AmberCon UK 2000 Game

Out in shadow, there is a city, now named THEOTROPOLIS. It is a living, sentient entity. It is aware of Amber, and sees it as competition against its own spread through shadow, a rival. Thus, Amber must be destroyed, or superseded, or absorbed...

This Page is divided into the following sections:

• The Game Description.
• Character Restrictions.
• Information on The City.
• The Plot.
• Shadow Skylaris.
• The Status Of The Elders And Others.
• Prince Humboldt.

Click on the section headings on this page to return to this list.

GAME DESCRIPTION:

Thirty years after the total capitulation of the Courts of Chaos, Fiona and Bleys rule there as the Viceroys of Amber. Closer to home, Amber has just defeated the shadow of Skylaris, a shadow outside the Golden Circle linked to Amber by its shadow paths, whose armies invaded the Golden Circle three years ago and reached the outskirts of Arden before being thrown back. Prince Humboldt, son of Corwin, was killed in the fighting. Now the Skylarians have offered surrender terms, which have been accepted by Amber. After a series of negotiations, a peace treaty has been signed, and Flora has taken the King, the Queen and the ambassadors (along with a large party of guards from both sides, plus Princes Benedict and Caine) for a private celebration party on her shadow, Earth. However you, the player characters have not been invited.

CHARACTER RESTRICTIONS:

Characters should be Amberites, loyal to the realm, built on 120 points, with basic Pattern for free.

Partial Powers and Advanced Powers are available, but the points costs and capabilities of them vary greatly from those given in the Amber rulebook. See the powers description on my Amber web page at ../rp_amber_top.html for details, or ask me. API, Advanced shapeshifting and Conjuration (which no longer exists, being replaced by Empowerment) in particular are different from those in the ADRP Rulebook. Logrus is available if desired, but is weak near Amber. Items and creatures are entirely possible, but must be vetted by me. Deadly Damage weapons and Invulnerable armour do not exist, at least for the PCs. Maximum of 5 points Stuff either way and 10 points of contributions. Psyche and Endurance cannot be brought down below Amber Ranked. Strength and Warfare can be bought down as far as Chaos level only, but will give the character a big deficiency in that area. No statistic may be higher than 100.

Note that Psyche doesn't allow mind-raping or mind reading. It does allow limited mind control abilities.

Magic is weak in Amber; Power Words, slow magical rituals and 1 point powers and qualities are the most which work there.

Some sort of character description and background before the game would be appreciated. Also, note that I do not intend to run a separate game for each player - characters who can (or do!) co-operate to some extent would thus also be appreciated.

THE CITY

The City began in a very real shadow (now also known as Theotropolis) that is magical, but with a very low-level psychic type of magic, giving mostly non-physical effects, mainly actual psychic powers. The shadow on which it lies is an infinite flat plane with three suns, one Earth-size and two about half that in diameter. In particular the local magic lends itself to very strong psychometric powers, and things pick up psychic impressions very easily. Thus the City (and others in its shadow, though it was the largest) soaked up magic and psychic power from its inhabitants as time went on. Gradually it became alive. It first gained self-awareness during its equivalent of the 17th century, a time of great highs and lows, when its population began to boom. At first it was passive, simply watching and absorbing.

As times changed and the place turned into more of a 19th century society, with pollution and industrialisation, the city began to feel pain as it became overcrowded, polluted and dirty, particularly in its slums. This eventually drove the city from observing to acting. It needed its inhabitants to build, maintain and expand itself, but they could not be allowed to keep hurting it this way. It started trying to heal itself, driving people from its slum areas, and trying to get them rebuilt. As this series of clearly un-natural events plagued the city, occult investigators, led by a Sherlock Holmes-type figure, discovered what was going on, and tried to stop it, but in doing so merely roused the city to its full strength and taught it about itself as it defended itself. The investigators died (though it still commemorates them for unwittingly helping it) and it now ruled the city as its god. It created six commandments which it imposed on the people to cement its rule:

1. Obey God.
2. Fear God.
3. Obey the Law.
4. Cultivate the Heart.
5. Cultivate the Mind.
6. Smite the UnGodly.

The City healed itself. Industry was changed to a clean, highly regimented art deco 1930's level, and the slums disappeared, to be replaced by soul-less white concrete apartment blocks in neat grids, large wide straight roads, a comprehensive underground railway network and similar well-organised arrangements in a sort of malign communalism. The main reason for this is that the City still needed people to keep it alive - it can fiddle with its structure but not build or rebuild, and it also needs them for their psychic energy, which feeds it.

