All-Patron Reward: The Gaming Influence: Poplock in Amber

It's no secret that my main world wasn't just built for writing, but for gaming, nor that many games I played influenced what I have eventually written. In this little series of posts I'll give you looks at some of those games, and the versions of characters that showed up in them that we later met in my books. 

Today, it's everyone's favorite Toad, Poplock Duckweed. Poplock is a character with a long history, one in which I got to play him for about two or three sessions in three separate games before the game crashed for one reason or another. He later found life as an NPC, most prominently in a Ravenloft campaign I ran where he became one of the favorite and most useful NPCs.

But one of his most interesting incarnations was as a PC in an AMBER campaign.  And this was the backstory I gave to the GM...

-----

Well, of course I can talk. Sorry if I startled you. You human types are so excitable, anyway. But looks like I came along just in time, that snake was about to get you.

Why should I care? Well, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for magicians. Besides, snakes eat Toads like me too, you know. Let's look at that bite. *Tsk.* Poisoned.

Hmm? Oh, no, no, you won't die. Not since I'm here. We Toads know a lot about the poisons of nature. Here, drink this...

Feeling better? Good. No, don't get up. That was a nerve poison. You'll be shaky for a good day or so, and I wouldn't recommend you try doing anything complex until then. *Especially* not spellcasting. Have you ever seen the result of a spell fumble? I have. It can be funny, annoying, miraculous, but more likely catastrophic. And in *your* condition, my friend, any spell you tried casting now would probably fumble. So looks like I'll have to hang around for at least a little while, until you're okay. What's your name? Pleased to meet you, Dahnelle.

Oh, my name. Poplock Duckweed at your service. Yes, that's right, I pop locks. A thief? I prefer to call it "acquisitions specialist" myself. I have certain rules about what I'll take and who I'll take from. We Toads aren't like you humans, you know. We don't have any interest in doing bad things to people.

Hmph. I know what Toads have been associated with. That's a sad state of affairs. Why, by Blackwart's Swamp, even if we were inclined to evil, most of my brethren are too comfortable around their ponds. The few of us who leave and go adventuring do so because the worlds need a few Toads around to take care of you humans.

You never heard of Intelligent Toads before? Well, not surprising. We aren't all that common in many worlds, though in any world where there are ANY Toads you can bet that Blackwart the Great has placed a few of us Toads there to watch over His interests.

But even if we were common, think about it. You humanoid types always wander around ignoring little creatures like us. Oh, I'm considered big for an ordinary toad -- six inches from nose to tail, and on my hind legs I can stand close to ten inches tall -- but even that just gets even the wariest humans to either say "what a huge toad *that* is" or, in a magic-heavy Shadow, wonder if I might be some mage's familiar. In other worlds, we're completely ignored unless we do something to draw attention to ourselves. We're just toads, that's all.

Oh, some of my relatives -- my third cousin Lormok -- draw attention almost anywhere. He's four and a half feet from nose to rump, can jump 45 feet straight up, and so on. But he's one of the Mountain Barbarian Toads. They don't generally go into the Shadows where such creatures would cause talk -- unless, of course, that's the point that Blackwart wants to make.

Blackwart? God of the Toads, of course. The *real* god of the Toads, that is -- not like all those impostors up there, either made up by humans or distorted by human interpretations. Blackie watches over us, helps Toads and humans and anyone else. You humans may be ugly, but you're cute in your own way, and since you're such newcomers...

Of course you're newcomers. Toads were around long before any of you furry types even started crawling around under the feet of the dinosaurs. We watched the lizards arise. We Toads, you see, *remember*. We don't forget what we are.

What word? Oh, *Shadows*. Hmm. I don't know if I can tell you, little sorceress. That's dangerous knowledge -- hmm?

Well, now. That's a genuine Trump, all right. Where did you get it?

I see. And the gentleman mentioned Shadow to you? I wonder why... Those of Amber rarely do anything without reason.

All right, I'll explain -- *GULP* -- mmm. Flies are very tasty around here. Must be the flowers.

No, I don't HAVE to eat flies. I can eat pretty much anything you do. But living bugs are some of us Toads' favorite treats. Now where was I?

Ah. Shadow. That's the term for what most of us folks call different realities. You're a magician, you must know at least in theory that there are other worlds that one can get to by use of magic? Good. Those are different Shadows.

