Character Creation

 

Basics

Characters are the Children of Brand*, after he fell into the Abyss and established his new power and reality. Shadow, Amber and the Courts of Chaos is the stuff of myth and story. Characters automatically start with the Flame, Brand's power and gift to his family. The Flame is the ability of Creation, and within it reside the other powers of the universe. You have 100 points to spend on stats, powers and extras.

 

Statistics

Stats have two roles, the first being their usual place in the Amber campaign and the second defining your strengths and weaknesses with the Flame.

• Psyche / Gravitas -- "Importance", this is the strength at which you can make something happen with the Flame.
• Strength / Potency -- "Force", the oomph you have to put behind your acts of will with the Flame.
• Endurance / Persistence -- "Preserverance" The duration of an act of your will.
• Warfare / Facility -- "Nimbleness", The ability to work with the Flame and you will within existing conditions.

I go off on an explanation under my description of the Flame abut the stats and their roles.

Psychic contact can be established only through a power (though almost any power can do it with enough explanation), but sorry, no grabbing someone's skull and performing mind melds.

You can buy down attributes, but only to Chaos level (-10 points).

If, when you submit your points, you can specify if you want to be first in an attribute. Once I have all the characters in, I'll let you know if you have it or if you need to spend more points.

 

Power Breakdown

Flame [Free]

     Sorcery [20], pick One field of Expertise

          Sorcery [+5], add an additional field of Expertise

          Psi [+10]

     Trump Artistry [40]

     Shapeshifting [35]

     Pattern Fragment [15]

     Logrus Fragment [10]

          Psychic Connection [+5]

 

Partial and Advanced Powers are certainly available, with discussion with the GM.

 

Everyone who is a child of Brand starts with the Flame for free: read all about it.

 

Sorcery [20]: Being a child of the Flame, Conjuration comes with Sorcery for free. It's also assumed you have conjured yourself a way to rack spells, but the rack is breakable if you don't spend points to make it a real item (it's cheap for the low price of 2 points). Choose an area of expertise. An additional area of expertise is 5 points. Points of interest with this power:

• Warfare and Psyche are the two most important stats with this power, since it works in conjunction with the flame.
• Spells with variable lynchpins (target, power source, who knows what) once prepared take as much time to cast as it takes to say a complex sentence, like this one. Single lynchpin spells can be just a phrase with a few words, like "Hey you, suck this, Corwin." Thing is, there's still enough breath in that phrase that someone with enough Warfare could potentially gut you.
• Magic aspects like divination, the o-so-loved information magics, and any type of magic that is used to gather and extrapolate information are somewhat faulty. Because of the Flame, it's just as likely to manufacture yourself an answer you want than the answer you're actually looking for.

An alternative for Sorcery is Psi. Mechanically, it works the same as Sorcery except lynchpins are exceptionally short, like "Burn." Pick an area or areas of expertise and make a 'spell' list. But you don't need to worry about a spell rack -- you can keep about a  dozen 'effects' ready in your mind at a time, and swapping abilities out just takes a few hours of meditation or a good night's rest.

Trump Artistry [40]: As per normal rules. You can use trumps for mental defense, make sketches and full trumps, sense trump energies as well as some Caller ID.

• When a trump is created of a place or an object, it helps with the stability of its ether, making it more static. This means that less maintenance with the Flame is needed to keep something in its shape.
• With Caller ID you need to have cards to be able to check. This could mean if you're getting a trump call, the caller may stop calling before you're done going through your deck, or you won't know who it is if you don't have their card.

 

Shapeshifting [35]: You have enhanced healing, survival shapeshifting, can shift different forms/shapes given time, and an alternate form, whcih represents some internal aspect. For every 10 points you have in Endurance, you may add 1 point of qualities from the Artifacts and Creatures worksheet.

 

Pattern Fragment [15]: Although the great design was destroyed in the Storm, bits of its power still exist, and those initiated to the Flame can still find some of its embers burning within the Flame's heart. Taking a bit of this in, it allows you to manipulate probability, something akin to making good luck. It requires a good chunk of concentration, but it's the one thing around that can "change" things. Also, it's not subtle, something along the lines of taking a hammer to an engine to make it do what you want it to do.

 

Logrus Fragment [10]: The Logrus was this amazing beast with infinite tendrils which stretched out across Shadow, and when the tapestry was destroyed, its broken limbs went into the Flame. Now, initiates of the Flame may pick up its remains and use it for their own will. It allows one to use a tendril much like telekinesis, with a comparable strength to the individual, which extends a few meters from the body. For 5 points more, the tendril can be used to make psychic contact.

 

Extras:

Realms, Items and Creatures, oh my!

(Erm, more here later.)

 

Need some points?

Player contributions are always wonderful and happily accepted. I don't have a plan to keep an 'update page' like we did for AmberFly, you can always just shoot me an email of when you add nifty stuff (or the wiki will tell me, I'm sure). Rewards are per contribution, with more weight given to lovely things like game logs. Oh, the sweet and tender logs.

 

Need some pain?

You can also get some points for taking enemies. If you're interested in this, please think of a starting bid and we'll talk about this privately. 

 

About your mom... (it's all Good Stuff)

We've figured out this far that your father is Brand, but who's your mother? I mean, he 'made' all these people, right? And didn't he fall in here with Dierdre? Wasn't he shot??? Well, no fear, you all have a mother. I'm borrowing a TINY little bit from Pit of Vipers for this part...

When you're born, you don't have much choice to who your mother is. When we start off the game, I'll have a set of cards available with mothers written on them, secretly. The character with the most stuff (Ties will be nixed by Dice. Gasp!) will get to draw a number of cards and choose their mother from the lot, which may give them some benefits. The next highest will get to draw and so on until everyone is 'born'. This means, if you have a high amount of stuff and get to draw first, you can keep your mother and her benefits to you secret, and know about other people's family ties.

 

I was going to use this mechanic to place things in the game to use against you as the GM, but from the character information I have already, I ... don't really need it. Also, some of you are going to be direct siblings, so that nixes my plans as well. So, go ahead, and in the words of Freud "Tell me about your mother." (In your character quiz.)

 

Stuff is limited to -/+ 10 points.

 

Character Quiz

Now, you may have grumbled about the fact that you get a measly hunk of points for your character, at least I certainly hope you did. To offset that problem, I'll give you 30 points for completing the Character Quiz --  get another 10 by getting it to me by July 21st. Complete, thoughtful answers are appreciated, you've done these suckers before, we love them, we hate them. The quz can be found here. Enjoy!