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Amber Duforet (86)
Project: Fantasy novel series (Mask of Names)
Known as: Many aliases; often goes by “Amber Tunesmith” currently
Real name: Amber Duforet
Group affiliation: None (loyal to family)
Physical description: Amber is in her early 40ies with an athletic build. She has short blond hair and very light blue eyes.
Personality: Amber is complex. She is a talented actress and is most commonly playing some sort of role. She often uses the vain and flighty bard persona as it causes people to underestimate her. She also has a stern and devout persona, a sad and helpless one, and more. This means that only a very few know the true Amber. At her core she is calm and in-control.
History: Amber lost her parents at a young age and grew up on the streets of the capital. She made a home at the local thieves’ guild and rose through the ranks of pick pocket to burglar. She dreamed of being more than urchin and thief, however, and managed to find a mentor among the sages who was willing to give her informal education (first for literacy, but later for history and politics). As a young woman, she set her sights to impersonation and grifting, feeling that her skills would help her fleece the underserving nobles (or perhaps marry into a noble family).
That was disrupted when she met Gregory Duforet at a social event. Handsome and gallant, she was immediately smitten with him (the feeling was mutual). They found each other challenging and strange. Gregory was every bit the rule-following paladin, where Amber had a more pragmatic view of the world. Amber was startled to find that Gregory could tell when she was acting, and immediately challenged her on her background story of being from a minor (and remote) noble family. Gregory, meanwhile, was startled to find that he found such a non-traditional woman so attractive. She was simply quicker of wit and more unpredictable than any woman he ever met.
Their courtship was a complex one. She was not one to be left behind, so she often followed Gregory and surreptitiously assisted him on missions (much to his chagrin). Meanwhile, she showed him the people in the capital who suffered, and they worked together to improve their circumstances. The order was unlikely to improve a union with a woman of such low station, but Gregory saw her true goodness and nobility. Ultimately Gregory got special approval to marry her.
Gregory went on a mission when Amber was pregnant and could not come along. He died on the mission and was named a betrayer. Amber suspected a political plot in the order and worried that his comrades believed him a betrayer in part because of his choice of spouse. Amber fled the capital with their newborn child as soon as she was able.
To try to give her son a chance to grow without judgement, she stayed on the frontier of the kingdom (where communities did not often have Name Stones). Making her way as a bard, she also gathered information as she could about her husband’s final mission. A former paladin, now mercenary, and friend of Gregory helped her in this.
Gracen proved to strongly favor his father and Amber was comforted to see Gregory in him. She had hoped at some level that Gracen might not choose the paladin’s path, but it was obvious from an early age that he would. It is with some trepidation that she brings Gracen to the academy, knowing that the world is grayer than her son realizes. Still, this gave her an opportunity to focus on uncovering the truth about her husband’s death.
Role in the narrative: She is a second protagonist. While Graden is at the academy, her efforts to investigate the circumstances of her husband’s death will be a parallel story.
Abilities: She is a talented singer and lute player (enough that she can make a living for herself and her son). She has an encyclopedic knowledge of songs, geography, and history. She is a gifted actor and is skilled at manipulating people. She’s also a cat burglar and is pretty much a Swiss army knife of a person.
Inspirations: I’d love to do the sort of epic fantasy where Amber is the protagonist of a story that hasn’t been told yet. The best epic fantasy stories always feel like the author came up with a great story and then told the story after that (I still need to come up with a really great story for Amber and Graden’s father). The agile female thief is a trope at this point (e.g., Catwoman, Black Cat) and the female bard nearly is as well (the Lackey books, Pern books, etc.). Now that I’ve written the profile above, I might want to redo the character at some point. Perhaps a little too trope. Plus, Weasel was designed to be Graden’s moral foil; having his mother be that as well might be overkill (especially since she raised Graden alone).
100 Characters Blog 