Spoken Truths - Amber PBM

[Xenon]

of course he has too many messages again. there are 10 players, and its keeping his sent as well as his received in the same quota. point of advice, copy-paste those old messages to a text file before ya delete em.

and now to get some physical description of Gregory out here:

Gregory stands 6'6" tall, with blue eyes and blond hair, his skin fair. He is large and muscular, with a mustache and his hair cut short. his colors are blue and gold, his symbol a golden ram rampant on a blue field.

Gregory is most often seen wearing his plate armor, Golden-colored chain under gold-edged blue enamel plates. His barbute helm is likewise blue enamel, with a pair of golden rams horns on the sides. his shield bears a golden ram on blue enamel field, with sapphires set in its eyes. his weapon is a warhammer.

Painter, Philosopher, Smith. Gregory the Ram, Prince of Amber.

[jibbajibba]

cleared out some space but will need to have a big clear out and starting moving stuff to the site and use messaging here less.
Anyway, Trumps. Trumps are worth points obviously original artwork gets more points (5-10) that copied stuff (1-5) Take a look at the trumps from my last campaing to get a feel for the style I prefer I want to keep the style the same as some of those trumps will get reused. If You give me an image that I don't think is up to snuff or the right style I won't use it. No offence to anyone's artwork or love of Manga/Picasso/Mondrian
So this is Charity an original bit of art by my cousin.
This is Dane
also an original
Lazarus I have found an image which I need to 'trump'
Reynardine I am still searching for.
If you can't find a Trump I have literally hundreds of images originals and found so let me know so I can assign one.

[jibbajibba]

Okay time to get this moving I always said I would be running this in the autumn and the autumn is now here.
So I need each player to post a brief chartacter summary of themselves here. So the other players can use it to determine their relationship to each other. I want to get a feeling for the typical rivalries etc that are key to an amber game.

From the GM perspective I am having real problems with getting the wiki working I upgraded to the latest version of moinmoin wiki but for some reason it just doesnt wanty to play ball. Made all the more tricky because I only have ftp access to the web instance so I can't view the error logs. So bear with me on that.

I will be putting that to one side for a couple of days and posting background stuff. I have enough now to build a new castle and a new city based on PC contributions so Gregory/s museum, Deigon's theatre, Constantine's Bridge connecting the castle to the city, Vincent's fortifications around the castle and the harbour will all be built in as will Galfor's quarters, the ambasador's wing of castle amber and Elain's quarters. I will post this up tonight.

I also have new chaos stuff to post there is a new chaos section to the site with some links which I will populate over the next couple of days. I have family trees for chaos which I need to convert to graphics which is a bit fiddly and I need to get trumps for some of the major Chaosites.

I have started the turn 0 stuff but need final character details and quizes to fit it all together. I also need trumps.

So from each player I need

i) completed character sheets
ii) completed character quizes - from http://www.jibbajibba.com/amber/quiz.html
iii) trumps

then I need each character to have 3 personal objectives.
The way i run xp in the game is like Japanese food, small portions but lots of courses. Each player creates 3 personal objectives. They must involve overcoming some sort of conflict so learning the piano is not an objective but infiltrating the Church of the serpent is ... I assign 1-5 xp for each objective and as they are reached you get the xp and can select a new one. I also divide all plot objectives in the same way so it the plot has 5 major bits each bit has associated xp and you get awarded this as you go (shared between those that participate). What this actually means is that characters that ignore the plot but pursue and succeed with their objectives can actually get more xp than characters that just pursue the plot items.  Quiz question 22 asks you to detail these objectives.

So lets get stuff moving.

email stuff to me directly on  jon@jibbajibba.com if you have attachments and stuff to send.

