Shadowlands

Extended Character Examples

The two examples presented below are designed to provide a much more in-depth guide to creating Amber characters. The first character Angelica is a conversion from an existing Shadow Run campaign whilst the second, Gabriel is a stream of thought generation to demonstrate how I put a character together from a scratch concept.

Angelica Olivia Larson-gates

Original Background

For those of you not familiar with the ShadowRun setting it is inspired by the whole "cyberpunk" genre exemplified by (amongst others) William Gibson in his Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive novels. The character I wanted to play in this campaign was loosely based upon "Step'n Razor", a female Assassin/Body Guard/Enforcer from Neuromancer. At about the time the campaign started the second "St Trinians" film had just been released and I wanted to incorporate some of the "bad girl" attitudes from this; although the new versions are nowhere near as risqué as the originals were when compared to the time when they were made.

Putting these two together gave me a background archetype for a "spoilt little rich girl" dis-inherited by her family in an attempt to force her to mend her ways. The flaw in this of course is that the "average spoilt little rich girl" would just fall apart and reform so to make the character work we're not average. We therefore need to throw in a large devious streak ala "The Heathers".

The next step is to work out why she was dis-inherited and how she got there. Now in terms of the games system I also needed her to have the dis-advantage of Enemy-Hunted, the obvious enemy in this case being her family. Elevate her father to somebody important in a medium to large Corp with a need to bring her in-line to avoid losing face or allow some major screw-up to become public knowledge and we fulfill the requirements; the Corp becomes the Enemy with her father misusing Corp resources in an attempt to bring his wayward daughter to heal.

So if her father/the Corp he works for is hunting her .. how did this situation arise? We'll the most obvious answer is that her father used Corp resources to attempt to bring his daughter to heal but the attempt failed, and because it failed its now become necessary to bring his daughter in because if it got out that the Corp couldn't control to actions of its employees or their families then the Corp would face a serious loss of credibility. This also backs her father into a corner that in-order to cover-up the misuse of Corp resources in the first place he's having to now use them officially not to bring his daughter in but erase her.

Following this line suggests that she fell into the line of work she's currently in possibly by accident, probably because things went wrong at some point, and at some point she's also been forced to kill one or more of the Goons sent to retrieve her. In her bio, which I've re-written a couple of times since the basic conceptualization, the first time she kills is a complete accident, she stabs a goon waiting for her as she enters her motel room. She's then grabbed by a second goon and dumped into a chair. He tries to cuff her but doesn't do so from behind. As he's applying the cuffs, realization dawns on her of her predicament, and she stands up abruptly head butting the goon. In epic Hollywood style we now apply a little dramatic license and give the Goon a glass jaw, which she breaks in the process of head butting him, add a trickle of blood from the nose as she cuffs and gags him and we set the scene for a double murder, which at this point in her career she's completely naive about.>

This also furthers the corporate powers mis-use angle, as her father still inclined to protect her covers up the murder whilst sending further corporate goons after her.

At this point in the character history there are two missing elements

So let’s deal with the second element first, and explore the “St Trinians”/”wild child”angle a little more. If she’s as bad as we would like her to be then her school record is going to be pretty poor, so she’s been to multiple schools and probably has been expelled from several of them. No any parent, with any status, faced with this situation is likely to try and do something about it. This means she’s going to get moved to a specialist school in the latter years of her education and have any allowance reduced or stopped.

Given the archetype she’s not going to take any of this lying down and is going to try and find a manner in which she can maintain her “lifestyle”. Given her social level, the answer is pretty obvious, bored execs with dull lives and dull wives and a very attractive 15 year old in need of cash. Throw a twist into the plot, say just before she turns 16, when one of her clients enquires if their sessions will continue after she’s married, and we have the perfect setup for her to run.

