THE POWERS OF TRUMP

The power of Trump, while definitely powerful, is of the second rank of powers as it is negated by sufficiently strong Real emanations and is also affected by the properties of shadow. Trump art is the ability to focus the magical energy of a system to be able to reach across shadow veils to great distances to make verbal, psyche based, contact, and to create portals for transport. Thus a person needs to be an initiate in some power to generate the psychic impression and to imbue the trump creation with enough magical power to function. Trump is not a magical system or Real power in its own right.

The power of Trump is divided into two parts - the knowledge of how to create them, and the ability to sense, block and tamper with their energies, which does not, necessarily, require knowledge of how to create them. For this reason, I have divided Trump Artistry as it is given in the Amber rulebook into Trump Tricks which covers sensing and meddling with Trump energy, and Trump Artistry which concerns itself with the actual creation of Trumps and Trump-related items.

A Trump Artist must be an initiate of a System, either Real or Shadow-Based, and imbues his trump creations with power from that system. Thus a Trump Artist who is an initiate of the Broken Pattern empowers his art with the power of communication or transport based on the Broken Pattern. However, once created, one need only have sufficient psyche to use the card. The required psyche varies depending on the system and the reliability of communication and transport depends on the power level of the system. The exception to this is trumps empowered by the Patterns of Amber and Avalon. These require one be of the blood of Amber or Avalon, respectively, to activate. Logrus, Mark, Broken Pattern and Flawed Logrus trumps can be used by anyone with chaos ranked psyche and does NOT require the user to be an initiate of the system. So a person with no magical initiations and having chaos ranked psyche, could generate sufficient power to activate the trump.

Trumps only work in shadows or regions where the power used by the creator of the trump works. Thus only Pattern and Logrus, Broken Pattern and Flawed Logrus, Sigil At Riess, or other first rank Real powers can create trumps that function in Amber, Avalon, or Mandalay. Trumps created with Warlock Magic only work in shadows Warlock magic functions. Trumps essentially being a method of manipulating a known system. As such, an initiate of several systems can create trumps based on different systems but the actual skill to create trumps remains the same. Thus an initiate of the Pattern of Amber, the Broken Pattern, the Sigil At Riess, and Warlock Magic, can create trumps using similar methods in each system.

The Initiate, regardless of the system, who takes Trump Tricks can apply his knowledge to any of the vast series of Trump style creations up to the degree of his system. Thus a person with trump tricks can block any level of trump, including Pattern-based ones. One need not be an initiate of a power system to take Trump Tricks, they essentially being a series of defenses and attacks, which with proper tutelage, can be learned by most creatures.

Accepting a Trump call while having a long-term magical effect (such as Invisibility or a Personal Shield spell) in place causes the spell to be instantly dissipated. Making a Trump call does not have this effect; this is because in making a call the Trump energy is in the Trump card, but in receiving a Trump call ones entire body is filled with Trump energy, which has bad effects on any magic present. The exception to this is Pattern, Mark, and Logrus based spells, unless trumps of that level are used. Thus using a Warlock-Based trump, will dispel Broken Pattern-based spells but not Pattern-based ones.

Trump Tricks

Cost : 15 points total. Each skill can be bought separately.

These powers can be self-taught, as demonstrated by Caine, though in this case it is a much longer and slower process.

