As something of an exercise in character meta-development, I'm going to have a go at recording my thoughts on Sebastian - who he is, and why he's like that, now - and then later in the campaign. It might be interesting (for me, if not for you) or it might just be me trying to keep up with the Jones'. Maybe I'll do a meta-meta-development page with thoughts on that.
Anyway, because it's rather critical, first my thoughts on Dannor. (Previous character - Pattern plus Warfare 1=, Strength 2, Endurance 3, Psyche last (effectively, since Michael was just under, but had power words) - also an 8 point shadow navigation item (Adumbratometer) and some daggers).
I created Dannor having read only the first 5 Amber books, and was thinking of a vague swashbuckling style of play - no frills, not too many twiddly bits, just someone resilient and capable who would take the action in his stride. To keep things interesting during the inevitable exploring sections, I made him a navigator of sorts, and decided to play him as naieve and pretty trusting. Jon never really conveyed to me that the character would likely become part of an ongoing campaign, so I decided that was probably enough in the way of interesting features (oh, and a thing for flying, of course.)
The swashbuckling never really took off - since there was no combat, for all practical purposes - the single scene in which there was an actual melee was a very brief aside. The navigation took off with something of a bang - being one of the main focuses of the adventure, and getting screwed over by less naieve players was something of a hit.
But it left me with a character who by rights ought to be heading for the far reaches of shadow once more, and one who I don't think I can happily handle the group dynamics of. It also surprises me a little that quite so many people want him dead. Did trusting them, only to have them abuse it ruthlessly provoke a sore spot?
Anyway, that brings me onto a new character. My first priority was, I'm afraid, not being so obscenely vulnerable to Psyche attacks. (In my defence, my conception about the effectiveness of trump/psyche attacks when creating Dannor was quite a long way from the reality - I can't analyse objectively if what happened to him 'should' have been able to - but I don't want to be in that position again). So a young chaosite sorcerer was born.
It didn't occur to me for quite a while that the powers list was identical to that of Tamash - and the intended style of play certainly never was. I was thinking of a flamboyant and somewhat brash young man - heavily confident of, and reliant on, his own superior skill and planning. Around this point, he (always a he - for some reason I have no desire at all to play a female character in this campaign) acquired the name Sebastian, from another character who I found somewhere on the internet. Growing up in a castle is about the only other thing I retained from that character.
Time passed, and I knocked around some numbers - I also observed that the idea of a weapon with Limited Shapeshifting was rather fun - along with vague memories of a weapon from some old D&D psionic supplement. A psychically active lash which coiled around your wrist when not in use, and was made particularly effective by being a giant muscle under your control, and with a nice tearing action, thanks to user configurable spikes. Hmmm... Combine those two, and it's a very chaosite weapon.
I also wanted to take a surfeit of Good Stuff, and a Devotee or two, to increase my chances of survival (and just outright having things go well, despite decidedly medium statistics - which a young character would require). It made sense for the weapon to be an anonymous gift from a Chaosite devotee.
I let all of this stew, until the campaign was definitly due to happen, and then dredged it up again. I decided an Amberite was more appropriate than a Chaosite to the campaign at hand, so one of them would fit better. It also seemed that making an effective 'bag of tricks' character would require Advanced Pattern. Luckily the points stretched about this far. By now I was thinking in terms of a duelist - both magical and martial. I retained the idea of growing up in a castle, but decided to destroy it - partially because I didn't want a character too tied to one spot, and partially as motivation to actually *do* something.
Elaine, the sister, just came up out of the maxim 'always have everyone your character has ever known or been related to already dead, to avoid the GM kidnapping them or worse' I met in some sort of satirical 'roleplaying' advice article. I wanted to avoid doing that, and liked the idea of a kid sister.
While writing this - at about the point where I mentioned the initial character concept being a chaosite - I realised that this would solve most of my uneasiness with the character I had sketched for Jon. Specifically the Advanced Pattern (which I really couldn't justify) and the problem of just not quite fitting in. Also, it just felt a lot less contrived.
I'm expecting his Shapeshift to be somewhat hampered by being continually human for most of his life, but it *does* work. Other than that, I expect to play him as an outwardly cheerful and fairly casual youth (lots of Good Stuff, remember - so it ought to work), who is used to being on top of the heap, and struggling hard to regain this position (in an admittedly futile fashion) - he should be strongly defensive of his sister, and have a bitter streak when 'home' is mentioned. But other than a surpressed need for vengence (or at least closure) a reasonably amiable character. Generally very responsible towards his inferiors, and fully respecting shadow people. Not one to politic for the sake of it, but willing to throw himself into the game if there is a worthwhile prize. Oh, and one to issue and accept challenges to duels.
Other than that, I'll see how it goes. I'm about to write a diary entry for his arrival in City Amber to get myself inside his head a bit more.