Hadrian, Prince of Amber. "You really do like Hadrian, don't you?" "I love him... he's so you." Felicia, talking with me about Hadrian.

I never intended to create a Mary Jane*character for Amber, but it seems that if any of my PCs fit the bill, Hadrian does. Felicia, quoted above, is not the first person to remark on the similarities of Hadrian's personality to my own. When I wrote the fictional piece for Hadrian as an NPC in Strange Bedfellows called "Hadrian's Minding the Store"(read it here), a few of the readers remarked what Hadrian had done and how he reacted was much akin to what they thought I would do if put in that situation.

Back in the depths of time, Hadrian was one of my first Amber characters. Out of those misty early days in the Amber community, I joined a number of short lived games on the AOL message boards. Out of those games, the only long lasting characters were Lorius, who would later come to fame as an NPC in Strange Bedfellows, and Hadrian. (Although Hadrian became an NPC later on in SB...Lorius was an original NPC).

Over time, Hadrian has evolved. In that original game, it was only established that he was an Amberite who spent much of his time in his home shadow of DuMarque, a rival to the neighboring shadow Crie. The imagery of the Griffin being associated with DuMarque, and the Phoenix with Crie was also established way back then. The game was short lived and Hadrian's development had to wait.

The next step in Hadrian's evolution was Jennifer Jerlstrom's , aka SimAmber, Amber Game. I joined it, and imported Hadrian into it. Given some free rein, I got to work detailing things I had thought about for a very long while. Hadrian's shadow DuMarque came to life as did the rival shadow of Crie. Hadrian's personality and his love of Trump Artistry, only hinted in his earlier incarnation grew in importance here. Finally, his Wyvernet companion Dora first took flight here. Dora owes her original inspiration to the Jhereg of Steven Brust's universe, although she is far less sarcastic (and poisonous!)

Hadrian has not managed to be a player character in a campaign since, but he has become one of my more popular non player characters to use in various scenarios and games I have run. While he was not in my first-ever con game Wizard in the Attic, he was present in the background to the second, Dreams Made Flesh. The Ambercon 2001 edition of the game did not actually have him appear, but some of the playtest runs of DMF had him take a signficant role.

MARY JANE: A term used to indicate a fictional character which is very much an alter ego of the author. The most egregious example and the origin of the term is those pieces of star trek fan fiction where the main character is a thinly veiled version of the author, transported into the 24th century and proceeds to have an affair, seduce, or have main cast members fall in love with him (or more commonly) her. However, it is a literary situation that even established writers sometimes have trouble avoiding. It has been argued that Corwin of Amber was written as such by Roger Zelazny and one of the reasons why the Merlin Chronicles do not engage as well is that Zelazny could not imagine himself as Merlin.