My favorite Amber character.
I created Brigid out of an evolving series of Champions superhero characters, eventually settling on a magic / psychic character with psychic powers, shapeshifting abilities and a mysterious past. Brigid was part of a local superhero campaign until one game session that I could not attend (I was working out of town at that time) when the rest of the characters were killed.
A true TPK by the game master. And one that Brigid could have prevented had she been present.
My reaction to the news was to begin to write 1 a story about how Brigid (Changeling) assembled a group of heroes to take down the person who did the deed, as well as stopping his plan for world destruction. It was all working out nicely until I reached the end of the story, and remembered that she had a dilemma: Changeling had the Champions Disadvantage: Code Against Killing. There was no way she would let the man who killed her friends walk away, especially since he would only be freed by his underlings when imprisoned, but she couldn’t kill him, either.
But she had another way. The character, Doctor Shiva (based on Doctor Destroyer from the Champions rules) was Hindu and believed in reincarnation. Brigid also had transformation powers but rarely used them, but now she used them with a vengeance. She used her powers to transform Doctor Shiva (and another of Shiva’s devi minions whom she mind controlled into helping her) into her own unborn children, adding just enough of her own DNA to their own to transform them into twin girls.
Thus, she wound up being pregnant with twins. And that started me looking for a new home for Brigid.
1 I will finish that story one of these days.
Characteristics
Physical Description: Brigid is a tallish (5′ 9″ — 5′ 10″), slender (170 lbs. but doesn’t look it), fair-skinned redhead with enchanting emerald green eyes. Her tall, slender build, triangular face, slightly-slanted eyes, and slightly-pointed ears all manifestly proclaim her Faerie heritage. Her fiery red hair crowns her head and spills in waves down past her shoulders, a display of all possible shades of red including some impossible shades, from a deep, coppery shade to a brilliant fiery red, all overlaid with brilliant golden highlights. Her eyes are a deep emerald green that glow with her magick.
Brigid is likely one of the tallest women in Amber, with only Deirdre being noticeably taller.
(The lovely artwork of Brigid as a superhero above is by artist Heather Bruton and became the image for her Trump.)
Trump Description: Her Trump depicts her hanging against a dark, starry background. She faces the viewer in mid-leap to the viewer’s right: her body is slightly turned to her left and her left leg is drawn up underneath her as she pushes off with her right. She is wearing a sleeveless black leather jacket, open and hanging loose; a cut-off black T‑shirt with her band’s logo of the butterfly and sword and the name of her old band “The Fey”; black leather pants; and short, floppy-topped black high-heeled boots. Her left hand and arm is thrust out protectively before her and she wears an gold ornate armband high on her upper arm and several bracelets and bangles on her wrist: the fingers of that hand are spread wide, covered by a long black leather glove that leaves the thumb bare. Her right arm is pulled back, and a sparkling stream of green light flows down from an aurora about her head to wind around her arm and collect in her bare hand: more bangles, bracelets and armbands adorn this arm. There is also a large silver chain hanging from her waist that matches the chains on her boots, and a long thin blue scarf tied around her right leg above her knee. She is wearing a transparent protective visor across her eyes: this is actually a set of IR and UV goggles and flash defense. (This is actually a publicity picture from her superhero and rock-star days, but it so captured her nature that it was used as the basis of her Trump.)
Parents: Brigid’s father has many names, but the one he is known under now is Galahad, King-Consort of Faerie. Brigid’s mother was never specified but she suspects it was Princess Fiona of Amber. She actually would joke that it changed on differing days: Mondays and Wednesdays it was Deirdre, Tuesdays and Thursdays it was Fiona, Fridays and Saturdays it was Florimel and Sundays it was Llewella. Upon later reflection, it also occurred to me that her mother could have been Dworkin in a female shape, just to match her cousin Ombra.
Because Brigid needed the stability of having a parent figure during her early days in Amber, Fiona took on that role.
Siblings: Brigid has several half-brothers and half-sisters on her father’s side of her family, but has yet to meet any of them for any significant length of time: she does not believe that there are any full siblings. She has a number of half-brothers and half-sisters from her mother’s side, as well, including her god-daughter Victoria, whom she gifted with a Faerie gifting at birth.
Titles: Brigid has been recognized by King Oberon as a Princess of Amber and a Peer of the Realm. She is also by birthright the Crown Princess of the Bright Throne of Faerie.
Hair & Eye Color: Deep, coppery red hair with golden highlights, enchanting green eyes.
