| FATE: FUDGE Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment | By Blood and By Right |
This game is unlikely to be run until sometime in 2004, at the earliest.
“What of Bleys?” Random inquired.
“He sends things out of the shadows, and Eric is greatly disturbed. But he has never attacked with his real force, and so Eric is troubled, and the disposition of the Crown and Scepter remains uncertain, though Eric holds the one in his right hand.”
There was a time before Corwin's fate was known, when brothers stood exiled from the one land they could call home, when the greatest of wars was not yet upon Amber, and when the bloody battles to come were but dark intents in the hearts of Princes. Day by day they took their positions upon the board, placing pawns and kings alike -- and with Oberon absent and, perhaps, dead, one Prince called Eric dared to rule in his stead... By Blood, and By Right.
This is that time.
At this time, only a handful of Princes are in Amber, and Eric has used his knowledge of the Pattern to make the way to Amber difficult at best. Others include Caine, Julian, and Gerard; Deirdre is in residence, but held at a distance, while her sister Flora is closer to the center of things. Llewella is, as always, sequestered beneath the waves.
The others stand in effective exile, their acceptance of Eric's recent regency either denied or undeclared. Benedict has not been heard from in many years; Corwin is missing, thought dead. Brand is gone in shadow, seeking his whims; Bleys is seen as an active threat, though he only speaks of opposing Eric for now, and remains hidden, though close; and none care for Random's activities, so long as he does not trouble their own. Fiona is both circumspect and, effectively, invisible.
Players are the next generation of Amber, the precious few children the others have been able to bear. They are held above exiles, and placed below princes. They are valued for their rarity and feared for their potential. Whether secretly for or against it, they live within Eric's regime, playing games of their own and of their uncles, aunts, mothers, and fathers.
Availability of the powers to the PCs will be limited at best (see below for more); instead, the focus will be on mundane talents, limited effects, and relationships with the environment and the family.
The GM requests that you make characters who fit into the current power structure of the royal family, specifically Eric's rule. This is not a game about starting a revolution, nor avenging Corwin's fate; if anything, it is about the earlier days of Eric's rule, and the people who helped keep the kingdom together. The further your character concept strays from this core, the less likely the GM is to give it the go-ahead.
Canon will be limited nearly exclusively to things which have been established in the first book, and even then, not all of that; Trumps and Pattern, in particular, will very closely follow their implicit and explicit effects as laid out in Nine Princes. This means many preconceived notions created by the DRPG, as well as quite possibly effects and uses indicated in later books, will not apply to this setting. The exact details of what Trump and Pattern can and can't do will be laid out following the GM's detailed perusal of Nine Princes.
A strong (and possibly majority) portion of the campaign will focus on Amber and its environs, and in particular, the location of City Amber itself.
By Blood and By Right will make extensive use of the latest revision of the Fate variant of Fudge. If you aren't familiar with this system, don't worry; character generation will be done as a group, and as such, any rules that need explaining will be illuminated at that time.
The number of phases used to build characters has not yet been determined (pending). A ballpark of 6-8 is a probable minimum.
A fixed skill list will be used for this game, in order to keep things as consistent as possible (while still allowing the GM to fall into his usual patterns of laziness).
There will be a few required types of Aspects, which must be worked into your character's phase-pursuits as you step through the character generation process. They are:
Duplication of these Aspects within your character is fine (one might choose 'Thief' twice, once for #3, once for #4), but duplication across PCs is to be avoided (no one else should play a Thief).
Players will be rewarded for making contributions which help to build the setting. However, unlike Born to be Kings, geographical contributions are going to play a severely secondary fiddle. In other words, it's more interesting to me as a GM for you to create and describe Nero, than it is to do the same for Rome.
Contributions, therefore, should primarily focus on creating a cast of characters; any additional things (such as locations, items, noble houses, and so on) should be detailed as a consequence of the introduction of a character to the setting.
For contributed NPC's, a simple template form is provided to make sure all aspects (small 'a') of the character are covered.
I will also be looking for contributions that help to detail and expand the play area of City Amber; however, getting a nicely populated cast of characters is a higher priority there, and I haven't created a skeleton map yet toward that end.
In general, a contribution (best as broken up into a single 'story unit' -- be that a character, a place, a political situation, etc) will be worth one Fudge point (in rare cases, 2). If you desire your PC to start out with some kind of definite and positive (either by being useful, or simply by being friendly) relationship to the contribution, you may forfeit the Fudge point reward to establish that (a sentence or a paragraph explaining the nature of the relationship will be necessary, however). In the other direction, you will gain a Fudge point for setting a PC at odds with your contributed element (but this does not stack if you put more than one PC at odds with it).
It is the GM's hope that you will contribute at least one ally and one enemy to the game. And remember, just because you didn't choose to make the character an enemy of someone doesn't mean they won't become one (so you may as well get Fudge points for it)!