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zdashamberSo, last Sunday I ran the playtest of the game I'll be running at ACNW:
Son of a Bitch Must Pay
The character creation section of the blurb runs: "There's an Amberite you want dead. Or maybe just driven insane, or maybe just acknowledging that you're not the putz they thought. Are you suffering under the iron heel of some NPC you can't bump off in your regular campaign? Have you always wanted to make Merlin bleed? Are you just sick of Fiona's smirk? I got yer therapy, right here."
Takes a specialized audience, so I was not alas able to invite the guy who'll be joining our group for the next campaign, since he's never read the Amber books. But for me, and people like me, who have lived and breathed and steeped in Amber for years, gained the ability to both love and fucking hate every one of the Amberites... Oh yes, an immensely satisfying game. God, what a body count! It was beautiful!
The game is built entirely around delivering the exact sort of revenge people have been hungering for, so it's bound to be different every time, so I can reveal my Evil Secrets and you can still play in it if you're so lucky in the future. I mean, what are the odds that the ACNW people are going to want to see Corwin crushed to death under the feet of a 76-trombone marching band?
So, first character I get back, from Bernie, who wants to kill Dworkin because he's all Universe-priviledged and shit, wants to see Dworkin trampled to death by the Unicorn, and then the world twisting apart because of that. Next character, from Mike, wants to catch Gérard in the act of breaking the false "holier than thou" image he pretends to, doing something dirty or common or traitorous, and punish him.
Dave's character wants Flora's reputation to finally and irreverisbly reflect the fact that she's a manipulative conniving bitch, and it would be nice if she ended up with some scars on her face. This is all good, I think, Flora and Gérard form a natural axis of "we're so nice and everyone should be listening to us for their own good." But how to tie that in with Bernie's guy?
Voilá, Jeff's character, who as mentioned, wants to have Corwin beaten to death by Oakland Raiders fans, or trampled by a band, and he wants it to be the result of one of Corwin's own stupid arrogant self-assured plans. Suddenly, the odds of the game being non-silly drop dramatically. But wait, there's that "Blood, lightning, and lyre" quote... And since Bernie's character is moving towards having a "special" relationship with the Unicorn, it's quite possible that Amber will be messed up even before Dworkin dies, and Corwin could notice that and apply a big walking musical remedy in the form of a Marching Band...
Damian wants to be the only one who knows Brand didn't die, and to kill him when Brand doesn't think he's a threat at all, and to be recognized for it. To Mary, Bleys is the 6-fingered man, who killed her father instead of paying for his new suit, and his reward should be Humiliations Galore. Mary's character has the 7-in-1-blow belt. It reaches out to smack things down. I love it.
So here's what went down:
Random calls a family dinner because Dworkin's whining that the Universe is all screwed up, and as proof, people can now walk through Shadow much nearer to Amber. (Basically, he neglected the Unicorn while he was nuts, and his falling-out with Order has made his Pattern less effective. Not that he's even noticed she's neglected, nooo, too wrapped up in "being the Pattern"...)
Corwin suggests that the Beat has left Amber with Oberon, and Random needs to reshape things musically. I was modelling him after Elvis, and I think the vague southern accent and the horniness made him come across as stoned. Note to self: use Vague Southern Accent for Julian next time.
Anyway, so Corwin suggests a family parade with a marching band through Amber... Music is a base of the Pattern, walking is a tool of the Amberites, and Jeff's character Dixie is a cheerleader daughter of Martin to lead it. The rest of the family thinks he's insane (Mike: "Who replaced the Amber royal family with Folger's Crystals?"), but goes along because Random is Corwin's friend, and hey, it can't hurt.
The parade goes along. While the following crowd of Amberites is stopped dealing with a guy demanding Bleys make good his enormous gambling debts, the band passes a group of fat guys in black and silver wearing horns and skull-face paint and all... They look very confused. Only Dixie, twirling her baton at the lead, sees that Corwin is lying frozen in the street. She grins, clocks him one with the baton, and tramples right on over, followed by the rest of the band.
Damian's character Brian is the only one who can see Brand laughing his Loki-like ass off. The rest just come up to see Corwin's flattened pulped body emerging from under the heels of a marching band hundreds strong. He is clearly dead. This puts a damper on the festivities, and things break up. Corwin's son Cassius, Dave's character, is invisible as he carries the body back to the infirmary, giving the emerging Cult of the Velvet Corwin even more of a kick start. Random delegates Mike's character Jason to investigate Corwin's death. Brian shadows Brand back to the castle.
