Rebma is still something of an enigma. Llewella is Queen these days, after Moire lost the throne in events which are still not entirely clear to those of Amber. Moires fate remains another mystery.
It is reached by the staircase of Faiella-Bionin, which lies roughly twenty miles south of Amber city. The top of the stair is marked by an eight foot tall cairn of head-sized stones, on a beach Corwin describes as:
"...I was ravenously hungry, but I forgot this as I regarded the wide sloping tiger beach," of "pink and sable sands," "with its sudden twists and rises of coral, orange, pink and red, and its abrupt caches of shells, driftwood, and small polished stones; and the sea beyond; rising and falling, splashing softly, all gold and blue and royal purple, and casting forth its life-song breezes like benedictions beneath dawn's violet skies."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
Faiella-Bionin itself leads down into the depths of the sea:
"There was a pillar rising to the right. At its top was something globe-like and glowing." "It appeared to be a flame, about two feet in height, dancing there, as atop a huge torch." "Perhaps fifteen steps lower, another such formation occurred to the left. Beyond that, it seemed there was another one on the right, and so on.
"When we entered the vicinity of the thing, the waters grew warmer and the stairway itself became clear; it was white, shot through with pink and green, and resembled marble but was not slippery despite the water. It was perhaps fifty feet in width, and there was a wide banister of the same substance on either side."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
Something, whether magical or otherwise, protects those who come down Faiella-Bionin from drowning, and also from the extreme pressure and coldness of the underwater environment. However, this protection does not extend far from the stairway, and anyone leaving it will begin to suffer quite quickly.
From close to the flames which light Faiella-Bionin (and the rest of Rebma) are a bright orange-white in colour. However, as one goes further from them the visible colour fades to a dimmer blue-green.
Some distance from the bottom of the stair is the main entrance to Rebma:
"The archway loomed ahead, perhaps two hundred feet distant. Big, shining like alabaster, and carved with Tritons, sea nymphs, mermaids, and dolphins, it was. And there seemed to be people on the other side of it."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
At the bottom of the stair, through golden gates, is the city itself:
"Everything was to be seem through a green haze. There were buildings, all of them fragile and most of them high, grouped in patterns and standing in colours that that entered my eyes and tore through my mind, seeking after remembrance."
"... Inside the city, we were conducted up a wide avenue, lighted by pillar flames set at even closer intervals than on Faiella-bionin, the people stared out at us from behind octagonal tinted windows, and bright-bellied fishes swam by. There came a cool current, like a breeze, as we turned a corner; and after a few steps, a warm one, like a wind."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
Rebma is obviously not an exact duplicate of Amber; it is not a harbour city, and has no equivalent of Mount Kolvir. It is roughly circular in layout, with Castle Rebma on a rise in the centre of the city. It is deep enough underwater that without its magical (or whatever it is) illumination, it would be almost completely dark.
The city is walled. The walls are tall and broad and are made of some translucent dark blue-green coloured glassy material. There are a number of gates out through the wall of which the one at the lower end of the stairway of Faiella-Bionin is the largest. Roads lead off through the underwater gloom out from the gates in the walls.
The protective effect which allows surface-dwellers to descend Faiella-Bionin in safety also covers the whole of the city of Rebma, and extends out beyond its walls. However, the effect stops about one hundred yards from the walls, and beyond that the pressure, cold and lack of air of the underwater environment will quickly affect travellers. Where the roads leading out from Rebma pass out of the protected area they are marked with a pair of pillar flames, one on each side of the road.
Like Amber, Rebma is a low-magic environment.
Many of the people of the city are not quite baseline human, and dress in keeping with their underwater environment:
"I examined our escort. They were men with green hair, purple hair and black hair, and all of them had eyes of green, save for one fellow whose were of a hazel colour. All wore only scaled trunks and cloaks, cross-braces on their breasts, and short swords depending from sea-shell belts. All were pretty much lacking in body hair."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
Like the inhabitants of Amber, Rebmans are superior to the average shadowite, though inferior to the Amber Royal family. They are long-lived (well over a thousand years on average) but not unageing, and like the Amber Royal family have a lower rate of fertility than the average shadowite.
Rebman solders use large Roman-style shields, rectangular in shape, but not as curved as that they move through the water more easily, plus (harpoon-like) spears, stabbing swords, and, in some cases, primitive harpoon guns.
Rebma is a member of the Golden Circle, though it does not conduct nearly as much trade as Amber. It trades mainly with various underwater shadows in the Golden Circle. Rebma also has something of a monopoly on the fishing trade around Amber.
The castle of Rebma is on a low rise in the centre of the city. It is a mirror image of the castle of Amber, built out of the same translucent dark blue-green coloured glassy material as the city walls.