They're called Shadows by the people of Amber and the Courts of Chaos, and those who associate with them. Amber... Think of Amber as a flickering candle, and Reality as the waves of light travelling through the darkness around the Candle. Those of Amber believe they're the only ones truly Real, and that Shadow is made by the existence of Amber. I don't argue it with them, though we Toads find it amazing that they can say Shadow isn't real one moment and then be running for their lives from some creature of Shadow. No one runs from something that isn't real, and if it can kill you, how much more real can it get?

How did *I* learn about Amber? Well, now, that's quite a story. Let's get a fire started here, and set up camp, and then I'll tell you...

********************

Poplock bounced happily through the underbrush. The flies were plentiful, the mud just soft enough, and he'd robbed that cheating merchant blind, leaving the money all over the village. He stopped under a wide leaf, chewing on a large beetle. Crunchy! The leaf fluttered overhead, and from beneath it he peered out at a clump of bushes. Were those swampjewel?

It was from that vantage point that he saw the young man appear. *Appear* was the proper word. Poplock was familiar with magic to some small extent -- no thief worth his salt could afford *not* to know enough magic to at least analyze the more basic traps that mystically inclined merchants might use. But this wasn't like any magic he'd ever seen. Poplock was quite certain that if he had not been looking in *precisely* that spot, and concentrating on deciding just what kind of plant was growing there, he would have thought the man was there all along. It was as though he HAD been there all along, but Poplock's observation said otherwise. The young man had simply "grown" into existence, starting as a misty outline and becoming solid, as though reality had adjusted itself into the certainty of his existence.

"Well!" A Toad who left the comfort of the ponds for the outside world was always posessed of a strong sense of curiosity. This was just too unusual to be ignored.

The young man, dressed in brown and green with golden thread lining his cloak, threw back a travelling hood. Blonde hair spilled out, falling past his shoulders. He reached up, picked an apple from a nearby tree, and began eating as he walked. Poplock followed him at a short distance, hopping or scuttling as terrain and growth demanded.

Odd. The ground was harder than it had seemed a moment ago.

A scent of woodsmoke. A flicker of cloud over the sun. Hadn't the stranger's cloak had a hood? Poplock couldn't see the hood now.

The Toad realized now that things were far stranger than he'd thought. The scents and sounds told him that although he'd only hopped perhaps a few hundred yards, he was no longer anywhere near the small swamp he'd been sitting in moments before.

*A magician! And a powerful one, at that!* Poplock decided. *Now this is an interesting adventure!*

Poplock knew that humans often panicked in such situations, but Toads knew better than to let change upset them. Sometimes change was good, sometimes bad, but it never did any good to panic over it. Nonetheless, he decided to get a bit closer; it wouldn't do to stray out of the range of the wandering wizard's sphere of influence and end up stranded only Blackwart knew where.

*Hmm. If he's a friendly mage, he could teach me a lot.* The little Toad's facility with magic had been remarked on before, and Poplock often found himself torn between the adventurous life of a basically altruistic sneakthief and that of a student of the arcane. He satisfied both cravings by studying whenever he didn't have a target for his less legal activities, and by looking for good teachers while adventuring.

*And, of course, if he's not nice, he probably has something worth keeping on him.*

The young man suddenly halted, and Poplock did the same. The human figure was tense, and the blue eyes darted in all directions.

*Amazing. I do believe he realizes he's being followed. That's quite good. Most humans wouldn't have a chance of noticing.*

The young man's gaze swept the entire forest systematically, up and down, crossing over the Toad, halting a moment, then continuing on. Finally the man shrugged and continued onwards.

An hour of transformations passed. Though most of the time the strange magician seemed content to keep his path in some form of forest, at times Poplock had difficulty finding logical places to scuttle in case the young man decided to look around, which he did thrice more. Fortunately, the second time it was a meadow setting, and the deep grass more than adequately hid the little Toad; in the interim before the next time, Poplock muttered a small enchantment that changed his color. The third time they were near a stream and Poplock lurked beneath the surface until his peculiar quarry continued onward. The young man's final, puzzled glance around, this time in a tropical forest, did find the plump Toad's form, but he didn't seem unduly disturbed by seeing a different-colored Toad sitting under a clump of ferns. Poplock, meanwhile, had been trying to figure out why the color-change spell had been so *difficult* -- it had felt ten times as hard as usual to cast, almost exhausting.

Finally the young man stopped, in a forest of oddly blue- tinted plants and insects of unfamiliar (but tasty) sorts. He sat down, spread out an assortment of wooden and cloth objects, and assembled an odd peaked tent. Then he gathered firewood, muttered some strange words, and the wood burst into flame.

