Alais
(played in the movie by Julia Stiles)
Influences: WWI Paris and late medieval France, put in a blender on high.
Best moments: Letting the shadows lie about her sex and enjoying some people's comeuppances after it was all over.
Quote: So far, the plans have been "get 'em" and "improvise".
Alais, my character in Strange Bedfellows, is the daughter of Corwin of Paris and the Queen of Lorraine, one of the shadows of the Circle of Lights. She's acting as her father's agent in some matters that have proven to be more difficult and dangerous than either of them imagined.
Clarisse
(played in the movie by Liv Tyler)
Influences: too many books about Bohemian Paris before WWI.
Best moments: Very awkwardly trying to figure out exactly what to say to her just-discovered mother; very awkwardly trying to figure out exactly what to say to her father.
Quote: I don't really know how to tell you this, so I'm going to spare you the soft-pedal leadup and just tell you what I have to say. [pause] I'm your daughter.
Clarisse was my character in Ask Not of Amber: The Enclaves. After fleeing her home Shadow one step ahead of her enemies, she has found new allies, new powers, and, most surprising to her, her birth family. She's joined the Resistance to fight the Auburnii and Karadon, some of the old remaining powers of Amber, and to help save the universe.
(retired)
Cosima
(played in the movie by Shalom Harlow)
Quote: I'm Cosima di Costanza, not 'a woman'. I may have the body of a woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a prince of Amber, and they know it.
Cosima is my character in the Revolve play-by-post game. After ten years in the country, she's returning to the court at Firenze, where her kinsman Paolo, son of Eric, the rightful king, waits to return to Amber. She also wants to know which of the princes of Amber is her father.
(campaign defunct)
Lalage
(played in the movie by Cate Blanchett)
Influences: a dash of Mercedes Lackey (but it was Meera's idea, not mine).
Quote: [Random] trusts, trusted me, more than I knew, and maybe more than I deserve. I have--I have a lot of things to do now. Some of them, Damascus, I don't know if I can do, but I will, or I'll die trying.
Lalage is my character in the Bete Noire letter game. The daughter of Martin, Lalage is struggling to preserve what's left of her world in the face of betrayal by Rinaldo, responsible for the deaths of her beloved grandfather, other friends and family, and last, but not least, her husband.
Martin
(played in the movie by Matt Damon)
Influences: I got hired for ACD based on GA. What can I say?
Quote:She knows that I'm strong and fast and never run out of creds and can make any rig work with duct tape and chewing gum. That I'm special, but I don't say how. That I'm on the run from someone more powerful than I am.
Martin is currently up to his ears in trouble. That's fine, because he likes it that way.
Martin
(played in the movie by Matt Damon)
Influences: Loosely based on NPC Martin in House of Cards, but with a different history.
Best moments: A rather awkward confrontation with a Begman page; a midnight discussion with Dara.
Quote: You'll just have to learn to fake the 'lady' part. Remember, you don't have to believe all the answers to pass the test.
Martin was my character in the A Grand Affair troupe PBeM. One of only two children in his generation, Martin was the potential heir to the thrones of both Amber and Rebma. Surrounded by people who didn't take him seriously, Martin wass one of the hard workers of the royal family. He was constantly torn between his duty to and affection for his family and his own long-term interests and desires.
(campaign closed)
Orinda
(played in the movie by a young Jane Seymour)
Influences: Too darn much goth music from the eighties; Steve's suggestion of the missing element in her background; Amadeus.
Best moments: Bitching out Philip K. Dick on Primal Kolvir about the miserable state of the universe and especially her part in it; telling the surviving members of the Amber Expeditionary Force about Random's death; post-coital philosophy; counting coup on Gerard; discrediting Vialle by disclosing her pregnancy.
Quote: That's the art of the thing, isn't it? Living the sort of life where one's principles coincide with one's necessary passions.
Orinda was the daughter of Flora and the angst queen of the now-defunct Amberway II: Years Have Passed in Amber PBeM. I honestly didn't intend for her to be the angst magnet she turned out to be, but events have conspired to make her the unhappiest person ever to live in Amber--which is quite an accomplishment in her family. She was torn in full measure by the (apparent) conflict between justice and comity that ran through the heart of the campaign. What made it all worthwhile for her was the conviction that she would find her answers in the end, even if she had to wring them out of Dworkin herself, and her plans to end what's left of the civil war in Amber and keep it from restarting when those relatives outside of Amber returned.
Orinda is in more ways than one the spiritual descendant of Florimel, and her eerie macabre side clearly came from Lianna. One of the original images I had for Orinda, which had to go by the wayside for plot reasons, was having her help Dworkin prepare Oberon's body for his funeral.
Orinda's name comes from the Restoration poet. Her name as a novice nun in the eighteenth-century France of her birth was, of course, Sister Katherine.
(campaign closed)
Patrice
(played in the movie by Ines Sastre)
Quote: I should know when to leave well enough alone, but I so rarely do.
Lady Patrice Pinegar is my character in Chris Kindred's Ill Met in Amber PBeM/convention game. She's the sister of the Duke of Carlisle, a spinster of independent means, and the keeper of certain family secrets.
Paulette
(played in the movie by Natalie Portman)
Influences: Goth music, specifically Bauhaus' Hollow Hills and Ozzy Osbourne's Walk on Water; Arthuriana; Andreas Capellanus and the Court of Love.
Quote: (to Benedict) And as an island nation, we are defended against many avenues of attack, although of course Your Highness would know many methods to conquer us were you so minded.
Paulette is my character in The Glitter and the Glamour elders PBeM. She is the daughter of Aurelian, King of Lys, newly come to Amber to be presented at court. Her ultimate fate should be known to most Amber players.
(campaign closed)
Rosalind
(played in the movie by Emmy Rossum)
Influences: I wanted to play a redheaded Flora, and a spoiled brat.
Quote: (to Bleys) I don't do well with being kept ignorant of information that's important to me.
Rosalind is Bleys' daughter by a Golden Circle magnate's daughter. Talented and willful, she has been spoiled since childhood, and only now is coming into the responsibilities of a daughter of Amber. She is a hidden trump artist, one of the few of either generation, and her betrothal to the son of an ally is part of one of Bleys' complex schemes to gain the throne.
(character retired)
Starwind
(played in the movie by Gwyneth Paltrow)
Influences: The fine Shakespearean tradition of cross-dressing heroines; "Thomas Kent" in Shakespeare in Love (looks).
Best moments: Convincing Walks-with-Puma to fight the leader of the pack of hounds; revealing her true sex (the look on Fisher's face was just priceless!); the knock-down drag-out fight with Fisher after dinner with King Martin; talking in the library with Delve.
Quote: I'm not a swordsman, Fisher.
Starwind was my character in the original Amberway campaign, now defunct. A princess in exile (and another fine example of my tendency towards baroque backgrounds), Starwind ended up as Captain of the Morning Glory, a ship full of adventurers headed for the fabled land of Amber, quite against her will. For much of the campaign, she was disguised as a boy, which led to a lot of impromptu comedy when handsome Prince Fisher became enamored of her.
Starwind taught me that a sidekick character can end up a leader and do such a good job at it that the rest of the group won't let her stop.
Starwind's page includes the quotes for the Amberway game.
(campaign closed)