Colors: Black, Gold, Green, Silver
Symbol: Brigid’s personal symbol is a Monarch butterfly in black and gold, wings outstretched, over a naked, erect swordblade. Her daughters presently wear a similar symbol, but with two crossed swordblades.
Husband: None
Children: Brigid has recently brought to Amber her twin daughters, Rowan and Rhiannon. She has not stated who their father was, and all three do not discuss the subject. Her daughters strongly resemble her, although there are a few differences: their hair is lighter, for instance, and much curlier.
Style of Clothing: Brigid’s favorite garb is a loose pirate blouse of black silk, almost-immodestly open down the front, with full ruffled sleeves, and matching black trousers and high black boots. A gold sash is tied around her waist. The contrast of the dark clothing with her fair skin and fiery red hair is quite striking.
Art by Thom Artis
For formal occasions, Brigid is partial to sweeping gowns of emerald green (that match her eyes) and shimmering silver. She is well aware that she is one of the beauties of her generation, and takes some pride in that, although she doesn’t seek to take advantage of it.
Brigid wears a variety of gold and silver rings, armbands, bangles, and bracelets. Most commonly visible is the large emerald ring on the third finger of her right hand and the gold charm bracelet on her right wrist, and a silver ring in the form of a gryphon clutching a deep violet gem is on the little finger of her left hand. A clasp made of a silver rose holds her hair back over her right ear.
Hobbies: Brigid has a very well trained voice and enjoys making music, particularly rock & roll music. She can play several stringed instruments as well, including several varieties of guitar and the violin. She also maintains an interest in the martial arts and practices daily to improve them. She manifests a tremendous love of reading, particularly tales of Faerie and legends, and will spend many hours happily reading.
Servants: Brigid has only one personal servant, a young woman named Francesca, who helps keep Brigid’s personal belongings in order, particularly since Florimel started ‘loaning’ gowns and dresses and jewelry to Brigid.
Holdings and Economic Interests: None at present: Brigid is still getting accustomed to life in Amber and the perquisites of being of royal blood. The only trade she regularly becomes involved with is in taking the musical instruments that Roland’s people create to her Shadow Earth to trade for the metal tools they need to fashion these instruments.
Brigid’s Abilities
Known Attributes: She has a strong will and expertise beyond her years in mental manipulations, from her years as a superheroine on her Shadow. She has also spent many hours and years learning the martial arts: her favored weapon is a bo staff.
Known Powers: Anyone with the power to do so can detect that Brigid has walked the Pattern. She is also known to be a Faerie shapeshifter and has shown significant abilities in several sorcerous fields, having an almost intuitive understanding of magick; both are part of her Faerie heritage. Her magickal signature is a hazy phosphorescent green lightning effect that appears like a aurora about her head and flickers ominously in the depths of her eyes.
Known Aritfacts: If Brigid owns or carries any artifacts, their existence is not public knowledge.
Known Shadows: Brigid maintains an interest in the Shadow Earth where she grew up, and where her daughters were fostered, a Shadow close to Florimel and Corwin’s Shadow Earth.
Allies/Manipulators: While not formally allied to any faction, she enjoys the friendship of her cousin / uncle Prince Ombra because of their unique, shared heritage; and Princess Lesha, because of their shared interests and abilities. She can also sometimes rely on the assistance and advice of Fiona: Brigid (and her cousin Ombra) were named as godparents to Fiona’s daughter Victoria. (Since both Brigid and Ombra are of Faerie blood, Victoria has both a fairy godmother and a fairy godfather.)
Enemies: None known at this time. Brigid has not really been in Amber long enough to develop any enemies, nor does it seem likely in the near future.
Brigid’s Past
Brigid spent the first thirty years of her life on a Shadow Earth close to Florimel and Corwin’s own. This Shadow, however, manifested beings of great power, superheroes. Brigid, because of her Amber blood, became one of the most powerful superheroes in the world during her ten-year career.
Brigid was discovered by Kei (Heavy Metal) in her Shadow Earth, when she unconsciously manifested a nascent Pattern ability in response to his own. He brought her to Amber and introduced her to the court. Tristan examined her blood and discovered that she shared a Faerie heritage with Prince Ombra, which was more than she knew to that point. It was only later that she discovered that her father, whose image she finally remembered while walking the Pattern, was the brother to Ombra’s mother.
The first few days after Brigid arrived in Amber were busy ones. Besides exploring the castle and making the acquaintance of the society of cats inside the castle, she was called upon by that same society to help defend the castle against an invasion of rats, led by the rat-king Twisted Tail.