[jibbajibba]

Okay i have resolved my wiki issue (darn control characters).
I ahve locked the wiki down so only users can create pages and only i can create users. I have created users for all active players and will be posting account/id details to you all as PMs
I will also create you each a homepage that only you can see (this is simple in the wiki we are using as you just add #acl :rights,rights,.... at teh top of the page but I will do the homepage and you will see how it works.
You will be able to create pages including pages that are groups (format Group ) which you can subsequently give rights to new pages you create. By default every one can see all pages so if you want to have a clandestine meeting with Constantine you can add his name directly or you can create a group which you and he are members of ... but its much easier than it sounds but ends up being very flexible and you can run trump contacts, meetings, battles etc through it and protect you data from other players.
As i say will get accounts out tomorrow.

[The GIT!]

The horse scratched at the ground and moved nervously, its eyes were open wide and its nostrils flared at the smell of death. The animal was nervous and Tristram patted its neck and whispered words of comfort. The horse settled down under Tristram's ministrations and the Prince of Amber surveyed the scene before him. A blood red sun was setting over a veritable sea of crimson. Mangled corpses and twisted animal carcasses stretched as far as the horizon in all directions; the carnage was truly horrific but Tristram looked on with an impassionate eye. Smoke drifted across the fields and peasants moved amongst the bodies removing boots, clothes and anything valuable that they could lay their hands on. Tristram nudged the horse with his knees and urged the animal forward down the slope. The animal responded and proceeded to carefully pick its way through the devastation.

Tristram cast his mind back to the Battle of Waterloo on Shadow Earth. It was after the battle that the Duke of Wellington had stated, “next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained”. Tristram had never understood such sentimentality from such a great warrior and leader. For him there was no greater sight than the remnants of a battle. The tremendous sacrifice that every man and beast had made, in the face of insurmountable odds and certain death, conveyed true honour and glory; if Valhalla really existed then surely the Valkyries could fill the halls this day.

It had been a truly terrible battle and Tristram had reveled in every minute of it. The losses on both sides had been massive and it was almost pointless to name a winner. Nevertheless, Tristram claimed victory on the basis that he was the only survivor. The numbers on both sides had been huge but the enemies had outnumbered his forces by 5-1; this had surprised Tristram and he had had to draw on his vast experience to engineer any semblance of victory.

Tristram did not like being outmaneuvered and was suspicious; he brought the horse to a stop and carefully dismounted. Looking down at the shredded body of the enemy soldier at his feet, he knelt by its side and carefully lifted the visor of the helmet. It was as he had suspected – the enemy forces were not indigenous to this shadow; someone had brought them through shadow to oppose his army. Whilst his opponents had been large in numbers, their training and discipline had been poor. This indicated to the prince that the army had been gathered in haste; it was possible that a “real” person had endeavored to destroy him in an opportunistic manner.

As the “Sword of Amber” it was only natural that Tristram had gained many enemies on his sojourn through shadow but this felt different. If shadows were a reflection of Amber then this battle could be an indication that Amber was in danger.

Standing, Tristram took the reins of the horse, and proceeded to leave the battlefield. He headed towards some fields beyond a nearby slope that he’d used to conceal the numbers of his army earlier in the day; it would make him feel happier leaving the horse in the pasture to graze for where he was to travel the noble beast could not follow.

As they walked the saddle, bit and bridle disappeared and the horse found itself unencumbered. On reaching the pasture Tristram patted the horse, whispered some words of thanks and released the animal.

Turning, the Prince of Amber reached into a hidden pouch in his belt and drew forth a small box. Idly noting that the sunset was magnificent, he opened the box and took out a small pack of cards and began to shuffle through them. It had been many years since Tristram had last looked at his set of Trump cards; as he scanned through them he saw the many pictures of his siblings – Dad, Dworkin, Gregory, Lazarus, Galfor, Degion, Caleb, Constantine, Charity, Reynardine, Elaine, Helel, Whis’par and Dane were all there and a hint of a smile touched the corner of Tristram’s mouth.

He finally found the card he was looking for and held it up before him and concentrated on it. Tristram’s mind became focused on the card and he closed out all external distractions. The card become cold to his touch and the image took on a form of reality; time for the “Sword of Amber” to return home…

[boulet]

I have a question. I'm all for preparing how my PC feels about the rest of the family but it's something that's got to be negotiated with Jibbajibba in case of NPCs and individual players in case of PCs.

