Returning Characters
I would be interested to know what you have been doing since the last game, and how you have been changed by your adventure. Almost no time has passed since your last adventure.
Those strange pendants that you picked up have some strange powers, some of which the mysterious dark queen Fiona taught you to control:
- Concentration, meditation
- Feeling the amulet, empowering the body
- Communication between amulets
- Shadow walking: fetch me a leaf from the next room
- Controlling the destiny of another amulet: have her fetch me a four-leafed clover from the next room.
- Probability: throw a six
You are pretty sure they have others too, but there is nothing you have been able to make them do reliably yet. Miss Trees has told you not to use them in school, so of course you don't use them in school… much.
New Characters
Pre-Design Considerations
Firstly, before you begin designing the character, please keep in mind that you'll be acting as a party a lot of the time. So sociopathic loners and loony rebels are probably a bad idea.
Be aware of the "Gifted" in the name of the school. All the pupils at the school tend to excel in several subjects, often to a great extent, and not just on the academic side. The school regimen takes account of that, so your character may not understand just how good they are.
Age
New characters should be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen or eighteen years of age. Returning characters will, of course, be the same age as they were last year, or suitably older if they didn't take part last year. The dates of the various chapters are listed in the blurb. It is now 10th December 1986.
Primary Character Design
I need to know what your character looks like, (including their build,) what they like and dislike, how they are viewed by the staff and students, (that's probably at least two different things.) Then I need to know how proficient they are at the various school subjects, or at least which their best and worst subjects are, and the various skills they have picked up outside school. (Pickpocketing? Sailing?) Finally you need a shtick.
Shtick
The shtick is something you are better at than anyone you've ever met, and probably better than anyone on the planet. This can be anything you like. If your shtick is a normal human ability, then you'll be great, maybe phenomenal. If it is super-natural, then I'll probably rein it in somewhat; you're still young and still learning to control it. The more powerful the ability, the weaker it's going to be, simply for game balance reasons. I reserve the right to veto, but I don't expect to use it; I'll roll with it if I can. No shadow-walking or time travel, no Pattern or Logrus.
Secondary Character Design
I would like to know how long you have been at the Carlos Cory school, how you came to be there, and what you were doing before. How did you get to be an orphan? Who were your parents and what did they do? What do you remember of them? Do you have any other relatives? No plot-hooks please; I will ignore them.
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Game Description
Title:A Path of Adventure
Players: 6
Mode: Tabletop
All things come to an end. And so it is with the adventure that started so long ago when Miss Trees went missing on an aeroplane.
Life at the Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans was not a bed of roses; the academic regimen was punishing and the discipline was worse, but at least the surroundings were pleasant. Set in one hundred, fifty acres of idyllic Californian countryside, the Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans offered a chance in life to those children who are so often failed by the modern world. But now it is gone. No sooner had you laid eyes on the benefactor that nobody had seen for years and her freckled companion than you were bundled out with scarcely time to pack and stuffed into two broken down old coaches. After the first couple of days even the old songs dried up. And then things got really … odd. There was a ship with masts and sails. You were only on it for a few days but this must be Europe, because nowhere in the USA is this old. You've yet to see or even hear a motor car since you got here. There are horses though, lots of them, producing lots of stuff that would be great for the rose-beds back home. Home, which was grand if a little draughty, and not bare and dirty like the half-timbered warehouse you find yourselves in. The teachers seem as confused as the pupils. Something is going on though; the city around you is bustling with it. When the principle asks for volunteers, for most of the pupils it may just be a chance to find out what is going on. And for those few who have some idea, it is a chance to be a part of it.
A game for six players. Characters comprising teenagers of between 14 and 18 years to be created by the players before the con. For Character design requirements see the right-hand bar.
This is a continuation game; new and returning characters are welcome.
The Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans
![The Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans - view from great drive](http://www.wellho.net/pix/ccourt1.jpg")
Set in one hundred, fifty acres of idyllic Californian countryside, the Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans offers a chance in life to those children who are so often failed by the modern world.
