[UA] Clockworks and Memories

[BBrighoff at lexecon.com]

Keep in mind that reading something is not like remembering it.  Again,
drawing inspiration from Memento, Leonard thought that the records he made
were complete factual accounts to be trusted implicitly. However, they were
open to a lot of interpretation, incomplete knowledge and downright lying.
Any journal left by your Mechanomancer would be like reading a piece of
fiction to him.  He will have an emotional distance, and will lack a lot of
detail and nuance, assuming the journal isn't lost or stolen, or he doesn't
hide it from himself (in the UAC I just played in, my Mechanomancer found
out, much to his surprise, that he was a spy for the other team).  Also,
memories of what one has read are not as vivid as what one has lived
through.  He may forget facts, not because of magic, but because of memory.
How many details do you remember from the book you read last week, as
opposed to your own life at the time?

In game terms, I'd roleplay it.  If you have a good player, then let him
work on both the before and after.  Otherwise, feel free to present him
with a shiny new toy and a book of questionable provenance.  After he reads
the book, I'd make him pass a Mind check (or some sort of memory skill, if
he has it) to remember anything in it.

Ben Brighoff



                                                                                                
                    "Antonio                                                                    
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> > I prefer the idea of a clockworker who spent all his memories on
> > something _huge_.  He wakes up with total amnesia, including not
> > remembering what he was building (perhaps he was working with
> > someone else as well, who promised to clue him in afterward, bu
> > instead ran off).  After spending time discovering who he is and
> > what's going  on with the building mechanical oddities, he
> > discovers the probably reason for his lost memories.  Then it's
> [snip]
>
> Can you get your memories back?
> I don't have the books to hand, and I can't recall any similar
> threads, but
> can you break/magickize/use a clockwork to retrive the memories you
> 'invested' in it in the first place?
> Cue every amnesiac clockworker breaking every clockwork he meets.
> Joe.
> --
> Joe Murphy (Broin)
> broin at notzen.com

I got a rather disturbing idea with this post. If a mechanomancer records
dutifully whatever happens to him, and then sacrifices the memories of
these
events for constructs, can he still re-acquire the knowledge of what
happened to him through his written accounts?

I'm trying to distinguish the concept of memories and knowledge here. Going
to One-Shots, if Uder Kram-? (don't have the book with me now, sorry) has
written a detailed log of his wife's illness and death, and sacrificed the
memory of her death, could he still gain the knowledge of his wife's being
dead by reading his log? And then how about sacrificing the memory of ever
having read the log, and then re-reading?

It smells like the worst case of gouda cheese, but at the same time, I'm
not
sure how I'd handle it. Any ideas?

Antonio Rodriguez


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