kierongillen answered:

You kind of hit upon how it basically works - like, the Knights end up having a personal relationship with their emotion, and that axis. Still - if you want to think about it wider, you look at the full level. This is the wheel.

All the coloured areas are a single emotion in the system. So “Surprise” is also “Amazement” and “Distraction.” The most powerful emotions are the ones towards the centre.

So certainly surprise is in there, but amazement is too. And that it’s right by awe, that can work well as well. So the “FUCKING HELL! DID YOU SEE THAT DRAGON!” would push the emotion. In other words, it could work great for an adventurer - they’d peak hard when they first see a new thing, and then likely decrease in a fight, unless something goes wrong (getting surprised, etc). Other emotions end up having different arcs - some emotions tend to be very easy to get low intensity of emotion and hard to get a high one, which ties into which abilities can be activated.

(To choose an alternate one, Rage is an easy one - if you’re not angry at the start of a fight, you certainly will be when that fucking thing hits you.)

I want to do more with the knights if I ever do a fuller campaign edition - there’s some Knights which I feel would work as a less pure-combat character. I have some ideas as a Detective as a Curiosity Knight sort of role, for example. But that’s down the line.

EDIT: Worth stressing, this isn’t something I’ve made up. See here for the source.