THE GIRASOL UNIVERSE

There is more to the universe in 'The Last Enemy' than is at first apparent. Lying parallel to the universe of Amber and the Courts of Chaos is a second universe, quite as Real and vast as that of Amber, with, 'between' these two universes, the Land of the Dead.

It appears that, before Dworkin drew the Primal Pattern, the place that became the Amber universe was a place of near-perfect Chaos or disorder, constantly shifting and changing. In contrast, the other universe was a place of near-perfect unchanging Order. Where, in the Amber universe there grew up the Courts of Chaos, in the other universe a vast, slow, sentient entity of living, crystalline order grew up out of the pure Order of that place.

And so things were, until Dworkin drew the Primal Pattern. The Pattern did not create the order which allowed the formation of all of shadow, but instead acted as a gateway between the universes of Chaos and Order, allowing Chaos/Disorder to pass out of Amber's realm, and Order to flow in from the other until the levels of order and disorder in the two realms became equal. In Amber's universe this froze the raw Chaos enough to form permanent shadows; in the Ordered universe it thawed the crystalline order sufficiently to also allow shadows to form.

However, a gradient still existed, of increasing Chaos/Disorder out away from Amber towards the Courts of Chaos, and of increasing Order out away from the Patterns in the other universe towards largely unaltered areas of pure Order.

The crystalline entity of Order was terribly injured by the drawing of the Pattern. The flow of raw Chaos through the Patterns burnt away vast amounts of its substance, leaving it badly hurt. This did not incline it favourably towards who or whatever was responsible.

And in time it healed, though to nowhere near its original extent, and began to investigate what had been done to it. It found the Patterns and studied them, eventually learning how to pass through them to whatever lay on the other side.

Unaware of all this, on the Amber side of the Patterns, Amber and the Golden Circle were formed.

Then the entity of Order began to attack through the Patterns (in a similar manner to how, much later, it came through Corwin's Pattern). It had to be stopped. And eventually, to cut a very long story short, despite its best efforts, it was stopped and the Patterns were sealed against it. However, in the process of doing so Finndo was lost, and Osric, Sandrine and her full brother Delwin were trapped with entity of Order in 'its' universe on the side where all of the Patterns had been destroyed. They had hoped they could destroy the Patterns on the it's side and still go home at the last moment, but Oberon blocked them from returning.

It was during this first attack on Amber that the crystal entity gained the name it bore since then - the Ordnung.

Despite being trapped in the Ordnung's universe, the personal Pattern imprints of the three Amberites seemed unaffected, and they managed to drive the Ordnung back and founded a new realm, which they named Girasol. This was centred on where the Patterns used to be, the equivalent of Amber in the Ordnung's universe. They made themselves the Royal Family of this new realm, and built links and fortresses out across shadow away from Girasol itself ot protect themselves from the Ordnung.

With brute military power, Girasol was able to hold back the Ordnung. And over time, a very long time, with defeats and casualties on both sides, a stable situation, a cold war, developed, and lasted for tens of millennia, punctuated only by occasional upsets...

Then Corwin's Pattern was drawn. Oberon, when he re-drew the Primal Pattern, knew of the Ordnung and so was somehow able to redraw the Pattern without reopening the links through the Patterns into the Ordnung universe. Unfortunately, Corwin was ignorant of the Ordnung and so when it was drawn his Pattern formed a new gate between the universes of Amber and Girasol. In addition, the opening of this new gate, and its position, caused a new flow of Order and Chaos back and forth, and a re-arrangement of the boundaries between Amber-like shadows and Chaos-like shadows.

Although injured by this new re-distribution of Order and Chaos, the new Pattern was well within the Ordnung's realm and so it maintained control of this new gate. This led to its capture of Corwin and Merlin when they came through Corwin's Pattern to explore in 16 PPF, and, later of Owen. It questioned its prisoners and, after more then one hundred years of effort, in 126 PPF it was able, from what it had learnt by itself and from its prisoners, to begin to force a way through Corwin's Pattern and into the Amber universe.