Now it is a 1930's style art deco city, very organised and rather soul-less with no slums or similar signs of social decay. It bears a non-trivial resemblance to New York City on Shadow Earth. There is no litter, no graffiti, and no noticeable disorder. Anyone with enough Psyche will always feel they are being watched there.

As it grew in power the City either absorbed or caused the destruction of the souls of its rival cities on Theotropolis. And as it grew further, it began to link with its shadows in nearby worlds, the power of its mind piercing the shadow veils between them to other cities such as Yorktropolis, Neopolis, Theopolis and so on. It discovered that all cities have a soul in some sense, outside of the most non-psychic shadows, although most cities merely reflect their inhabitants in some way without their being sentient. It subsumed these new cities into itself. This made it even more powerful, and as it grew it became able to reach further and further out through shadow, to cities less and less like itself, but which still have a soul, and open paths through shadow to link them and allow people and things to travel between them.

The heart and soul of the City has always been its Charter, which is the basis of everything in the city and everything it is. The Charter is an ancient vellum scroll which is kept in the Charterhouse, a hexagonal point-tipped stepped pyramid of white marble with three sets of double doors (on alternate sides of the building). The Charterhouse is in the centre of the city and inside is a single vaulted space. In the exact centre of the white marble floor is a glass dome on a pedestal inside which is displayed the City Charter. Equally-spaced around the edges of the floor are six ancient-looking standing stones now embedded in the floor. Sat on a throne facing the Charter is a skeleton dressed in Sherlock Holmes-style clothes - the original occult investigator who helped make the City what it is today.

The fate of the City is reflected in the fate of the Charter. By destroying the scroll, one kills the soul of the City but also destroys the physical city. Tear the Charter and a swathe of city falls; burn it and the city burns; rewrite it and the City itself is re-written into whatever form the new Charter states. It currently warps cites from a commonweal of the people to a commonweal of the city. Essentially the entire material power of the City is focussed on a piece of parchment. The words there give the City life.

The overriding principles of the City's charter also govern all the cities which make it up.

The City gains power from its people, and it has found that places of intense thought and feeling in the city generate the most psychic power. Thus it encourages universities, brutal draconian law and prisons, public executions, churches to itself as the god of the City, and competitive sports as means of encouraging these in the populace. It also encourages the thoughts and feelings it needs by terror, which it induces in the populace by its control of the city (producing 'accidents') and its people (producing murderers and serial killers), which also encourages faith and religion. Thus, equidistant from the Charterhouse and at ninety degrees to one another in the centre of the City are the City's largest temple to itself (a huge soaring structure on a hilltop, made up of many spires but with no real centre), the Theotropolis Stadium (the main sports arena), the University of Theotropolis, and the Law Courts (which is also the main place of execution in the City itself). The area inside these places is the administrative heart of Theotropolis and it is from here that the main roads of the City diverge outwards; the layout of the City focuses on its centre. Outside the central area the lesser streets of the city are on a square grid. Inside it roads run radially and circumferenctially to the Charterhouse.

The symbol of God in the City (and thus, effectively, of the City itself) is a seven-pointed star, a heptagram. This tops the spires of the cathedral and the versions of it on shadows the City has taken over. The insides of the cathedral spires are empty - they have no pews or decoration. The only items in them are a large holy symbol suspended from wires to one side of the spire with, under it, an altar. The altar is hollow, and made of black Bakelite in an art deco style. In a recess on top of the altar is a black Bakelite telephone handset which is permanently connected to the entire phone system of the shadow via a cable which goes into the floor under the altar. There is no dial, and the line is always open - if listened to waves of static can be heard, and faint voices just below the limit of intelligibility. This is the means by which the City can, if it wishes, talk to its priests.

The City can remotely control its populace, boost the power of its slaves (though they tend to explode after a while due to the power overload), and see everything in all of the cities making it up at once (the sense of being watched). However, it cannot watch everywhere consciously all at once and (for example) using the Pattern to shift out of the City and back will stop it observing one, for a while at least.

