TheTenQuestionsTemnal's Ten Questions 1) Where does your character get their laundry done? Describe it and the people they might encounter there. Temnal’s school fees are sufficient for him to make use of the college laundry service, but he got curious one day and followed the scout [i.e. college servant – I’m borrowing the term from Oxford] down to the laundry room to discover how it was done. He found the process rather fascinating, but the steamy, cavelike laundry room made him twitchy after a while, so he left, curiosity satisfied for the moment. 2) Does your character sleep well? If the character has dreams, what kind of dreams are they? As a Duk’zarist, Temnal doesn’t require as much sleep as a human to begin with; he averages four or five hours a night and has no problem pulling an all-nighter every so often when he has a paper due, or just before exams. When he does sleep, he is sometimes plagued by nightmares of the City Below, of black labyrinthine tunnels with low breathings coming after him, or even darker things; these have become less frequent since he came to Amber, however. If things get too bad, Temnal is perfectly capable of mixing a sleeping draught for himself, but he doesn’t often do it, because that might also block the…other dreams. The moonlit ones. 3) Your character gets into a discussion about death and dying. How would your character describe the perfect death? “’Death is better than annihilation.’ When I die, I want to do it peacefully, and lay my body in the earth to nourish something green and growing. And I want to leave good memories behind me.” 4) Describe your character's personal bedroom or suite. Where is it located? Describe the contents of the room. What is the style of furniture? What items are of importance and why? Temnal lives in college, in one of the older dormitories. He has a single room, on a staircase with several other students’ rooms; it’s on the third floor. Most of the furniture is standard college issue: a bed, desk, lamp, chair, wardrobe, bookcase, and washstand. He’s added some personal touches, though, and a few extra pieces, mostly obtained on forays into the city at large. He found a tatty old overstuffed armchair in a secondhand shop and got it up the stairs somehow – maybe by magic, who knows? The one window has heavy curtains of red and gold brocade (also secondhand). The bookcase is overstuffed, but the top shelf is reserved for jars and bottles of powders, herbs and extracts, and there is a brazier on one end of the desk. An elaborate gilded orrery stands on top of the bookcase, and hanging from the ceiling over the bed is a mobile of varicolored butterflies. In the corner farthest from the door, and next to the bed, is what looks like a personal shrine: a small table draped with dark green velvet, upon which stands (rather oddly for a Chaosian, one might think, adopted or not), a statue of a rampant unicorn, carved of moonstone. 5) How would your character describe their perfect mate/spouse? “I wouldn’t. I don’t wish to marry.” 6) Describe your character's life ambition. Is this their personal goal or is it one forced upon them by their peers/parents? “To discover the secrets of the universe, of course. What else? Whether that’s what the Lady wants of me is another matter.” 7) Which Elder Amberite does your character respect and look up to? Temnal finds himself deeply moved by the stories of the Princess Dierdre. 8) Your character finally has a break from classes. Describe their perfect day off. Where would they go? Would they want others around or be alone? During the day, Temnal would like to go museuming. Hey, this is the greatest city in the multiverse; the museums must be at least the equals of those of New York, Chicago, Paris, or London, yes? Art, science, historical, doesn’t matter. He’ll go alone if he has to, but he’d prefer to go with a few like-minded friends who could help explain to him what he’s seeing, and have lunch at one of the upscale museum restaurants. (There are some really posh ones in D.C., and I’m sure we could find an analogue.) When evening came it would be off to the theatre district for dinner and a show, ending up afterwards in a late-night café with talk of what we’ve seen today segueing into a wide-ranging discussion of life, the universe, and everything. 9) University offers numerous opportunities to interact with different races and species. How well does your character fit into new societies? Do they have any prejudices? If so, why? Racially and ethnically, Temnal will tend to stand out even in cosmopolitan Amber. He is curious and inquisitive, very open to learning about other peoples, but even if there are any other Duk’zarists in Amber, he will avoid them like the plague. Apart from that, what trouble he has fitting in will probably stem more from other people’s prejudices than his. However, anything in the nature of attempted seduction will make him extremely uncomfortable. Due to his cultural background, sex and its consequences have strong negative vibes for Temnal. This doesn’t mean he couldn’t make friends with a woman, but she’d have to understand and accept a completely platonic relationship… as would a man, for that matter. You might say that Temnal relates to women as though he were gay, and to men as though he were straight. 10) What would provoke your character into committing a greater evil, such as murder? In a word? Fear. Something or someone that seemed to threaten to return him to That Place or That Time could easily provoke sheer animal terror that could erupt into violence (or the magickal equivalent). |
