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SHADOWS FROM THE GAME


A page of shadows from 'The Last Enemy' game:

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Shadows from The Girasol Universe
Shadows from 'Now These Her Princes Have Come Home Again'
Other Shadows


AKASH

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


AKSIM

A shadow in the Golden Circle.


APPALONIA

A shadow in the Golden Circle noted for the quality of the medical personnel it produces.


ARETSKAYA

A shadow in the Golden Circle abutting onto Forest Arden, the shadow of origin of Princess Felicia, the mother of Julian's daughters Margot and Esmée. It is a medieval Russian-type shadow, with a generally cold and snowy climate, and dense birch and pine forests inhabited by a variety of nature spirits, some hostile to humanity, some not, and a great many wolves, bears and other wild animals.

The people of Aretskaya are Slavic in appearance, and live in towns and cities built of wood in the midst of farmland carved out of the forests, and along a number of the great rivers which run through the shadow. They are ruled by a hereditary nobility, who live in onion-domed palaces. Clothing is usually heavy, with lots of fur and chain mail. The nobility of the shadow tend to wear clothing of white, gold and silver (for women) and black, gold and silver (for men), with fur trim for both sexes.

The shadow as a whole is ruled by a King and Queen, the parents of Princess Felicia.


AVARIA

A Shadow where Tristan and Caine once stranded Random as a joke. It is a good marooning shadow, being a windswept rock in the middle of an infinite sea, with a cave halfway up one side. Other than a rotted leather boot with a spike in the heel, the cave seems empty. However, Corwin left a hidden stash of alcohol and firewood at the back, and it also seems pirates once buried their treasure hoard there.


BANNEN

A Golden Circle shadow in which magic works, where Ibrahim had one of the dead shadow-shifting sabre-toothed tigers stored ready for his examination.


BELSALEM

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


BRAND'S LABORATORY SHADOW

Brand's fast-time laboratory shadow. This is a shadow that is both high technology and high magic, where time runs five times faster than in Amber. In it is a large high-tech ziggurat structure that forms Brand's thaumaturgical research centre. Those who can sense such things can tell that the shadow is linked to Brand in some fashion, and that there is a huge concentration of magical power in the ziggurat. There is a slow-time shadow pocket in a vault in the centre of the ziggurat. Many servants, guards and researchers live and work in the ziggurat.


BUBBLES

A shadow known to Brand consisting of what seems to be an infinite sea full of large and small bubbles, with fish and sea creatures of all kinds visible swimming in the water outside.


CALEDRAX

A shadow in the Golden Circle where Gerard fought a sea battle with a fleet loyal to the Council for Victory.


CALIBERA

A shadow on the shadow paths out from Amber, out beyond the Liberty Islands.


CARADAN

A shadow further from Amber than Diega, with an orange sky and grey sea, slightly magical and with a slightly slower time-flow rate than Amber. Caradan is a luxury-item-exporting shadow. The shadow path which links Caradan to Amber runs a little way out to sea, parallel to the coastline.

The capital city of the shadow is also called Caradan. It is walled, low and sprawling, spread around a large harbour, with lots of mud-brick huts. In the centre of the city is a large temple/ziggurat/palace in a walled compound. Stables and other such facilities line the walls of the compound. Guards man the walls and the bronze-bound wooden gates which are the entrances into the city.

The people of Caradan have blue skin and yellow hair. Their soldiers seem to carry spears and wear plain white kilts. Their mounts (when they ride) are big lizard-camel things. The reactions of the children imply that they do not get too many non-Caradanian visitors.

The inside of the ziggurat is brightly painted and decorated, quite unlike the mud-coloured exterior. Caradan is ruled by Princess Derizi. Her skin is royal blue and her hair is gold. She appears to be about 25, and she is a babe. Her throne room is in the centre of the peak of the ziggurat, reached by ramps and corridors. It is a large chamber, the entrance to which is covered by richly embroidered curtains, with a golden throne on a dais in the centre of the room.

One of Princess Derizi's courtiers is named Chuak.

