in the Shadow of Greatness

IMC :: Age and Perception

There is a PC in my Eternal City campaign, named Owen. She is the oldest daughter of Gerard. After six years of gaming, she is an established and weighty member of the royal family.

IMC, we played backstory before the game hit "current day." This was fun and allowed folks to walk into Amber Castle with some solid attitude about their PC's origin. In the course of this, we did Owen at 7 years old, at 15, at 19, and so forth until we were at 23 where things began (or so I recall.)

This meant that Owen was involved also with younger folks, like her half-brother March, and older folks, like Martin, Richmond, and Shapir.

She made friendships, especially with the "older cousins." The fact that the ages between Shapir, Richmond, and Martin were extremely different (45, 75, and 230) was completely invisible to young Owen.

Just as now in game, Owen's age is a bit invisible to younger cousins, who associate her with Martin, Shapir, etc.

Or to turn this around. Owen, March, and Rourke (who was born to Gerard after March was grown and off in shadow) are the old cousins to young royals who are now in teens or twenties in-game. In Amber years, Owen is probably 60. In objective shadow time, she has lost track of her age, being well over 200 years old.

When Tigh, or Blythe, or Rhiannon, or Jacynea think about Elders—they are looking at PCs as well as Benedict.

Intellectually, they understand that Gerard wasn't even born when Benedict and Corwin were fighting Moonriders—-but it doesn't grab at their perceptions.