Powers

Like every other Amber game out there, Cry of the unicorn has it's own interpretation of how the various powers work. Since I've thrown out Logrus, there are some new powers for Chaosians as well.

• Pattern
• Black Channel
• Trump
• Shapeshifting
• Power Words
• Conjuration
• Sorcery

Powers

50 pts.
As ADRPG. Pattern is very hard to use near Chaos, but not impossible.

If a PC wants to take the pattern, but doesn't have the points at the start of the game, the Blood of Amber is available for 10 pts. These 10 pts are considered a down payment on Pattern. Having the Blood of Amber allows the PC to walk the Pattern and live.

Advanced

40 pts.

Like Blood of Amber, a PC can make a down payment against Black Channel for 10 pts, allowing the PC to survive the initiation when it comes in-game. For Chaos, the Mark can also be applied against shapeshifting, though it can only be spent this way once; a PC with both powers still pays full price.

The Black Channel is the power that Lords of Chaos use to get around in Shadow with. It is impossible to get near Amber with it, unless someone uses Pattern to open the way (cf. Corwin's blood curse or the stain on the Pattern).

The black channel is a slow acting power; it's slower than pattern at moving through Shadow, unless a channel has already been established. In direct confrontation, it will usually lose to pattern; Corwin was able to destroy a stretch of black road by holding the pattern in mind while walking it.

The Black Road of the Patternfall War was a large scale application of the black channel power. The uses of the power are outlined below:

• Bind to Abyss: A black channel initiate is exposed briefly to the raw stuff of the abyss, and is able to move unahrmed through a black channel, and can survive brief brushes with abyss susbstance.
• Walk Black Channel: The initiate can walk through Shadow. A black discolouration on the ground spreads around the initiate's feet, and extends both forwards and backwards along the initiate's path through Shadow. The initiate can walk quickly, in which case the path doesn't last long, but fades behind him. Alternately, the initiate can take his time, leaving a more stable path. How long it lasts is dependant on the proximity to Chaos, the time spent, and the Psyche of the wielder.
  
  Essentially, a black channel is pervesrion of the stuff of Shadow, a thin taint of Chaos bridging the gap between Shadows. Once a channel is formed, anyone can walk along it, though the tainted space is hostile to those without the mark of Chaos. It is very easy to track an initiate of the black channel. Even after the channel has faded, it leaves a mark on the Shadows it has disturbed.
  
  An initiate of the Black Channel can use the power to find Shadows of his desire, though more complex Shadow manipulation, like controlling probability or finding "a black bird of his desire" are beyond his control.
  
  Once a channel has been established, movement along it is very fast, even faster than a hellriding Amberite.
• Control Tainted Shadow: Once a section of Shadow has been tainted by the black channel, the initiate can exert a measure of control over the tainted area. This means that he can cause grasses to ensnare ankles, dogs to bite, or waters to turn toxic at will. This affects only the normal stuff of Shadow, not creatures or objects of Power.


• Summon and Control Creatures of Chaos: Once a black channel is established, the initiate can call Creatures of Chaos along the channel. The channel must be of the more permanent sort, since calling creatures of chaos requires enough attention that the inititate can't focus on mainitaining the channel at the same time. Summoning and binding a creature of Chaos takes one hour per point of the creature. Creatures of Chaos are unlikely to be mistaken for anything but what they are.
• Abyss Defense: The initiate can relax his mind, and become a conduit to the Abyss. Psychic and magical attacks are diverted alogn the conduit where they are enveloped by the Abyss. This can be used against magcial attacks, trump and psyche attacks. If the adept devotres his entire attention to this defense, it can block pattern attacks as well, if his psyche is good enough.


• Communicate through Black Channel: The initiate can "use a reverberation effect" of the black channel to send and recieve messages along the length of the channel. Both the sender and reciever must be on the channel for this to work. This communication is not psychic contact and cannot be used to launch psychic or magical attacks.

Advanced

• Black Circle: Given time, the Channel Master can claim large sections of a Shadow, even an entire Shadow. This is what was occurring in Lorraine when Corwin arrived. The entire afflicted area is considered in the same way as one of the master's black channels. She can use any of ehr black channel powers anywhere within the circle. The master can grow the circle by long concentration. A black circle will last as long as the master stays in its boundaries. It will begin to fade if she leaves the Shadow.


• Scry along Black Channel: The master can extend her vision along a black channel or black circle, seeing those within her territory. The master can then use her control over the channel as usual.


• Detect Black Channel: The Master can feel the taint of the Abyss on Shadow, and can tell when she is near another black channel.


• Edit and Shape Black circle: Once the master has established a black circle, she can edit and manipulate the shadow in a manner similar to advanced pattern. This is a long, slow process, and is obvious to anyone in the area.


• Sacrifice Black Circle to the Abyss: Any black channel or circle the master has established (i.e., long term) can be turned over to the Abyss, effectively destroying it. This effect stops at the border of the black channel or circle. The Shadow will eventually heal around the tear, but anything in the sacrificed area will be lost to the Abyss, and the fabric of the Shadow will always bear the scars.


• Extend Channel by will: the master no longer needs to walk the length of a black channel when it is created. By focusing her will, she can cause a channel to form between her and her destination. Note that during this process, anyone or anything can walk onto the forming channel and either follow it to the destination, or back along to the source, and the channel master.

Advanced

Shapeshifting is very different for an Amberite and a Chaosian.

