First of all, I ought to mention that my thought processes are random, non-linear, chaotic, and entirely unrenderable into coherence. This, of course, is an attempt to explain them, and as such, clearly doomed. On the other hand, it might be fun to watch...
When Jon first suggested an Amber rp weekend, with the potential for an ongoing campaign to grow out of it, another friend of mine, who lives some way away, was hoping to be involved. Because of this, we started off trying to design characters that 'went together' in some sense that would mean I could write his character out if he couldn't make it at any point. We tossed a lot of ideas around, from the pair of shapeshifters, to the 'item-as-a-character' in the first excitement.
My friend, however, was the traditional 'person-who-can-make-none-of-the-dates-aargh', leaving me with a lot of thoughts, and no ideas! I did like the concept of shapeshifting, though.
At this point, I gave up on that approach, and started thinking about givens. I always play male characters, for long and complicated reasons, so he would be male. I wasn't at all sure how well I would deal with the intrigue and deviousness I'd been told to expect in an Amber game, so my character would have to be able to be either good or bad at that, depending on how things went! And that was about that.
Then, I was punting, and I wondered what the world would be like if you lived in the reflection of this world in the river. You know, on the other side of the clouds than the one you see. This was idle speculation, at the time; I tend to dream up that sort of thing. I assure you, however, that I'm not mad really.
Sooo. I was flicking through the guidebook, when I spotted the section on personal shadows. Yes, you've got it...
By this point, I had a character concept along the lines of:
Male, relatively young in real time, older in subjective time. Thinks of himself as not being a politician, and indeed, moved out to his own shadow to get away from the infighting at home. Somewhat of a philosopher, but not given to flights of fancy - that is to say, not a dreamer. More of a scholar. Not very impulsive, on the whole; more of a planner. Not really a warrior (no great strength or warfare), but has a lot of endurance. That would be how he fought - outlasting people.
Plus, I had a lot of half-thoughts, and feelings, which even with hindsight are really too nebulous to explain. :-)
Add in the shadow idea, and you got someone from the Chaos end of the universe - because he found the idea for his shadow-home in the time after his walking of the Logrus... Jon had strongly suggested playing someone from Amber, or with Amber blood, so he would have the latter, though not be aware of it.
Next,I was a sad person, and made me a little spreadsheet with all the different sets of skills that could make the character I wanted, that would track what I could and couldn't get through the auction. You can see the end results of this here.
At this point, I could digress into my complicated bidding strategy, but I guess it might be a bit boring! Suffice it to say, I did pretty well - my stats were exactly as I wanted, though I had to pay more for Endurance than I would have liked.
The powers he had gave me the rest of him. A little shy. A sorceror, interested in things magical, but in a more scholarly way - the sort of person who enjoys his spell maintenance(!). He wouldn't have power words (although they would have been very useful), because he thought of himself as a researcher, with plenty of time to plan what he would need. In contrast, he would actually be reasonably good at fast action, despite his opinion. He was somewhat lonely, but very cautious of others, due to a complicated childhood in the courts.
Jon approved Tamash (who became Tamash, tentatively, about then) at this point, and discussed with me what sort of background story I ought to write. We ended up with Martin visiting me, in my shadow after the time he spent with the Tecys. Why? Dara... The writing gave me a bit of a feel for Tamash, and a bit more depth to some of the thoughts that were drifting around.
By the end of the weekend, I had a character I had already become quite attached to...