In House of Cards, we allot points to two kinds of powers: Everway powers, as presented in the original game, and Amber powers, which we use to portray the powers from the Amber universe and the ADRPG. The powers are built and adjudicated differently.
Everway Powers
Everway powers are built on how the power is expected to affect the game. A power can have one or more of three qualities:
- Frequent (F): the Power appears a lot in the game.
- Major (M): the Power has a strong effect on the outcome when it's applied to a situation.
- Variable (V): the Power affects a lot of different kinds of situations.
You may buy these qualities more than once for a single Power: a 4-point Power might be Frequent, twice Major, and Variable (abbreviated in notes as FMMV).
A character coming into the game can spend no more than three points (FMV) on a single Everway power.
Items
Your character may have a special item that counts as an Everway power for character creation and point allotment purposes. You should be able to explain what it is, how you got it, and what it does in a broad sense. If you pay points for an item, it will take some effort on your part or the part of your enemies to destroy it. If it's merely stolen, you can try to get it back; it will want to come back to its wielder. If it's destroyed, you'll get the points back.
You can't purchase a Pattern blade, but you can try to obtain one in play. Pattern blades are high-value items that grow in power (and cost investment) over time. A weapon or item can be a part of your character's legend without the power, history, and impact of a Pattern blade.
The possession of an item doesn't imply the skill or power to create it. Creating powered items that work across Shadow requires an Amber power: Creation
Creatures
The same caveats that apply to items apply to creatures. While it's probably easier to kill a creature than to break some types of item, it's also possible to breed a creature so that you can have a second, similar creature if the first one dies.
As with creating magical items, breeding powered creatures on the regular requires points in Creation. You can have a stallion and it might mount a mare so you have offspring once, but if you're going to make a Morgenstern, you need to spend points.
Amber Powers
Until the late war, the Pattern was known as the proving ground for Royal blood: Dworkin helped you walk the one in the basement, issued you a Trump card, and sent you on your way. Since the war, the family has learned so much more: that the Pattern is inscribed inside the Jewel of Judgement in three dimensions, that the seven(!) Patterns each feature a slightly different slice of the three-dimensional Pattern, and that anyone attuned to the Jewel must create a Pattern of their own or die.
The members of the family who know the most about the Pattern are Fiona and Bleys. Fiona and Brand were Dworkin's best students, and Bleys was a close third. Fiona's intuitive sense about how the Pattern works has been proven correct time and time again; Bleys has the best theoretical grasp of Pattern mathematics, notoriously manifest in his ability to find troops in Shadow. And where each is best, the other is second-best.
Pattern use is generally governed by the Element of Fire, though specific applications may use a different element. Basic uses of Pattern such as Shadow walking to a known place generally don't require a card draw, but complex uses of Pattern are adjudicated by the Magic Formula.
One point of Pattern allows the use of all basic Pattern skills, like shadowwalking and manipulating probabilities. The first point of Pattern is underpriced in Everway terms, but we chose the low cost to keep an Amber feel to the game.
The first point a character puts into Pattern represents having walked the Pattern. We count five points in Pattern as equivalent to 50 points of Pattern in ADRPG. While spending one to four points counts as "partial Pattern" in the ADRPG sense, a character can try any Pattern skill with even one point in the Power. The limit is the use of the Magic Formula.
In House of Cards, "conjuration" (finding) of items or (existing) creatures involves probability manipulation and is a Pattern skill.
Fiona and Brand paid attention to Dworkin while the rest of us were off indulging our assorted passions in Shadow. Consequently, they seem to have obtained a better grasp of principles than we possess. They know more about Shadow and what lies beyond it, more about the Pattern, and more about the Trumps than we do.
-- Corwin, Sign of the Unicorn
They are no more. I am certain.
Could you not find a Shadow of your Shadow?
I don't want to try. I'm sorry.