So now to the acquisition of her combat skills and her conversion from “spoilt wild child” to bodyguard/assassin. In ShadowRun the modern geographic and political scene is vastly different to that of today. Most of the world has devolved to anarchic city states, most controlled by large Mega corporations who are continually at war, both openly and subvertly with one another. Those city states that aren’t controlled by Mega corps are both at war with one another and at war the Mega Corps. Travel is possible, generally those states notionally allied or friendly or nominally neutral. Anyone of any status is registered at birth and has a SIN number which identifies them and links them with their bank accounts and health provision. Of course there is an “underground” where things operate differently, and real cash as opposed to “credits” and barter rules. At the point at which Angelica “runs” she knows nothing of this underground, how it functions, or the relationship between SIN registration and cred sticks. This is one of the first things she learns as her father’s goons pursue and track her.

My original concept for where she learnt her skills was in Mongolia, which meant I had to get her there from Seattle. In the original campaign I’d just invented this on the sport without any real thought and it wasn’t until later that I actually worked out how it may be possible. It was in the process of doing this that I actually was able to fill in, how her previously nicely concocted plan falls apart, how she loses most of her possessions and cred sticks she’s previously acquired and is forced to start changing her world view, how she accidentally kills the first sets of goons, how they pursue her and how she both acquires weapons she later uses, and how a chance encounter with a deserter enables her to learn how to use them.

Converting Angelica for Amber

So how might I take the character of Angelica as outlined and developed for ShadowRun and make her valid for Amber? What if I said she was already a valid template, as she is. I could use her exactly as her biography is currently written; all I need to do is to work out, the “parentage” angle and what if any “Powers or abilities” I want her to have.

In her story as presented her mother is left as a blank canvas, assumed to be as human as her father is. This means her mother could in reality either be an Amberite or a Chaosite, or neither. Similarly, so could her father, but we’re assuming that her father as she knows him is her biological father, what if he isn’t. What if he’s sterile, or if she was conceived as the result of an affair her mother had. What if her mother is in reality sterile and she is the result of invetro-fertilization of donated eggs or eggs and sperm? At the level of technology present in the genre any of these scenarios is eminately possible.

Because I know Amber well, and in particular the temperament and characters of the “Children of Amber”, I’m going to use this with a “left field” concept to set Angelica’s real parents, and in doing so change the perspective of why certain things in her history are the way they are.

So firstly I’m going to make her mother Fiona. Now if you’ve read the intro properly you know that Fiona is thought to not have any children. If you’ve read the Amber books, the RPG Books, and various other Amber sites, you’ll be aware that to Fiona the thought of spending 9 months crippled by carrying a child and then giving birth is just repugnant. However, Fiona is one, if not the cleverest of all the Amberites, and she’s not averse to using any technological advantage she may come across to ensure that she has a claim on the Throne. Fiona like the rest of the family is very familiar with Earth, so it would not be difficult for her to find an alternate shadow with a slightly different history and adapt it to meet her needs.

So, finding an eminately suitable shadow earth Fiona set about manipulating events to meet her needs. She found a medium sized corporation that was struggling to survive, bought it outright, and by subtle manipulation of probability turned it into a tiger. Amongst its staff she found Lachlan Larson-gates, a man languishing far below his potential, but more importantly he had a wife who was sterile and both wanted children. Again through probability manipulation and a little psychic coaching she got him promoted to a position where she could make him an offer. She would arrange an invetro fertilization implant for his wife, and a seat on the board, in exchange for him bringing up the child in the manner she dictated. It was an offer neither he nor his wife could refuse (even if they had any idea they wanted to). Fiona then donanted the necessary eggs and had them fertilized with sperm unknowingly donated by Random, and implanted into Lachlan’s wife. The result was that 9 months later Angelica was born.

From then on everything more or less happens as per her original history, except now, and unbeknownst to Angelica, the real controlling influence on what happens to her is not her Father as she thinks, but Fiona. The other problem is, which fits very nicely within her history and within characteristics of her mother, is that she has a massive stubborn streak, is somewhat pig-headed, and very competent at what she does. This effectively means that Fiona’s nicely conceived plan of how she’s going to train the ideal candidate to take over the throne of Amber just falls apart.