The City's power boost imbues the victim with the psychic power of the City itself, and effectively allows the City to boost up to:

How long they can survive this boost depends on the victim's Endurance before they were boosted:

• Human ranked can survive a few moments only, five minutes at most.
• Chaos ranked might survive fifteen minutes.
• Amber ranked half an hour.
• Corwin might manage a day or two (if he had a low enough Psyche to be so dominated).

The closer to the maximum for the universe (i.e. 100 points) the City boosts a statistic or statistics in one of its victims, the higher the total number of points (amount of power) put into them and the longer they are boosted, the more the luckless victim starts to smoke and burn as the power boost takes its toll. It is obvious that whatever is being done to them has a cost. When their time runs out, the psychic power in them is all released at once in a burst that tends to make the victim explode messily.

However, the victim must be psychically dominated for the City to boost them.

For the purposes of psychic and other battles, the City has:

• An offensive Psyche of only 10.
• But a defensive Psyche of as high as it can go.
• Warfare is effectively 5.
• Endurance is limited only by the number of people it has available to draw upon, though this will start to kills its population eventually. Basically its Endurance is unlimited unless the City really exerts itself (such as opening a lot of cross-shadow portals all at once, or opening them to somewhere like Amber).

The City's links through shadow are tiny shadow paths, 'shadow pinholes', which go through a single shadow veil and which can be opened up into full-size portals through which people and other things can travel (this leaves traces - 'stretch marks' - on portals so used). Anyone with API or a high Psyche (I would say at least 50 points, but one can't rely on any PC to have such a high Psyche...) will detect the portals, which form a regular three-dimensional grid in space in places where the City has a high degree of presence (such as New York). They feel like something intrinsic to shadow and not a Real power. They also have a magical signature (as they have a magical component to them), similar in nature to the magical signature of the shadow they are in. The pinholes can be peered through to get an impression of where the portals go.

How much the City can do in a given shadow depends on the level of psychic/magical power it has. In non- or anti-magical shadows all it can do is observe. In Amber all it can do is create (brief) gates to other places, lock and unlock doors, control and enhance people, and observe.

The shadow cities Theotropolis has taken over all have somewhat similar properties (this is a clue that it is a city, not a person which is responsible for what is happening). They all have a (to some extent at least) constant art deco style, in architecture and other features. Certainly all the rooms where portals are used are art deco in style. All the cities have a draconian regime which insists on a clean city, harsh law enforcement and so forth. Even in places which are nominally free (such as New York) there are hints of an underlying police state, such as the lack of graffiti and polemics against it and other forms of crime by officials plus the harsh measures taken by law enforcement. Office workers and civic employees will be highly regimented, and there may be eco-friendly but draconian policies being drafted by them.

The City cannot communicate with people psychically, only dominate them. It has to communicate by other means. This includes controlling displays (Times Square type things), forming smoke or condensation into words, or controlling the telephone system, so people could be followed by ringing telephones and speak directly to it (obviously these calls cannot be traced). If spoken to directly, its voice sounds like a multitude of voices, all speaking not quite in sync, but overall comprehensible. This is built up from all the psychic impressions it's had over the years.

The City will tend to react more negatively to damage to its structure (walls, windows and the like) than to its inhabitants, unless (for example) it is in danger of being depopulated. This is another clue that it is the city and not a person who is in charge.

THE PLOT

Now, following the signing of the peace treaty with Skylaris, Flora has taken King Random, Queen Vialle, Prince Benedict, Prince Caine and the Skylarian ambassadors (along with a large party of guards from both sides) for a private celebration party in New York on her shadow, Earth. The party will be in the art deco Empire State Restaurant, which occupies one of the upper floors of the Empire State Building. Gerard has been appointed Regent until Random's return (he does have the most experience at it). Now they have vanished and must be found before the Skylarians who sent the delegation do something bad (such as declare war again).

Unfortunately, New York is now part of the City (this is why there has been a drop in the crime rate there, the institution of a draconian police force and so on).