*That wasn't any language I've ever heard.* Poplock mused. *And I've heard most of them.*

Suddenly the young man spun about, a sword appearing like lightning in his hand, and looked in Poplock's general direction. "All right, by the Pattern! I know someone's out there, I've felt you following me for a dozen Shadows now. Show yourself!"

Poplock smiled to himself, though only someone very nearby could have seen the slight curving upwards of the corners of his very wide mouth. He was, after all, in sight of the young man, if he looked carefully.

Annoyed and perhaps a bit nervous, the young man rattled off a series of obviously mystical phrases, culminating with an outward gesture. Poplock felt a faint tingle as powerful magic washed over him, and realized his color had returned to normal.

The man was definitely puzzled now. "You're good, I'll grant you that. I would have sworn that *that* spell would have revealed old Dworkin himself, invisible, shapeshifted, or anything else. But I can *feel* you out there. Who are you and what do you want?"

Poplock continued watching. Would the young man figure out what was going on? Even given his present circumstances, the Toad wouldn't expect that he would. Human beings simply *did not* consider Toads in their calculations... thus a six-inch long and somewhat flexible thief didn't have much trouble getting into supposedly impregnable locales.

The sharp blue gaze swept back across the clearing, past Poplock -- then snapped back. "It couldn't be. Toads are everywhere..." Nonetheless, Poplock could see that the young man was indeed seriously considering the possibility that the Toad was the pursuer he was seeking.

*Good enough,* Poplock thought. *no reason to let him worry any more.* He hopped forward a foot or so, then blinked up at the young man about fifty feet away. "You'll notice I wasn't hiding."

The young man nearly dropped his blade in surprise. "Pattern's Veils! What are you, Toad? The familiar of a sorceror? Some kind of shapeshifter I'm not familiar with?"

"I'm just a Toad."

"Toads don't talk."

Poplock shrugged. "We don't unless we have something interesting to say. Oh, there are a lot of dumb toads -- our less fortunate relatives -- but there are a lot of us Intelligent Toads around, too." He bounced forward. "Put away that toadsticker, to use one of you humans' more disgusting phrases. I'm not going to hurt you. I was just curious. Poplock Duckweed, at your service."

The young man stared down and then smiled, sheathing his sword and kneeling in front of the Toad. "Well met, then. Frey of Amber, at yours."

*******************

So that was how I met him. While all the royal family of Amber have the powers he'd shown that first got my interest -- that is, to walk through the realities they call Shadows -- he was also a real magician. And when I say *real* magician, I mean it. There's magic, and then there's Magic. He showed me a lot about the real kind of Magic. Now I learn the Shadow magic too, but I mostly pay attention to the real kind, and keep four spells always racked and ready: one offense, one defense, one escape, and one trap detect/analysis spell.

We used to talk a lot about Amber. How he was pretty much an outsider there because he didn't like the games that got played there, with power and all that. We thought alike. He liked learning about different powers -- curious, like me -- but he didn't like all the backstabbing that seemed to go on there. I taught him about picking locks, too. He seemed to realize it might be a useful skill. Eventually I guess I was a cross between a friend, a familiar, and an advisor to him. Frey didn't talk to too many of the people of Amber -- mostly just his father, Oberon, who seemed to be nice enough if pretty distant, and his mother, Tiiana. Over time I came to hear the family news as he heard it, but he never mentioned me to any of them. It was the first time, he told me, that he'd ever decided to hide something like that.

I introduced him to my village and he used to go there whenever he wanted to relax; he knew he could trust us Toads, and Blackwart told the priests that Frey was welcome there any time. Frey taught me about the Trumps, too, and he was pretty surprised that I could learn how to make them. But I've always been an artist, and magic is just another art. Like clockwork. I'm a clockwork engineer, too, and Frey always found that fascinating.

But I couldn't travel with Frey forever -- especially not if he wanted to keep me a secret. So he went off. I don't know where, really. Maybe back to Amber, or maybe to find some place of his own. Anyway, before he left he gave me a special present. The equipment I have. You see, a Toad wearing anything will draw attention, so he spent a long time making the stuff so it would hide away.

The knife? I really don't know where it came from. Frey said it had to have been made by someone of Substance, but even he wasn't sure by whom. All I do know is that it's a nasty weapon, for a Toad anyway, and it seemed to bond to me. Who knows, maybe someone made it for a Toad.

Sleepy? Guess you ought to be. Drink some of that again, then have some of whatever you're carrying to eat, and then rest. You'll be safe... There's a Toad watching over you.