in the Shadow of Greatness
 

October 30, 2003

IMC :: that's just... WRONG

Through A Glass Darkly:
Comparing Exalted Fair Folk to 1st Series Chaosians
from the comments:

"I've never played in a game where the GM created some weird shadow-people when the PCs went to just any shadow."
Nuadha, October 27
That's a shame.
In response to:
"What you find in shadow is a perception of what you look for...."

Since I've met Nuadha, I can attest he's a very creative guy. I have no rational explanation why he's never run across bubble folk or sentient rocks. I don't know his GMs, and truthfully, it astounds that he's never been in an Amber game where strange things are found in shadow.

Such weird things happen in games I'm running—-perhaps my budget for SFX is larger:

The albino ape civilization of the White Jungle.
The masters of Things Not Known, the Vox, and their forlorn civilization beyond the Eventide Veil.
The Paint Folk of the Entertaining Coast.
The Brood and the Loathsome Prince.
The cycloptian clockwork warriors of the Steam Vents.
The terrible Unbrood hive.
The winged caretakers of the Library Tree.
The stalking kilticore and their triad mating of primal power.
The nine-killers.
The blutvings.
The five foot-tall starfish sentients of the Station on the edges of the Nyx Cloud.
The Dray of Undershadow, who resemble two-legged camels.
The above is a list of 'random encounters' with shadow IMC. It is not limited to Trump Artist PCs, or sorcerer PCs, or metaphysically aware PCs. It is part of the danger of traveling through shadow and the Rule of Three.

It certainly is a result of many trips where it is important that the locals do not take a hard look at the arriving Amber PC. IOW, safety and control are Very Important to most young Amberites and this usually ties over into humanoid cultures.

So the lack. Does it say something about Corwin's imagination as an artist, as opposed to the 'slam bam' give-me-a-shadow mentality of most Amber PCs/Gms?
I think so.
May it say something about the GM's flash-creative impulse?
Yes. It's hard to 'whip out' poetry in an instant. That's something RZ had some flare for. Visuals on demand. This certainly includes weird peoples of shadow.

But to never see it in an Amber game?
That's just... Wrong.


Filed under : Amber, IMC at 30.10.2003