Fiona tutored Brigid in sorcery and the Pattern, and witnessed the first time Brigid walked the Pattern. When walking the Pattern caused Brigid to remember her father’s face and voice, she used the power of the Pattern to send her to him, only to discover that her father was in Faerie, and the Pattern has no power there. She was met at the entrance to Faerie by a cousin, who advised her that entering Faerie always had its price, most usually time. It was a sacrifice that Brigid was unwilling to make at that time, and she returned to Amber.
Finding a New Home
It was at a GenCon long ago, where Erick hosted an Amber party instead of running his GenCon Amber campaign on Sunday afternoon. It was at that party when I asked if he knew of any Amber campaigns in Wisconsin. You see, I was working at the time on a contract job in Appleton, Wisconsin. There was nothing going on in Appleton. To get an idea of the size of the town and local community, the entire metropolitan area of seven little towns all next to each other was about 75,000, a quarter the population of my home town of Fort Wayne, and half the population of the nearest big city of Green Bay.
Erick directed me over to a guy sitting by the window, who said he ran a campaign every other weekend, and he was living in Neenah at the time. Neenah, being the next town over from Appleton. I said I was interested in playing Amber and later gave him a copy of the character I wanted to play. That character was an extension of a superheroine named Changeling, who as a Champions character possessed superpowers and abilities that almost directly translated into Amber stats and abilities, including shapeshifting, magical-based psychic powers, and an uncanny luck.
He agreed and over the course of driving down from the Appleton area (which is located at the north end of Lake Winnebago) to the site where the campaign was run (across the Illinois border at a small town’s community center) he introduced me to the campaign, and, later, when we arrived, introduced my character to the campaign.
Now, the character as I described her had a mysterious past, and upon arrival, found the beginnings of her past. She was a child of the Fae, one the ancient magical beings who stood apart from Amber and the Courts, yet she was also a child of Amber. Furthermore, the campaign already one such character, Ombra, the Grand Duke of Amber (Dworkin’s son by the Unseelie Queen of the Fae) and the Unseelie Prince. As it would develop, Brigid was the Seelie Princess, the exact opposite of Ombra. (And, of course, she loved her cousin dearly.)
Walking the Pattern is Not Like a Walk in the Park
Eventually, Brigid needed to walk the Pattern. She felt like she had to walk it to become a true child of Amber.
But walking the Pattern is not easy, even for the Children of Dworkin. It is a serious test of will and endurance, but it does have its rewards, as she discovered when patting the First Veil. There she remembered her first memories of her father as he left her at the orphanage.
But the Final Veil, the one directly before reaching the center of the Pattern, proved impossible. By that time, she had nothing left: she was completely drained, all of her reserves dry. That’s when the gamemaster asked what she would do.
It was one of those times when the character came forward to say what needed to be said.
Brigid said that she was going about walking the Pattern all wrong. Because of her Amber blood, the Pattern was a part of her, and she was a part of the Pattern. How could she fight a part of herself? Instead of fighting it, she surrendered to it, accepting it and taking it into her heart. Its a central part of her personality, accepting and caring instead of confronting and challenging. Besides, she always felt her heart was large enough to contain all of existence, and this proved it.
She doesn’t remember what happened then, or how she crossed the final steps from the Final Veil into the center of the Pattern, or even if she ever did. All she knows is that she was next in the center of the Pattern, with all the rights that act entailed. There she tried to go to Faerie to see her father, but Faerie was beyond the power of the Pattern, so she returned to Amber and continued her life there, but she still tried to create ways to see her father.
A Party Gone Definitely Right and Certainly Wrong
It was a few months after joining the campaign when I decided to have Brigid to sponsor a Party. The hope was to lure her father, whom she had not seen since he left her at the orphanage. The gamemaster agreed and one session was all about the setup and the Party itself.
The invitations said the theme was “Creatures of Light and Darkness”. Most of the attendees were in costume. One player’s character came as the Great and Powerful Oz, a floating head above a curtain. Two NPCs, a couple who were notorious for not getting along, came as Zeus and Hera.
Myself, both Brigid and I were in a funk. Brigid was in a funk because of certain events that threatened to disrupt the Party. Myself, I couldn’t remember why. All I remember was that it was time for Brigid to be announced at the party, with all of her Amber titles, when another voice came from behind me.
“And long may she reign as the Unseelie Queen!”
The gamemaster got me. The page who was carrying Brigid’s train was actually her father. The bit about being the Unseelie Queen also threw me, as Brigid is decidedly Seelie. It was a position she never took advantage of. But the Party did have the intended effect. Brigid got to sit and talk with her father and get some of her questions answered, as did cousin Ombra.