And so, inevitably, the Player Characters became involved...

In 126 PPF the Girasol universe contained the following features, which are listed here in order of (and including) their distance from the equivalent of Amber in that universe, Girasol itself.

• GIRASOL
  Girasol is the equivalent of Amber in the Ordnung multiverse. It is a large, approximately circular island lying roughly a mile off a coastline which runs north-south and faces east (much like the coastline upon which Amber City stands, although with no equivalent of Mount Kolvir). It is linked to the mainland by a wide causeway with two separate swing sections which allow it to be easily closed in case of need. At the land end of the causeway is a large gate-house/fortress which defends the entrance to Girasol. Several other, smaller, forts surround it further away on land, and a ring of sea forts defend Girasol as a whole. Other islands like Girasol lie further off the coast, and hold defensive fortifications and other structures.
  Girasol is exactly like Amber in terms of its Reality, its magical and technological environment and its intensely Real-seeming, textured colours and so on. Girasol is ruled by Osric and Sandrine as its King and Queen.
  The island is a fairly smooth and symmetrical conical hill, with the eight-pointed star of Castle Girasol at the top in the centre of the city with roads zig-zagging down the hill to sea level. As in Amber there is a 'Castle Park' ( thinly disguised kill-zone) surrounding Castle Girasol but other than this the entire island is covered in buildings of all kinds. Three-quarters of the circumference of the island forms the harbour of Girasol. This is a walled-in area of sea, with harbour walls out from the shore which run around three-quarters of the island some distance out from the shore then close off the side of the harbour facing the coast. This harbour wall has five heavily-defended openings through it. Castle Girasol, the harbour walls and other major structures in the city are all built from a silvery-grey stone with reflective flecks inside it, which glitters in the sun.
  Castle Girasol contains various tombs and memorials to the dead of the Royal Family which together make up the 'Hall of the Fallen'. Huge, wickedly thorned honeysuckle bushes climb up the walls and entwine the towers, but hide the fairly harsh lines of the castle quite well.
  The Throne Room in Castle Girasol is a large vaulted space, whose tall windows on each side show city and land on either side sloping steeply down to the sea. At one end of the room is a dais that bears two thrones. Above the thrones is a large banner emblazoned with the symbol of the Unicorn, but unlike in Amber this banner has a silver Unicorn on a royal blue background, facing to the right (the opposite direction to that of Amber). Unlike in the Amber Throne Room no banners and flags hang from the ceiling. A wide dark red carpet runs from the thrones, down the dais, and to a large set of double doors at the far end of the room.
     
  Girasol City also has lots of honeysuckle in it, including honeysuckle trees and the like. Cats are common too, both normal ones and a flying variety with furry bat-like wings.
  The land inland from Girasol is hilly and was originally forested. Now more than half of it is farmland, though the hilltops remain wooded. Terraced fields line the steeper hillsides. Large military roads lead off from the fortress where the causeway to Girasol City meets the coast, running inland and to the locations equivalent to Rebma and Ht'gon-An Rit.
  The following is a rough map of Girasol:
    [North is towards the top of the map above]  
  In general the Girasol regime has a more strict and martial air than that of Amber under Random. However, those who were in Amber during Oberon's reign can tell that it is nowhere near as strict as Amber during that time...
  The symbol of Girasol is also flown on its flag over the Castle and the City.

• THE OTHER PATTERNS
  There are major Girasol settlements at the sites of all the ground-based Patterns, all of them built by the Royal Family of Girasol:
  • The first of these is Girasol itself.
  • Then there is the site of Ht'gon-An Rit, inland roughly twenty miles north of Girasol City.
  • Twenty miles southwards from Girasol is the underwater city of Losarig, the equivalent of Rebma in this universe.
  There is an equivalent of Tir-Na Nog'th in the Girasol universe, but like its Pattern, it is broken. The area of sky in which Tir-Na Nog'th would appear looks like a reflection in a mirror which has been shattered by a blow to its centre, even when Tir-Na Nog'th itself would not be visible. Beltaine can certainly feel the wrongness of this in the Ordnung universe, a sort of dissonance which makes it harder (but not impossible) for her to use her Tir-Na Nog'th powers.

