clyde) and another player (Mab), which rolled into an odd history.  We didn’t exactly plan it before the session started, but we began arguing about old heists and bad dates.  Just bringing up childish slights at the oddest time and talking about how one used to be more romantic or something.  It became clear that the characters had dated long before we began using them.  Once we accepted this, we played it up a lot and sometimes got a little crude.  Mostly, we shot snarky one-liners at each other during tense moments. It carried all the way until we stopped using them.

The humor and fun of this type of connection carried into the books, which resulted in a strange back and forth.  At first, I made them a couple right off the bat, but this resulted in losing the playful humor.  Not sure why I didn’t see that coming.  I then tried to have them be exes that still respected each other and worked together, which kind of worked even though I cut out the sexual tension.  It was almost there, so I did the obvious path of making a wrong decision.  This is when I made a few versions where Clyde ended up with the Vampire Queen and Mab was just kind of there.  It worked for a while until I switched to Windemere and realized that Mab had no role beyond ‘female badass’.  There was no real depth and growth to her during this stage.

I hated to admit it, but a lot of it depended on Clyde and he wasn’t going very far without her.  He was the monster on the edge and she was the angry former thief.  Nobody else was drawing other aspects out, so I put them together again.  From Mab, Clyde gains an anchor for his humanity and a partner who understands him better than anyone else.  From Clyde, Mab gained a partner who could draw her into a role that is more than a greedy thief and give her a chance to show some compassion for another person.  They were both incredibly selfish when apart, but shed that issue when put together even as non-romantic partners.  That’s where they’ve stayed ever since.

To be honest, I never really thought out the specifics of their history.  Both were thieves who stumbled onto each other and decided to work together.  Their partnership blossomed into a rather animalistic romance since Mab and Clyde are both fairly id-driven.  They’ve gained a lot of self-control over the decades.  Anyway, they made the gang to help gather more money and to allow them to work with some friends (Vengeance Hounds and Chastity) that they made.  This group grew pretty big and even stayed together after Clyde as caught in bed with Chastity.  Mab went off on her own for a bit to clear her head, but came back because it was still her family.  It is strange how her and Clyde continued to be partners after that, but Chastity admitted to her trickery.  So, she took the brunt of Mab’s anger while Clyde was targeted by snark and the occasional pummeling when he’d piss her off.  This is why War of Nytefall: Loyalty starts with Mab and Clyde still being partners and caring about each other.  Guess some emotions are hard to kill even with vampires.

So, that’s basically the history.  Bits and pieces will continue coming out, but one might never know the true picture.  Mab and Clyde are much more about the present and future these days.  Guess immortality means you don’t look back very often.  Hope this is enough to answer a few questions.