The ponies of the CDA have no natural means of reaching the worlds which have been launching incursions into Equestria, and have no hope of passing for natives should they cross. The Princesses, desperate for solutions, chose to recruit some of those who made the most resourceful, peaceful incursions as the CDA personnel on their sides of the barrier, stopping further disruptions in exchange for hours spent in Equestria. Bree Daniels is the only human agent in her world, a job which offers numerous chances to get killed. But she's survived so far, because Bree has a way of dealing with problems...
...a way which might call into question just what qualities the Princesses are seeking in their human agents to begin with. And how necessary those qualities are.
(Follows the first CDA story: the second one is slightly more optional.)
Now has a TVTropes page and character sheet. New edits welcome.
Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.
Dark. Is this a franchise or a made up world? You kind of throw the reader in and do not explain a lot of your little world-building sentences, which works in that it immerses the reader and doesn't work in that I spent too much time wondering what was happening.
Also, Celestia seemed a little too harsh to be in character, but that could just be my vision of her.
Yikes.
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This appears to be a Mage: The Ascension crossover, part of White Wolf’s old World of Darkness line of pen‐and‐paper RPGs. The last CDA story had included Paranoia as one of the realities that people come from.
Even if i don't completely "get" the worlds your humans are crossing over from, even if I have no clue as to the references you're making or the other works you're paying homage to, I do love these CDA stories. More please. Many, many more.
4172203 Actually, Mage: The Ascension was the Old World of Darkness. That was the one where the Technocracy was the big villain; New World of Darkness plays up the Exarch's and the Seers of the Throne more.
4172577
Thanks for the correction, I’ve updated my original comment to reflect that.
A Paranoia-crossover and now a WoD-crossover...
So cheerful and optimistic, right?
Yes.
Darker than what I prefer, but good. No idea what the crissover is.
Upvote and fave.
So, now I'm wondering what would happen if an Exalt made it to Equestria.
... This seems like the kind of thing that would snowball extremely quickly.
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I swear I saw something with Dragon-Blooded in the title go through the New Stories column a while back. But with Spike around...
SEP: More effective than stealth, easier than invisibility, more practical than shrink rays, but only marginally better than 'I'm Supposed To Be Here'.
I'd say this is too bleak, but it's World of Darkness so there is no such thing.
Tall, exotic-looking, super-stacked super-scientist who works for CDA as a human agent? Yup, that is a perfectly fitting oWoD player character!
It was around the park scene where I figured out what Bree's world was. Nicely done!
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Well, WoD-humanity at least! (And Paranoia's just awful if you take Alpha Complex as a real place instead of a piece of background for blackly humorous ultraviolent backstabbing fun.)
4173703
Depends a lot of the Exalt, I would guess.
Lunar: "My Luna's taller than your Luna."
Solar: "Hey, Sun! Mind if I kick some pony plot in your righteous name? I could use a brief vacation!"
Sidereal: "Oh come on! As if I didn't have enough weirdness on my desk this week already?!"
4177964 Well, maybe. It's difficult to generalize the Exalted like that, though; there are plenty of Solars and Lunars who don't care about their respective patrons, because they've got their own issues they want to leverage their awesome might towards solving.
... Good grief, whatever would the Sisters make of a Terrifying Argent Witch?
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As above/ below. I've been avoiding putting 'This is a crossover with X' in the title because I don't want to scare off the people who don't know X and thought the ones who did would have fun recognizing what was happening, or at least as much as anyone could with this setting.
I probably lose a lot of readers that way.
Attempting to explain the old WoD would, by the publisher's rough history, take over a hundred thousand pages. (And there are debates to be made about whether they even partially succeeded in the end.) For the novices, think of it as every major monster mashed into a partially-Gothic setting designed to throw people into suicidal depression.
(There are those who claim the ideal Cthulhu player should conclude character design by rolling dice to shoot themselves. Original WoD could be seen as those who saved time by setting the game's guidebook on fire.)
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The horrible part is that I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
And suddenly I'm the only person on the site who can't do a self-insert fic... 
(I lie, of course. My programming skills svck.)
Adding these in before continuing:
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What's worse than Alpha Complex? Well, depending on your viewpoint...
The original WoD was always intended as part of this multi-dimensional mess, and picking a supernatural who could reach Equestria, serve as a CDA agent, and get the Princesses to do something other than attack brought the character to the mages. (The built-in personality flip issues present in the others... problem.) Going through the Traditions to find an Awakened who would do the job for the sake of the necessary, without experimentation, without pressure to sell secrets, staying connected to a new reality at the basic level, and with no bureaucracy trying to get in the way... put it all together and it spelled Euthanatos.
Gotta love the Euthies. Unless, of course, you're, you know, anything else. And then you're probably just shooting them.
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Just be glad I didn't show the results from a vampire converting a pony.
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...why do I have the feeling that something potentially very beautiful/horrible just got started?
