Trump Theory

[Xenon]

what is trump? in most cases, trump is a visual image painted or engraved upon a flat surface. There is some hint that blind Queen Vialle may use sculpture for a similar end.

but this cannot be the limit of artistic creation. It is the image that is important, that one focuses upon. cards are merely tradition. If a trump artist made a series of separate statues that could be vied as a 'trump' image from one direction, should that work? If the image is painted on glass, and then projected upon a wall, should the image on the wall work, or only the one on the glass? certainly none here will argue that a stain glass trump cannot work (it sounds rather cool actualy).

With amber, a large part of how things work is that perception changes reality. when you perceive a trump image, the art becomes reality by connecting you to the real thing. hallucinations have dire effects on those with powers. The world is what we see around us, created by our viewing. There are limits that prevent certain changes in certain places, but these seem to be more a question of how many real viewers are involved.

If trump requires only that we perceive that which was created by one who has the skill and power, then it would make sense that a trump could be an image on a computer screen. the image matters not the medium, and MSpaint can take you to distant lands or allow you to contact your relatives in Amber. While not seen within the books directly, i wonder how else ghostwheel could be expected to function, if not by a series of pixels moved into place.

from this simple idea, we can reach several conclusions as to the potential uses of non-card trump. They can be large, they can be great statues or projected images, they can be placed in websites as hazards for the unwary. they can be broadcast on TV to a live audience. But we also have reference to trump gates with their high energy costs- perhaps this is what Merlin referred to, which Jurt used to escape in wolf-form. a higher cost of use is most sensible for a projected image.

why not a trump in book form? it was a clever idea used in the video game Mist, a trump created by words rather than pictures, a potential trap for the unwary, disabled when pages were lost. but if we can take the written word and make a trump, then why not the spoken word?

why not trump-song? music of power that conveys one across with trump-like quality? certainly it would be a slower transit, and require a performance by an artist of some skill, but it would be an appropriately romantic notion, fitting with the theme. a trump-skald chanting to open the path for his listeners. trump-pipes to carry one through shadow- beware wrong notes.

what other mediums are there? we have the sight of course, sound if we allow for music, touch for statues. could trump be a question of smell and taste though? could there be a perfect slice of cake to carry one to distant shadow? trump-potions, one-use alchemy of power. why not alchemy? not the ingredients, but the taste and smell being the things that matters. how do you capture the taste and smell of amber? there is a reason why some legends tell you not to eat the food.... (and then there was that traveling restaurant from the hitchhikers guide series).

in the end it is the question of the power of the artist, and the style of the campaign. but there are may options to those who would trump between shadows, beyond those we commonly think of.

[jibbajibba]

That is great. Love trump song so much I have juist stolen it
One of my characters made a trump tapestry of amber city once as viewed from the sky. You could zoom in on sections and watch what was going on. Never got the sound to work though.
Also I have done a lot of abstract trumps and using trump with copnjuration to create items of power. We had a trump window and gems with trumps in but using other senses is a great idea. Tie to dream magic and have trump enabled dreaming...hmmmm

[weilide]

This is long and for that I apologize, but this is just too good to pass up. Trump in a cup of tea, as envisioned by Marcel Proust:

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

[RPGPundit]

Yes, this sort of stuff is cool; in practical game terms, one has to be very very careful, however. These things should all be stuff "beyond advanced trump", the sort of thing that only someone extremely dedicated should end up being able to do.

RPGPundit

[Xenon]

oh, i quite agree that there would be balance issues. i just like to share my brainstorming sometimes. but more ideas for Exalted powers are always a fun thing.

[jibbajibba]

I would say musical trump is more of an Abnormal Trump Power than an Exalted one.
And re the food thing reminds me a little of that bit in Matrix 2 where the french,man feed that woman in the restaurant the orgasmic gateau.

[Croaker]

And to think my brain had tried to erase that image. That movie, in fact... Thanks, jibbajibba...

[jibbajibba]

And to think my brain had tried to erase that image. That movie, in fact... Thanks, jibbajibba...

Not a great movie but sometime not-great-movies make grerat games and I think that a Matrix 2 based game would be really intriguing. The idea that there are characters that are in effect computer programmes and you could create a character like you woudl write a program, A keymaker, an Architect, etc etc is really quite intriguing. In fact the Matrix has all that is required for a great RPG setting
i) Special powers
ii) Cool combat
iii) That whole load new skills thing
iv) cool bad guys
v) Mystery and a what is really going on vibe.

anyway ...

[gabriel_ss4u]

I luved it, the Matrix, and I agree the ideas were better than the movie, but none-the-less, the movie was good.
There was a BBC tv show ( i forgot which) sci-fi, one antagonist used the slide projector to reach trump-like into the past when the picture was taken as it was projected onto the wall.
I've had Trump artists that used frescoes, stained glass, and tapestries as trump, as well as holographics embedded into gems.
I have some good iderz for trump myself, some of those above and more.
( Me 1st jibba! )

[Xenon]

you are thinking of the BBC sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. awesome show, i have the first few episodes on DVD myself.

sadly, Dave Lister stole Hitler's briefcase, allowing the dictator to survive the bomb...

[gabriel_ss4u]

nope, more recent show.
OH!
I remember what it was, not BBC at all, I think it was "Friday the 13th" the TV series, yeah.
(I think i was confusing it with that newer BBC series like X-file style)

[gabriel_ss4u]

Quoted from one of the other posts; jibbajibba quipped that all the Amberites are good looking 'cause Dworkin drew them that way.
Did anyone else pause at that?
What if...?
Could Dworkin have that level of power that he can draw a Trump of someone & cause them to "Become" ?
I mean... the Amberites, ... Oberon's seed.
What if he drew them before they were born and created them thusly?

[moritheil]

Quoted from one of the other posts; jibbajibba quipped that all the Amberites are good looking 'cause Dworkin drew them that way.
Did anyone else pause at that?
What if...?
Could Dworkin have that level of power that he can draw a Trump of someone & cause them to "Become" ?
I mean... the Amberites, ... Oberon's seed.
What if he drew them before they were born and created them thusly?

Well, he does say that he is the Pattern, in a very real sense.  We know that the Pattern can create Pattern-ghosts which are transient . . . we also know that the permanent Corwin-ghost which is sent after Merlin does not dissolve in the same way, and may not have the same internal architecture.  Merlin is completely fooled, saying, "You're really - " and mistaking him for the real thing.

It may be that the Pattern can duplicate Amberites so readily because it spat them, or their progenitor, out in the first place.  Who's to say the Logrus (if it exists in your campaign) didn't do the same with the first demon lords?  It promised to make Borel real flesh-and-blood, and while it might have been duping him, it might also really have had that power.

[gabriel_ss4u]

yes, interesting, but this is more the chiken & the egg idea I am trying to address, not the Pattern. TRUMP
We know trump was a power before the Pattern was created.  If not the ideal power behind Pattern & Logrus), but my question was about the drawing of the characters before their birth, predestining them into the 'Amberverse'.
thoughts?
comments?

[jibbajibba]

My thoughts on the concept that the logrus and the Pattern are abstract representations of the universe. One from a Chaos theory/fractal position and one from an Empiricle/Newtonian position, are well documented elsewhere on the forum