Other people and I have come up with a number of interesting alternate Ambers over the years. By Alternate Ambers I mean not the various campaigns which take what is written in the books and go from that basis to create a multitude of different worlds, but instead settings where the events in the books themselves are changed to produce a different outcome of some kind.
The following are the Alternate Ambers I have so far:
Click on the setting name to return to the top of the page.
"Lord of Amber," it said then, "why do you strive with me? It was you who gave us this passage, this way..."
"I regret a rash act and seek to undo it."
"Too late - and this a strange place to begin."
It struck again, so quickly that it got through my guard. I was slammed back against the wall. Its speed was deadly.
And then it raised it hand and made a sign, and I had a vision of the Courts of Chaos come upon me - a vision that made my hackles rise, made a chill wind blow across my soul, to know what I had done.
"... You see?" it was saying. "You gave us this Gateway. Help us now, and we will restore to you that which is your."
For a moment I was swayed. It was possible that it could do just what it had offered, if I would help.
But it would be a threat forever after. Allies briefly, we would be at each other's throats after we got what we wanted - and those dark forces would be much stronger by then. Still, if I held the city...
"Do we have a bargain?" came the sharp, near-bleat of the question.
I though upon the shadows, and of the places beyond Shadow...
Slowly, I reached up and unbuckled my helm...
Then I hurled it, just as the creature seemed to relax. I think Ganelon was moving forward by then.
I leaped across the chamber and drove it back against the wall.
"No!" I cried.
Corwin, while fighting a goat-headed Lord of Chaos, 'Guns of Avalon', Chapter Three
What if Corwin had said 'Yes'?
While fighting the invaders from the Dark Circle in shadow Lorraine, Corwin turns his coat and sides with the Chaosites. He has to kill Ganelon right away to achieve this, as he objects to Corwin's actions. Ganelon does not seem to be Oberon in disguise here.
With Corwin's help, the forces of the Dark Circle take over all of shadow Lorraine, and beyond. However, not trusting his erstwhile allies, Corwin keeps the Guns of Avalon a secret. He does not meet Benedict in Avalon, or Dara, but Benedict does appear at the Battle of the Black Road. Thus, at that battle, the forces of Chaos are aided by Corwin, and the armies he brings out of shadow.
With his help, the forces of Chaos triumph over those of Amber. Eric and Julian are killed in the battle, though not without a chance to unleash their Blood Curses. And the forces of Chaos, with Corwin at their head, enter Amber.
After savage fighting, Corwin is crowned King of Amber, with the enthusiastic support of Gerard, Random and Vialle, and the less enthused support of Florimel, Fiona and Deirdre. However, he is King without the Jewel of Judgement, which seems to have vanished. Most of his siblings swear allegiance to him. Benedict goes into shadow, and is not seen again. There are rumours that either he or Caine took the Jewel and has it 'safe' somewhere.
Not long afterwards the forces of Chaos also take the city of Rebma, and install Random's son, Martin, as King, apparently with the agreement of Llewella. Lorraine is brought out of shadow as Corwin's Queen, but is now terrified of him.
With Amber and Rebma under martial law, the city controlled by a mix of Chaos and Corwin's own forces, it soon becomes clear that Corwin is King only on the sufferance of Chaos. Chaosites, including Corwin's goat-headed advisor, take up residence in the City. In time Corwin comes to realise the mistake that he has made, and broods on it.
Lorraine tries to flee several times, but is brought back each time, and Corwin will not let her go. With nowhere else to go, she commits suicide. Equally disillusioned with Corwin, Random and Vialle also depart into shadow.
Eventually someone rises up against Corwin's allies, using guns that function in Amber. Not Corwin, or at least, there is never any evidence that Corwin was behind it. But it is clearly him or one of his siblings.
Unfortunately the rebellion fails, and there are massive purges in Amber. Gerard, despite his disagreeing with a number of Corwin's polices over the years, also falls out of favour during this time.
This does not stop Corwin from being a suspect. Over the time since then Corwin has sickened more and more, as the number of Chaos 'advisors' in Amber has increased. Now Corwin is a shadow of his former self. There are rumours that he has been - is being - secretly vampirised.
The Black Road is now a pathway of utter blackness leading from Chaos to Amber, and the darkness has spread from it to darken all of Amber, particularly the City itself, and the Vale of Garnath. This is more than a merely physical darkness, and instead darkens the whole ambience of the City.
Dark Riders like those in shadow Lorraine, converted city guards and so on, patrol the streets and curb the frequent unrest in the City. Chaos creatures have replaced many of the noble families of Amber. The borders of the area where shadows go mad creep closer and closer. Vampires - Hellmaids - hunt in Amber. Talking giant Siamese cats and other creatures of Chaos keep control in the City.