Not by me. I'm not doing that, nor am I dragging any other part of Creation into this. But you put it out there, and that just might mean it will come...
4183156 Wait, you know about the Terrifying Argent Witches?
4183994
That was my clique's name in junior high.
We kind of had a rep.
4184025 ... Congratulations! I have no idea if you're joking or not!
4183156
Watcha talkin about . Bat ponies are awesome.
4183156
It's a bit of both.
Bree's both the More Special Than Thou sort of a character that a lot of PCs in oWoD ended up being, and a really solid and well-characterized Euthanatos. She represents the best and the worst of White Wolf, in a way!
These CDA stories are always so fascinating. So far it's been two out of two for crossover settings I'm mostly/entirely unfamiliar with, though I was guessing this was WoD by the end.
Unfamiliar with crossed over material.
Liked it anyway.
Fun fact: I thought Bree was a Genius for about the first third of the story. Close, but no Skafoi.
In any case, another excellent story. The contrast between Equestria and the World of Darkness is, in some ways, even more striking than that with Alpha Complex. Paranoia is exaggerated to the point of parody, but WoD is by design close enough to the real world to be distressingly recognizable. Add in the factor of having to come back to the crapsack, and it's downright heartbreaking.
Thank you for this, Estee. I'm glad I finally read it.
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I actually made Cadance into a Venus-analogue in my stories, and gave her sisters to match. I can only imagine what a blue-sid would think of her...
...She was posing as a Virtual Adept, wasn't she? That's BRILLIANT.
I ended up downloading this one and reading it while out camping a couple months ago. I... had more insightful things to say at the time, but no way to write them down. So, now that I'm remembering to comment, I'll just say that I enjoyed the story, and I've been enjoying this "series" in general as well. I like the concept, and the way you play with some very, very different angles on characters and the world(s) involved.
WOD and Ponies. Hold on, I have to like/follow/favorite...
But in seriousness, that was awesome. You hardly ever see THAT cross-over in the fandom but it works so well. I had been trying to figure out what Bree was, actually had my folding money on Technocracy with that PDA and all. I did not see Euthanatos coming. (The part in Equestria where she began to fling around vulgar magic had me thinking Hermeticist or Hollow One at first. More Hollow, simply do to the PDA) Although it does fit, really. I haven't looked through all of your stuff yet, but I do hope you do more with Bree. A fic set in the end times was so satisfying. Took me a little bit to figure out what her world was. The witch removed any shred of doubt. The wraith and the kindred were just icing on the cake.
P.S. Tell me she roasted a Tremere. Please let that smarmy asshole have been a Tremere. Or a Tory. I could accept that too.
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Note the mention of 'the pyramid'.
Bree's story may not be quite finished yet.
5138892 Sweeeeeet!! This calls for immediate pinkie-pieing
But that's great, glad to hear you may do more with her.
I played World of Darkness back in the early 1990s. I had it narrowed down to either Euthanatos or Virtual Adept. The VA tended to be more optimistic. For those unfamiliar with the game, Euthanatos members literally had to die (and be revived) to get in. They also believe in reincarnation and regard killing someone as the equivalent of a time out. For some reason, both sides tend to distrust them.
You know. The Euthanatoi have always been my least favourite Tradition.
Admittedly, part of that had to do with meta worries. A Tradition built around killing things? Now that's sure to attract a certain type of player. It's not that simple, of course. There's more to it; or at least there can be more to it.
Me, I've always felt drawn towards the Cult or the Choir. Sometimes, I imagine what would've happened if I became a priest... then I see myself in front of a mourning crowd during a funeral, and all that grief and pain would be so overwhelming. I couldn't not resonate with it. Hence, the Cult.
Well, technically the Sons as well, but who ever heard of an Etherist with a degree in language..?
no
But Bree is a horse from the Chronicles of Narnia, "The Horse and His Boy".
Or, a small town just to the south and east of the Shire, wherein one can find the Inn of the Prancing Pony.
For this guy to ALSO be named Bree... in ANOTHER story wherein the name is tied with equines...
Clearly, we are dealing with a CONSPIRACY!! Foils hats on, everypony!
"at a particularly good overhead jest."
"at a particularly good overheard jest."?
"local ponies hadn't know how to respond"
"local ponies hadn't known how to respond"?
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Bree's not a guy, She's female
9352260 That's what THEY want you to think! #ConspiraciesAreEverywhere
reminds me of a scene in "airframe" by Micheal Creighton where someone sees a bruise on another woman's face and immediately says "you should dump the bastard", as if an abusive boyfriend is the only thing in the UNIVERSE that could POSSIBLY put a bruise on a woman's face...
It might be from six years ago, but damn this is one of the best WoD stories I've read. It made me not only look for more WoD (and exalted, thanks to 4173703) crossovers, but kindle a hope there's more of it from you. 140 stories at usually 10k+ words each is no mean feat, and a struggle to go through - even if a pleasurable one. I'm still to finish Triptych, after all this time...
A favorite nonetheless!