I've been thinking about some comments Ray made about Death in In the Shadow of Darkness Blog.
I seem to have done some things he's never done.

I brought back Brand. I brought back Deirdre. Finndo never really was dead.

Why?

Not because I wanted to cheat death. Death IS death, although there are always echoes of a person. I still think about people lost in my own personal life, from my grandmother to Lisa Shandler.

Maybe, just maybe, saying that x, y or z didn't die after all was a way to defy and cheat that. I can't psychoanalyze myself, who can?

Still...

Brand and Deirdre I always intended to have return because they didn't die in the first place. Furthermore, the Elemental Plane that they wound up on serves a purpose...it was the first tangible proof of Valerian's claim...that the Amber Universe was definitely NOT all that there was. I originally did not intend to have Brand return in a healthy state, but in a classic case of player involvement, Jim Groves, playing Jayson, did the unexpected, and so I rewrote some of my plans to suit. Thus, Brand, alive and free...but quite mad, and quite dangerous.

Human, though. A coordinated attack by some of the brightest lights in the PCs stopped him cold. He wasn't quite himself yet, anyway...part of the reason WHY he was meddling with the Fount...to try and regain his former power. Now that he is in custody, what will happen to him is not precisely clear.

Deirdre was, in effect, rescued by Jayson. I wasn't going to deny his heroic effort. It WORKED. I think, now that she has come to Amber, it will make things rather interesting.

Finndo was an accident. Chris, who plays Finndo's son Rylan, suggested to me the idea that Finndo was living in the Courts all of this time, and didn't die like Osric did. I ran with it, and thus that's why he's alive, despite the attempts of a few NPCS to correct that.

Caine? Except for an echo of himself seem in two different venues by two different player characters, he IS dead. Dead, dead dead. Luke is wise not to go through Arden, or to Amber much. Retribution is a possibility, and not just from the obvious choices, either. Read this profile of Noys, an NPC in my game.
Is it TRUE? The Gm remains silent.

On other Amber fronts, I still haven't registered, but I DO have a budding idea for a game to run at the con as I mentioned yesterday. It was a little more clear to me today what I could do...but it involves bringing back a 'dead' character as focus for the plot.

Found an interesting out of print game book called Nexus, the Infinite City. I am going to have to digest this more, but it is made by the guys who turned around and made Feng Shui...but Nexus could very well be a template for someone's idea of Chaos...shadows running riot together, laws of magic and technology changing from place to place, variable geography and the like.

I love reading gamebooks for ideas. :grin:

Another Monday.

Last week was bad, this week looks to be worse as far as my creativity goes. Vacation Lady, my boss, has gone on my vacation and the Store Manager, variously called Voldemort, Nero and Ivan the terrible has made my life into a living hell.

Fun for me, eh?

So, Marcus' Murder Mystery is stuck...l am behind on my Amber turns. I actually did have a con game idea, but that was on Friday, before the madness really hit. When my brain clears I am going to have to try and retrace it in my head.