Thanks to all for signing up. I'm excited about the quality players I've got.
The first thing I'd like to know from y'all is whether you've
A: Ever Played ADRPG before
B: Read Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber
The setting for the game is NOT Amber, so no knowledge of Amber is required. As for Amber Diceless, I'll explain how that works as we go along as well as the house rules that I'll be introducing to fit the setting.
And if anyone has their own copy of the rules, that'd be helpful to know too. I've got one hard copy and have also got it in PDF form, so I'll be able to print out the character creation stuff to pass around.
The main conceit of this game is that all your characters are going to be vying for the same thing, the Throne of Obsidian. You're rivals. Now I do have plans for other things to be going on besides your petty bickering, but the star of the show is supposed to be your inter sibling squabbling. To promote that, I'd like to see you work on developing how your various relationships have played out over the centuries and decades.
Would it be possible to get together some time before the first session for a character creation session? This would involve an auction for attributes as well as some other things and then everyone could get down and dirty on spending character points on various powers and items.
Below is a brief introduction to the setting.
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Like it or not, your father has been a very large part of your life. As a child and through your early adulthood, he tutored you and spent a great deal of time encouraging you to explore your talents. Some of you may consider 'encouraged' to be less accurate than pushed, cajoled and threatened, depending upon how you took to his instruction. One thing is certain, he never let up.
Even as an adult, whether you are decades, centuries or millennia old, Obsidian has kept his finger on the pulse of your life. His spies are everywhere, throughout shadow and in Obsidian itself. Keeping track of his children seems to be one of Obsidian's obsessions.
And there's no getting away from him. Every one hundred years, Obsidian time, he requires all of you to return to Obsidian from wherever you may be to walk the Pattern. The Pattern gives you the power to move through Shadow, to change shadow reality to suit your needs and whims, to find your shadows of desire. If you do not walk it every one hundred years or so, you lose this power. Some of you have confirmed this by deliberately staying away. Obsidian has tolerated this, but usually for just one century. Once the next one rolls around, those that have chosen to opt out are gathered, usually by some creature of Obsidian's - a giant pike that swallows you and spits you out at Obsidian's feet, or a great hawk that swoops down and clutches you in its talons and hauls you back through shadow. One century of being powerless in shadow (you'd not manage to escape in Obsidian proper) is usually enough for anyone in any event, although you elder siblings remember rumors from way way back that you had an elder brother who resisted and fought to the point where Obsidian killed him.
That pattern itself occupies a wooded island set upon a deep, cold lake well to the north of the Imperial City. It is a strange forbidding thing, a complex of curves spiraling in upon itself inlaid upon the forest floor with a constant argent glow. There is but one entry point on the pattern and to step upon it commits you to finishing it. The only other alternative is death. Only those with the blood of Obsidian may walk it. For all others to touch it is to be no more. For Obsidian and its spawn, it is still a daunting and exhausting task. Great sparks rise up around your feet as you step upon it and begin to navigate it. It pulls down upon you and it is difficult to pull your feet up to take another step. The resistance grows as you make your way along it and further inside its confines. Once you finish, you are in a circle at the center. And from there, with a gesture from your father, you are suddenly at his side and it's time for another of his brood to make the attempt.
The Pattern can only be accessed at the sufferance of Obsidian. Attempts to walk it at any time besides that designated results in burns, deep painful burns.
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