Corwin is dying. The Jewel of Judgement is lost. The Pattern remains damaged, but the fact is not publicly known, and no-one, as far as is known, works to repair it.
Perhaps the PCs are called to Corwin's deathbed. Chaosites are there too. Corwin wants Amber restored, and he somehow passes on the secret of the guns of Avalon to the PCs, and asks them to do what he could not - get the forces of Chaos out of Amber. They may need to discover and repair the Primal Pattern to do this...
Benedict - Out in shadow, after having left Amber in the aftermath of the Battle of the Black Road.
Bleys - Vanished when he fell off the steps up Kolvir. It is possible he is still alive in shadow somewhere, perhaps plotting with Fiona to take the throne of Amber and expel the forces of Chaos.
Brand - Vanished.
Caine - Surrendered after the Battle of the Black Road, and swore loyalty to King Corwin, but still not entirely trusted due to his betrayal in Corwin's first invasion of Amber.
Dara - Known only a traitorous younger generation Amberite, she is frequently about in Amber and is known to have walked the Pattern. She is also a Hellmaid, and a vampire.
Deirdre - Now a vampire, and well in with the Chaosites, she is Martin's right hand in Rebma.
Dworkin - Found dead in Amber. No-one has publically revealed his relationship to the Family.
Eric - Dead in the Battle of the Black Road.
Fiona - In Amber. Keeps herself very much to herself.
Flora - One of the first Amberites to embrace the new regime, and Corwin's Kingship, she was made a Hellmaid, and a vampire. She is now Amber's Mistress of Ceremonies.
Gerard - Very much out of favour with the Crown.
Julian - Killed in the Battle of the Black Road.
Llewella - In Rebma, where she assists Martin in ruling the city, if unhappily.
Lorraine - Dead, killed by her former lover Melkin in shadow Lorraine.
Martin - King of Rebma, but like Corwin, under the thumb of Chaos, and installed with their assistance.
Moire - Dead, killed in the Chaos invasion of Rebma.
Oberon - Still missing.
Random - Corwin's right hand man, but well in with Chaos too.
Vialle - Random's wife, she fears the new regime, and is never seen outside her rooms.
Using my Creature and Item Powers and Qualities as Intrinsic Abilities rules.
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Vampire (40 points)
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Werewolf (50 points)
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Oberon's redrawing of the Primal Pattern failed. Dworkin decided to destroy the universe after all. He and Oberon died, or at least have not been seen since. The Primal Pattern dissolved into Primal Chaos, with the Jewel of Judgement lost in it somewhere. Amber, Rebma, Tir-Na Nog'th and so on were also lost to Primal Chaos, along with Gerard, Vialle, Queen Moire and the millions of people in the cities there.
With the Jewel of Judgement lost, Corwin does not receive it while far off in shadow. Thus he does not draw his Pattern, and because he cannot teleport from it to the edge of the Abyss arrives there late.
The Battle of the Abyss is still won by Amber. Brand is killed, but takes a few of the Family with him, including Deirdre, Corwin and Random. Bleys rallies the Family, and Brand dies in a hail of arrows, though not before Blood Cursing his killers. His corpse is cast into the Abyss.
The Shadow Storm approaches, but nothing can be done to stop or divert it. The Family of Amber has not choice but to retreat into the Courts of Chaos. And as the storm passes the Pattern imprints of the Family fade away...
But the inhabitants of the Courts do not know this. Yet.
Before they find out, the Amberites marry into or otherwise attach themselves to the Houses of Chaos. Bleys and Fiona attach themselves to their old co-conspirators. Fiona also apprentices herself to Lord Suhey. Benedict takes over House Hendrake. Flora marries into House Sawall. But the Family also set up House Amber, as the de facto ruling House of Chaos, but ruling in Council rather than appointing a monarch. Those of the Family who can shapeshift, apparently limited to Benedict, Caine and Deirdre, assay the Logrus.
Then their secret comes out.
There is massive bad feeling against the now largely powerless Amberites. But their attachments to the Houses of Chaos protected them. Despite this there are still a number of separations and divorces. This does not cut their links to the various Houses to the point of endangering them. Some are still married. House Amber is now a small, spurned, impoverished House led by Caine. Fiona is very put upon by Suhey, but so far has not assayed the Logrus.
A new King Swayvil has been crowned.
Shadow is beginning to fade. The Logrus is the only power now. Chaos are about to construct the first new Black Bridge from the Courts out into shadow in many thousands of years...
When the Primal Pattern was redrawn a new Amber was created. It is a city of tall and graceful stone and crystal spires and towers which go up Kolvir, down into the sea (extending some way out), and which float in the skies of Amber. There are now no separate cities of Tir-Na Nog'th or Rebma - they have been subsumed into Amber itself.