Having dealt with Angelica’s parentage we know need to deal with her skills. As she knows nothing of Amber, she can’t have any pattern powers. In the original ShadowRun contetxt she was just a cybernetically enhanced bodyguard/assassin, and under the ShadowRun system cybernetics and magic don’t mix (very well), so she never learnt any magic. She’s also not a shapeshifter, which leaves 4 possible powers she could acquire, Jewel of Judgement, Abyss, Chi, and Trump. The first two are ruled out by the “knows nothing of Amber or the Courts” ruling for the campaign, leaving just Chi powers and Trump.

Now in her original history, apart from acquiring a number of combat skills by accident she actually acquires her formal combat training in Mongolia, leaning Gung Fu. The decision now is as to how many points to put into martial arts skill as Chi powers require 4 points, which doesn’t fit with her history, and she definitely doesn’t embrace either a Taoist or Buddhist philosophy. I’m therefore not going to give her Chi powers.

Before I go much further I’m going to actually translate her original ShadowRun skills into Amber concepts.

This uses the maximum number of skill points available for mundane skills. If we reserve the full 80 points for the auction we still have 60 points of our original 160 to either spend or leave in reserve. I now have a decision to make. If I want her to have trump ability then I need her to have a mundane skill in art; 1 point is sufficient, which means altering her skills.

However, I don’t feel I want to do this, which means that if I want Trump powers in-game I’m going to need to find a way of gaining that art skill….

So I have 60 points completely un-used which is fine as far as things go, but I’ve so far not done anything to reflect her cybernetic enhancements. If I’m going to do a full translation then I really ought to address this which means going and consulting the “Items and Constructs” section of the rules.

And now I hit a snag.. Because her cybernetic enhancements are actually magic items from a 3rd Edition supplement, which I don’t have, so I’m going to need to do a little work.

On second thoughts let’s not do it that way. Let’s go back to my original concept based on Neuromancer, but translated to 3rd Edition Bioware. If we do this then she would have had Headware:Commlink (enhanced) with sub-vocal microphones, Cybereyes(Low light, thermographic, image magnification), Retractable Hand Spurs, Dermal Plating, Wired Reflexes with Reflex Trigger, Smartlink.

To translate these to Amber rules each of these items needs to have a power or quality and the transfer option. Since the item in question doesn’t retain its powers (it can’t operate independently) it uses the lower multiplier.

So let’s see what translates and what doesn’t.

But suppose we also wanted a weapon, excluding an unpowered melee weapon such as a sword, that would work in most Shadows. Suppose we wanted a Gauntlet Microlite Mauler Smartgun that worked in most shadows. Well this would just be a 1 point firearm (for Shadow Manipulation – Shadow Alteration [1]), but this is a bit limiting as it still requires ammunition. If we made it a 2 point item then we could get it to replenish its ammunition over a period of time. Now as a fire arm it is inherently a 1 point damage item. Therefore if we paid an additional point we could make it a 2 point damage item.

However, in Amber terms it’s still not smart. For that we need to add the Psychic quality. At 1 point it’s not much use, but at 2 points the weapon would be able to identify hostile targets in the vicinity (up to about 30m) and relay this information back to its wielder, as well as relaying exactly where it’s pointing.

Now it becomes worthwhile to add the Shadow manipulation power to our Smartlink. This means that for 6 points we get a clever weapon that replenishes its ammunition over time, identifies hostile targets, and works most places in Shadow – the definite exceptions being Amber (itself) and the vicinity of the Pattern in Carnelian.

Lastly I’m going to add an item she did posess as one on her magic enhancements, Danger Sense. Now in Amber Danger Sense is a specific sub-attribute of Psyche. Therefore I need an item that will boost this sub-attribute. Since it’s a boost it’s a transfer ability item, and in this case a transfer of a specific sub-attribute of a Psyche item quality. It looks therefore much like Wired Reflexes above giving us a 3 point item.

