Just How Old Is Benedict?

[RPGPundit]

In my own campaigns, I've played him as being very very ancient, having actually been born before the creation of the pattern (along with Osric and Finndo), and having come to Amber after that.

RPGPundit

[Uncle Twitchy]

Nah. He doesn't seem to possess any special knowledge of any pre-Pattern history or insight into the Courts of Chaos. He makes vague references to remembering Oberon talking about stuff, but it's always second-hand information. Benedict was born after the Pattern was drawn.

[RPGPundit]

Maybe he's lying. Maybe he has very good reasons to be ashamed of his chaos-birth, and to feign ignorance about those things.

RPGPundit

[Crimson]

I've always pictured Benedict as being as old as Finndo and Osric. Perhaps even the eldest... but I've always had him born after the pattern was drawn or as a small child when it was drawn. Young enough when taken from Chaos that he doesn't remember it.

[jibbajibba]

My Amber timeline.....

Dworkin grows restless in Chaos
Dworkin steals the eye of the serpent and disappears
Dworkin uses his knowledge of trump and his own blood to draw an abstract copy of the universe. The eye of the serpent is the power source for this act of creation and the process etches a copy of this pattern into the jewel.
Dworkin needs to defend his new creation and so lays with the unicorn and sires Oberon (and possibly others).
Oberon builds a fortress to protect the Pattern.
Dworkin has already separated the primal pattern from shadow.
Oberon survives any of his possible siblings
Oberon's first brood of children Osric, Finndo and Benedict are trained at arms and defend Amber from numerous onslaughts
Oberon marries other women and the various princeas of amber are sired
Finndo and Osric rebel against Oberon and are sent off to fight Chaos someplace a long way off...

[Uncle Twitchy]

I definitely have Benedict the oldest surviving child of Oberon, and older than Finndo or Osric -- but I've always had him born in Amber. Nothing Zelazny wrote concerning his behavior or reactions to things suggests otherwise to me.

[finarvyn]

Yeah, it seems to me like "this generation" was all born after the drawing of the Pattern. Dworkin is occasionally described as a "chaos lord" but I can't recall a similar title ever conveyed directly or even implied to relate to Benedict.

Might be a secret or an oversight. Just my impression.

[finarvyn]

Certainly not canon, but there's that old timeline floating around the internet. (The one last updated in 1993.) Although it's not official, I've not seen anyone update or dispute it in the past 15 years so I assume it's not too bad.

Here's what it had to say on the issue, with slight editing on my part because I don't know how to "tab" on the boards:

The Beginning
Date N/A
* There is nothing?
* Primal Chaos is born
* First shape-changers are born
* The Serpent and Unicorn come into existence
* The Courts of Chaos are created
* Oberon is born to the Unicorn (father is Dworkin)
* Dworkin flees from Chaos to a small sudden island
* Dworkin meditates upon the abyss
* The Jewel is revealed to Dworkin by the Unicorn
* Dworkin creates Amber out of Chaos
* Oberon marries Cymnea
-3000y
* Benedict, Osric, Finndo, born to Cymnea (father is Oberon)

If this has timeline any value in the discussion at all,
1. They have Benedict being born after the Pattern was made.
2. They have Benedict set at an age of roughly 3000 years old.

[Uncle Twitchy]

That timeline's wacky. It has Dara giving birth to Despil and Jurt before she was even born.

[Syzygy]

I seem to recall that Corwin guesses that Benedict may be around two to three thousand years olds.

So three thousand seems a goodly figure.

[Trevelyan]

That timeline's wacky. It has Dara giving birth to Despil and Jurt before she was even born.

That's a bit wacky.

Merlin wonders at one point exactly how old Dara really is, commenting on the fact that she often appears ageless and on occasion ancient. It's possible that, even if she is a decendant of Benedict, she was born a long time before the events of the Corwin series.

Alternatively, her story concerning her birth may be entirely true, and she could have spent untold eons in fast time shadows perfecting her Art.

[weilide]

Has anyone ever worked with the assumption that the unicorn might not be Oberon's mother? The idea seems almost universally accepted at this point but still it doesn't look like a lock to me. If I recall correctly, it's all based on one remark from Dworkin ("By the unicorn thy mother," or something along those lines) but that doesn't take into account that A) Dworkin is madder than a sackful of cut snacks at the time, and B) he might simply be speaking allegorically. If not the Unicorn there might be all sorts of interesting possibilities for Dworkin's special lady friend (including, it just now occurred to me, that fiery personification of the Pattern itself). In any case, if the Unicorn is the mother, then how do the mechanics of that consummation work exactly? Is Dworkin shapeshifted into a unicorn, she into a person, or something else entirely?

[Taewakan]

That timeline's wacky. It has Dara giving birth to Despil and Jurt before she was even born.

It has been suggested that Dara is one of several generations of Daras - the one Corwin meets and mates with may be the latest incarnation of Dara.

One of the things I allow my female shifters to do is to save the seed of those they have sex with and preserve it inside their bodies. Not unlike the legends of the succubus and incubus.

I also allow duplication as an exalted shifting ability. My DMPC uses this ability to actually be in many places at once ((Psyche-100)/5) for number allowed is my formula, but you are welcome to come up with your own.

[RTrimmer]

Re: Dara
I doubt Benedict would hesitate to kill on the battlefield (and loose an arm to) an enemy he'd hooked up with just recently. Perhaps she was the long-lost love of his life. Lots of time for a kid to get born and grow up, have kids of her own...

[Taewakan]

Re: Dara
I doubt Benedict would hesitate to kill on the battlefield (and loose an arm to) an enemy he'd hooked up with just recently. Perhaps she was the long-lost love of his life. Lots of time for a kid to get born and grow up, have kids of her own...

One of the things that makes Amberites most dangerous to one another is simple access.
Roger has taken to most obvious advantages of the aristocracy and royal personages i.e. their advantaged birth - better food, training, education and just plain entitled living conditions - and extrapolated them into a genetic advantage.

Means, Motive and Opportunity - the unholy triad. All Amberites have them in abundance when it comes to one another.

Many of us forget that the idea of an eye for an eye was a radical concept in its time - fairness was (and is?) NOT the rule. Insults were answered with torture, murder and sometimes genocide. Both Oberon (Deela) and Benedict (Lintra) are admitted rapists, which comes under the heading of torture in my personal dictionary. Opinions may vary.

The rule of law is an equally radical concept - one the powers that be exploit to the best of their ability in the form of the golden rule - he who has the gold makes the rules (laws).