PERSONAL TRUMP DECK (2 points) - as the 2 point item; that is, the power includes a Trump deck as part of it. This is basically incorporating the Trump Deck into ones own personal reality.
SENSE TRUMP ENERGIES (3 points) - the only way to sense whether something is a Trump other than concentrating on it (when it goes cold). It should be noted that this occurs regardless of whether the Trump is making contact with anything, or if there is even anything alive at the other end of whatever 'link' Trump uses. This ability also allows one to sense whether someone within a yard or so is carrying a Trump deck or Trump artifact, or whether someone within that range is in a Trump link. It should be noted that some Trumps and artifacts 'radiate' enough Trump energy that even those without this ability can sense them; many of the creations of Dworkin are of this kind.
TRUMP SPY (5 points) - by fanning out one's Trumps and feeling for those which are active, one can identify callers and the like. By lightly touching them the spy can listen in on the conversations. This is very risky. If the target has higher psyche or better trump skills, they might notice the spying. Since the spy must essentially be using the trump, even passively, to spy through it, he can be engaged in Psyche combat. If his psyche is substantially lower than his attacker he may be unable to break the combat. So, for example, it is good advice to not spy on Fiona, or Bleys. Also, while a Trump Spy might apply this skill to any form of trump, he may not do so to trumps based on Patterns unless he is also of the blood of the patterns.
TRUMP DEFENCE (5 points) - by concentrating on a Trump (usually of oneself) this protects the mind. This provides better defence against mental intrusion for the same effort than Pattern or Logrus defence (though anything is better than nothing). Pattern and Logrus defence is somewhat better against physical intrusion (magic, other powers, etc.).

Trump Artistry

Cost : 15 points

PRE-REQUISITES : Psyche of over Chaos level. Trump tricks is HIGHLY recommended to be taken first.

The most important statistic for drawing Trumps is Psyche. Though once they are drawn all Trumps are essentially identical, as far as ease of use and the like are concerned, the Psyche of the artist determines both how much study of the subject is required to draw a Trump of them. The higher the psyche of the artist, the shorter the time needed. This can range from minutes to days. Trumps can only be of people/places/things the artist has a psychic imprint/feel of. It is possible to draw Trumps of things and creatures once they have been studied. It takes considerably longer to create Trumps of places and un-real than Trumps of real people.

Personal Trump Decks can be brought by anyone who can justify it. However, Trump decks cannot be found in Shadow. If someone buys a trump deck without having Trump Artistry they must determine who drew the deck, knowing that this artist knows, well, and place or person in the deck.

Although Trumps can only be drawn by those with Pattern or Logrus who have been so trained, they can be used by anyone with Chaos Psyche & Endurance. Average shadow-dwellers don't have enough Psyche or Endurance to initiate a Trump contact.

Trumps are harder to use in (and to or from) Amber and Chaos than out in shadow.

Trumps are not indestructible, though they are easily tough enough to resist the effects of normal day-to-day abuse. If someone wants to destroy a Trump, then they can.

Group Trumping of someone is good for getting through barriers, across distance, and the like, but not for psychic attacks; in any case the Psyches in the group add to the highest in a non-linear fashion.

It is possible to physically attack someone through a Trump link. This must be done using weapons which are in physical contact with a person who is in the Trump link - projectiles 'fall out of' the link and have no effect (apart from on anything behind the Trump image). However, unless the target of this attack is held in some fashion (or mind-locked), or the attacker has a very large Warfare advantage, then the target will be able to break the Trump link before more than one or two blows have been made.

Trumps have to be at least large enough to see (about 3cm by 5cm); there is no upper limit on their size apart from the work involved to produce larger images, and the impracticality of carrying them around. Trumps do not have to be pictures. Even full basic Trump Artistry can create Trump Cameos, Trump Statues and the like. As with larger than normal Trumps, this is not done too much due to the impracticality of carrying them around.

Someone wanting to use a Trump card has to able to see the image upon it. It is possible that a Trump cameo or sculpture could be used without being able to see it, by concentrating on the feel of it, and recognizing the subject from that.

Pattern & Logrus trumps are the top of the mountain in power levels. Shadow is filled with other types of power structures that can be the basis of trumps. Broken Pattern, Skewed Logrus, and a wide range of other initiations. These are less powerful, of course. However, if a pattern initiate and trump artist assay a lesser power, such as broken pattern, they can immediately begin creating trumps for that power.

Trump artists can empower any item with the power of trump. Trumps need not be playing cards although traditionally that is their form. Trump powering an item is a way to create artifacts without using conjuration. This does not create items that are designed in the manner Conjuration does so. What it does is strengthen an already magical object from shadow to the level of the system of the trump artist. Thus a ring of strength found in shadow can be trump-powered by a Pattern of Amber Trump Artist, and will then function in Amber itself. They are

Trump artists should have, but are not required to, spent at least 1 point on painting/drawing skill and maybe another for portraiture. Because this is not required, a trump artist may be able to create and empower a trump, but art critics might think his skill at painting average. See skills for details.

