Trump
Trump can be thought of the intuitive counterpart to the rationalist
magic. Trump is the power of representation and art, and affects
Shadow stuff directly. Since Shadow is a mixture of both Logrus and
Pattern, Chaos and Order, there are those that argue that Trump is
potentially among the most powerful abilties. Most, on the other
hand, say that it is inherently limited by the self-contradictory
nature of its purview.
The most common reflections of the Trump abilities are the Trump cards
that are hanging around all over the place. However, the power is
more diverse than simply painting portraits of important people on
playing cards.
Changes and Modifications:
What I did: I didn't like that Trump seemed to be a seperate
powersource in the Amber universe, so I demoted it to merely an
intuitive form of Sorcery. Thus, things like 'filling self with
Trump' seemed somewhat nonsensical, and I eliminated them. I also
dramatically reduced the price of the basic power, which I thought was
never worth it in the standard game, and dramatically increased
the prices of the various advanced powers, especially Trump memory. I
also removed Trump Traps from the power tree, because of their abuse
potential, though they were available as an exalted power through
experience.
What I would do if I had it to do over again: Trump was one of the
most broken aspects of my partial powers system. Everyone wanted
Caller ID, and the entire point of these systems is to make people
either commit to a power or not buy it. I would increase the cost of
sense Trump by at least two points, and Caller ID by at least 5
points, maybe seven or eight. Advanced abilities would be reduced in
price accordingly.
Trump, not having a focal powersource like Logrus or Pattern, can be
bought entirely piecemeal. There is some native ability (mostly
artistic) required, but it can be assumed that any player character
who wants it can have it.
Sense Trump
requires: nothing
costs: 3 points
Identify Trump and Trump-like items.
Caller ID
requires: Sense Trump
costs: 5 points
As the book. This power was dramatically underpriced.
Trump Sketch
requires: Sense Trump
costs: 10 points
As per the book. Note that this is really a more useful skill than
drawing a full Trump, when you get down to it.
Draw Trump
requires: Trump Sketch and Caller ID
costs: 12 points
Draw a normal Trump. As the book.
Trump Gate
requires: Draw Trump
costs: 10 points
As the book. This is an underrated, but highly useful power.
Trump Memory
requires: Draw Trump
costs: 12 points
As the book. I only let people memorize Trumps they, themselves, had
made, and I made the memorization process take as long as the drawing itself.
Trump Jamming
requires: Draw Trump
costs: 3 points
As the book. A cute, but useless, power.
Trump Spying
requires: Trump Jamming
costs: 5 points
This power is of suprisingly little utility. As the book.
Exalted Powers
I never really well defined any exalted powers besides Trump trap (as
the advanced power, in the book).
This is a revision of the Trump Artistry power presented and
copyrighted by Phage Press in the Amber DRPG. All original work on
this page is © 1998 by Epoch. Permission to copy, but not
distribute, is granted for personal game use only.
Questions or comments can be directed to the maintainer at msulliva@wso.williams.edu.