Damarian

Damarian was my first ever Amber character. He was created for the GenCon Amber Campaign, which is detailed in pages 244–246 in the original Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game book. He’s grown a bit since I first created him back in 1985 (has it actually been that long ago now?) but he’s still essentially the same Damarian, still trying to get out from under his mother’s thumb and away from whatever convoluted plot she’s got working at the time.

Character

Description: Damarian is tallish, about 5′ 11″, but slender, more wiry in build but strong nonetheless. He has straight coppery-red hair with some golden highlights worn down past his shoulders and dark green eyes that seem both mischievous and furtive. His skin is the same alabaster hue as his mother, Fiona, and face is finely chiseled, with just enough hard edge to keep his features from being “pretty” as he shares his mother’s flawless complexion, arching eyebrows, deep-set eyes and luxurious dark eyelashes. He has long, sensitive fingers with gold rings set with emeralds on both of his forefingers. His clothes are a light green color, and loose: a tunic with billowing sleeves and loose trousers tucked into black boots. A jeweled dagger hangs from his belt, and another is tucked into his right boot.

Trump Description: Damarian is sitting on a bench, left leg crossed over the right at the knee, playing his harp but not actively concentrating at it. The harp itself is a Celtic harp, with a golden wood frame: a large blue jewel is set on the headpiece. The bench is white marble, and it set into a simple alcove of the same material, vine covered: the vines are green and flowering with pale white and pink flowers.

Parents: Damarian’s mother is Princess Fiona. He never discovered who his father was, nor particularly cares to know.

Siblings: None.

Titles: Lord Prince Damarian, Adjutant of His Majesty’s Privy Chamber, Disciple of the Unicorn Chapel, Assistant Overlord to the Key Master of Amber. (At one game, Erick gave all of the players in attendance business cards for their characters. Some of the titles he had to explain.)

Hair & Eye Color: Deep, coppery red hair, green eyes.

Colors: Green and gold

Symbol: Damarian’s personal symbol is a Celtic harp.

Wife: None

Children: None that he was aware of, although the possibility exists.

Style of Clothing: Loose clothing in silk and leather in the colors of green and gold.

Hobbies: Damarian’s hobby (almost a profession) is the avoidance of his mother, avoiding his duties in Amber, and denying anything resembling responsibility. That said, he is fiercely defensive of Amber and will rally to its aid whenever necessary.

Damarian also has a classically trained tenor voice and enjoys making music. He can play several stringed instruments, including several varieties of harp. He shares interests with a number of the younger noble sons of the outlying Court of Amber, especially in hunting and riding.

He also maintains contacts with some of the Romany clans whose members have the gift of crossing Shadows, mainly to escape pursuit and persecution, and spent many years travelling with them. Through them, he is skilled in many and diverse arts, and he likes to practice them on occasion.

Servants: None.

Holdings and Economic Interests: Damaraian has several interests in a variety of shadows, most within or just outside the Golden Circle realms.

Abilities

Known Attributes: Damarian is a redhead therefore most believe him to be a Pattern wielder with a high Psyche, although his other characteristics are certainly worthy of his station as a noble of the family of Dworkin. He also surprised everyone (well, at least Bronwyn) by regenerating much faster than expected from jumping through Brand’s flaming body twice.

Known Powers: He is known to have walked the Pattern, and has advanced studies and abilities above than the average Pattern walker. He also walked the Pattern drawn by Harlan (one of the playtest characters from Erick’s Detroit playtest group that was translated into this campaign) who was a son of Dworkin but a Trump Master without any Pattern ability, so that meant his Pattern, unlike Corwin’s, was uncontaminated by Dworkin’s Pattern. Later in the campaign he developed his Pattern abilities to attain at least some semblance of being a Pattern Adept.

Known Aritfacts: Damarian carries (when he gets the chance to do so) a harp that will play in the presence of danger. (It was first created using a previous set of item creation rules and was modified later when the rulebook was actually published.)

Known Shadows: Damarian has moderate control over the Shadow of his birth, a Shadow where women rule through psychic powers and men are slaves. How they can tolerate Damarian is difficult to understand except that he is Fiona’s son.

Allies/Manipulators: Allies: Bronwyn (mostly), Eleanor, Kelcey and Kayen (sometimes), Godfrey, Harlan (maybe); manipulators: Fiona (always), Bleys (maybe).

Enemies: None living known at this time.

History

We first met Damarian during the return of Brand known as the Tentacles of the Abyss, when he was dragged into Amber under suspicion of “just because”, along with a number of other members of his generation. Just because (and probably only because) his mother was Fiona did it happen. Anyway, he stayed around out of a misplaced sense duty to Amber (which has gotten him into a great deal of trouble: read “Bronwyn’s Tales” for more details) yet has managed to survive. Somewhere around here I have a bunch of writeups I did for Erick’s game: they give a slightly different slant on things than “Bronwyn’s Tale”, sometimes.