There is a coastal fishing village called Kosila near the capital. This has a temple and a small fishing fleet.


CHERSHAN

The shadow where the Council for Victory imprisoned Caleb, Esmée and Margot, and where The Last Enemy group captured and killed Aximia, of that group.

It is a dark, stormy shadow with islands like inverted mountain peaks floating in the air with no ground visible below. It seems to rain constantly, a vile, polluted, black rain which stings a little when it touches bare skin. The city of Chershan consists of a Manhattan-like city on a floating island, linked to a couple of other such built-up islands, slightly lower down, by what look like huge rope bridges. Sewer pipes and so on project out of the rock under the city, dripping their cargo down into the air.

The people seem to have quite advanced (1990's-level) technology, with guns, helicopters, electricity and computers. Magic works here, and when it was visited the place had a time-flow rate hundreds of times faster than that of Amber. The place is apparently ruled by a Lord Sharrock.


CHEVER

A shadow where the three members of the Council for Victory (the CfV), Hania, Prava and Aximia, were worshipped and gods, and from where they seemed to have recruited many troops. From its Trump is was a city of spires, with giant statues of Hania, Prava and Aximia and the purple and gold triple yin-yang symbol flag of the CfV flying from many rooftops.

When the CfV were defeated, Tristan found that Caine had neatly destroyed all the cities of Chever, crumbling them and turning them to dust, by means of technomagical 'atom bombs'. These killed all the demon lords the CfV had been sending there, but left the countryside intact. The populace were still worshipping the CfV, but were not trying to build themselves back to a war footing, as they had to cope with the loss of their industrial base and government, and having themselves knocked a considerable number of rungs down the technological tree.


COLLENSO

A shadow of flat plains under lavender sky at the very edge of the Golden Circle, at the end of one of the shadow paths out from Amber. It was the point where a wave of giant carnivorous shadow-shifting flying beetles first entered the Golden Circle.


DERIMA

A shadow in the Golden Circle, known for its mines and metalworking.


DIEGA

A Mediterranean-style shadow on a junction of the shadow paths out of Amber, Diega makes most of its money from trade along the shadow paths. It is a busy port due to its location in a shadow where the shadow paths leading out from Amber branch, so that trade from Amber to further out, from further out to Amber, or from one branch to another all has to pass through it. This makes a far more important contribution to the Deigan economy than its own local products (mainly oranges and wine). The climate is quite hot, but dry.

Diega is ruled by King Phillipe and Queen Maria. King Phillipe is a stern-looking man who appears to be (in shadow Earth terms) in his forties; he has grey-shot black hair, piercing dark eyes and sharp but handsome features. Queen Maria appears roughly the same age as her husband, but her hair remains entirely dark; her features are pretty rather than beautiful and she is rather moon-faced; her eyes are a clear, penetrating hazel.

The capital, also called Diega, has a large walled harbour. Whitewashed houses and villas with red tile roofs climb the hills around the harbour. On the top of the highest hill overlooking the harbour is a large castle of creamy-white stone where the Deigan royal family live. Their flag, a leaping white dolphin over crossed silver swords on a royal-blue background, usually flies from flagpoles on the roofs of the castle towers.

There is a warehouse district by the docks and up the hill towards the castle. The streets, usually busy with many people and horse-drawn vehicles bustling about their business, are lined with orange trees, with shops in the buildings, which get larger and richer the higher one goes, until one reaches the mansions of the Deigan nobility close to the castle itself.

Castle Diega is surrounded by a wide, deep, dry moat with a drawbridge across it, normally guarded by four soldiers. The castle is big, with three nested ring walls, each well defended, with gatehouses and the like. The place would be very hard to take by conventional means. However, there are flowerpots and decorations here and there which make it less of a purely military place. The Diegan throne room, which is in the heart of the castle, bears some resemblance to the Amber Throne Room, with a large Diegan banner on the wall above the dias upon which stand the thrones of the monarchs.

The Diegan military uniform includes a tabard bearing the same dolphin and crossed swords on a blue background symbol as is on the Diegan flag.

