CHARACTER BACKGROUND
Mother: Fiona
Father: Currently Unknown
Details of Birth: Unknown. Born with a silver glyph birthmark on his left palm.
Early childhood: Fostered to Roman Nobility. House Abastillas. City of Castra Regina (Present day Regensburg). Home to the 3rd Italic Legion. Approximately 6,000 legionairres and 18,000 other people. Shadow is similar to Emperial Rome year 179AD. Reigning Emperor Marcus Aurielius. Flavel possessed a strange silver tattoo on his left palm the size of a silver dollar. It is obviously not natural.
Youth: Flavel’s early years were mostly composed of an intensive formal education. His tutors were mostly Greek slaves with a few Greek Philosphers from the University at Athens. One his tutors was an Amberite native posing as a Free Greek Scholar. Education was a wide range of disciplines including Law, Business, Politics, Warfare (courtesy of the stationed legionairres), Science, Philosophy, and the Arts. Although the education was not indepth, it did provide a solid foundation from which to build on later.
Languages included Thari, German, Latin, and Greek. 18 years
Young Adult: Trained by Fiona on her shadow earth of Victorian England. Training was mostly confined to known powers, geographies of Amber and shadow. Politics and inhabitants of Amber, etiquette, protocol, how to act like a prince, how to dance with a sword, etc. Learned proper English from servants. Much of the training was similar to his education under house Abastillas. Conspicuously absent, was any information regarding the Courts of Chaos. Flavel was only told that there reaches a point where shadows run wild and you lose control of the ability to manipulate shadow.
Fiona never told him who his father was. This has been the only sore spot between mother and son.
After the relatively brief training under Fiona, Flavel essayed the pattern. The completion of the pattern caused his birthmark to change from it’s previous shape (looked like the letter R), to a whorl. Flavel was given a deck of trump. 1 year
Post Pattern: Flavel hung around Castle Amber for a little over eighteen months. The habits of a lifetime of formal indoctrination were difficult to reconcile with his abrupt change in lifestyle. He hung around the library a lot reading whatever struck his fancy. Fiona’s tutelage of Amber politics made Flavel wary of his elders and for the most part he avoided them. Uncles and Aunts who were loud, brash, and impulsive he came to dislike; particularly Caine, Random, and Bleys. His favorite uncles being Julian, Benedict, and Brand. Brand from shared interests, Julian for his patience and self-control, Benedict for his seriousness and dedication.
Thankful of his good fortune and grateful to his mother, Flavel, in a small ceremony with a few of his elders present swore fealty to Amber. 1.5 years
Post Amber: He got bored, got tired of being underfoot and in the shadow of his aunts and uncles, and he got curious. It takes a long time, but eventually you reach a point where books aren’t going to improve your word-view. Flavel took off without warning or fan-fare.
At first he was content to explore shadows. Traveling where his heart’s desire would take him. He saw and did many things. An extended vacation of sorts. 5 years as a playboy experimenting and enjoying life.
On the advice of his mother to have a good medical background he attended medical school and later became a trauma surgeon for a brief time. Although interesting work, he was not passionate about the career. When he felt competent, he abandoned it.
Shadow Name: Varied widely.
Duration of Stay: 12 years.
Being from a low-tech background Flavel became fascinated with high technology. He spent much time in shadows with very high tech settings. Learned computer sciences and robotic engineering.
Shadow Name: Mostly the Escanok Concordium
Duration of Stay: 20 years.
Tired of the high tech scene he explored magical realms of wonder and power. Came to enjoy poetry and song. Apprenticed and became a Journeyman Bard.
Shadow Name: Antitheron
Duration of Stay: 20 years
Fascinated with the differences between shadows. Flavel began to believe there were relationships that bridged and connected shadows. Began exploring shadows where cultural values where highly aligned with education and learning. In a shadow that was both highly magical and possesed high technology he Studied Ecology, Physics, Cosmology, and Mathmatics. This shadow he feels strongly aligned with.
Shadow Name: Lemuria
Duration of Stay: 25 years.
Flavel began to realize that a generation was all he could stay in a particular shadow before the people he met and came to love would change or grow old. Although it’s entirely possible to find a divergence of shadow where everythings the same it would seem a replay.
Up till now Flavel would occasionally make side forays into shadow to test some theory he had. Now he began to perform research full-time. Calling no shadow his home and constantly on the move. Flavel first began to explore extremes within shadows looking for other true realities besides Amber. On one or two occasions he had conversations with demons who hinted that there existed a place opposite of Amber. He’s mentioned this to nobody.
Shadow Name: Varied
Duration of Stay: 12 years.
Flavel began to develop flowcharts and census fact sheets on shadows to map differences and similarities. For example Tech Level, Population, Culture, Magic, Relative influence of Pattern, Water Percentages, Gravity. Some of these fact sheets would read like a book taking months of investigation to complete. Many of these books are still on file in the databanks of Lemuria.
Shadow Name: Varied
Duration of Stay: 7 years.
Dissatisfied by the hairsplitting these surveys required he reworked his fact sheets into symbolic references that are based on Element, Form, Condition, Power.
Properties of Elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Form: Spirit, Man, Plant, Animal, Monster, Undead
Condition: Magic, Pattern, Chaos, Time, Void
Power: Stasis/Mobility, Fertility/Death, Harmony/Disorder, Fate/Luck,
Using these symbolic references, what would previously take months to investigate would now only take a few weeks at most; sometimes days to map. Around this time the glyph on his left hand changed its shape from a whorl to that of a cirle with a single line through it. No data, anywhere, is on file regarding this research.
Shadow Name: Varied
Duration of Stay: 5 years.
Flavel’s investigative abilities into the relationships of shadow have become much more intuitive. He can focus and pick out anomolies and descriptive elements that make up the properties of shadow. Maybe Fiona interpreted this as a Pattern Lense? Maybe he actually used one.
Flavel began tracking shadow storms when opportunity presented itself. Mapping shadows that the storms travel through not just geographically but based on the previous developed system of symbolic properties as a dimensional map. At first his success was extremely limited but by looking at what properties a shadow storm disturbed as well as the relative properties of the shadow itself he could many times get an idea of the direction it had come from or was heading into. A frustrating activity that he is still refining.
Shadow Name: Varied.
Duration of Stay: 2 years
Total time approximately 129 years.