Amber Parties Always Have Their Rough Spots
Downstairs, the party was going on fine. The punch was spiked by at least three or four people (traditional, almost, for an Amber Party) and much frivolity was manifested. And something else upstairs, the likes of which was also an Amber Party tradition.
Uncle Bleys was missing, so some of the other player characters decided to summon up a demon to help search for him.
It almost immediately turned sour.
The candles around the circle had black flames, the pentacle was cracking, and everyone was pulling out various Swords of Power and other Instruments of Impending Doom. Having none myself with Brigid, she instead transformed into a partial version of her avatar form, a humanoid phoenix. When the pentacle finally imploded, more swords pierced the demon than space allowed, while Brigid moved to protect one of the people around the circle.
And protected the wrong person. Within the demon was Uncle Bleys, pierced with almost a dozen swords, one of which is enough to slay even an unprotected Amberite. That’s when Death, who was waiting outside, said, to Brigid, that she protected the wrong person but could still save him. That’s when I said something like “I don’t know how it will happen, but I know she can make it happen.”
Bleys, Brigid and Trumpet (the Trump artifact who looked and sounded like Iago the parrot from the Disney Aladdin movie) all burst into flames and turned into a pile of ashes. Shana, the Silver Valkyrie, was told by Death to take the ashes, build a pyre at the peak of Mount Kolvir, put them there and wait for sunrise. She did so, leaping out the window where her flying horse was waiting for her, and when the first rays of sunlight lit up the pyre, there was a huge blaze and Brigid and Bleys appeared, naked in the embers.
Its probably not the way the gamemaster envisioned the rescue of Bleys but that is what roleplaying is all about.
Not Quite The End
Intense when applied to a roleplaying game is having your GM ask your character to kill her father.
Unfortunately, my job situation forced me to move away and prevented me from participating regularly, but I was able to do through email and such. All during that time there was a continual plot thread: a prophecy that predicted the End of Reality. Seven beings from outside Reality would attempt to destroy Amber, Chaos, and all Shadow, and seven would oppose them. Every so often the GM would drop hints, clues, etc. for the players about the Prophecy.
Two weeks ago, at the regular gaming session, the players had their characters sit down for dinner, where they started discussing the Prophecy. They put all of the clues together, set out to save Reality, and did so by destroying it and recreating it.
Since I wasn’t there physically, I wasn’t involved. But I had heard about it it, and the following weekend I called the GM to talk to him about it. I asked the GM what Brigid was doing, had my own character go through a parallel situation in relation to the Prophecy, and, in the conversation with the gamemaster, had one of my finest roleplaying moments ever.
Brigid is an Amber-Faerie crossbreed. She’s also Princess Royal and Queen of the Unseelie. She got a message to come to Faerie (which is a separate realm apart from Amber) and, if she regards the people she’s with, to bring them along. This includes her two daughters. When she reached Faerie, the Unseelie and Seelie hosts are getting ready for War. The War for the End of Reality. And it is up to the four monarchs to decide the ultimate fate of Faerie, the four monarchs being Brigid and her uncle Titan of the Unseelie and Galahad (Brigid’s father) and Ariel of the Seelie.
There were three options. One was to divorce Faerie from all reality. That, to Brigid, would mean the stagnation and destruction of Faerie. The second was to find another reality to attach itself to, but with the destruction of all reality, it wasn’t clear where one would be found.
The third, and the one that was taken, was to join with the recreation of all reality. That would mean a change to Faerie, that it would now be a part of reality, with possibly a loss, but at least it would survive. And if it would survive, then it could become what it always was, as all stories of Faerie are considered true.
But to become part of reality, a bridge had to be created, and Brigid, who was both Faerie and Amber, was the only one available to do it. (Her cousin Ombra was already in the battle as one of the seven champions.) So, to create the bridge, she had to take into herself all of Faerie. Brigid agreed, and so brought all of the hosts of Faerie into her heart, which she knew was large enough to encompass it. That left only a few of the highest Fae, including her father, the Seelie King.
When everything was taken in, except for the other monarchs of the realms, the gamemaster told me that Brigid’s father held out to her a cold iron knife and told her she knew what she needed to do with it. It was the only way, he said; even though dying by an iron blade meant the True Death for a Faerie, if Faerie was recreated it would be as if it had never happened.
I choked up. Not the character, myself.
As part of her cousin Ombra’s history, since he had so much Bad Stuff (another contrast with Brigid who had Good Stuff), his mother, the Unseelie Queen, was killed by Chaos with the same such knife, and therefore would never reincarnate. Now, I was called to do the same, with Brigid’s father, whom she always wanted to meet (having been left at an orphanage by him as a baby) and met only a few times during the campaign.