"We were taken to the palace in the centre of the city, and I knew it as my hand knew the glove in my belt. It was an image of the palace of Amber, obscured only by the green and confused by the many strangely placed mirrors which had been set within its walls, inside and out."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
The Rebman throne room is a long, wide, tall room with gothic-style pillars and vaulting, designed in such a way as to make it appear even higher than it already is. It has large stained glass windows along the left hand wall as one enters through the main doors. These are lit from behind, and depict scenes of battle and various 'mythological' scenes, mainly in shades of blue and green. Banners of the noble houses of Rebma hang from the ceiling, and a number of huge tapestries cover the wall opposite the windows. There is a balcony halfway up the wall opposite the windows. At one end of the long axis of the room are the main doors. These are huge double doors of some grey slate-like substance, intricately carved with 'mythological' scenes. A wide royal blue carpet leads from the main doors to the dais upon which the Rebman throne, carved from a single piece of turquoise, rests.
As far as anyone is aware, Llewella is the only Rebman who has a Pattern imprint. Apparently the Rebman Royal Family is not attuned to their Pattern and cannot walk it. However, at Random's urging, Moire was persuaded to increase security around the Rebman Pattern in a similar way to that around the Amber Pattern, and this is something which Llewella seems to have continued since she became Queen. The Rebman Pattern is an exact mirror image of the one in Amber.
"we made our way back along a narrow corridor, and down, down beneath the floor of the sea itself, first by means of a spiral staircase that screwed its way through the darkness and glowed."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
It takes a little more than ten minutes to swim all the way down the centre of the stair. At the bottom it opens into an enormous cavern, with tunnels going off from it in all directions. One wide, tall tunnel leads to the Pattern:
"After walking along it for an awfully long while, we began to encounter side passages, some of which had doors or grilles before them and some of which did not.
"At the seventh of these we stopped. It was a huge grey door of some slate-like substance, bound in metal, towering to twice my height. I remembered something about the size of Tritons as I regarded that doorway. Then Moire smiled, just at me, and produced a large key from a ring upon her belt and set it within the lock."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
"In a room the size of a ballroom the Pattern was laid. The floor was black and looked smooth as glass. And on the floor was the Pattern.
"It shimmered like the cold fire it was, quivered, made the whole room seem somehow unsubstantial. It was an elaborate tracery of bright power, composed mainly of curves, though there were a few straight lines near its middle." ... "It was perhaps a hundred yards across at its narrow middle, and maybe a hundred and fifty long."
'Nine Princes in Amber', Chapter V
The starting point is well away from the door, near the back corner of the room. Anyone of Amber blood can walk it as easily as they can the Pattern in Amber.
Around Rebma are various coral reef beauty spots, and a number of kelp forests.
The 'official' Trump of Rebma takes one to an arrival courtyard within Castle Rebma, which is a mirror image of the Amber Castle arrival courtyard, and guarded in much the same way as it.
In the 'Now These Her Princes Are Come Home Again' game, Queen Moire of Rebma is the holder of the Eye of Peace, the Rebman equivalent of the Jewel of Judgement. With this she seems able to control the waters around Rebma in much the same way as the Jewel of Judgement can control the weather around Amber, creating typhoons, rip tides, water spouts, whirlpools and so on.
In this setting the mirrors which are so frequent in Rebma seem to be there as a defence. When activated (precisely how this is done remains unclear) invading troops will disappear into the mirrors - they walk past a mirror then are suddenly inside it, beating on the glass and unable to get out (only parts of large creatures will be sucked into the mirrors, which also does not do them any good). Only those of Amber blood (or perhaps of sufficiently powerful mind) seem immune to this effect. The mirrors are all firmly fixed to the walls and so cannot be removed. Attempting to break the mirrors with anything which has the person doing touch the mirror (even by way of a sword) also sucks the attacker in. The mirrors can be broken with missile weapons, but even then the mirrors appear to repair themselves if left alone for a while. The people trapped in the mirror's reflection seem to eventually disappear from inside the mirrors; where they go remains a mystery...
Also, in this setting there appear to be no Trumps of Queen Moire.
Rebmans are, on average, stronger than their Amber counterparts because of the rigours of their underwater environment. Most of them are also naturally able to breathe water as easily as air, and to be resistant to the cold and crushing pressure of the ocean depths [in game terms this is a 5-point power]. This allows them to move in and out of the protected area around the city of Rebma itself without let or hindrance.
They have a cult of physical appearance, which explains why they dress in the scanty clothing that they do. They do not have fashion as such, but instead use body sculpting (by exercise or other means) instead. This is perhaps why Vialle was looked down upon, because, being blind, she was physically imperfect.
They are very polite as a hold over from a previous phase of their society when there was a highly-used code duello, which, rather than get into lots of duels to the death, forced people to be polite instead...