• SHADOW
  Although shadow is, in general terms, not too dissimilar to that in the Amber universe, there are some differences. Rather than becoming less predictable and 'madder' as one goes out from Girasol (as it is when one goes out away from Amber), shadow instead becomes more predictable, more 'same-ey' and duller the further one goes from Girasol. Time flow rates tend towards that of Amber, and magick grows weaker. Less and less life is present. It also becomes harder and harder to use the Pattern to locate supplies.
  In addition to these general properties of shadow, over tens of millennia Osric and Sandrine have created a vast array of Shadows of Destiny which protect the home shadows of Girasol from the Ordnung (and other threats). These include shadows through which the Ordnung must come, shadows it must avoid, and shadows to draw in people (other than known Girasolians) travelling through shadow by any means, so that they may be talked to.
  There a number of shadows in the Girasol universe that the Player Characters have visited or heard of. They are listed on a separate page.

• THE ORDNUNG
  A vast, ancient, sentient crystalline entity which arose spontaneously out of the highly ordered shadows in Girasol's equivalent of the Courts of Chaos. It appeared as a huge crystalline mass, all very clear and utterly colourless. It was a huge, slow, unimaginative entity, but it could learn and grow over time. It grew in its universe out of raw order, but did not embody its universe, so (it turns out) it could be safely destroyed without destroying all of the shadows it was a part of. It had no apparent hub or centre.
  It was badly hurt by the drawing of the Pattern and the flood of raw Chaos/disorder through it, which burned away both it and large amounts of its highly ordered universe and forced it back into the remnants of pure Order at the ends of the Girasol multiverse furthest from the Patterns. Since then it learned to project itself through shadow again, and also how to project itself through Patterns. Projecting itself through shadow was done by way of tendrils of Order, parts of itself, which it forced through shadow barriers, down which it could sense, and from which it could bud off remote constructs to perform pre-programmed tasks. These tendrils appeared as branching 'roots' of crystal which faded off through shadow. Its constructs were spindly insect-like creatures made out of the same colourless crystal it itself.
  The Ordnung had also learnt how to extract and move the raw disorder from shadow, turning the shadows from which this disorder was removed back into pure Order (the state of its universe before the drawing of the Pattern). It had used this ability to revert its regime to a highly ordered state surrounded by moats of extracted disorder - pseudo-Abysses. When the Ordnung 'ate' a Shadow, the 'space' of that Shadow was still there but the Shadow veils disappeared, so that the Shadows it absorbed all became one.
  Exuding its creatures was the Ordnung's main form of attack, but it (and some of its creatures) could also hose people down with the raw Chaos/disorder it collected, as if it were a form of highly corrosive 'metaphysical acid'. There was not much defence against this, though radiating Pattern apparently helped. This raw Chaos could be used against the Ordnung, but only slowed it down. The Ordnung was vulnerable to shadow storms.
  Shadows could be reclaimed from the Ordnung, but only by rewriting them one at a time using Advanced Pattern.
  According to Osric, the Ordnung wanted to destroy all of shadow and return its universe to the state of stable unchanging Order it was in before the original Patterns of Amber were drawn. Apparently the Ordnung could not be negotiated with, seeing those who made and used the Pattern as its mortal enemy who tried to destroy it (a not unfair assessment, from its point of view)...
  • THE ORDNUNG REALM
    Variation between shadows becomes less and less as one travels out from Girasol towards the Ordnung's realm. Eventually one reached a dull, flat plane where a change in Shadow was visible ahead - a canyon-like pseudo-Abyss with bridges across it (like canyon ends dividing the pseudo-Abyss) supporting vast crystal tendrils of the Ordnung which branched and disappeared off into Shadow on the Girasol side, the land monochrome and texture-less on the other side. The crystal tendrils seem to grow larger and fade away into thin air on that side, with a discontinuity in Shadow where they begin to do this. Crystal tendrils also hung down into the pseudo-Abyss from the other side and seemed to be dripping Chaos/disorder into it.
    It was possible to climb up onto the crystal tendrils and walk along them and over the bridge. Bubbles of raw Chaos/disorder could be seen and sensed drifting through the crystal underfoot.
    Upon stepping through the discontinuity in shadow sound immediately became flat and muffled. All voices sounded the same - flat, uninflected monotones. Everything became monochrome and sketchy in appearance, flat, un-textured and more geometrical, as if reduced to its essentials. The inside of the Ordnung's realm was all one shadow, with no shadow boundaries. No magick worked there, and only those with API are able to shift Shadow. The psychic presence of the Ordnung was all around, but in general it seemed unaware of people's presence within itself (at least as long as they were only travelling).
    It was safe to travel into the lands of the Ordnung, that is the laws of nature there (such as they were) did not make the place hostile to life. However, everything needed to be kept as basic as possible because complex modes of transport, and indeed complex anything, simply stopped working there. Almost nothing worked; even things as simple as the edges of swords did not function, becoming blunt instruments instead. The landscape in the realm of the Ordnung was barren and featureless, with no real day or night, just a dull half-light. Food supplies were bland and tasteless, but did still seem to be nutritious.
  • THE CREATURES OF THE ORDNUNG
    These are 'offshoots' of the Ordnung which it buds off and which can act away from it. They are crystal creatures in a variety of forms, seemingly optimised for a variety of different tasks. They are independent of the Ordnung once they are separated from it, though they can recharge and gain new instructions from it by touching it. They are not as tough as the Ordnung, and run out of energy after a while, at which point they go 'pop' and disappear.
    The creatures that Osric and the family of Girasol have observed over the years include:
    • The 'Helicoptera'. These are crystal wasps, or insects of some other kind, perhaps dragonflies. They have razor-sharp rotor blades instead of wings, which seem able to penetrate most forms of armour (though they shatter when they do so). They are damnably fast. Apparently there are larger, human-sized, versions of them too.
    • Skeletal assassin creatures which seem to be built to a vaguely spider-centaur-like design with four arms on a vertical torso and four spider-like legs. Their four arms are tipped with sword-sized scythe-blades.
    • Heavier spider things, some human-sized, some much bigger (anything up to four metres tall). Their arms end in hands with long, sharp crystal fingers.
  • THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ORDNUNG
    The Ordnung was killed in 126 PPF. A variety of means in combination was used to destroy it:
    
