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AmberCon UK 2003 Game

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GAME DESCRIPTION

Long, long before the Patternfall War, the town of Amber is ruled by Good King Oberon, with his beautiful Queen, Cymnea, their three sons, Benedict, Osric and Finndo, and his ... eccentric ... advisor, Dworkin at his side.

Although the Royal family is very powerful, skilled in Magic and the mysterious powers of the Pattern and the Trumps, still threats come out of shadow, and Amber must be defended from them.

To do this, Oberon has created the Knights of Amber, an elite force of the best, the most skilled, the most honourable of the Amber nobility. Trained in combat and Magic, they defend Amber from all who would threaten it. You are one of these Knights...

THE SETTING OF THE GAME

It is the early days of Amber. Good King Oberon rules in Amber with his beautiful Queen, Cymnea, their three sons, Osric, Benedict and Finndo, and his ... eccentric ... advisor, Dworkin. Osric and Benedict are centuries old; Finndo is only seventeen.

Amber itself is a town of roughly fifty thousand people built on the plateau partway up Mount Kolvir, and centred on the Tower-of-London-sized Castle Amber. But despite its relatively small size compared to its neighbours Amber is still seen by some of them as a threat, due to the power of the Royal Family and Amber's rising power and expansionistic economic policy. For this, and other reasons, threats often come out of shadow to menace Amber.

As such Amber must be defended. And so, to assist himself and his children in the defence of Amber, King Oberon has recruited and equipped an elite force, the Knights of Amber, to help defend the Kingdom. Trained in Sorcery at The Academy of Magic, in Amber, and in physical combat by Prince Benedict himself in the School of Arms, they are the best troops Amber has to offer. All of them have sworn loyalty to King Oberon alone.

The Knights are analogous to the Musketeers of fiction, brave, honourable, noble swashbucklers defending the Kingdom from all which threatens it. There are two groups of them, the King's Knights and the Queen's Knights, roughly sixty of each, between which there is a friendly rivalry, and people change from one to the other and back again quite frequently. Note that the Queen's Knights exist to honour and guard the Queen, but not to owe her loyalty, which is to the King alone.

They operate in Amber and out in shadow, usually in small groups of six or so, combating threats to Amber itself, and having a damn fine time while doing it!

THE KNIGHTS HOUSE

The head of the Knights is Lord Gabriel Chantris. He has built The Knights House, a large mansion on the Royal Way just outside the gates of Castle Amber, in the heart of the city, as a headquarters for the Knights. It is opposite the Academy of Magic, another large mansion.

The House has two wings, one on each side of a central building, in an H-shape. One wing houses the King's Knights, the other the Queen's Knights. In each wing are the quarters of the Knights who wish to live in the House (though many Knights live in the town), refectories, training rooms, reading rooms, a bar, and so on. In the central section are the rooms of Lord Chantris, the Knight's main meeting hall, offices, the Armoury, the Storerooms and the Library. This last is well-stocked with books of all kinds, and has magical copying facilities.

The flag of the Knights of Amber is a shining silver unicorn on a deep purple field. The flag of the King's Knights is a golden crown on a deep green background. That of the Queen's Knights is a purple foxglove (the symbol of Queen Cymnea) on a pale grey field.

All Knights are paid a good wage, and have accounts at the School from which they can draw, rather than carrying cash all the time. Lord Chantris encourages all the Knights to pay their bills whenever they come in.

PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE

Other People

There are a number of Noble Houses in Amber from which Knights will come. These are listed on another page. It is also possible, though very rare, for exceptional people from the shadows around Amber who have done some great service to Amber to join the Knights.

The Pattern

The Knights know little of the Pattern. It is a power which only Oberon and his Children can gain, apparently by walking a mystic sigil in the depths of Mount Kolvir. It gives them powers far above normal magic, primarily the ability to shift through shadow at speed, and carry large numbers of troops with them as they do so. They can also find things in shadow with ease. It is rumoured that some of the Family have powers beyond this, including the ability to destroy and create entire worlds at their whim.

REBMA

Rebma is a city under the sea that is reached by a staircase leading down from the beach some twenty miles south of Amber. Like Amber it is a town of some tens of thousands of people. It is ruled by Queen Nimue who, although not of the Blood of Amber (no-one in Rebma is) does control the Pattern of Rebma and is rumoured to be very skilled in magic. The people of Rebma are generally at least as skilled in magic as those of Amber. Queen Nimue and King Oberon seem to get on reasonably well.

Long ago, so long ago that it may be legend rather than history, Rebma was a city of the land, not unlike Amber, although without a Royal Family which could walk its Pattern. However, when an arranged marriage between Beron, the son of the Queen of Rebma and Nuala, the daughter of the King of the Tritons, a powerful race who inhabited the waters off Rebma, all went horribly wrong because of political wranglings amongst the noble families of the Rebmans and the Tritons, war broke out between the two nations. After a long, hard struggle, the Rebmans defeated the Tritons and exterminated them to the last man, woman and child. But as a last act of defiance, the Tritons cast a mighty spell that pulled Rebma beneath the waves. The mages of Rebma were not able to stop its submergence, but were able, at the cost of their lives, to cast a spell to protect the city from the effects of the undersea environment, and this led to the Rebma which exists today...

