Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter Two: Character Creation (section)

====The Wider World====
''"I'm impressed that you found me so easily," Dr. Layota says. She sits down and steeples her fingers to prevent them from shaking. "At this point you could probably turn me over to the police. Fraud, criminal conspiracy, and of course, that unfortunate incident with the piranhas...

''"But where would that get you?" The doctor stands up and opens her briefcase. You can't see what she's pulling out, which sets you on edge. "A head full of crazy and no way to get it out. You're going to burst like a grape if you keep that up. Let's instead cut a deal. A year ago you would've wanted money. Now I know what you want."

''She holds up a three-ring binder labeled The Axiom of Exelixi.

''"All this can be yours," she says, "for the low, low price of not picking up that telephone."

''What do you do?''

By the end of the vignettes surrounding the Breakthrough, you should have a firm understanding of how your genius catalyzed and how that has changed her life. The rest of the prelude is picking up the pieces and putting things back together. The Storyteller here can include details about how your character learned about the Axioms, about the foundations, the Peerage, and Lemuria. Toward the end of the prelude, you will also need to address how your genius continues to interface with the rest of the world, if at all. Vignettes covering whether or not your character continues to hold down a job, how her family, friends, and loved ones react to the change in her personality, and how a new mad scientist interacts with regular people are as important as mini-stories about learning how to build robots.

At this point in the prelude, the Storyteller will likely introduce the other player characters, if it has been a cooperative prelude. If that's the case, a bit of role-playing should allow your characters to form a collaborative, if that is your goal. Otherwise the Storyteller can introduce other major characters, such as antagonists, potential mentors, or fellow geniuses. How your character interacts with these figures during the prelude can color relations during the chronicle.