-- Bleys and Corwin, Nine Princes in Amber
A Trump is a picture-card that allows its user to communicate with or even travel to the person depicted. They are closely related to the Fortune Cards used by most people in Amber and Shadow. Originally only those people whose cards were made by the Master of the Line had Trumps, but during the war, it became clear both that other people (Brand) could draw Trumps, and that a Trump artist could make a Trump of anyone who had walked the Pattern and even of some people who had not yet walked the Pattern (Merlin). Further, an artist could try to make a Trump of some people who had royal descent but using the Trump would only give the subject searing headaches, and possibly other psychic damage.
The family has also learned that there can be Place Trumps not just of Pattern Realms but of places in Shadow.
The member of the family with the greatest knowledge of Trump is certainly your great-grandfather Dworkin, who created the first Trumps. Many of your aunts and uncles know tricks that involve using the Trumps such as reading them with the Fortunes. The most practiced of them is your uncle Caine, who is known to be able to spy on Trump calls with them.
Trump use is generally governed by the Element of Water. Though using a Trumps to contact its subject doesn't require a card draw or a use of the Magic Formula, fancy tricks like spying on the Trumps may require both.
Characters don't have to have any skill (points) in Trump to use Trump cards. Even NPCs not of the Amber blood can use a Trump to contact the person depicted on it or go through to the place depicted.
Trump artistry is governed by the same skill as Trump use. Knowing how to create Trumps requires a background where a character could learn the skill from a canon Trump artist (Dworkin, Merlin, Brand) or someone who learned the skill from a student in their line. Creating Trumps has its own special section of the Magic Formula; the bonuses and penalties are well established.
Usually, artists make Trumps using pasteboard, paints, and varnish, but Brita has proven you can also make them on shells, and Ossian has made large-scale Trump paintings and murals.
Dworkin, Master of the Line ... was the ancient artist to whom space and perspective meant nothing. He had made up the family Trumps, which permitted the willer to touch his brethren wherever they might be.
-- Corwin, Nine Princes in Amber
I had learned to be completely passive about it. I had taught myself to deal them all out and touch all of them lightly at the same time, waiting for a stirring. When it came, I would shift my attention to the speakers. Taking you one at a time, I even found I could sometimes get into your minds when you were not using the Trumps yourselves--if you were sufficiently distracted and I allowed myself no reaction.
-- Caine, The Courts of Chaos
Sorcery is the skill of using raw Chaos to violate fundamental principles of the universe such as space, time, entropy, the states of matter, etc. It works across Shadow, though its power is inherently limited close to a Pattern. Almost all Chaosians, even those descended from your uncle Benedict, are skilled in Sorcery, though the most chaotic don't think of it as a skill so much as a natural way of moving through the universe.
Clarissa's three children are all sorcerers of note and renown, but Dara and Merlin have also demonstrated significant sorcerous prowess. Your cousin Edan, who has ancestry among the Ifrits, uses a form of Sorcery inflected by fire; all his spells require fire as a component.
ADRPG magic doesn't exist in House of Cards. The only magic we recognize, other than local shadow variants, is Sorcery.
Sorcery use is generally governed by the Element of Air. A character who has elementally inflected Sorcery may use that Element instead of Air (e.g., Edan uses Fire instead of Air to power his sorcery).
As with Pattern and Trump, the GMs will generally let small effects that aren't important to the game happen and allow a difference in time, but important spells will require work with the Magic Formula and a card draw. While there are a few standard, well-known Sorcerous spells, such as Part the Veil (a working of Space), many spells are only known to the Sorceror who created them. Some are one-offs created for a specific use and never cast again.
I was taught the usual things a gentleman should know -- magic, weapons, poison, riding, dancing.
-- Merlin, The Courts of Chaos
The universe is a game, Brita. I know because I cheat.
-- Brennan
Your cousin Dara claims that Shapeshifting in your family comes from your Chaos heritage, but none of your aunts and uncles and few of your cousins have manifested that power. You may also have seen skinchangers, your Uncle Eric's Weir, or other such shapechangers in Shadow, and it may not be clear to you whether their power is derived from Chaos or simply a Shadow of that effect.