There is a Harbourmaster's Office on the docks. This is a hexagonal vaulted building positioned along the shoreward part of the harbour so as to have a good view of everything going on, with large windows facing out onto the docks. Inside, it is divided into a 'customers side' and a 'workers side', with a long wooden counter between the two. There are usually lots of people, mainly merchants and sea captains from many shadows, being served and waiting to be served. On the 'workers side' are many desks with clerks and the like behind them. A desk and chair on a raised dais - the Harourmaster's - has a good view both out the windows at the harbour and down over all the other workers in the office below.


DUSHKU

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


EARTH

Flora's shadow, where Corwin was exiled for so long. Apparently much the same as the real world, although, despite having a time flow rate roughly twice as fast as that of Amber it is still at a roughly year 2000 level of technology more than one hundred years after Patternfall...


FENDIR

A shadow in the Golden Circle.


G'HAL-NE-HUSTEN

An Arabic-style shadow that largely depended on piracy to live before it had a change of government and was incorporated into the Golden Circle, which effectively destroyed its traditional way of life. Its people tend to use vessels like clipper ships but with triangular dhow-type sails. Magic works in G'hal-ne-husten.


HAVEN

Tamarind's shadow, a place he found for use as a private retreat and place to draw Trumps. It is a shadow where time runs five times faster than that in Amber, and where magic works.

All of the shadow that has been seen by people is a medium-sized villa in well kept grounds by a shallow slope which runs down to a lake. The shadow is all purple and silver. Although there are no servants in the villa, something cleans up after visitors, and also replaces any of the (plentiful) provisions which are used up by people. The largest creatures which seem to live there is a form of purple-and-silver koala, very cuddly and apparently utterly harmless.

The villa has a number of guest rooms, and a large artists studio. It turns out that Tamarind also has wardrobes full of clothing for people of both sexes in the villa.

Shadow Haven
 

HOLTOM

A shadow on the very edge of the Golden Circle, at the end of one of the shadow paths out from Amber, which was the first Golden Circle shadow affected by the Black Road as it cut inwards towards Amber. It is a shadow of mesas with the land between cut by streams and covered in fields and flowers. The people there, a very non-warlike race of humans, were badly affected by the Black Road, Holtom taking decades to recover once the Black Road was removed.

This was also the point at which a wave of giant shadow-shifting sabre-toothed tigers first entered the Golden Circle.


IRENOL

The personal shadow of Princess Esmée, Irenol is an idyllic pastoral shadow of rolling farmland and woodland dotted with pretty picture-book villages inhabited by happy peasants under a large golden sun. The peasants are happy because life in Irenol is easy - the land is very fertile, and harvests are always very good. There is no war, the shadow being divided into small Duchies centred on a castle and ruling a number of villages, who compete in art and games rather than by violence. There is no overall ruler of the shadow. The climate, although it does have seasons, is generally friendly. There is also no disease in Irenol. There are generally benevolent nature spirits in the woods and wild places, and there are also lycanthropes, who are considered to be blessed by the Unicorn, the god of the shadow.

The shadow has a somewhat Russian feel to it; villages are mainly of intricately-carved and decorated wood houses, and the tall, beautiful, light, airy and fragile-seeming white-stone castles of the nobility have onion domes, which are usually golden or blue. Many of the castles are also decorated with stained glass and golden icons.

Time in Irenol runs five times faster than in Amber, and magic, particularly sorcerous magic, is strong there. A mage-priest of the Unicorn lives in each village to minister to the people; their homes are usually adorned with an onion dome.

Esmée lives in Castle Valentine, the capital of the Duchy of Valentine, a fairly typical Irenolian Duchy. Castle Valentine is a particularly beautiful fairytale castle, quite large and spacious, luxuriously appointed and well-kept with a good many servants and retainers. A great many animals of various kinds also make their homes there, because Esmée likes animals. The castle also contains a number of magical laboratories.


ISSARAK

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


JAHANGIR

The shadow where Ibrahim was born, and from which his mother, Sukaina umm Ibrahim bint Harith, originated. It is a magical desert shadow.


