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AmberCon UK 2001 Game


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GAME DESCRIPTION:

It is 250 years since the end of the Patternfall War. Unfortunately the redrawing of the Primal Pattern and death of Oberon has not bought on a new golden age. Chaos remains strong on its home ground, and has been besieged by Amber since the battle by the Abyss. At home, Random, although pretty capable and selected by the Unicorn, has proven largely incapable of controlling either his siblings or the Amber nobility so that now Amber, despite Random's early unsuccessful attempts at reform, remains overall not dissimilar to when Oberon ruled, though a considerably less stable and more violent place. Random is seen as little more than a figurehead, but despite this he has suffered several assassination attempts, including one a hundred years ago in which Queen Vialle was murdered; the most recent assassination attempt was within the last month. Despite all this, the celebrations to mark the 250th Jubilee of the reign of King Random of Amber are about to begin, and you have all been invited back to Amber for them...


CHARACTER RESTRICTIONS:

Characters should be Amberites, who know where their loyalties lie, built on 150 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 101.

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.


STATUS OF THE ELDERS AND OTHERS


The Elders have essentially divided up the power in Amber amongst themselves. Gerard and Caine are the sea power. Julian is the land power. The three of them do get on, and so to a large extent control access to Amber itself. Fiona is the power of knowledge and the intellect. Benedict is true military power.

All significant trade into and out of Amber goes through the hands of a number of cartels, formed from one or more of the noble houses of Amber, and each of which concerns itself with a specific type of trade. Competition between these cartels is quite fierce, as each tries to expand their influence and control. In Amber this tends to be limited to rioting, arson and assassination, but out in shadow full-scale wars have been fought between the different cartels, and most of them have their own independent military forces both in Amber and out in shadow. This included what are effectively their own (small) navies. Independent traders and merchants can really only compete with the cartels in the luxury and niche markets.

Other powers: Money/Trade, Crime (linked with Money/Trade?), Politics, Religion (linked with Politics?).


 

THE NOBLE FAMILIES OF AMBER

  1. Ashlurian
  2. Chantris
  3. Derhemen
  4. Feldane
  5. Fulleri
  6. Gannisur
  7. Karm
  8. Kesht
  9. Muerro
  10. Oflihun
  11. Peonni
  12. Rein
  13. Tigris
  14. Ukotro
  15. Veknis

THE CARTELS

  • Wood
  • Cloth
  • Weapons
  • Wood (for building, firewood etc.)
  • Stone
  • Food
  • Wine
  • Beer
  • Clothes
  • Bonded Servants
  • Metal (various types)
  • Animals
 

There is a Mayor of Amber City, who is appointed by the heads of the noble houses. The current Mayor is Albertus Ukotro.


THE PLOT

Random has been trying hard to change things in Amber, make it a better place, reform or remove the nastier aspects of Oberon's reign. He, as the youngest of the elders, sees less distinction between Amber and shadow, and would like to make Amber less of a parasite on shadow in general and the Golden Circle in particular. But he has had very little success because no-one else, either within the Royal Family or among the nobility of Amber in general, really wants to change. They are quite happy with the status quo, especially now that Oberon is gone and so there is less to restrain them.

The society of Amber has not changed a great deal since Oberon's day, but with a weaker king on the throne there is more violence, assassination and activities such as trade wars, which the fear of Oberon, even when he was missing, prevented from occurring when he was King.

Random found all this very frustrating, but there was nothing he could do about it. So after about eighty years of trying he gave up on reform, appearing to stop wanting to change things. Since then he has ruled as well as he is able but has been little more than a figurehead King. But he has also, in his free moments, been trying to work out the best way to change things. He had discussed his ideas with Vialle, and she largely agreed with him, though she was not as convinced as him that drastic change was the correct way to go.

Then, one hundred years ago, Vialle was assassinated during an attempt on his life. Random knows it was done by one of his siblings as a way to stop him getting in their way or attempting to change things, but he cannot prove it. This finally convinced him that things really did need to change, and as he got over Vialle's death he worked on how to do so...

And over time he has developed a plan to change things, not just live with things the way they are. He has decided that if he cannot change Amber then he will simply have to change everything else. Level the playing field by making Amber and shadow more equal.

Random has learnt a lot more than people think, mainly from Dworkin when people thought he was off gallivanting about in shadow (which he seemed to do increasingly after Vialle's death). He is an API, knows Trump and all Magic as well as Real Empowerment. Using these he has figured out a way to change things by modifying the Primal Pattern. The only problem with this plan is that it requires the life force of those responsible for creating the Pattern to make the modification without entirely re-writing the Pattern - that is, Dworkin and the Unicorn...

He managed to do this, though not without injury to himself, and decanted their lives into a Device, hiding the bodies by weighing them down and throwing them into the sea by the Primal Pattern (there is a faint blood trail, though) and claiming another assassination attempt when he returned badly hurt (note that the Elders may wonder who was behind this, as it may become clear that none of them were). He also took precautions to avoid detection by other means, so any blood traces are not detectable as being from anybody, scrying will give raw static, and so on. Then he activated the Device in the centre of the Primal Pattern and, as far as possible, closed the way to the Primal Pattern behind him. The Primal Pattern now has a glow between the lines as well, though the line of the Pattern is still visible as a brighter glow. The Device is still present in the centre of the Pattern and can be recovered and examined for clues if desired. One of Random's wounds from the 'assassination attempt' was a spear-like wound in the abdomen which was caused by the horn of Unicorn. This is not healing because it was caused by the Unicorn; there are still traces of Random's blood of its horn, too. This is a clue that there was more to the 'assassination attempt' than is obvious...