Jason finds that the band (and Dixie, by her telling) had no idea they were trampling Corwin, and the band people are all distraught that their boots are marked with the blood of their beloved musical icon. They do say there were some strangely-dressed guys around the area, though. Jason tracks the Oakland Raiders fans to a bar, beats the shit out of the whole barful when one gets lippy, and eventually discovers from one of the cowering remainder that they were lead there by a hot chick who looks like Flora, "..and then we were in this fucking Renaissance fair!" The chick told them to make trouble, and then Corwin came along to clear the way for the parade. They beat the shit out of him; he didn't resist, and then the band appeared and they moved away. Jason goes to find Flora.
Cassius, the doctors finally convincing him that they can't bring life back to a corpse a few decimeters too thin, returns to the scene of the crime to sorcerously figure out what went on. Brian, having tracked Brand to Bleys's room, walks in and confronts him. Brand shoots Brian in the throat, and Brian collapses. Brand approaches a bit, shoots Brian in the heart. Then approaches further and pokes Brian's body, at which point Brian grabs him through his chest with one very sharp hand, and beheads him with the blade that sprung out of the other. Ah, undeclared Advanced Shapeshifting. How I love you.
Brian brings Random Brand's head, which begins the running joke of the session: "Isn't Brand already dead?" Convinced finally that Brian is not a putz, Random makes the head the centerpiece of the next family dinner. Many people find this tasteless. Not Random. Hee! Dworkin, however, is still whining that the universe is not like it oughtta be. Martin later comes to Dixie and suggests that he thinks this is because Random's just not a good king, since he's not a good guy. Dixie is ok with the idea of replacing him.
Back a bit, Cassius and Random determine that Brand was indeed using magic to freeze Corwin and hide him from the oncoming band... (The "hiding" spell was the same one he was using to walk around unnoticed by all save Brian, who hated him too much to be gulled by his Jedi Mind Tricks.) So that's settled. Except Jason gets in touch with Cassius and tells him about Flora's involvement. Jason goes to Flora's place, gets her to admit to what she claims was just a practical joke with the Raiders Fans thing (and really, there is no love lost between Random and Flora), and holds the threat of revealing it to Random over her head so she'll spy on Trumps for him. She heads off to do this, crying that it's just like Eric all over again. Cassius is trying to pitch a Brand/Flora plot to Random, who's not buying.
Brian goes out drinking in celebration with Polly, Mary's character. A crying woman comes up to Polly and says that her husband, the one who got Bleys to pay up by confronting him in front of the whole family in the parade, has turned up dead. Polly takes her to Random so that Random will go after Bleys. Both she and Jason happen to be in the hall when they find Random, walking along dazed and bloody, with a hole punched through his lung. He informs them that he just had to kill Martin, after Martin tried to kill him, and delegates them to go deal with Martin's room.
In Martin's room, Jason finds that the boy was dumb enough to keep a diary, from which it becomes apparent that he was carrying on an affair with Flora. Also, there are a good many letters from Gérard: "You're such a good fellow, and you'll make a good king..." "Random's latest move is very cruel..." "Damn shame that Random's such a jerk..."
Random, meanwhile in the infirmary getting treated, calls up Dixie to confess what he had to do. She flips out and crushes his mind. Pity; I like Random. But hey, it was a game about rivers of blood. So by the time the doctors noticed Random frozen and got a family member to rush in and take the Trump, Random was dead. Jason managed to capture Dixie, and they chained her to a wall in the infirmary, where she was being treated for the aftereffects of being captured by Jason.
Benedict heads off to find the Jewel. But wait, it's not there... And we come to Conall, Bernie's character, who was preparing to make a new Pattern because he knew that the problem was the Unicorn's lack of appreciation for Dworkin anymore. Because now the Unicorn appreciated him. So with her help he'd "borrowed" the Jewel during dinner.
He gets a Trump call from Dworkin, who immediately tries to crush his mind. He's better, though he doesn't realize it; anyway, he's got time to call for help. And so, in Random's chambers, the Unicorn appears, gores Dworkin to death, and tramples him before vanishing again. Conall goes back to happily preparing his new Pattern spot. Benedict, off-camera, is aghast; he'd called Dworkin about the missing Jewel, Dworkin had tracked it to Conall, called to get it back, and then...