JALONA

A shadow in the Golden Circle.


JORREM

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


KATHET

The shadow from which the drug used on the children and their guardian creatures originated. It is a shadow way out on the end of a not terribly safe or reliable Shadow Path, and had been out of contact for some time when the kidnapping occurred. The drug is incredibly hard to detect, and a very rare and expensive substance.


KEIREI

The shadow where Ibrahim was raised by the local people. It is a magical desert shadow.


KOLJEVAL

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


LATENZ

A shadow of greenish-blue sea under a dusty orange sky at the very edge of the Golden Circle, at the end of one of the shadow paths out from Amber. It was the point where a wave of giant flying shadow-shifting jellyfish first entered the Golden Circle.


THE LIBERTY ISLANDS

A shadow of islands in the midst of shifting sand bars, all dangerous to ships, where it is permanently foggy (despite there being plenty of wind). There are four shadow paths leading from this shadow.

On some of the islands are Free Ports where deals can be done, cargoes bought and sold, entertainment, supplies and drink had, and repairs made, all no questions asked as long as you have the money. This a really good shadow for hiding out in, and lots of pirates do exactly that, either operating in this shadow or using it as a base for their activities elsewhere.

One of the freeports visited by the Last Enemy group has a walled harbour, lots of inns, a dodgy-looking man in a shabby-looking uniform as harbourmaster, and a local sorceress named Mistress Marianne.


MASTRANIA

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


MEDMENHAM

Damien's home Shadow. An 18th Century Shadow Earth in which magick, especially ritual magick, is extremely potent. Formerly a world dominated by the struggles and intrigues of occult secret societies, where Saint-Germain and Cagliostro vied for control of the French Court, where Adam Weishaupt was busy subverting the masonic lodges of Bavaria, and where the government of England - the country of Damien's birth - was firmly under the domination of the so-called "Friars of St Francis", better known as the Hell Fire Club.

However, following the Blood Curse of the Council for Victory, Medmenham suffered the combination of revolution and a magickal plague known as the Nobles Rot, which overthrew the old order and wiped out the magick-using ruling classes, including most of Damien's old friends. Although the Blood Curse was subsequently removed, Medmenham remained tainted. Tristan tried to undo the effects of the curse, but found that he couldn't without rewriting the Shadow from the ground up. Damien has now abandoned Medmenham, and has reburied his mother, Lady Elizabeth Mortlake, in a neighbouring, unplagued Shadow.

Medmenham is also the place where Bleys finally met his end.


MEMPHIS

Ancient Egyptian Shadow, an almost identical facsimile of the Shadow where Nitocris grew up, and where she lived and ruled with Damien for a while. Memphis is a highly magickal Shadow, but in most other respects is like the Old Kingdom of Earth's Egypt. A few years after Nitocris departed, it did experience the equivalent of the chaos of the First Intermediate Period, mainly in the form of a civil war. However, this was resolved following the intervention of Damien and Sebek, and the Shadow is now ruled by Nefermoseret (Nitocris' niece), and her husband Intef of Thebes. Among Egyptian Shadows, one of the less usual features of Shadow Memphis is that the Sphinx at Giza has no face.


MERAB

A Golden Circle shadow, one of the more obvious shadows of Amber, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


NITOCRIS' HOME SHADOW

A mid-20th Century magickal version of Shadow Earth. Since four thousand years had passed since Nitocris grew up here, she chose to rule Shadow Memphis (a close facsimile of the ancient Egypt she remembered) rather than return to an unfamiliar world in an unfamiliar time. The Shadow concealed an entrance to the Vaults of Kish, but when the Vaults were destroyed, it ended up the host to the five mile long carcass of Nyarlathotep, which has been spreading madness and pestilence ever since. It was here that Damien and Tristan recovered Nitocris' body after the first time she was rescued from the Land of the Dead.