Previously, the city had detected a powerful creature (Flora on her previous visits to the place) and investigated her. It came to know of Amber. It captured some Amber soldiers and Arden Rangers, and through interrogation of them learnt about Amber, and the true reality of which it is merely a shadow. It didn't like this at all, but has linked itself out through shadow to Amber (which is hard for it to do, but not impossible). Now it wishes to destroy Amber, and make itself the centre of reality. From learning about the Jewel of Judgement (though not where it is kept) it has begun to have some ideas about how to do this. It is quite possible that the City stirred up the war with Skylaris too, to learn more about Amber and its forces.

It had been thinking about this for a while when the party arrived. The City was able to capture them by using tiny portals to drip poison into their food. Though there were casualties and much destruction in the Empire State Restaurant when the poisoning was noticed, nonetheless everyone was captured. The Amberite and Skylarian guards were left behind, under the City's control, to attack anyone sent to investigate. People in the vicinity of the Empire State Building will also be used to observe and, if necessary, attack any intruders. The Empire State Restaurant is closed but the police are, surprisingly (given the amount of destruction there is), not involved in the situation there - the City is keeping them away.

With Random gone, there is the possibility of a throne war in Amber. But all the elders actually think Random is a good king so they would, in fact, like him back if possible (or at least news that he is definitely dead, before they do anything rash). However, none of the elders really trust their siblings not to do something stupid if they're left un-watched, so all the elders will stay in Amber, and will want all the others to, too.

This leaves the player characters to go out and sort out the truth; also they will probably be a sufficiently mixed bag that they'll be an essentially neutral force so the truth is likely to get out anyway...

The only other non-player character Amberites who could become involved, Martin and Julian, remain in Skylaris to investigate matters there.

Gerard calls the player characters in, briefs them, and sets them on their way...

The Amberite and Skylarian prisoners were taken from shadow Earth via one portal, but then they were split up and taken off via separate routes (Random and Vialle together, all the other Amberites are on their own; the Skylarians were taken in a group). It should be possible to track them by viewing security video tapes and the like. After the first time this is done, the City will erase the other tapes, but clever use of the Pattern (particularly API) can undo this. The prisoners have been taken to shadows close to Theotropolis where they are being interrogated in bunkers; these have layered guard arrangements, machine gun nests, people with grenades and the like, with the prisoners being kept behind doors which are a single slab steel shutter, a metre thick, which drops into three metre deep slots in walls and floor. The shutters each have a spyhole through them (a sort of telescope, given the thickness of the door). It is possible that the PCs will find (or have to fight) some of the Amber soldiers and Arden Rangers which the City took prisoner when it was first learning about Amber.

Now the City's minions are interrogating its prisoners to locate the Jewel of Judgement and steal it, to destroy Amber and recreate the universe as itself. It tortures Vialle to get Random's co-operation - he cracks. If one prisoner or set of prisoners is broken out, the City will kill all the others with bullets through the head. This will not, though, kill the Skylarians, just incapacitate them for a while. The Amberites are in trouble, though.

The City will steal the Jewel of Judgement unless the PCs are really clever. It will send a single person boosted to 200 points to get it from the safe in Random's office, who will then flee across many shadows via a portal-tunnel which is opened ready for them. This will tire the City greatly. If this fails and its emissary is stopped it could use a portal to suck them and/or the Jewel directly to itself. The powered-up victim will explode after a while, and will have to be replaced.

Assuming the PCs rush after the Jewel and arrive in Theotropolis, there should be signs that the City is weakened now - theft; dirt; graffiti; places looking run-down; the people themselves looking weak and listless and so on. If the City draws on them for power people will start to fall over, so the City cannot do too much boosting of people without depleting its population.

The final fight should be in the Charterhouse as the City attempts to attune itself to the Jewel of Judgement. The City will, if necessary, beg for its life, and millions of people will gather outside for the outcome...

SHADOW SKYLARIS

A world of semi-arid rolling hills and stone-built villages of feuding clans, each with their own self-contained defensive compound each with a tall watchtower to overlook its neighbours - some are ten or more stories high.

The society of Skylaris is a sort of Celtic-Machiavellian system. Honour and reputation, plus politics and assassination count for more than combat ability and glory gained from fighting, although 'counting coup' certainly has its place. Wealth and hospitality count too. The songs of the bards can make or ruin people. People are arrogant and haughty. Everyone can make their mark and rise up in society - no-one is fixed at the social level of their birth. They don't wear armour. They live by farming, herding of goat-like creatures and hiring themselves out as mercenaries in close-by shadows. There is little trade - most people live at the subsistence level, although clans provide everyone with things like weapons and the like.