I'm pleased with how that happened, since I figured the Unicorn was protective of the lives of all of the royal family, and this way of bumping off Dworkin didn't involve any moral worries.
So, Dixie frees herself with Pattern-rolling on her gurney in Amber, and runs into Shadow from the heart of Castle Amber faster than anyone can follow. Dworkin's body joins the rest in the morgue. Worry abounds. The letters found in Martin's room, and the diary, are passed around, and people are appalled. Brian brings Bleys in; he's drunk, and the bartender says he's been drinking ever since the parade. Jason checks to make sure he's drunk, and Bleys submits to a pupil test after being shot in the back and legs. Yep, he's drunk.
Cassius tracks Flora to Earth, and then finds a trail away from Earth to follow. Conall is getting ready to start his Pattern when Benedict, Flora, Gérard, and Llewella appear. It's decided that the whole family should have a say in this "new Pattern" thing, and they're all called. Llewella delegates Polly to bringing Bleys, in a subconscious burst of brilliance on my part... She strips him to his sword and his days-old dingy skivvies before bringing him though to the site of the future Pattern.
It's suggested that if everyone contributes blood, everyone will be able to walk this new Pattern, and it will be harder to erase. Everyone agrees, they all slit their wrists, blood starts flowing out in a swirling net, and Conall starts building a new Pattern with it, a Pattern with choices of paths to take. The forces of Chaos battle their way though Order as best they can to get at this, but the Amberites hold them off. The Unicorn takes care of holding off the Serpent. Due to momentary unity, no one dies.
Cassius wakes up before Flora, and gives her a couple slashes to the cheeks with Grayswandir for her part in getting Corwin killed. No one objects. Julian suggests himself as king; there are no better options, and it's so passed. The End; 4 hours exactly. Muahaha.
So, I was kinda sad; with the death of Random, I didn't get to have the big end scene where Flora and Gérard are hauled up in front of Random and the whole court, and Flora turns on Gérard and tries to blame him for everything, and in anger he smashes her face in and then claims he was only doing what was right for Amber all along, and Random, sick of it all, has Jason shoot him. But everyone was happy with their revenge, and I really like the ending we got... Julian will make a darn good king, and everyone has a stake in the new Pattern.
Son of a Bitch Must Pay
The character creation section of the blurb runs: "There's an Amberite you want dead. Or maybe just driven insane, or maybe just acknowledging that you're not the putz they thought. Are you suffering under the iron heel of some NPC you can't bump off in your regular campaign? Have you always wanted to make Merlin bleed? Are you just sick of Fiona's smirk? I got yer therapy, right here."
Takes a specialized audience, so I was not alas able to invite the guy who'll be joining our group for the next campaign, since he's never read the Amber books. But for me, and people like me, who have lived and breathed and steeped in Amber for years, gained the ability to both love and fucking hate every one of the Amberites... Oh yes, an immensely satisfying game. God, what a body count! It was beautiful!
The game is built entirely around delivering the exact sort of revenge people have been hungering for, so it's bound to be different every time, so I can reveal my Evil Secrets and you can still play in it if you're so lucky in the future. I mean, what are the odds that the ACNW people are going to want to see Corwin crushed to death under the feet of a 76-trombone marching band?
So, first character I get back, from Bernie, who wants to kill Dworkin because he's all Universe-priviledged and shit, wants to see Dworkin trampled to death by the Unicorn, and then the world twisting apart because of that. Next character, from Mike, wants to catch Gérard in the act of breaking the false "holier than thou" image he pretends to, doing something dirty or common or traitorous, and punish him.
Dave's character wants Flora's reputation to finally and irreverisbly reflect the fact that she's a manipulative conniving bitch, and it would be nice if she ended up with some scars on her face. This is all good, I think, Flora and Gérard form a natural axis of "we're so nice and everyone should be listening to us for their own good." But how to tie that in with Bernie's guy?
Voilá, Jeff's character, who as mentioned, wants to have Corwin beaten to death by Oakland Raiders fans, or trampled by a band, and he wants it to be the result of one of Corwin's own stupid arrogant self-assured plans. Suddenly, the odds of the game being non-silly drop dramatically. But wait, there's that "Blood, lightning, and lyre" quote... And since Bernie's character is moving towards having a "special" relationship with the Unicorn, it's quite possible that Amber will be messed up even before Dworkin dies, and Corwin could notice that and apply a big walking musical remedy in the form of a Marching Band...