The city shifts and changes with the phases of the moon. More than half of the towers, streets and districts of the city fade in and out over the cycle of the moon. Different phases of the city begin to appear faintly before the end of the previous phase, and do not come fully into phase until a little after its nominal start. The official change of phase is at the point where the two phases are equally present. The different elements of the city that are present at different times are known as the City and People of the New Moon, the Waxing Moon, and Full Moon and the Waning Moon respectively.
Full Moon people are ethereal-looking with very pale skin and silver hair; they seem to be bathed in moonlight even in daylight. New Moon people are black-haired and always seem to be standing in shadow, even when in full sunlight. Waxing and Waning Moon people appear normal, but their hair is divided left and right into black and silver; Waxing Moon people are divided one way, Waning Moon people the other. It is possible to see from phase to adjacent phase as they fade in and out, and it is possible to communicate between phases with writing even if one cannot touch or hear people in the other phases.
Magic works in Amber now, but is licensed, with enabler amulets required by its practitioners. There are not spying devices at all, oh no.
All four reflections of the Primal Pattern - one per phase of the Moons - are overlaid upon one another in the Moon City Pattern Room; each one can be walked individually, but this is harder due to the mix of multiple Patterns there...
Brand rules. He pulled a mad version of himself out of Tir-Na Nog'th to go out, fight, and die while he hid there himself there. He used his proximity to the Tir-Na Nog'th Pattern to plant a 'seed' in the Primal Pattern so that when Oberon redrew it, it was re-drawn to Brand's wishes, not Oberon's, and Oberon, completing it, vanished.
Gerard, seeing the writing on the wall as the city changed about him, sided with Brand. Thus he serves Brand now, as his second in command.
When his siblings returned, Brand allowed them to live, but divided them between the four Moon cities to weaken them - Bleys and Fiona, for example, are Full and New Moon respectively, and so cannot ever contact one another. In theory, at least...
Only those without Pattern or taught how to do so by Brand can slip between the phases of the cities. This implies that the PCs should be normal Amberites, or young Amberites without Pattern who work to (perhaps) undo Brand's work.
A large British noble family in the 1920s meet in their isolated country house, perhaps at Christmas, to deal with the inheritance of their recently-dead father, Lord Auberon. Of course, Family rivalries and murder are never far from the surface...
A family of powerful caveman shamen rule over the new race of Homo sapiens, trying to survive against the onslaughts of the older and stronger Neanderthals.
The Royal Family of the powerful Indian state of Goa led by King Rama rule by the blessing of the Peacock, their ancestral heraldic animal, which grants them powers of the All-Seeing Eye, Immortality, Renewal and the Evil Eye. But now a new power threatens from across the sea, a strange and powerful new people who call themselves the Portuguese. What must Goa do to survive this threat to the state?
Based on all of this, the Amber-equivalent books for this setting could thus be:
Inspired by the 'Nine Princes In Hong Kong' setting.
Early in the 20th century the mad scientist Dworkin Barimen created The Cosmic Repatterner in his secret laboratory, a device that transformed those who used it and survived, making them into superhumans. His experiments had left him very powerful, but twisted and mad. However, on his son, Aubrey, the Patterner worked perfectly, transforming him into The Lord Patterner.
Others who petitioned Dworkin and Aubrey were allowed to try the machine. Many of them died, but some also gained powers, each one different, and some went bad, or mad. Collectively, they became known as the Repatterned. Dworkin did not seem to care and would allow people to use the device at his whim.
Dworkin was a former member of the world's premier criminal organisation, The Dissolutionists. Although use of the Repatterner on himself had rendered him immune to their attempts to kill or capture him, the Dissolutionists broke into Dworkin's lab and copied what notes he had (though lots of his knowledge is in his own head). Using them and their own mad scientists they constructed something like the Repatterner, but incomplete, the Depatterner. Although it grants great power, it also kills those who use it after a while, and usually causes monsterism in them too. They do not care, and use transformed agents against Dworkin and in their mad attempts to take control of the world.
Users of the Repatterner, or of the Depatterner, can recognise others who have used either one of them at close range.
Many of the Repatterned were lost in war with the Dissolutionists. The Repatterned named Brandon Crowe, known as the Architect, allied with the Dissolutionists to destroy the City and rebuild it in his own image. In final battle atop the city's highest tower he was killed by Caine Blackwood, but the Silver Ghost died too as the two fell (Brandon's powers could affect her even while she was desolid, and he had a twisted love for her). Aubrey Barimen died repairing the Repatterner after it was used to temporarily strip the Repatterned of their powers.
Thus only the following individuals are left among the Repatterned:
Rather than the Family of Amber, the power in the land is the family of the Roman Church, and the princes so named are the princes of the Church. Their power derives from God Himself, with the more blessed individuals gaining greater powers. Of course, they are ruled by the Pope (equivalent to Oberon), with the high Cardinals under him (equivalent to the Elders) and the lessers cardinals and bishops under them (the player characters). Perhaps the enemy equivalent to Chaosites is Pagans, or even a heretical church from which the True Charch split long ago.