Each clan has its leader, with, over all the clans, the Palatine, an absolute ruler elected from among the clan leaders by the clan leaders. Normally his is a figurehead's job, though. He rules from the city of Skalabrandis, the only city in the whole shadow.

The sun of Skylaris is green, the sky is violet, plants are blue-green, and the people are pale-skinned (off-white with a faint greenish tinge), with blue or green eyes and white, silver or grey hair. Their blood is pale green-white in colour. They usually have tall and athletic builds. In terms of clothing they wear tight trousers, high boots and puffy-sleeved doublets with a short cloak over the top. The exact style, fabric and colours of clothing vary with the clan the person belongs to.

The most important thing about the people of Skylaris is that they cannot die short of utter dismemberment or being burnt to ashes or pulped, or otherwise utterly destroyed. Lost parts re-attach quickly if pressed onto place they were cut from; wounds close at speed if held shut, and they do not bleed and cannot be knocked out. Note that beheading will incapacitate them, but not kill them, and the head will rejoin if placed in the neck by someone else. They can live for up to a day in a dismembered state; after which they (or detached parts) begin to die. Detached parts are not independently animated. Detached parts which are lost (or die) do not regenerate. Pain does not incapacitate them. They do not age and are immune to disease. They are vulnerable to poisons, which can incapacitate but not kill them. They can starve, which does not kill them, but simply renders them weaker and weaker until they become almost living skeletons. These powers are why they do not consider glory in combat particularly important, but more things like 'counting coup'. [This is a 30 point power/ability. Skylarians are built on 30 points, with their racial ability for free. Their statistics start at Amber level and they can buy statistics down to Chaos but not below.]

The difficulty in killing Skylarians is what allowed them to threatened Amber so much, despite their relatively small numbers.

Normally internecine conflict keeps the population of Skylaris down to what the land will support. But recently a new Palatine, Macenta, was elected, one who was aware of the other worlds and shadows which could be reached through the shadow paths which run through Skylaris, and had served there as a mercenary. He saw the other shadows as a means to let his people increase in numbers and grow in power, as well as providing living space for his people. It is quite possible that the City was whispering in his ear to encourage him in this...

And so, after some reconnaissance, they discovered Amber, and as Amber was clearly the greatest threat to their plans, they went to war against Amber.

It was the extreme difficulty in killing them that allowed them to get so close to Amber itself before they were defeated - the outskirts of Arden itself. Skylaris itself is too Real for Amberites to do much probability manipulation there. The Palatine was assassinated by the disgruntled clan leaders, and a new Palatine, Sunaltris, installed. It was he who entered into negotiations with Amber.

Rather than ordering the Skylarians exterminated, as Oberon would probably have done, Random has decided to try and incorporate Skylaris into the Golden Circle, as they could be quite useful members, given their abilities...

STATUS OF THE ELDERS AND OTHERS:

AVAILABLE ELDERS AND OTHERS:

Bleys, Dworkin, Fiona, Gerard, Julian, Llewella, Martin.

Note that Bleys and Fiona are in Chaos, which requires a 'super-Trump' to reach, not the Trump in the standard deck. Gerard is busy running Amber. Julian and Martin are busy in Skylaris. Llewella is busy in Rebma. Dworkin, while he may answer, is flaky at best...

PRINCE HUMBOLDT

Corwin's bastard, born in 1890's Paris on shadow Earth of a casual liaison with an actress in the time before he regained his memories. Humboldt had been many things in his life, including actor of stage and screen, and soldier. Flora found him, quizzed him and brought him to Amber where he walked the Pattern. She had [the character with the most Bad Stuff] show him around, and they got on well. He looks like a younger (mainly about the eyes) version of Corwin with brown hair, fair skin and grey eyes. In terms of personality he was quite a lot like Corwin after his return to Amber.

Psyche 20, Strength 20, Endurance 60, Warfare 20, Zero Stuff.

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The title banner of this page is in a font called Will-Harris; the dividers are made from a dingbats font called Cityscape^TM. Both of these fonts come from the Fonts for Freaks web site.