PLINIUS

Roman Shadow, ruled by the Emperor Vespasian. The Shadow was named by Damien after Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), on the grounds that everything he wrote in his Natural Histories was true. Consequently, Shadow Plinius is full of many bizarre creatures and peoples, including the Leaping Snake of Africa and the men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders. In addition to this, Plinius is notable for its dinosaurs, which the Romans like to train to fight in the arena. Velociraptor races are also common. Sebek has raced Sebek has raced at the Circus Maximus many times, winning over a dozen laurel wreaths, and has even won a couple of chariot races as well. Plinius is the home Shadow of Agrippina.


RENAISSANCE

The shadow now known as Renaissance is the place where Brand and Deirdre were brought back from the land of the dead and into new non-Amber-blooded bodies, shadows of their original bodies. At that time it was a high-technology, high-magic shadow not entirely dissimilar to shadow Earth.

Unfortunately, the ritual used to bring back Brand and Deirdre opened up a large hole between the land of the dead and the land of living in the province of Moro, through which the memories of the dead were able to escape and infect the vast majority of developing foetuses in the shadow, turning them into so-called Cold Babies. As it became clearer and clearer that there would be no next generation, Law and Order fell apart and the military took over to hold things together as much as they could as people saw less and less reason to carry on. The Church collapsed too; it couldn't cope the facts that the sickness seemed to prove the existence of reincarnation and other worlds. In its place grew up lots of smaller religions, fringe cults, death cults, the Cult of Rebirth, and so on. There were no resources to care for the Cold Babies, so they had to be culled, and the military government also promoted homosexuality so as to reduce the number of children born.

The player characters were able to ward the hole from the land of the dead to stop the creation of cold babies, and Ibrahim took the shadow over for long enough to set it on the road to recovery and get it to a point where they could get on with things on their own with a democratic government and a society adjusting back to normal (there were still huge deep scars, but he did what he can to heal them). This took about twenty-one subjective years (seven Amber years).


REQUIEM

The home shadow of Phoenix, daughter of Eric. It is a post-holocaust high-magic, high-technology shadow which destroyed itself when Corwin's Blood Curse caused the Black Road to run through it. Thanks to the actions of Tristan, the devastated environment of the shadow is beginning to recover to something a little more habitable. Time there runs four times faster than in Amber.


R'LYEH

Sunken non-Euclidean city of nightmarish aspect which periodically rises to the surface when the stars are right. Damien went there on a collecting trip once, and the R'lyeh Gallery in the Amber Museum of Arts and Antiquities now houses many statues and frescoes from the city.


THE ARCHDUCHY OF ROYNOVA

A shadow in the Golden Circle, one of the ones which allied with the dragon against Amber in the Dragon War of 71-72 PPF. Certain elements of their armed forces, particularly the Roynovan Light Dragoons under Duke Runcival FitzSimmons of Urthe, did not perform terribly well in the war (they were decimated in a very 'Charge of the Light Brigade' fashion). With the end of the war there was a new regime in the shadow which looked more favourably on Amber, and Roynova is now back in the fold of loyal shadows. It is currently ruled by the Archduchess of Roynova, the niece of Duke Runcival (who was unfortunately killed in a duel with Lord Damien Mortlake not long after being sent to Amber as Roynova's Ambassador).

Magic works in Roynova.


SAMATHA

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


SAQQARA

An Egyptian-style shadow where Nyarlatotop died, leaving a miles-wide crater to be filled by the Nile, and the miles-long carbonised corpse of Nyarlathotep himself.


SLEEPING BEAUTY

A shadow of Amber from which a number of comatose, mindless shadow bodies of various Amberites have been obtained. It is a version of Amber whose corridors are dusty and filled with cobwebs, while outside huge black thorn bushes surround the castle and fill its courtyards, with occasional huge thorns poking in through broken windows. Sleeping servants are dotted about the place, as are sleeping versions of most Amberites.

The sleeping Deirdre was slumped over a spinning wheel while the sleeping Brand seemed to have been engaged in a ritual of some kind when he fell into slumber. Not all of the shadows of the Amberites resemble their originals. For example, the shadow of Esmée was wearing biker leathers with short-cropped white-blonde hair. The Margot was wearing a long floaty pastel-coloured gown (pre-Raphaelite Margot, as she was described), while the Caleb had ink-stained fingers and seemed to be the author of a number of military treatises.

