The Madness of Marius

At first I was not convinced of their importance. Youth often has that luxury, feeling that the world will drop things into its lap as needed. It was explained, then, that I was not being given a choice; it was a command from a superiour officer. The aforementioned youth still rebelled. If I was going to learn, it was to be on my own terms. I needed to understand the "why," as much as the "how."

It was not so for my taking the Pattern. A birthright, yes, a proof of who I was as I stepped onto the burning line and became part of its circuit, the power coursing through me and activating the latent parts of my blood and heritage. I became myself even more, even more myself... as I completed it. It did not conquer me; we explored each other.

Trump. All the sailors had hobbies, for while the memories are strongest of fighting the waves of her salted majesty, much time is spent in the between, ready for the next attack. I grew adept at carving, and, of course, throwing the knives, winning much in the betting for that latter. I had spent much time weaving nets and working knots, designing new ones in caricature of pompous officers. These loops represented ears, you see, and this one the nose that bobbed so much it was more like to turn the new men seasick than any motion of the deck.

Understanding was not an art I have ever felt I excelled in, and my first challenge was to deal with the frustration of imperfection.

"Every artist," my tutor reminded me, "has his own style. Every speaker his own voice."

"Am I trying to learn something stylistic or how to pay attention?" I demanded, in a tone I realize now was fairly insubordinate.

Nevertheless, I was not answered that day, nor the next, nor until I simply looked past the Picture to the Truth. "Like the words of hunger underneath the Siren's call," I explained it then.

If I were to say it is the simple things that are sometimes the most difficult, I would not be trying for any sort of cleverness of phrase. We create hurdles of the mind, not in some perversity of self-punishment, but to defend ourselves. We clasp complexity to ourselves like a cloak sheltering us from the whims of petulancy, and on a deeper level, to be able to meet the eyes of others without seeing too much. The better the maze, the longer the jumps between premise and conclusion, the harder it is for others to see our plans.

Perhaps.

The first connection was just seen as a few lines on the map discarded for a coastline whose weft and warp had differed from our Mincart guide's memory. That wasn't Reality. That was Shadow. Only a few lines needed change to make the example, from picture to person, a few whispers to words, a few words to Knowledge.

At first I had considered writing him with "Complicated Community" as my background, given the line, "Choose this if you want your character to be socially vulnerable or from a broken, in-crisis, or destructive family." After all, that pretty much sets it down for any traditional post-Patternfall Amber campaign. On the other hand, looking at that gives him far too much in the way of relationship dice and since most of the people ARE family, he gets to claim them at a 1d6 anyway, unless he has another defined relationship. So I went with my instincts instead and chose a "Complicated History."

His stats were fairly simple:
Acuity: 4d6
Body: 4d6
Heart: 2d6
Will: 5d6

Obviously, his "heart" trait is at the minimum. I thought about adding one to Acuity, but the one I'd have to take out would have been from Body, and realistically, he became a knight out of martial prowess as well as position, so I thought the balance worked out right.

For his traits, I struggled a little, but this is what I think I like:

"Terribly interested in (magical) powers." 1d10
"Bad relationships, especially with women." 2d4
"Doesn't care about the identity of his father." 1d4
"Raised to be a King." 1d6
"Thinks that asking forgiveness is a lot better than permission." 1d4
"Fights ambidextrously with knives." 1d10
"Took the Pattern with eyes wide open." 1d6

Going down the list, he's more of a dabbler in Powers right now. He doesn't want to use them so much as understand the precepts behind them, so that when he does initiate into them, he'll have a foundation to use them in New And Interesting Ways. His bad relationships with women are, um, obvious. (See his "Heart" stat.) He doesn't care who his father is. If it's someone in the Family, "Oooh squick." If it's someone who isn't Family? Oh well. If it's someone of importance, he feels he'd have been left with what was necessary to make that connection at some point. He was raised to be a King, irregardless of ancestry, and that actually is, to some point, how he treats his Knights, and how he makes decisions. Of course, the next piece is how he manages to make his own way. The knife thing is pretty much what I got out of the previous writer's excerpts in Chaos; Marius slashes. He gets a battle high. He's good with knives. And, of course, the latter indicates his Pattern ability. Not this, "snuck off in the middle of the night," kind of stuff; he expected it. (Not that Pride is a Marius sin or anything.)

As for relationship dice, his most important relationships right now are probably Caine, Ossian, and Ce'e. I thought 1d8 for Caine and Ce'e just because he's intent on learning this Lord of Chaos stuff for Cloudeater. If he was spending dice on family, the dice he'd spend would be for Ossian, Paige, Brennan, and Aisling, then one on his knight Tempest. He'd take two free "family" dice for Corwin and Deirdre.

Ask me again next time I reread the rules, though, and I might change my mind. For example, there's nothing about Trump in there...