[UA] Clockworks and Memories

[James O'Rance]

Royal Minister of Stuff <yokeltania at yahoo.com> said:

 >>>The emotional content of memories is very, very important to us.  It can 
be very disturbing to hold a picture in your hand of a relative or family 
member and not remember how you felt about this person<<<

This is indeed the kind of thing I was thinking of when I suggested Madness 
checks for mechanomancers who "just happen" to run into a journal of lost 
memories. Many people consider their memories to be a vital part of their 
identity, so consider how disturbing it might be to read an evocative, 
brilliantly-written work that describes someone who is just like you, except 
that they seem to have lived a different life.

memories are far more about feelings than facts. I know a girl who claims to 
have eidetic memory; whether this is true is quite debateable (ie, she 
doesn't but will never concede the point!). I once had a CoC character who 
died rather early in his career by being clever enough to find the hidden 
tome, plus the black widow who lived there.

Anyway, recently memory-power girl was talking about dead characters, and 
she mentions my old professor and claims that he only lived twenty minutes. 
my response was - hang on, this is the character who met the other PCs in 
New York, introduced them to the American Oneiromancers, travelled with them 
to Michigan, hung out in town for a while then drove out to a lonely 
farmhouse, met the gambler's bastard baby boy and spent the night in his 
parents' farmhouse, and *then* went out into the woods the next day to find 
the evil tome, get bitten by a spider and die slowly...

Well that seemed like more than 20 minutes to me. Our group sometimes takes 
hours to roleplay through a meeting over scones.

However, she remembered the feeling of barely getting to know my professor 
(who was probably busier talking to characters not known for poisoning their 
husbands). Although lots happened with the professor, she wasn't really 
involved with him while doing it, so she forgot all of that. And so she 
"eidetically" remembers a lifespan of 20 minutes.


And now the crucial point in memory not being very factual: I have no idea 
what my point was going to be. It was a damn good one, though. Free 
membership in the Oneiromancers to the first person who tells me.


Interesting idea: some faiths, such as Zen, advise you to give up attachment 
to identity and memories. Perhaps practitioners might not be required to 
make Self Madness checks upon reading evocative accounts of memories that no 
longer exist.


Cheers,

James O’Rance
“Divine being creates petting zoo. It gets out of hand.”
- The Bible (summarised by John W. Mangrum)

http://www.dragonlance.com/taladas
http://www.geocities.com/dragon-dreamer/






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