The Ordered member of the family with the greatest talent at shapeshifting was probably your grandfather, the late King Oberon. As Ganelon, he traveled with your Uncle Corwin and met many of your aunts and uncles over a period of years, but his control of his disguised form never wavered. In addition to perfect shapeshifting control, he was also a brilliant actor or he could never have pulled the illusion off.
Shapeshifting is governed by the element Earth. Impersonating someone else successfully generally requires deception associated with Water on top of a successful Shapeshift.
How effective a particular use of shapeshifting will be is governed by the Magic Formula. The GMs will generally let cosmetic effects happen over time, but important (plot-relevant) effects will require work with the Magic Formula and a card draw.
All whose origins involve Chaos are shapeshifters.
-- Dara, The Courts of Chaos
Corwin ... Is he not out of favor and out of sight? Is that why you have taken his form?
-- Dworkin, who thinks he's talking to Oberon, to Corwin, The Hand of Oberon
Mirror Lore involves the use of mirrors to perform a variety of magics, including scrying, transportation, and other effects. It is still shrouded in secrecy.
This power is not canonical for the first series and of very limited canonicity for the second series and short stories. It is primarily associated with Rebma and only characters with a Rebman background are likely to be able to justify knowledge of the skill.
The Mirror Wrighting power as described in the unpublished Rebma sourcebook for ADRPG doesn't exist in House of Cards (it's best configured as a form of Creation). Some of the uses of Mirrors described in that book can be duplicated with Mirrors.
Metaphysically, Mirrors are a power dependent on Order and/or the Pattern, so be careful mixing them with Sorcery.
The lore of mirrors is governed by the element Water.
As with all other Amber powers, the use of Mirrors is governed by the Magic Formula.
But listen, Eric has figured a way to control the Jewel of Judgement from court gossip ...
-- Random, Nine Princes in Amber
Mother did something. Something beyond us, something beyond any of us, to try to damp down the lunacy of her sister in Tir-na N'ogth. It was like the creation of the Queen's High Way--a benison on us all. It ended and sealed the war of Ghenesh, but she never returned. And after that, mirrors spoke to us, and we could teach our children. What we do with Mirrors is a trick, or a side-effect. They're for fighting the Moonriders.
-- Llewella
A number of your aunts and uncles (and Weyland, whom everyone assumes is an uncle of some sort) are makers of magical devices or, like Julian, breeders and makers of creatures. The secrets of making magical items and creatures are highly individual; of your family members, only Weyland has taken apprentices in his art.
Creation is a catch-all power for creating powerful artifacts or powerful creatures. It can be used to breed a Morgenstern, to forge a Pattern Sword, devise a perfect Mirror, or smith and enchant an Uxmali code wheel. Each character's form of creating is unique to that character.
Creation is governed by whichever element is most appropriate to the type of creation. For making metal items, Fire or Earth might be appropriate; for breeding creatures, Earth or Water. A player who wants to take this power must come to an agreement with the GMs on which Element applies during character creation.
Creating nonmagical quality objects of the appropriate type requires nothing but time and whatever implements are appropriate. There's no card draw for forging a plain but excellent quality sword with a forge and good steel. But creating anything magical or that draws on another power of course requires a card draw and the Magic Formula. Creating a permanent magic item is at least as difficult as making a Trump. (Trump artistry with the Trump skill effectively counts as a form of Creation.)
The length of time involved in breeding a Morgenstern from scratch or forging a Pattern Blade is so great that it's out of scope for House of Cards as a roleplaying game.
I'd say he is riding the mighty Morgenstern, the fastest horse he has ever created.
-- Random, Nine Princes in Amber
Three swords I made that were better than this, of which one was lost and another is no more, if the news I have heard is correct. A fourth I failed at and the fifth I will never try. They can only break if they are turned against their master.
-- Weyland
Exquisite work. Are you employing some sympathetic or theurgic principals to invoke the magical response? One issue most Constructs suffer from is mana-bleed. They simply cannot produce and store the power required for their designated task. An issue exacerbated by the dampening effects of our local.
-- Silhouette, to Signy, about a model Uxmali code wheel