TIR-NA NOG'TH

Tir-Na Nog'th is the sky-city which appears over Amber when the sky is clear and the moon is full. It is a strange, ghostly place where all kinds of strange visions are possible. Although it is accessible via the steps on top of Mount Kolvir, few people go these. It allegedly has a Pattern of its own. As with Amber and Rebma, it is the size of a town of tens of thousands rather than a huge city.

DUELLING

Duelling is legal in Amber. It used what, in shadow Earth terms, would be called French-style rules, in which the challenger chooses the weapons and form on the duel. Duels can be armed, unarmed, purely physical, purely magical, or a mix of both, depending on the individual challenge. Killing someone in a duel is unusual, and frowned upon, particularly within the Knights - they are too important to be killed off in petty squabbles.

CHARACTER GENERATION

As exceptional non-Royal Amberites, characters are built on 200 points, starting at Amber ranked. Statistics can be brought down to as low as Human ranked, but too many statistics being too low will disqualify one from the Knights. The maximum statistic level is 101. Intermediate ranks between Chaos and Amber are permitted. There is a maximum of 5 points Stuff either way and 10 points of contributions. It would be useful to know how each character is seen by the populace of Amber and the other Knights, his reputation. Are they honoured and respected, or spat upon, or something in between?

There is a bonus of ten points for getting a character to me before the 'con.

Everyone has the following for free:

Magic is the only power which is available to player characters. Basic Sorcery they have for free; Empowerment and Power Words are also available, and all of these three magical powers can be combined with one another. However, there are also a variety of Advanced Magical Abilities beyond these which player characters can learn, making Magic more useful (for example, the ability to cast cross-shadow spells).

It is entirely possible for PCs to have creatures and items with 8 and 16-point Qualities and powers in them, even if they do not have the Empowerment skills to make them themselves.

Note that the Knights of Amber are trained to work together, even if they do not know one another too well. As such, I do not intend to run a separate game for each Player Character, so that characters who can and will co-operate with one another would be greatly appreciated.

SOME USEFUL LINKS

THE PLOT

Not long after the creation of Amber, the Courts of Chaos wanted revenge. They sent their best agent, Lady Cymnea, to Amber, to seduce and destroy Dworkin and all his works. Using her Trump-powered magic, she travelled to Amber and upon arrival she spoke to Oberon, telling him that she had come from Chaos because she was disgusted with their treatment of the Barimen family, and now wished to live in Amber. Oberon believed this lie, and allowed her to live in Amber.

Over time she seduced Oberon (not that Oberon was particularly unwilling!) and they married. She became Queen, and over time had three children. From when they were in the womb she used magical conditioning, Soul-Spaceshifting and simple emotional manipulation to make them her utterly loyal, and very powerful, minions, but also apparently loyal sons of Amber. She intends to have as many children as she can with Oberon, to form a large force, then destroy him, Dworkin, and Amber.

What Cymnea and Chaos have discovered is that, as Chaos is a spot of Order in Chaos, so Tir-Na Nog'th is a spot of Chaos in Order. With the right devices at each end, using powerful sympathetic magic, both mental and physical contact can be made between the two places. When the time is right, Chaos intend to invade via this route.

Over time, Dworkin has become suspicious of Cymnea and this has forced their plans forward somewhat. He has been removed from the picture - given his skills, he is impossible to kill, but he has been incapacitated and stone-bound somewhere.

With the help of Osric Cymnea has arranged a trap for the Knights of Amber. Narillian, one of Amber's major trading shadows, has been turned into a huge trap using Osric's advanced knowledge of the Pattern; its people have been turned into anti-Amber fanatics, and the shadow set up to trap and then kill everyone there.

Narillian is a shadow of oceans with a dozen archipelagos of mountainous islands dotted over them. The capital, Narillian City, is a city of hundreds of thousands on the largest island of the largest archipelago. It is built on the island slopes around a triangular inlet of the sea. The seaward entrance has forts on each side and a chain across the harbour mouth. The land-ward side of the city of walled. The city walls have magical defences to warn of intruders and so on; this includes people teleporting through. There are also magical scanners at each gate through the wall.

Beyond the city walls is a mile of so of hillside fields, with deep forest beyond. There are some trails through these woods, and traders do travel overland from town to town. The Royal Palace in Narillian City is heavily defended with magic, but only to the level of normal Sorcery and Empowerment; they do not know much Advanced Magic there.

Time flow and the magical environment are not dissimilar to those of Amber, and the culture, heavily influenced by Amber, is quite similar too. They worship the Unicorn. Each of the eleven other archipelagos is a Duchy of Narillian, ruled by a Duke appointed from Narillian City. Amber has an embassy in Narillian city, as do many other Golden Circle shadows.

Narillian lies at a branching point of a major shadow path out of Amber, and is rich in metals and seafood. Thus it has been able to exploit these resources and its position to become a major power.

Narillian is no longer like this. It has been heavily modified into a trap for the Knights. The people have been changed into anti-Amber fanatics. A raging, leaderless, but highly organised mob destroyed the Amber Embassy and killed everyone there, burning the place to the ground with magic. The Ambassador was able to get a message out to Amber, warning of this, and this is what caused the Knights to become involved.

The Knights will be lured there to deal with what seems to be a huge threat to Amber. Then the shadow will collapse and trap or kill the Knights. In Amber, Oberon will be dealt with. This will then leave the way into Amber open for an invasion of a Chaos army down from Tir-Na Nog'th, and thus Chaos will have its revenge.

THE ORDER OF EVENTS

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