Thursday, January 31, 2008

lord of the living void, a king of chaos

From a campaign hand-out I made for Amber players who were considering making Chaosite PCs.

So you wish to be “a lord of the living void, a king of chaos?”
Being a Lord or Lady of Chaos has it’s advantages, but in this campaign you’ll find Chaos to be a little different from how the main Amber DRPG Rulebook describes it.

The Amber series of novels by Roger Zelazny can be clearly broken into two subseries: Corwin’s Tale (books 1-5) and Merlin’s Tale (books 6-10). These two tales intentionally contradict each other on several points, and this Campaign chooses to follow Corwin’s depiction of the universe over Merlin’s, whereas the rulebooks typically do the opposite.

If you’ve played Amber before, you’ll quickly notice that Shapeshifting & Logrus have been replaced with Dynamic Form and Entropy. This packet gives you the pertinent details on those new powers. Please read these 4 pages fully before the next session of our game.

The advantages of Chaos (& Entropy)

1) Versatility. While an Amberite is obliged to drop half their points on Pattern, the only requirement to be a Chaos Lord is 5 points of Dynamic Form. That leaves you with plenty of points left over for Entropy, Sorcery, Power Words, Trump Artistry, and/or a personal world full of cool magic items.

2) Unpredictability. Your powers and capabilities vary from form to form, and your enemies probably won’t recognize you in half the shapes you are capable of. The former makes you dangerous in combat, and the later makes you dangerous in social settings.

3) Mysterious Creepiness. Entropy is a totally new power, based on Corwin’s Tale, but devised for this campaign. Not only do the other players not know what to expect from it, but the Amberite NPCs will be just as clueless and leery about it too. Keep them guessing, and you’ll reap amazing benefits. Like any Power, Entropy has its weaknesses. Once you’ve figured them out, keep it to yourself. There’s no need to make anyone else aware that you even have a weakness.

4) Allies Everywhere. Over the years, Amber has a made a lot of enemies. And if that isn’t enough potential assistance, Entropy Mastery enables you to summon feral beasts, raise zombies and turn entire worlds against your foes.

5) Resistance to Entropy. Chaos blood shields you from the standard environmental affects of Entropy, including some measure of defense against plagues, poisons, and necromancy.

The disadvantages of Chaos

1) Not Human. Every form a Chaosite has should be clearly inhuman, and preferably something you’d find in a dark fairytale. There’s plenty of examples in Corwin’s Tale, especially in the book “The Guns of Avalon”. As a Chaosian, you cannot have a normal human-looking form unless you also have an Amber Devotee or Pattern Imprint.

2) Possibly Lower Attributes. This isn’t a requirement for a player character, but on average a typical denizen of Chaos has lower Attributes than a typical Amber commoner. You can be the exception to that rule if you’d like, but you should consider keeping at least one attribute at Shadow or Amber Rank.

3) Vulnerable to Pattern. If you’re of the blood of Chaos, you need to be especially careful around the Pattern or items crafted in its image.

4) Lack of Transportation. Let’s face it, Pattern is the best Power for moving between worlds. Being from Chaos, you’ll really want to consider Trump, Sorcery or some sort of magic Artifact or Creature to get you a good method of Transit.

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