Finndo (though at the time he was disguised as Caine) has a Trump of nearby inhabited shadow of Amber, from which it was easy to shift to this shadow.


STEELCLIFF

A shadow in which Brand had a laboratory complex. It is a shadow that is magical, fairly Real, in which technology works, and where time flows roughly five times faster than in Amber. The shadow consists of a semi-infinte ocean across which waves some two miles high roll continuously. In one direction the ocean is cut off by a huge steel-grey cliff that rises up into infinity, and into which the vast waves crash. The light in the sky - not a sun - is shaped like a huge, shining lotus flower.

The laboratory complex here is a very tall structure like an oil rig with legs several miles high [like an oil rig version of the elephants in 'The Temptation of St. Anthony' by Salvador Dali]. It has a helipad on top of it, and below this, in the main structure, is a complex of laboratories, living quarters, gymnasia and weapons practise areas.


STILLINGFLEET

A Golden Circle shadow, the home shadow of one of the escapees from Tristan's prison shadows.


SHADOW 'TREEHOUSE'

A shadow found by Margot which lies just outside Arden, and in which she created a tree-house for the nippers. It is a place where it is always summer, thunderstorms are frequent but never dangerous, and the trees are very big. Margot chose the shadow for safety reasons - terminal velocity is very low here - far too low to hurt and Amberite - though otherwise the laws of nature seem normal. Magic works there, and time flows at about the same rate as in Amber itself.

The tree-house is built of polished wood and tented cream-coloured canvas roofs, several stories tall, spread over the tops of several of the tallest trees, with rope bridges linking its various parts. It is very open and airy with rugs on the floors and hanging sheets forming internal dividers.


TROCIL

A freeport shadow on the end of a shadow path which leads to the Golden Circle, but which is not a member of the Golden Circle itself.


AN UNNAMED SHADOW

A jungle shadow, on a shadow path out of Amber.


AN UNNAMED SHADOW

A shadow of infinite ocean, on a shadow path out of Amber.


AN UNNAMED SHADOW

A shadow of small inhabited islands with channels between, on a shadow path out of Amber.


AN UNNAMED SHADOW

A shadow known to Dworkin, it is a shadow with a greenish-black sky across which sun-bright blue triangles move. The only know land there is a high rocky pinnacle with a dark sea visible thousands of feet below.


AN UNNAMED SHADOW

A shadow known to Random. It is a place illuminated with a reddish-purple light. In it there is a castle in which Random has an office. The castle overlooks a plain on which is a large tented encampment.


THE UNNAMED SHADOW WHERE GERARD'S FLAGSHIP WAS LOST

A shadow with a greenish sea under a yellow-grey sky scattered with sickly-looking grey clouds. A dim grey sun shines through gaps in the clouds. It is quite cold. This shadow is in the Golden Circle area, on one of the shadow paths out of Amber, with a time flow rate perhaps ten percent faster than Amber. Magic works here.


THE VAULTS OF KISH

The trans-Shadow lair of Nyarlathotep, linked by a maze of Shadow paths. Following the destruction of the Shining Trapezohedron the entire network collapsed, and large chunks of it were concertina-ed into Nitocris' home Shadow, with explosive results.


WHISTAN

A roughly medieval-European-style shadow in the Golden Circle, ruled by King Jerusal. It was in this shadow that the Amber Cavalry (of which Prince Ibrahim is the General) was decimated during one of the regular serving-in-the-field rotations into shadow Ibrahim had them performing. They were led at that point by Prince Bentrik of Whistan, Jerusal's son, who survived the engagement. Ibrahim was not pleased, especially as it was a glory-grabbing thing that Bentrik was doing at the time. King Jerusal sent Ibrahim a box with the head of Bentrik in it, having had him executed for what he did.


Shadows from The Girasol Universe
Shadows from 'Now These Her Princes Have Come Home Again'
Other Shadows

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