First off, Shapeshifters have only one natural form. For Amberites, this is thier human form. For Chaosians, this is generally a demonic shape, unless there is Amberite heritage present as well.

The Blood of Amber and the Mark of Chaos effect the nature of a character's interaction with the universe. Thanks to the Pattern, someone with the Mark of Chaos and the Pattern imprint will be considered an Amberite first.

Basically, I'm looking at the two main uses of shape shifting as a) combat applications, and b) deception. Chaos has an edge with the first, Amber with the second.

Amberite shifters: Shapeshifting for an Amberite is pretty close to that outlined in the game book. It's slow, and painful. New shapes are hard to learn. An Amberite with basic level shape shifting will slowly slip back to his natural form if he stops concentrating on the form, though "slow" can be measured in hours if the PC is in a place of Order, like Amber or the Golden Circle. Learning a new form is easiest if the PC can make psychic contact with an example of the new form. With advanced shapeshifting, the form holds much longer, and can be maintained without direct concentration. This is how Oberon holds the shape of Ganelon for so long without slipping.

Amberite shifting lasts an order of magnitude longer than Chaosian shifting. So where a basic chaosian shifter starts to have trouble after an hour, the Amberite might have to start being careful around 9 or 10 hours. This difference is more pronounced in advanced shifters; Oberon spent months as Ganelon. He may have had to check his form every couple days, but it wasn't a big deal. Advanced Chaosians might have three or four hours. While I'm going to be a bit loose with Chaosian mass limits, and ability t oshift internal organs, I'm going to be pretty strict with thier ability to imitate auras and personae. It's hard for a Chaosian to think in a static manner, and Chaosians just aren't as good at mimicing something as specific as a single person's persona or aura.

Chaos shifters: For a creature of Chaos, shapeshifting is as natural as breathing. The Chaosian shifter can slip between forms quickly and naturally. A basic level Chaosian shifter is about twice as fast as an Amberite, all other things being equal. This can work against the shifter, though; in anything other than the PC's natural form, the PC will tend to shift constantly. Perhaps her hair colour will change, horns or claws lengthen or shrink, etc. Such is the nature of Chaos. This means that, when the shifter has assumed a specific form, (say, a trusted aide of an Amberite), it requires a great deal of effort to keep the shape from sliding into something else that would reveal the PC's nature. IT's sort of liek holding a sword out at arm's length. It's easy, for a little while. On the level of hours, it's a stressful test of endurance. When sleeping or unconscious, it's practically impossible. Losing your concentration often manifests first in little, subtle shifts. Think of most of the movies you've seen with shapeshifters in them; there are usually little visual hints. Things like Mystique's eyes in X-Men. Or a sudden unexplained sharpness to the PC's teeth. A forked tongue darting out. Consider this a warning to hopeful assasins; be quick.

An advanced Chaosian shape shifter can be pretty scary. She can shift through forms like lightning, so the small girl in front of you might suddenly lash out with tentacles she didn't possess a second ago. The mass of an advanced Chaosain shapeshifter is less fixed than that of an Amberite one. It's sound advice to keep a safe distance from A Chaosian Advanced Shifter. Though, figuring out what "safe" is can be difficult...

All that said, I'm going to be fairly picky about what a shifter cna do, especially those with only basic shifting. An amberite who's seen birds can't spout wings and fly; he'd have to shift into a bird. Even then, unless he made psychic contact with a bird, he'd have to learn to fly. An advanced shifter can pick up animal features wherever he wants. "Animals" for the purpose of shifting to animal forms is anything that has a 0 pt. cost. A "Creature of Power" is anything that costs points. Even for an advanced shifter, shifting to a creature of power means adopting a completely new shape; dragon, manticore, etc. The shifter can't simply pick up, say, 4 pts of armour on her natural form.

When it comes to the limitations of "animal form", there's some leeway in "shift to animal form" vs. "adopt animal abilities". It comes down to how different or odd to the PC's mind it is. so, claws and fangs aren't a big deal, even for a basic shifter, but extra legs, wings and the like would force a basic shifter to assume the entire form of the animal instead of just sprouting wings.

As in ADPRG, standard costs.

As in ADPRG, standard costs.

15 pts.
Like shapshifting, I'm going to be pretty picky about what can be done with sorcery. It takes along time to prepare, and lynchpins are predictable and obvious during casting.

Advanced - Abyss Sorcery

• Arcane Sight: The sorceror can shift his vision to the arcane, granting most of the powers of ADRPG's Logrus sight, though the PC has to logrus tendril to use for remote sensing. The PC can see things that are charged with trump, pattern or abyss. Objects of Power are also clear. Anything that contains hung spells can be seen. A general idea of the power of a being's psyche can be seen. As an added benefit, the sorceror can see invisble creatures, and see in the dark without any source of light. The range on this vision is no better than the PC's normal sight.
• Abyss Powered Spells: The sorceror's spells are backed by the force of the Abyss, and as such have the ring of Reality to them. Such spells are not as easy to resist or turn aside with other powers. Abyss powered spells do not require a "magic of Shadow" lynchpin, since the Abyss is the same everywhere.
• Hang Spells on Psyche: The Abyss sorceror no longer needs to use a device to hang his spells. He can hold a dozen spells within his own mind. This can be seen clearly by another PC with Arcane Sight or a Pattern lens. Someone in psychic contact with the PC conducting a deep scan will be able to see the spells hung there.