TRUMP SKETCHES (5 points) - these catch the essence of the target, but having Pattern/Logrus/Trump defense up stops them making contact (whereas with a full Trump these merely impede contact).
TRUMP CREATION (5 points) - the basic power of drawing full Trumps.
Trumps cannot be copied and produce a functioning Trump. 'Trumps of Desire', that is, Trumps drawn of places or things the artist has never been to, but which they wish to go to in the same way as someone with the Pattern can shift shadow to a place of their desire, are impossible. If the Trump is inaccurate and does not match the target due to its being done by subterfuge or from memory, then it simply will not work, rather than connecting to a shadow or whatever.
The higher the Psyche of the Trump Artist, the faster they can draw a functioning Trump or Trump Sketch. However, once the Trump is drawn, its 'quality' (ease of use) is essentially the same regardless of who drew it. The psyche of the artist does not make a better trump.
It is possible to draw 'contact' Trumps which can be used for communication, but which lack whatever quality it is which allows travel from one Trump to another; if either Trump in a link is of this kind, then travel is impossible from either end of the link.
Different initiations are able to allow different effects. Pattern, Logrus, and most Real powers allow full functions of communication and transport. Gates can be created with high enough psyche to allow 10x12 portals to appear. Sigil At Riess Trumps only allow Contact.
CREATE TRUMP Artifacts (5 points) - this allows the creation of other forms of Trump (e.g. Trump sculptures and the like), and also of items which are Trump Powered. This last essentially allows, among other things, the creation of items that use the power of Trump instead of a 'normal' power source, allowing technological or magical artifacts to function where they normally could not. To create an item with the Trump Powered quality takes around 1000 hours of continuous work (which equates to roughly 125 eight-hour days of work). The advantage of trump artifacts is the durability of the item.
In the same way that Trumps become harder to use the closer to Amber or Chaos one gets, so the power created by a Trump Powered artifact drops the nearer it gets to either end of creation. This means that in Amber or Chaos it can only produce a tiny (and generally useless) trickle of power.

Advanced Trump Tricks

Cost : 15 points

PRE-REQUISITES : Ranked Psyche, basic Trump Artistry and a lot of experience with Basic Trump Tricks.

This is a power which can be self-taught, as demonstrated by Caine. However, it takes much longer and is much harder to do so than to be taught it. The need for basic Trump Artistry arises from this power requiring the user to be able to manipulate Trump energy to some extent.

TRUMP JAMMING (5 points) - as per the rulebook, this ability allows the initiate to block the Trumps of other people (or themselves). If the person being blocked also has Trump Tricks or more they will usually notice that jamming is taking place (whether they can do anything about it is another matter); those without Trump will only know that they are not getting through (one way or the other). It allows more than one Trump to be jammed at the same time, but the more Trumps the person jamming tries to affect, the less effect they will have on each one and the more effort it takes.
The ability can also be reversed, to allow the person using it to Trump many people at once; how many depends on Psyche. In this case the 'broadcaster' will see all of the Trump images of those they are calling overlaid on one another (though those being Trumped will only see the 'broadcaster').
This ability also renders Trump readings involving the subject meaningless for as long as the jamming occurs (so it can be used by someone on themselves, if they wish, for this purpose). The reader will know that the reading is meaningless, but not why.
TRUMP SCRYING (5 points) - an extension of Trump Spying (and suffering the same limitations as it), this ability allows the user to get an impression of the location of the person being spied upon, its appearance, general environment, and nearby sources of power. Depending on the relative Psyches of the spy and the person being spied upon, this may give enough information to allow the spy to locate the area using the Pattern, and with enough of a Psyche advantage it will allow the spy to see the images being projected over the Trump link in either direction.

Advanced Trump Artistry

Cost : 25 points plus

PRE-REQUISITES : Ranked Psyche and a lot of experience with Basic Trump Artistry.

This cannot be learnt by Logrus users due to its status as an inferior power compared to Pattern.