Stormwind made a very good call by contacting me by PM and asked "do you want our PCs to share backstory?" It was done in a very "let's have sth in common" vibe (as opposed to "what if our characters hated each other guts" vibe). I assume he contacted other players too. For some reason I didn't do the same to other players and I kind of regret it. But I think also that it might be difficult to pre-build animosity between a characters this way... How can we do that without infringing on players different play styles and/or immersion and/or suspicion of Swinery?

Concretely my character (Degion) needs another character to be the one he hates the most, and it would probably come from some hurtful words spoken in a distant past. Who's game to become "my Eric"?

[jibbajibba]

I have a question. I'm all for preparing how my PC feels about the rest of the family but it's something that's got to be negotiated with Jibbajibba in case of NPCs and individual players in case of PCs.

Stormwind made a very good call by contacting me by PM and asked "do you want our PCs to share backstory?" It was done in a very "let's have sth in common" vibe (as opposed to "what if our characters hated each other guts" vibe). I assume he contacted other players too. For some reason I didn't do the same to other players and I kind of regret it. But I think also that it might be difficult to pre-build animosity between a characters this way... How can we do that without infringing on players different play styles and/or immersion and/or suspicion of Swinery?

Concretely my character (Degion) needs another character to be the one he hates the most, and it would probably come from some hurtful words spoken in a distant past. Who's game to become "my Eric"?

I totally agree I hoped the first step woudl be some in character posts here or a general description. Then characters might say yeah i think I might have a beef with Degion then there are 2 routes. Degion doesn't know and you plot behind his face or you want to create a historic antagonism and you PM Boulet and say I reckon we might have had a run in over .

I can start play without this friction but as Boulet points out it does create a more textured world.

Lastly Dane hates Degion has openly said that bastard children of Oberon have no place in Amber and that they deserve to be exiled with that little bitch Elaine.

[jibbajibba]

Oh here are Lazarus


and Reynardine

[Xenon]

i think it will be much easier to sort out our interactions when we know birth order, relative ages, and sanctum positions. that sort of thing leads to natural rivalries after all.

[Locathus]

Sorry for the delay in getting some of Galfor's stuff done.  I've been busy the past couple of weeks preparing for my honeymoon at the end of the month and a visit from the in-laws starting tomorrow.  I'll steal some time while they are here and try to post something, but if I can't I will definitely make time on Saturday and Sunday to complete my character sheet.  I will also be posting some information about the Soggy Wench Tavern and some publicly known information about Galfor.  All of it has been more or less thought out (work is boring sometimes , but I haven't had time to put pencil to paper and get it sent out.

[jibbajibba]

i think it will be much easier to sort out our interactions when we know birth order, relative ages, and sanctum positions. that sort of thing leads to natural rivalries after all.

I totally agree with this as well.

If only i had all those characters in

Nice bit of fiction from Tristram there bu the way.

I do understand that Real Life can get in the way so if folks are unsure about allies, shadows items even powers NP. just get all teh stats to me and we can divvy up the Sanctum places and I can complete the Family Tree (i can alwasy use blank trumps for now )

[Croaker]

That's why I only did NPC creation, I knew I couldn't keep up

[Stormwind]

@jibbajibba: I'll be traveling for the next couple of days ... will be back on Sunday night.

[Gothic_Pepsi]

great trump sketch's by the way, grats to whoever drew them.

[Locathus]

OK - I'm not real familiar with the Wiki thing, so I'd like to test out a few things.  As a test, I'd like to create a conversation between me and someone else (edit rights for both) with nobody else having access.  Any volunteers to either join the conversation or try to "eavesdrop" and make sure I do this correctly?  The conversation will not be in character - it'll just be a couple of lines for each of us so that I can get the hang of this.

Also, I assume everyone's user name is the same as their character - let me know if that is not the case.

Thanks!