If we total all these up it comes to 22 points. Probably a worthwhile spend given we have no other powers of abilities.

Going back to the character history, and interesting pattern emerges. Whenever anything goes wrong, she always comes out on top, luck seeming to always be on her side. Therefore adding a couple of points (let’s say 3) of good stuff seems appropriate.

All in all we’ve spent 125 (80+20+22+3) points of our possible 166 (160 + 4 points background + 2 points diary – see Gaining More Points

Gabriel Alexander Barwicke

So Angelica Olivia Larson-gates was a character I played in a ShadowRun Campaign and which I've had a chance to revisit and "enhance" since the original sketch I came up with on the night. So how about a new character from scratch... this concept occurred to me as I tried to get to sleep whilst working out details for re-running the campaign, and how I could introduce the concepts of generating an Amber character to novice role-players.

This is done as a stream on consciousness process and also done "knowing" the Amber system but that shouldn't matter too much.

So the character I wanted needed to be male and combat(ish) orientated.

I also wanted the character to not originate in one of my normal high tech or modern settings. So what era then.. World War I, Napoleonic, American Civil War, or a "steampunk" or "Deadlands" version there of?

What I really wanted was a character from the "Age of Sail", sort of "Pirates of the Caribbean". With the Amber concept in mind and the fact that Amber characters are never run of the mill, we end-up with a Pirate Captain who has their own ship. We also need to remember that most of the so called "Pirates" that operated around this time were actually Privateers and a large number were initially sponsored by the British Government as a method of un-officially waging war on the Spanish and Dutch without needing to be "At War" with them. They only really became the modern vision of a "Pirate" after the British decided to disown them meaning they need to find a source of income, or just carry on doing what they'd actually been doing for years, except "British" vessels now became legitimate targets.

Looking at the historical context (Google and wiki are your friends) ship captains were either "Owner/Captains", "Captains of military vessels", or in a very few cases long service veterans promoted from with-in an "Owner/Captained fleet" ala the TV series the "Onedin Line". Non- of these fitted the "Privateer/Pirate" idea I had. What I wanted was a street urchin that had hauled themselves to a position of power which also fits very nicely into the "Amberites naturally float to the top perspective".

Just so you're aware this was close to the limit of where I've got to at this point in visualizing the character so from this point on things were apt to change as I continued writing (this at the time of original writing sort of being a live brain dump).

So I need to get from street urchin to pirate captain, except I've already missed a step or two.. how did he get to be a street urchin.. Obvious answer he lived in poverty which implies low class mother, most likely a "bar maid". This also suggests a simple single room apartment, probably in a slum area, close to the docks, and him having to make himself absent for long periods of time. So his mother was single, therefore he never knew his father. So we can make his "conception" a chance encounter and his father anyone we want, so a little arbitrarily I'm going to pick "Bleys" as his father.

Note: I also want both Amber and Choas powers for this character, so I'm going to make his mother a Chaosite. I haven't a clue about her family yet. I'm also arbitrarily deciding that she dies when he's about 11 and that he gets pressganged onto a ship when he's 12. By this point he can Shapeshift to a certain degree, again I haven't decided how much yet, just that his mother taught him and he's been able to Shapeshift to some degree or other since he was about 5 years old, or at least he started to be able to Shapeshift sometime between his 5th and 6th birthday.

I also want him to come from a version of Earth where magic is known, which sort of ties in with some of the "steakpunk" genre, but where Shapeshifters would be classed as demons or devils and hunted down and killed as spawn of the devil, so both he and his mother would need to conceal their powers. This also shapes and refines the world he comes from…

So a 12 year old boy on a ship isn't going to be able to do a great deal, swab decks for short periods, fetch and carry, mend ropes and sails (so this implies some form of skill which I'm going to call Rope Mastery for want of a better term, and as he's done this for some considerable time he's going to have a couple of points worth if this). Whilst I'm on the subject of skills, he's a Pirate Captain so he's going to need to be able to Navigate, pilot the ship, use a sword, brawl, use powder weapons, and use cannon. I'll work out the point's values for these later but most are likely to be 2 point skills. What I do need to sort out is the correct timeline for this, mainly so I can set the time ratio between this world and Amber. So off to Google...