Life's tragedies are harsh on all children, but how much harder is it for their intelligence to be quenched by the unfeeling and under-funded behemoth that is the state welfare system? These children, who may be tomorrow's great men and women — scientists or politicians, doctors or artists — are welcomed by the Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans. Whoever they are, whatever their background, we are here to see that they achieve their full potential.
The Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans is a private foundation, funded by private donation. None of our children pay fees of any kind, and all truly gifted children are welcome.
But it is not just in school-time that the Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans excels. All of our pupils take part in a wide-ranging programme of activities. Our founder, Carlos Cory, worked his way up from lowly ranch-hand to millionaire horse-breeder. He felt strongly that caring for horses taught many great life-lessons and determined that every pupil of his school be taught to ride. It is a tradition that we are proud to continue to this day. We own thirty horses, which are cared for by the pupils and used by them on frequent outings and vacations. Not to mention their use during lessons as varied as art, genetics and mathematics.
We accept all children who come to us. We have a good relationship with the California State Welfare Department, but many of our children come from other states and even other countries. Some are brought to us privately. Whoever the child is, whatever their background, whatever their needs, however they are gifted, bring them to us. We won't let them down.
The Journey
We'll run through this briefly, but there's not much chance for role-play. Miss Flaumel and Mrs Sawall are running the show.
Somewhere in the city called Amber
The new location of the school is far less salubrious than you are used to. This is obviously a rush job with far too few resources. The warehouse is large and open with little privacy to begin with — boys on the first floor, girls on the second. Canvas covered camping cots are all that is available to sleep on. There's also a big pile of timber, a barrel of nails and a packing crate full of tools. Even home-schooling wasn't this DIY.
November 1986 (click here)
In which a goose was chased into a trap and some 'armless fun was had by one and all.
October 1986 (click here)
In which, with hardly a break to catch one's breath, an ancient page of doggerel led our intrepid adventurers through six labyrinths and into deep water.
September 1986 (click here)
In which the schools enemies suddenly departed for places unknown, taking everyone's favourite teacher along for the ride.
September 1983 (click here)
In which some kids disappeared for two years and then returned looking exactly the same. For a whole year now they've been sitting in classes with younger kids as if they were abducted by UFOs or something.
September 1982 (click here)
In which the kids foiled murder and piracy on the high seas.
July 1982 (click here)
This year those odd pupils did not come camping, instead they hung around the school being boring. So why do they jump every time a car pulls into the drive. Why have certain of them been heard crying themselves to sleep? And why does Skye Roberts keep staring at John Nelson?
July 1981 (click here)
Everyone had a wonderful time camping in the Sequoia National Forest. There was white water rafting and fire building and survival training and bird watching and all sorts. Of course some guys went off on horse-back right at the beginning and missed everything. Almost everything anyway; when everyone else got evacuated because of the forest fire, they seem to have stayed and helped to fight it. How cool is that? But if the police have no idea who started the fire, how come those pupils say it was a group of really odd women? How likely is that?
July 1980 (click here)
One would think it was difficult to lose someone on an aeroplane, but somehow Miss Trees went missing while chaperoning seven pupils on a visit to the school's benefactor Miss Evelyn Flaumel in New York. They returned some days later on horseback accompanied by Miss Flaumel. Various rumours of alarming and fantastic adventures circulated the school for a while. Nobody believes any of them, although the fact remains that Miss Trees is now scared of elephants, and the smell of oil makes her sick. There is probably some perfectly rational explanation that does not involve prehistoric tar pits, saber-toothed tigers and a New York socialite wielding a longbow. And where does being burned as a witch fit into all that?
There have also been some unexplained events in the past couple of years concerning those pupils. How does someone walk straight past a hall monitor without being seen, or always seem to have exactly enough money for a candy bar? How can someone go out and buy hairspray at midnight and be back twenty minutes later?
Matters Arising
This is an Amber game, set somewhere within the books' sequence, although beginning characters know nothing of Amber, Chaos or anything else, and returning characters know little more.
The date is the 10th of December, 1986.
Copyright
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