Formenos
Amber DRPG
I don't recall when I was introduced to Zelazny's Amber, other than it was sometime during Secondary School (age 11-16). But it must have been a couple of years before the first book of the second Amber series was published, Trumps of Doom, in May 1985, because I know I had read all five books of the Corwin series well before the Merlin series came out.
And then, as now, I loved it and when Amber DRPG launched in 1991, I immediately bought it. I vaguely recall running a game or two at University (1991-93), but nothing serious. But in 1998, I got a group of friends together, some who had read Amber, some who had not, and started what I hoped would be a long term campaign.
I ditch the auction, because I just didn't see the point, and gave the players free reign to create whatever character they wished, with as many points as they wished, and related to whichever family member took their fancy. This resulted in the creation of some great characters. Some fairly traditional, and some not. We enjoyed five great sessions, but for some reason we stopped after those five sessions (possibly because I met my wife in 1998, and as we got more involved, other things took a back seat).
But in 2018, nearly 20 years after the last session, I picked up the campaign again, and after many waves of nostalgia crashing over me, I redeveloped the campaign, expanded it massively, and sent out the call. Three of the original players were still about, and we recruited another, and picked up where we left off.
I don't want to give anything away to my players, so this page is really just about presenting their characters, and the campaign progression to date in the form of the ever-lengthening write-ups I have complete after each session. I enjoy writing these up immensely, but I am not actually sure the players bother to read them. Ungrateful buggers!
Meet The Characters
The players were set limits of a sort. The nominal best score in any stat was 100. So the guide being Benedict had 100 Warfare, Corwin had 100 Endurance, Gerard had 100 Strength and Fiona had 100 Psyche. Other than this guide, they could build whatever they wished. They could come from wherever they wished and they could be related to whomever they wished.
Joshua turned out to be an all round powerhouse in most things other than Warfare. Kyle was a traditional Amberite sorcerer, along the same lines as Fiona, and only a smidgen behind her in Psyche. Corin was slightly weaker on the stat front than the other two sorcerers, but her unique history and birth gave her extra power that none of the others anticipated.
So with the fact that three of the players had chosen users of magic, as the basis of their characters, I designed a warrior, in William, for the least experienced player, which I felt would be easier for him to manage. And given I knew they were going to face off against some capable warriors in the campaign, some of whom had sufficient defenses against magic to survive long enough to get hand-to-hand with the sorcerers, this would see the sorcerers chopped up in short order. So they did needed a capable warrior.
When we restarted, the new player chose to be a warrior, thankfully, and so I encouraged him to stat himself very potent indeed, as he did, although he may have assumed a little too much of his melee potency, as some of his in game actions proved.
Campaign Session Write-ups
I'm no author, so just be kind. Nor do I control the players, so their dumb ass actions have nothing to do with me either... (all under construction, as the write ups need seriously cutting down) ...
Trumps
Just before COVID struck down the campaign for a temporary pause, I designed and had printed some Trump Cards. Primarily the cards of the main characters we know and love, but also to cover characters that I knew the characters might come across, and then who those with Trump Artistry skills would attempt to draws their own Trumps.
So, here is my interpretation of the main Trump deck (Dworkin's Trumps), and versions of some of the same characters, plus additional Trumps, drawn, by the players whose characters have the necessary Trump Artistry skill.
Obviously I do not possess the means to conduct a special photo shoot with actors/models that fit my vision of what the Amberites and Chaosians might look like, let alone the other characters the players encounter. And nor do I have the funds to ask a few artists to draw me various sets of Trumps, so a distinct set can have the same style/flavour. I am therefore restricted to trying to find imagery which, to my mind, is as close a fit as possible to represent the characters in question. And in this regard, I don't really have time to find multiple shots, each slightly different from each other, so as to further discriminate the Trump and their artists from each other. Some of the players chose their own images, and some I chose.
Each set of Trumps has had a different "effect" placed on the original image (using the site www.befunky.com, which I found very useful after investigating its possibilities for some time), to make each artist seem a little different from the other decks, although, possibly only the eagle-eyed among you might notice the difference. The most notable differences is actually the Trump boarders and reverse of the cards, which allows for real tailoring of the decks.
As the players discover new characters, I will add any new Trumps to the appropriate pages.
I hope you enjoy them, and they are not too different from how you envisage the main characters.