So I'm going to set the time line so as of 1670 he's 35. He's also in Jamaica/West Indies at this time, and has served under Henry Morgan, before being promoted to a Captain in his own right. Reading Morgan's history on wikapedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgan), I'm determining that, [wow I haven't thought of a name yet], leaves Morgan's employ after the Maracaibo raid and is therefore not part of Morgan's seizure of Panama which results in him becoming at outlaw. I can also use this as the point when the campaign starts and the world falls apart.

So from the campaign timeline page on the Shadow Lands site 1670 is somewhere between Shogun circa 1600 at 1.2 and Napoleon circa 1810 at 1.35. Dividing 1670 by 2004 and multiplying by 1.5 we get 1.25; not a bad time ratio.

Taking stock of where we are, at least in terms of what points we may have committed

At this point our character history/background is almost enough to get us the extra 2 points for our character pool, and having a name would help. As I have no idea of a name, it's back to Google. A check for most popular names in the 1600s yields this site.. http://victoria.tc.ca/~tgodwin//duncanweb/documents/names.html. A quick peruse of the 1620-1630 list and Gabriel and Alexander strike a chord. Now I just need a surname.

A further Google search yields this site http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081224211003AAtgZlR which whilst not an ideal spread leads me to Barwicke. So we now have a name Gabriel Alexander Barwicke, born March 13th 1635, in Bristol, England.

Looking at where we are, I've missed one thing from his background. Given he's a street urchin from the slums of Bristol, his most likely early career was that of a pick-pocket so I need to add this as a 1 point skill to his skill list. I'd also like him to have some form of body weaponry if possible; time to consult the Shapeshifting powers description Shape Shifting

So apart from what appear to be a couple of contradictions, to gain body armour/weapons without changing into a form that has them, we need Shift Anatomy and Structure/Acquire Forms abilities which is an Advanced Shapeshifting ability. By its position in the table, it also has a stack of pre-requisites: Shapeshift Features/Body Parts+5, Shift Wounds, and Automatic Shapeshift:Primal Form. If we total these up Shape Shift Features/Body Parts is 5 points but we need it at +5 so that's 10 points, Shift Wounds is 5 points, Automatic Shapeshift is 5 points, and Shift Anatomy and Structure is 5 points for a grand total of 5+5+5+5+5=25 on top of the 25 points (Blood of Chaos and Basic Known Forms) we've already spent. So of the 80 points possibly available for powers/mundane skills, assuming we're going to spend a full 80 points on attributes in the auction, we've spent 63 if we go with this.

Parking this lets go back to his mother, for want of a better name she was Celeste (just because that name came into my head) somebody .. time to consult the campaign background page. So it just details "Houses", which could mean anything. So we're going to say that his mother was using her real surname Barwicke, and that the Barwicke's are part of the Amblerash house.

To complete the "picture" all that is really left is to sort out a career progression from conscripted(pressganged) cabin boy to Captain. I need to do a little more research here. Hornblower, which I couldn't remember the title of earlier, now springs to mind. So until tomorrow..

So I've been doing a little reading and could in theory actually turn this stream of consciousness into a character biography, which I'll probably get to in a bit. Before I do that I thought I'd give you an idea of how long developing this character has taken; about 5 hours of thought and 2 hours of writing (predominately writing this). A lot of the thought processes happen whilst doing other things, trying to sleep, driving to and from work, waiting for unit tests to fail, writing this..