Damian wants to be the only one who knows Brand didn't die, and to kill him when Brand doesn't think he's a threat at all, and to be recognized for it. To Mary, Bleys is the 6-fingered man, who killed her father instead of paying for his new suit, and his reward should be Humiliations Galore. Mary's character has the 7-in-1-blow belt. It reaches out to smack things down. I love it.
So here's what went down:
Random calls a family dinner because Dworkin's whining that the Universe is all screwed up, and as proof, people can now walk through Shadow much nearer to Amber. (Basically, he neglected the Unicorn while he was nuts, and his falling-out with Order has made his Pattern less effective. Not that he's even noticed she's neglected, nooo, too wrapped up in "being the Pattern"...)
Corwin suggests that the Beat has left Amber with Oberon, and Random needs to reshape things musically. I was modelling him after Elvis, and I think the vague southern accent and the horniness made him come across as stoned. Note to self: use Vague Southern Accent for Julian next time.
Anyway, so Corwin suggests a family parade with a marching band through Amber... Music is a base of the Pattern, walking is a tool of the Amberites, and Jeff's character Dixie is a cheerleader daughter of Martin to lead it. The rest of the family thinks he's insane (Mike: "Who replaced the Amber royal family with Folger's Crystals?"), but goes along because Random is Corwin's friend, and hey, it can't hurt.
The parade goes along. While the following crowd of Amberites is stopped dealing with a guy demanding Bleys make good his enormous gambling debts, the band passes a group of fat guys in black and silver wearing horns and skull-face paint and all... They look very confused. Only Dixie, twirling her baton at the lead, sees that Corwin is lying frozen in the street. She grins, clocks him one with the baton, and tramples right on over, followed by the rest of the band.
Damian's character Brian is the only one who can see Brand laughing his Loki-like ass off. The rest just come up to see Corwin's flattened pulped body emerging from under the heels of a marching band hundreds strong. He is clearly dead. This puts a damper on the festivities, and things break up. Corwin's son Cassius, Dave's character, is invisible as he carries the body back to the infirmary, giving the emerging Cult of the Velvet Corwin even more of a kick start. Random delegates Mike's character Jason to investigate Corwin's death. Brian shadows Brand back to the castle.
Jason finds that the band (and Dixie, by her telling) had no idea they were trampling Corwin, and the band people are all distraught that their boots are marked with the blood of their beloved musical icon. They do say there were some strangely-dressed guys around the area, though. Jason tracks the Oakland Raiders fans to a bar, beats the shit out of the whole barful when one gets lippy, and eventually discovers from one of the cowering remainder that they were lead there by a hot chick who looks like Flora, "..and then we were in this fucking Renaissance fair!" The chick told them to make trouble, and then Corwin came along to clear the way for the parade. They beat the shit out of him; he didn't resist, and then the band appeared and they moved away. Jason goes to find Flora.
Cassius, the doctors finally convincing him that they can't bring life back to a corpse a few decimeters too thin, returns to the scene of the crime to sorcerously figure out what went on. Brian, having tracked Brand to Bleys's room, walks in and confronts him. Brand shoots Brian in the throat, and Brian collapses. Brand approaches a bit, shoots Brian in the heart. Then approaches further and pokes Brian's body, at which point Brian grabs him through his chest with one very sharp hand, and beheads him with the blade that sprung out of the other. Ah, undeclared Advanced Shapeshifting. How I love you.
Brian brings Random Brand's head, which begins the running joke of the session: "Isn't Brand already dead?" Convinced finally that Brian is not a putz, Random makes the head the centerpiece of the next family dinner. Many people find this tasteless. Not Random. Hee! Dworkin, however, is still whining that the universe is not like it oughtta be. Martin later comes to Dixie and suggests that he thinks this is because Random's just not a good king, since he's not a good guy. Dixie is ok with the idea of replacing him.
Back a bit, Cassius and Random determine that Brand was indeed using magic to freeze Corwin and hide him from the oncoming band... (The "hiding" spell was the same one he was using to walk around unnoticed by all save Brian, who hated him too much to be gulled by his Jedi Mind Tricks.) So that's settled. Except Jason gets in touch with Cassius and tells him about Flora's involvement. Jason goes to Flora's place, gets her to admit to what she claims was just a practical joke with the Raiders Fans thing (and really, there is no love lost between Random and Flora), and holds the threat of revealing it to Random over her head so she'll spy on Trumps for him. She heads off to do this, crying that it's just like Eric all over again. Cassius is trying to pitch a Brand/Flora plot to Random, who's not buying.
