Okay, I'm home now. Some interesting post character notes for Vincent. I've played Amber diceless since 91 or 92, so… 27 years on and off. The first ten to twelve years were face to face games, then my gaming group broke up and I had to switch to Email and play by post games.
Vincent was the first character of mine to ever use the "sneaky" entrance into Amber. Nobody ever seems to remember the tiny hint that there might be a way in by Caine's tomb.
Vincent was my first character to ever use a death curse. Not my first character that has willingly killed themselves though. I think Vincent would be the third to do so? Not sure, but that sounds about right. I've had many characters threaten to use their death curses as prisoners, but they never used them.
I don't like death curses. Generally speaking I think they are cheesy and abused. I don't think I've ever been directly death cursed in any game, but as far as I remember I've only been indirectly responsible for any player deaths. Also, I've only ever killed a couple of NPC Amberites. Durance is the first and only character of mine that has ever killed an Elder. (Julian)
Vincent is the first character of mine that I've ever felt that would be justified in the use of his death curse. Mainly because I think he legitimately felt helpless and desperately wanted to do something to help everyone. After hearing about what happened to Rebma, Vincent was sure, right or wrong, that Amber would eventually be violated like that as well. I tried to make Vincent's death curse against Ghostwheel suitably nasty but also open ended for interpretation by Shaun.
I think Vincent might be one of the shortest runs I've had on a character. I'm excluding games that ended before really getting started or games where I quit because I didn't like the game or how it was being run. (Plenty of these!)
A tiny bit of hopefully constructive criticism. Shaun, your writing and running is great so far. One tiny issue is that the planning of these "badguys" seems flawlessly perfect and that kind of makes things frustrating. I understand we haven't had a chance to really see them that much, so it is possible that you've already planned to give them some flaws and ego conflicts. Hopefully Vincent's death curse will help give Ghostwheel an interesting twist and give the "badguys" some needed complications to deal with, story wise. It would be great to see that they aren't able to predict and plan for everything. Nobody expects Banana hats for everyone in the castle. :)
I hope my next character fits the campaign better, which Harlan should, even if I have to make him slightly different to fit your game.
Okay, all done. I'll put Vincent to bed in my dead character file and work up a version of Harlan to send to Shaun. I'll either need a new google page for Harlan, or I can just transform Vincent into him.