Most of the writing, apart from the initial block which I did in about 45 minutes whilst eating my lunch, has been done in 5-10 minute stints, primarily whilst waiting for other things to happen, builds and unit test runs primarily. Of course, the writing time is being extended now as I'm writing this and eating my lunch.

Anyway back to the research. It seems that "Pirate" ships didn't really have a formal rank structure, sure they had a Captain, but he was generally elected by the crew and ran the ship by their consent and if he went against a crew vote was generally replaced. Whilst he generally ran the ship in times of battle it was the quartermaster who pretty much ran the ship at all other times, who distributed rations and treasure, and who doled out punishment (working the bilge pump being one of the commonest, as it was one of the foulest jobs on board ship). There was often a First mate but he was appointed by the Captain and acted in the Captains stead when he wasn't there or if he succumbed during a battle. First mates didn't necessarily become captains, unless the crew elected them to that position. There could also be 2nd, 3rd, and 4th mates. The other two positions of authority tended to be the Bos'n (from boatswain) and the helmsman. The Bos'n tended to be in charge of sails and rigging (somewhat different to the role in the Navy), and the helmsman steered the ship and was often involved in sailing decisions along with the Captain and the Quartermaster.

I also read a little more about Sir Henry Morgan, who co-incidentally was also born in 1635. Whilst his early life isn't very well documented he first comes to prominence in 1655 when he seizes Jamaica from the Spanish and turns it into an English Colony. It's surprising what turns up and how it sort of fits with a character.. so all that's really left is to write the biography..

Biography:Gabriel Alexander Barwicke

Born on March 13th 1635, in Bristol, England, to a working single mother whose true nature he didn't discover until he was in his 6th year, and an unknown father, Gabriel's early life of abject poverty was harsh. The only schooling he gained was that in the "School of Hard Knocks" and as soon as he was able he was inducted into the urchin's world of petty street crime in-order to survive.

During his 5th year his true nature began to surface and his mother spent as much time as she was able teaching him how, initially, to hide his abilities, and later, as his control developed how he might use them to his advantage. Being able to change one's height, weight, stance, hair and eye colour, and clothes [ note 5 points for "Mold Non-Living Non-Self Matter] when being chased by victims of failed pick-pocket attempts is a significantly useful asset.

Whilst his life was difficult, it was no more arduous than any of his peers until his 11th year when his mother succumbed to the stresses of her life style and orphaning him to the street. Looking back, being pressganged, to serve of on, as fate would have it, the Celeste out of Bristol, a little under a year later, is probably what saved his life. At least he got fed on a regular basis thereafter. Life on board ship was just as hard as life on the streets but taught him a few new skills, not to be lippy to any of the Officers as that either resulted in a week in the bilges or several strokes of the lash. Somewhere in those early years on board ship he acquired the ability to splice and repair ropes, something for which he had a natural talent, and as a result of which enabled him to move from waiting on the Officers and swabbing decks, to a role as a mast rat, where his ability to rapidly tie knots and more importantly remember how to time them after a couple of attempts won him much praise, but no increase in status except amongst his peers.

The Captain of the Celeste was a pig of a man, and obstinate and pig headed with it, proud that he'd never succumbed to Pirates, but in July 1651 that changed abruptly after a particularly bad voyage to the West Indies. They'd encountered pirates in the past, and every time they'd made a run for it, and had previously always succeeded. On this occasion, the crew had other ideas and were deliberately slow in their actions. As usual the Captain failed to lower his colours after the Jolly Roger had been hoisted and as had been seen previously the red flag of no-quarter had been hoisted in response.

The battle which followed was short and brief, as fully 70% of the crew failed to offer any form of resistance to the pirates. Whether this had any bearing on the resultant execution of only the officers the crew never knew but now they had the chance at a new life. Most chose to try and make it on their own, after all they had a ship now even if they no longer had most of the cargo. Gabriel and a few others chose to join the pirate crew and by the end of the year his talents had earnt him the place of Bos'ns mate, and more importantly lessons in reading and arithmetic.

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