"And so it is," Fiona said. "But is there order somewhere beyond that wall they come through? Or does the storm go on forever? If he succeeded, it is but a passing matter and we are in no danger. But it he did not..."
"It does not matter," I said, "whether or not he succeeded, because I did."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I believe that he failed," I said, "that he was destroyed before he could repair the old Pattern. When I saw this storm coming - actually, I experienced a part of it - I realised that I could not possibly make it here in time with the Jewel, which he had sent to me after his efforts. Brand had been trying to get it from me all along the way - to create a new Pattern, he said. Later, that gave me the idea. When I saw that all else was failing, I used the Jewel to create a new Pattern. It was the most difficult thing I ever did, but I succeeded. Things should hold together after this wave passes, whether we survive it or not. Brand stole the Jewel from me just as I completed it. When I recovered from his attack I was able to use the new Pattern to project me here. So there is still a Pattern, no matter what else happens."
"But Corwin," she said, " what if Dad succeeded?"
"I do not know."
"It is my understanding," Bleys said, "from things that Dworkin told me, that two distinct Patterns could not exist in the same universe. Those in Rebma and Tir-na Nog'th do not count, being but reflections of our own...."
"What would happen?" I said.
"I think there would be a splitting off, the founding of a new existence - somewhere."
"Then what would its effect be upon our own?"
"Either total catastrophe or no effect whatsoever," Fiona said. "I can make a case for its going either way."
"Then we are right back where we started," I said. "Either things are going to fall apart shortly, or they are going to hold."
"So it would seem," Bleys said.
Corwin, Fiona and Bleys, 'The Courts of Chaos', Chapter 12
Most games seem to assume a setting where the 'no effect whatsoever' mentioned by Fiona is what happened. But what if the reverse was the case?
When Dworkin drew the original Pattern(s) he was aware that one Pattern would radiate waves of Reality/Order around itself, like a stone in water. This would cause the Reality/Order of shadow to oscillate, weakening itself, and giving 'rings' of higher and lower reality spreading outwards from Amber in a complex fashion. He wanted a simple slope of reducing Order/Reality away from Amber to be established.
Thus, the Amber, Rebma and Tir-Na Nog'th Patterns were created. These act as resonators/reflectors of the waves of Order, smoothing and damping them to allow the simple slope Dworkin desired to be established much more quickly and with almost no damage to the universe [like rectified 3-phase AC electricity].
Oberon knew this, and did the same when he re-drew the Primal Pattern. It should have worked perfectly.
Apart from Corwin having drawn his Pattern, knowing nothing of how it works, or how it should be done.
His Pattern did not just radiate out un-damped waves of Reality/Order from itself. The waves from his Pattern interfered with those from the Amber Patterns, so that they did not resonate properly. Instead the waves constructively and destructively interfered with one another in a complex though unmoving interference pattern spread across the whole of shadow.
At the peaks of this interference pattern, reality is enhanced to an Amber-level Order/Reality which cannot be shadow shifted through and in which the Pattern cannot be used more than it can in Amber, but with no other major effects. At the troughs of the interference pattern, Order/Reality is entirely cancelled out, giving mini-Abysses and wiping out everything that was there before. This causes shadow to 'crack' a little each time. The mini-Abysses also cannot be shifted through (for different reasons to the hyper-Real shadows).
Because of this there are places close to the Patterns as weak as strong shadows, and places out in shadow where Reality is as strong as it is by the Primal Pattern. The level of Reality is a function of position in shadow.
The effects are largest on the Amber-Corwin's Pattern axis and weaker off that axis, but nowhere is immune. And of course, there are more nulls the further away one goes, but also Amber-strength shadows and mini-Abysses which further hinder travel, getting smaller and smaller the further away one goes.
Trump still works. The power of the Pattern is weakened.
There are additional problems, too.
Adjacent areas of enhanced and suppressed Reality attract one another. Over time they move together and merge to give null shadows - empty, quiet and dull places, where time, magic and technology all operate as they do in for Amber, but with no matter, no air, and no light. These are hard to shift through because there is nothing in them. The ones closest to Amber move together very slowly; those further out move faster, giving a wave of null shadow that is slowly spreading towards all the Patterns from out in shadow.
Dworkin is dead, killed by what Corwin did.
Several Family members have attempted to remove Corwin's Pattern, as the obvious source of the problem. However, despite using their own blood, and, eventually, killing Corwin for his blood, the thing seems to be entirely immune to Family blood.
So in the end Corwin has done all that Brand intended to do, without building anything to replace it...
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Copyright © Tony Jones, 2005.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence. |