It was an emotional moment for me as a player. Getting asked to sacrifice her father was wrenching. Having to do it for all three other monarchs was only compounding the situation.
But she did it.
Brigid knew that if she was successful, and the battle won, everything would be restored, even better. Still, the thought was excruciating. Eventually, though, she took her father in her arms and slid the knife into his heart.
And when it was over, there was nothing of Faerie left, except for herself. With the last vestige of Faerie vanishing around her, she found herself at the battle site, that being all there was left of Existence. The only place left in all of reality was a lonely spot, where two people were trying to maintain enough reality to allow something to be recreated when/if the Seven were victorious. There was a concerted stream of power between the two, and they were so concentrating on maintaining the stream than Brigid couldn’t contact them. I wondered what to do, when the GM said that Brigid was changing into her ultimate Faerie form, of a white phoenix. (She has a transitional form which is a Faerie woman with reddish-golden wings of fire, but this form she has only used once before in this lifetime, so save her uncle Bleys from death.)
A symbol of rebirth was most appropriate at this point. The question was, what to do? Flying into the stream would most likely kill her. This was the second time I almost choked up. But in the end, the circle had to be completed. After all, the other monarchs gave their lives in the hope that they would be reborn, so could Brigid not do the same?
She transformed into the shape of a phoenix, she soared into the sky, then swept down into the vortex of magick and power, carrying with her all of Faerie, so that all of Faerie would be reborn in the restored existence.
And then she was someplace else.
There, a man named Meredith introduced himself as the brother to the Seven from Outside, who, having been defeated, had been changed from destroyers to creators. And then the seven appeared before Brigid, asking what she wanted from the new Reality.
The Seven who were destroyers and who were now protectors offered her a wish for her part in maintaining Existence. Others wished for things like Amberites being more fertile, meaning more NPCs and children running around Castle Amber, but Brigid gave the wish back to the Universe, not wanting to dictate to it and letting It decide how best to use it.All she wanted for it was that it be left to grow on its own, to be a place of wonder and enchantment, a home for herself and her children.
The Seven found that to be valid, and agreed. Then they left, leaving Reality in the care of its people.
And then Brigid awoke. She was back at her campsite, with her mercenary unit and her two daughters. It was if nothing had changed.
But something did. Amber, Chaos and the rest of Existence was reborn, with changes. Ombra’s mother was restored, for one, and Faerie, which had remained separate from Existence, was now a part of it. The entire history of Amber was rewritten. There had been no Patternfall War, no Merlin or Martin; Oberon and Eric were alive; and a whole host of other things were there to be explored, which included the status of Faerie as a part of Shadow.
And Bane, Brigid’s Faerie gryphon companion, said “And now things start to get interesting.”
The GM told me later that he had put the other players through the same sort of trial and tribulation, so I wasn’t alone. Nor was this the first time he had done so. It was … incredible.
It was a truly intense 2 1⁄2 hours (on the phone: my phone bill that month was not pretty.) My only complaint was that I wasn’t able to do it in person.
Regrettably, the End
That wasn’t the end of the campaign: I was able to attend a couple of sessions much later, when the Big Bad Menace was finally showing itself. To confront it, the children of Amber (our characters) were sent off to battle its attacking forces while the Elders remained in Amber to confront it directly.
The player characters diverted the forces into a Shadow of our own control and mustered whatever forces we have at our disposal: Brigid Patterned in an assault space fighter and let her daughters Rowan and Rhiannon pilot it while she mustered the Wild Hunt and as much of Faerie as could be summoned: she rode at point with her father the Seelie King on her left and her uncle the Unseelie King at her right.
Meanwhile, the Elders closed off Castle Amber. Fiona sent a message to Brigid explaining what they were doing. They were all going to sacrifice their immortality to combat the Menace, and closed off the Castle to prevent anyone from stopping them
That shattered Brigid’s world. Coming from a place where she knew she was going to outlive most everyone she knew, if she survived being a superhero and all, and finding a place where everyone would share a similar lifespan, she found a home where she never would have to worry about losing family through age.
The aftermath wasn’t examined, but I knew what Brigid would do. Some time in the past she was given the responsibility over the Forest of Arden, so she would have retreated there, to wait out the deaths of her mother (but whom she never found out) and the rest of the Elders, staying in the distance places of the forest, appearing only when needed. Arden itself would become a Fae place, where the innocent could walk from end to end and never be harmed, but woe to any who entered with darkness in their hearts.
