Dragons Over Amethyst
Please see The Track Not Taken for setting info.
Characters are now up at Characters.
Character Generation
Character generation is going to be a two step process. In the first step you'll generate a character at the point where they left Amethyst to travel in shadow. Rough details will be shared with everyone prior to step two. At this point it would be nice to have a paragraph or so about your character to share with everyone else.
In the second step I'll want an advancement priority list a bit like suggested in the ADRPG rules.
Examples
At the end of part one I'll post a table a bit like:
| Character | Parent | End | Psy | Str | War | Stu | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jillian | Luke & Coral | 1st | 3rd | 5th | Weak | = | Trump |
| Angelo | Merlin | 4th | 1st | 4th | 3rd | - | Magic |
| Aedmond | Unknown | 2nd | Weak | 2nd | 2nd | + | Big Dog, Magic Armour |
| Lucile | Martin | 5th | 2nd | 3rd | 1st | = | Sword, Magic |
| Marianne | Merlin & Gilva | 3rd | Weak | 1st | Amber | + | Magic Bow, Giant Eagle, Acrobat |
Marianne might then email me to say:
- Please don't put me below 2 stuff
- I'd like to improve my Endurance to 2.5th place
- I'd like my Giant Eagle, Francine, to gain deadly damage
- I'd like to learn a bit of healing from Shapeshift, up to about 20 points worth
- If I have any points left then improving my Psyche to Amber and my Warfare to 3rd would be nice
And I'll go down the list updating the character based on that. One difference to the ADRPG rules is that if you don't have enough points for an item but not taking it would leave you over 5 good stuff I'll carry on to the next item.
I'll then send Marianne a character sheet that looks like:
| Original | Current | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Endurance | 17 / 3rd | 2.5nd | |
| Psyche | Chaos | ||
| Strength | 36 / 1st | ||
| Warfare | Amber | ||
| Stuff | +3 | +2 | |
| Pattern | Basic | ||
| Bow | 8 pts | ||
| Eagle | 10 pts | + Deadly | |
| Shapeshift | None | Self Heal | |
| Skills | Acrobatics (+10) | ||
(This format will probably change when I actually produce it)
Details
Initial Character Generation (Phase 1):
- You are the descendent of one of the younger members of the Merlin Saga; and have the blood of Amber in your veins. You've been brought up by Prince Martin (or rather mostly nursemaids with him overseeing) with probably occasional visits from at least one parent whom you know who they are. Feel free to pick.
- You all have Pattern Initiation and have had at least a decade to get used to it. You have some kind of trump communication device (this can be a deck of cards if you want) and can be assumed to have trumps of anyone you've ever met; although outside of the party and possibly your ancestors; these are unlikely to be very useful. If you have Sorcery, Conjuration or Power Words then this device is a device of power that helps you use your magic.
- Items and creatures are permitted; up to 15 points
- You have 75 points on top of your Pattern Imprint. No more than one stat sold down, If you sell a stat down to Human I will put you in situations where this is a problem. No more than 5 points of stuff either way.
- You can have some Shapeshift; but not the whole power.
- You can't have Logrus; chaos is just a myth to you.
- No personal shadows
- You can have "about half" a power, call it e.g. "Trump Neophyte". Have a look at The partial powers from our ACUK game for an idea how about how I think powers work; or just email me about what you want to do.
Advancement (Phase 2):
- You have 50 points to spend from your time in shadow
- You can pick up the rest of Shapeshift
- You still haven't encountered chaos (the shadows accessible from Amethyst don't reach there)
- You can take any advanced power or ask for a new magic item/creature or pretty much anything else you can think of
- You can pick up a personal shadow at this point
- See the note on Advanced Pattern below
Modifications to normal abilities:
- You can spend 1 point for a particular skill or ability that you've practiced seriously for a significant length of time (e.g. Doctor or Acrobatics). Depending on how broad this is I'll give you a bonus when you're doing something covered by that skill (for example I've given Marianne plus 10 for acrobatic actions). Do please exploit this and try and make any problem appropriate to your speciality!
- You can have Advanced Pattern for an extra 10 points. You are really shit at anything in it because you've had to figure it all out for yourself, have only recently got any of it to work, and haven't had a chance to look at any Patterns than Amethyst's.
- Sorcery costs 20 points but so long as you have your device of power
with you:
- it works reasonably well near the Pattern
- you can have up to 4 simple effects that you can use at whim (e.g. "fireball", about as effective as hitting someone with a sword, "teleport 10m foward" etc)
- you can come up with arbitrary effects on actually useful timescales (not on the scale of falling, combat, or geology unless they're very simple modifications of one of your known effects; but on the order of 15 minutes or so).
- Don't expect to lose your device of power unless you do so deliberately or really deserve it.
- Power Words is 5 points plus 1 point per Word