"I looked to the east, from whence the day brightened. No sun stood new-risen in the heavens, but rather a great, blindingly burnished crown, a gleaming sword hanging through it. From somewhere I heard a bird singing, notes almost like laughter. I leaned forward and covered my face with my hands. Madness..."
'The Courts of Chaos', Chapter 6
Shadows can be very weird.
It is possible to possess a shadow over which you have far more control than the powers you possess would actually allow. This basically indicates that either that shadow is special in that you can control it very easily, or someone modified it for you so that you could do these things. Basically some justification or explanation is needed for anything like this.
Shadows can basically be defined as you wish, but with the caveat that there are no shadows with technology more advanced than a cyberpunk-type level. Also, there are no shadows with a time flow of more than five times greater than or less than that of Amber within reasonable shadow-walking distance or Trump range of Amber; it is possible that such a shadow could be found further away, or constructed using some kind of advanced power. It is possible to find shadows with effectively omnipotent or omniscient gods or other equally powerful entities within them. However, none of these entities have any power in other shadows, or through shadow. Their initial attitude to a character is likely to depend upon the characters Stuff level.
Note that the type of magic and technology, and the way in which it works, varies dramatically between shadows. Although these variations may, to Amberites, seem to be fairly superficial differences, in most cases they reflect basic fundamental differences in the laws of nature which govern the nature and behaviour of matter and energy in each shadow.
When using the Pattern to find a shadow of desire, it takes approximately two weeks of shadow shifting per point in the shadow (to a minimum of two weeks), regardless of whether one intends to pay points for it later or not.
Note also that just because shadow is infinite it does not necessarily contain everything an individual might desire. For example, in my Amber games I tend to limit the available technology to no higher than a cyberpunk-type level. Shadows of higher technology than that simply do not exist. This is of course entirely GM fiat, and based on what the GM wishes the player characters to have access to, but I once heard it justified in the following way: "There are an infinite number of numbers between zero and one, but there are no twos in there".
| SHADOW FEATURE | COST | NOTES |
| TYPE OF SHADOW | ||
| Personal Shadow | 1 | A personal shadow has no real advantage over just living incognito in shadow. The main advantage is that you have 'planted your flag' on it, marking it as your own and not to be messed with. Of course, over time a personal shadow will tend to become more real as your presence affects it. |
| Shadow of the Realm | 2 | A shadow with some degree of power or reality to it, resistant to outside changes, probably located in or near the Golden Circle, or somewhere an Real person has lived for a long time. Alternatively, it could be particularly rich in some unreal power (e.g. Magic). It is possible to change the level if Reality of a shadow using (for example) Advanced Pattern. However, this tends to drain Reality from the surrounding shadows. |
| Primal Plane | 4 | A shadow which is real independently of Amber, and highly resistant to change. It may well have existed before the Pattern was drawn, and would probably survive its destruction. Shadows of this type are rare and hard to find. |
| PROTECTION | ||
| Communication Barrier | 1 | The shadow is barred to one or more of the major powers. This may be a natural or artificial feature of the place, but cannot be changed without (for example) use of Advanced Pattern. |
| Restricted Access | 2 | As in the rule book, access to the shadow can only occur in certain specified locations or under certain specified conditions; this cannot be changed without (for example) use of Advanced Pattern. This property could also cover unusual shadow properties which might restrict normal means of access, for example a shadow which was entirely non-physical (a 'ghost shadow') might fall into this category, or a shadow made entirely of (say) fire. |
| Guarded | 4 | As in the rule book, access to the shadow is restricted and there are active guardians of some kind who will work to exclude those who try to enter without permission; this cannot be changed without (for example) use of Advanced Pattern. |
| CONTROL OF THE SHADOW | ||
| Control Environment | 1 | This allows one to control all aspects of the shadow's environment, but not its physical structure and nature. This boils down to control of the weather/climate, and perhaps volcanoes, earthquakes and the like. The main advantage of this over Pattern is that it can be done much more quickly, and with more fine control than just use of the Pattern would allow. |
| Control of Contents | 2 | Essentially as in the rule book, the shadows owner can control the environment, physical structure and nature of the shadow. This does not include any control over the powers which will work in the shadow (changing this requires Advanced Pattern). There is also no 'Control of Timeflow' property; this feature is fixed for a given shadow, unless changed by someone with (for example) Advanced Pattern. |
| Control of Destiny | 4 | As in the rule book, the shadow's owner can control the destiny of the place, making it more or less likely that specified people and/or things will come through it. |
| OTHER FEATURES | ||
| Unusual Property | 1 | A 'catch-all' property covering any other unusual properties the shadow may have, for example a shadow which is a Shadow of Destiny (but over which the owner of the shadow has no control) or the magic of which is focussed on some specified point for defensive purposes would both qualify as having an Unusual Property. Each unusual property must be bought separately |
Although I do not allow this in some of my games (for example, The Last Enemy game) it is possible in others for shadows to be mobile. If this is the case then it should be noted that it requires the full 60 points of Advanced Pattern to create a mobile shadow as it requires the manipulation of the shadow barrier, not the 50 points of Advanced Pattern which is required to change other shadow properties. The inclusion of mobile shadows gives the following set of optional shadow properties:
| SHADOW FEATURE | COST | NOTES |
| SHADOW MOBILITY | ||
| Mobility | 1 | The shadow can move through shadow under the direction of its owner; if it does not have an owner then it may simply 'orbit' through a region of shadow. This movement is quite slow, and restricted to a specific area of shadow the environment of which is conducive to the shadow's movement. This shadow property could, at the discretion of the GM, have a pre-requisite of the Restricted Access property, as it implies that the shadow is more or less cut off from the normal structure of static shadows and so is harder to get into than them. However, this need not necessarily be the case. |
| Enhanced Mobility | 2 | As with Mobility, but the shadow can either move faster within its home area of shadow, or that home area is much larger. |
| Unlimited Mobility | 4 | As with Mobility, but the shadow can move faster through shadow, and its 'home area' now covers all of shadow. |
Note that being linked to a shadow can be a bad thing - if the shadow is damaged, then the damage may be reflected, in some fashion, in the person linked to it, though this will not have any affect across shadow it would certainly affect the owner of the shadow once they returned there...
Note that it is possible to buy multiple shadows using the same quantity multipliers as those which apply to creatures and items.