TRUMP MEMORY (5 points plus) - as rulebook. The number of Trump images a person can memorise is limited by their Psyche, at the rate of one plus roughly one per five points of Psyche. It takes considerably longer to memorise a Trump image (by visualising it fully and in detail) than to draw a Trump of the same thing. It is possible to memorise more images than ones Psyche would allow by paying one point per extra memorised image; this can never more than double the number of Trumps one can memorise.
One can only memorise what are effectively full Trumps, not Trump sketches. Even so, memorised Trumps require some minor degree of maintenance to stay fully functional in the artists memory (as no-one memory is perfect and memory fades with time). However, normal social interaction provides enough contact to allow this to be done without any intrusive studying of the subject being necessary. If this maintenance cannot be carried out for some reason then the memorised Trump becomes harder and harder to use, until it eventually fades to the point of un-usability, after which it has to be re-memorised from scratch.
TRUMP GATE (5 points) - as per the rulebook, this allows the creation of gates across shadow, through which anything can pass in either direction, limited only by the size of the gate. Keeping a gate open takes more energy than keeping a Trump link open, and this will be drawn from the Trump artist unless they have (for example) some kind of Trump Powered power source. Because of the structure of shadow around Amber, Trump Gates do not work to, from or within Amber itself.
IMPROVED TRUMP (5 points) - the ability to create Trumps which are faster to activate for the same effort, easier to use, or which allow the making of contact over a longer range for the same effort. This ability allows the creation of Trumps which can reach all the way from Amber to Chaos (or Amber to Corwins Pattern). However, Trumps improved in this manner do take longer to draw than normal ones, and require greater effort to create. As a side effect of this ability, it allows one to draw normal Trumps significantly faster than with basic Trump.
At this level of Trump creation the Trump artist can, by adding controlled inaccuracies, create Trumps which will connect to a shadow of the subject. By using the knowledge of the target required to create the Trump in the first place, the artist can contact shadows with specific characteristics using this method (though any other differences the shadow possesses are determined by the Stuff of the artist). Note that no extra points are charged for this ability as it is essentially the same as using (for example) the Pattern to find a shadow of the target.
Note that this ability does not have any effect on the speed of creation of Trump powered artefacts.
TRUMP TRAP (10 points) - as per the rulebook. This includes the ability to create 'locked' or 'mobius' Trumps, which appear to have only one side until they are manipulated in the correct fashion (possibly with the aid of Pattern) when the hidden Trump image is revealed. This also allows the creation of Trumps which have a fully functioning image, but which also have another functioning 'secondary' image hidden in them (in the background of the main image, perhaps).

ADVANCED AND MASTER LEVEL TRUMP ARTISTRY

What these powers may be are unknown to the general public but one tpye of card has recently been revealed and it gives tantalizing hints at the possible

FORCE TRUMPS: This is a transport trump that when displayed to the user causes them to transport to a given location. The only known trumps of this kind were created by Dworkin and he is not discussing the technique. The ones that are known are Green Face; sending the victim to either the Coventry Prison beneath the Dungeons of Amber, or Black Face: sending the victim to the Magical Cell Block in the Dungeons of Amber.

VISIONARY TRUMP: This fearsome trump cause the viewer to take the role of some person in some incident, think their thoughts while remaining aware of their own, fel any emotions, pain, or dilemma represented. Dworkin Calls them; "My Shoes Trumps" in reference to the cliché about walking a mile in another man's shoes.

REFERANCE TRUMP: This is a very powerful trump that connects in a very primal way to the Pattern of Amber. Its existence is not publicly known at this time but listing it here is a good way to show the terrifying resources of Dworkin. This trump contacts an image of a person who has walked the pattern. Not a pattern ghost, just the image of the person. They are completely open and honest and can be quizzed at leisure about their actions up to the last time they walked the pattern. Fi, Brand, and Bleys have al seen this power in action.

REVESE IMAGE: This is an assassination tool Dworkin recently refereed to but their existence is only inferred. This would give some the chance to trump a person as normal but then be able to step through, un assisted, and arrive directly behind the target, getting in a backstab nearly unopposed.