Brian goes out drinking in celebration with Polly, Mary's character. A crying woman comes up to Polly and says that her husband, the one who got Bleys to pay up by confronting him in front of the whole family in the parade, has turned up dead. Polly takes her to Random so that Random will go after Bleys. Both she and Jason happen to be in the hall when they find Random, walking along dazed and bloody, with a hole punched through his lung. He informs them that he just had to kill Martin, after Martin tried to kill him, and delegates them to go deal with Martin's room.
In Martin's room, Jason finds that the boy was dumb enough to keep a diary, from which it becomes apparent that he was carrying on an affair with Flora. Also, there are a good many letters from Gérard: "You're such a good fellow, and you'll make a good king..." "Random's latest move is very cruel..." "Damn shame that Random's such a jerk..."
Random, meanwhile in the infirmary getting treated, calls up Dixie to confess what he had to do. She flips out and crushes his mind. Pity; I like Random. But hey, it was a game about rivers of blood. So by the time the doctors noticed Random frozen and got a family member to rush in and take the Trump, Random was dead. Jason managed to capture Dixie, and they chained her to a wall in the infirmary, where she was being treated for the aftereffects of being captured by Jason.
Benedict heads off to find the Jewel. But wait, it's not there... And we come to Conall, Bernie's character, who was preparing to make a new Pattern because he knew that the problem was the Unicorn's lack of appreciation for Dworkin anymore. Because now the Unicorn appreciated him. So with her help he'd "borrowed" the Jewel during dinner.
He gets a Trump call from Dworkin, who immediately tries to crush his mind. He's better, though he doesn't realize it; anyway, he's got time to call for help. And so, in Random's chambers, the Unicorn appears, gores Dworkin to death, and tramples him before vanishing again. Conall goes back to happily preparing his new Pattern spot. Benedict, off-camera, is aghast; he'd called Dworkin about the missing Jewel, Dworkin had tracked it to Conall, called to get it back, and then...
I'm pleased with how that happened, since I figured the Unicorn was protective of the lives of all of the royal family, and this way of bumping off Dworkin didn't involve any moral worries.
So, Dixie frees herself with Pattern-rolling on her gurney in Amber, and runs into Shadow from the heart of Castle Amber faster than anyone can follow. Dworkin's body joins the rest in the morgue. Worry abounds. The letters found in Martin's room, and the diary, are passed around, and people are appalled. Brian brings Bleys in; he's drunk, and the bartender says he's been drinking ever since the parade. Jason checks to make sure he's drunk, and Bleys submits to a pupil test after being shot in the back and legs. Yep, he's drunk.
Cassius tracks Flora to Earth, and then finds a trail away from Earth to follow. Conall is getting ready to start his Pattern when Benedict, Flora, Gérard, and Llewella appear. It's decided that the whole family should have a say in this "new Pattern" thing, and they're all called. Llewella delegates Polly to bringing Bleys, in a subconscious burst of brilliance on my part... She strips him to his sword and his days-old dingy skivvies before bringing him though to the site of the future Pattern.
It's suggested that if everyone contributes blood, everyone will be able to walk this new Pattern, and it will be harder to erase. Everyone agrees, they all slit their wrists, blood starts flowing out in a swirling net, and Conall starts building a new Pattern with it, a Pattern with choices of paths to take. The forces of Chaos battle their way though Order as best they can to get at this, but the Amberites hold them off. The Unicorn takes care of holding off the Serpent. Due to momentary unity, no one dies.
Cassius wakes up before Flora, and gives her a couple slashes to the cheeks with Grayswandir for her part in getting Corwin killed. No one objects. Julian suggests himself as king; there are no better options, and it's so passed. The End; 4 hours exactly. Muahaha.
So, I was kinda sad; with the death of Random, I didn't get to have the big end scene where Flora and Gérard are hauled up in front of Random and the whole court, and Flora turns on Gérard and tries to blame him for everything, and in anger he smashes her face in and then claims he was only doing what was right for Amber all along, and Random, sick of it all, has Jason shoot him. But everyone was happy with their revenge, and I really like the ending we got... Julian will make a darn good king, and everyone has a stake in the new Pattern.
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Date: 2004-10-09 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-09 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-10 11:39 pm (UTC)