    • Seemingly most important was Beltaine's idea of using resonance against the Ordnung via the Jewel, since the Ordnung has a crystalline structure and was damaged when Greyswandir was caused to resonate within it. Random used the Jewel the find the Ordnung's resonant frequency at which point power was poured into it, causing the crystal mass of the Ordnung to crack and shatter, the shards fading to nothing. It was not happy with this, and gave an audible and psychic shrieking as the resonance took effect. The resonance also shattered any of the Ordnung's creatures which were nearby.
      Beltaine's vocal harmonic powers definitely helped with this, especially when, with Random's help, she focussed them through the Jewel.
    • The use of Brand's life-force draining spikes to steal the Ordnung's life force. This caused the drained parts of the Ordnung to simply fade away into nothingness. It also caused a race to collect spikes as they fell out of the shrinking Ordnung and replace them further in while preventing their theft by Ordnung-creatures.
    • Channelling a kind of Tir-Na Nog'th chaos at it - the sense of infinite possibilities, change, and random ideas which derive from Tir-Na Nog'th. This too seemed to have a bad effect on the Ordnung when Beltaine channelled it through the Jewel.
    • Projecting Impossigon power and confusion through the Jewel at it.
    • Projecting various forms of weird and surrealistic art at it. This seemed to help the least, however.
    It shattered, faded and retreated back under the weight of all of these attacks and was pursued through shadow until, after a number of days of effort, the last crystal shattered and faded away and the Ordnung was dead...
    However, the realm of pure Order, and the pseudo-Abyss around it, remained...

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