The Device has permanently modified the Primal Pattern so that, after a time to re-adjust, it begins to emit 'Order Bombs' from its centre. In daylight these 'Order Bombs' seem to be huge semi-transparent balls, about fifty metres across, coloured gold and pink in swirling patterns like the veining in an exotic marble. At night they glow an almost acetylene blue. Random would have liked 'bombs' which simply teleported out into shadow, but could not figure out how to make such a thing work, so had to live with them visibly flying off.

Random would have liked to have destroyed the Jewel of Judgement to stop his efforts being undone. However, his researches told him that he could not do this until the Primal Pattern was gone, because of the way in which the Primal Pattern was dependant on the Jewel; if it was destroyed prematurely then the Pattern would also go and the whole plan would fall apart. If everything goes according to plan (as hopefully it will not!) then Random will destroy the Jewel.

The 'bombs' fly up from the Primal Pattern, growing up out of it as if pushing up from below, then once clear of it hovering for a moment before accelerating up and off through shadow out away from Amber. Wherever they hit these 'bombs' make an area about themselves - the entire shadow in which they 'land' - as real as Amber itself, and create shadow paths to neighbouring worlds; these shadow paths are obvious to and usable by anyone, regardless of their Psyche. Thus normal Pattern cannot be used there, but Trump is much easier to use, being far less dependant upon Psyche than elsewhere, but still just as capable of reaching across shadow. Magic becomes a single type, the same everywhere the 'bombs' hit, regardless of what was there before, at a higher level than that in Amber. Magic also becomes greatly weakened if one has a Pattern imprint (which disrupts the flow of magic through oneself), so Amberites find it much harder to use magic effectively. The 'bombs' fly faster than the fastest Amberite can travel through shadow, but do leave a clearly defined trail.

The 'bombs' cannot be seen from the Amber Pattern room (or any of the others) but they can be felt as a rising then falling wave of Pattern as they go past, vaguely analogous to hearing a train going past in another tunnel. If anyone is walks the Pattern (and this takes long enough for at least ten 'bombs' to go past as they do so) the sparks of the Pattern, as they rise higher and higher, can be seen to rise and fall in sympathy with the passing 'bombs'.

It is not entirely clear whether the Primal Pattern is throwing out the 'bombs' or whether something in shadow is causing them to happen. Also, the 'bombs' are draining the Primal Pattern (and thus the other Patterns), so that in the end there will be nothing left...

And all this is bad for Amber, but good for shadow and shadow dwellers. Which is, of course, what Random wants...


Of course, the 'Bombs' come as a surprise initially. They will be highly visible of course, apparently rising up out of Kolvir and flying off. Random feigns being as surprised as everyone else, but eventually people should be able to figure it out. Of course, not all the elders will be there for the 250th Jubilee anyway, because some of them do not respect Random enough to want to attend.

Then what? Random will explain himself if confronted, but even if the PCs are willing to go for it, most of the elders and nobility of Amber are not. So what then?

I see two main ways the plot could go:

The only way the Primal Pattern can really be repaired is by erasing and then re-drawing it. As Martin is the Crown Prince he is the most likely candidate for this. This will kill him.

It is possible that if Random covers his tracks well he will end up being given the Jewel and allowed to walk the Primal Pattern to fix whatever is going on. In this case he may well use the Jewel to vastly speed up the draining of the Primal Pattern so that rather than balls of energy there is what looks like Primal-Pattern-coloured lightning striking up from the Primal Pattern and off into shadow. This will drain the Primal Pattern within a week...


Chaos is one of the first targets of the 'Order Bombs', which is not good for something dependant on magic to hover over the highly destructive Abyss. Most of its structures are held together by magic, which suddenly changes to a very different type, so the place collapses, then falls.

Corwin's Pattern is another. The 'bombs' have a very bad effect on his Pattern, destroying it and its link with Corwin's universe utterly and leaving a vast circular hole in shadow which essentially becomes a 'bay' of the Abyss. It curves around and in as one goes along its edge until one reaches a narrow neck where it joins onto the Abyss proper. This causes the shadow storms around Corwin's Pattern to dissipate which allows what has happened to be seen.


RANDOM'S EXPLANATION:

"Yes, you are correct. It is me. I did it. It is my plan to bring about the end of the world."

He smiles. "And replace it with a better one. One in which shadow is not the host upon which the bloated parasite which is Amber sucks. One where the playing field is level. Where we are brought low and they are raised up."


RANDOM'S BLOOD CURSE:

He has thought about this while planning his course of action, as he suspects it may, at some point, be needed. If necessary it shall be:

'May Amber Be No More Than The Meanest Of Shadows.'


MARTIN'S UNIVERSE

If it becomes necessary for Martin to re-draw the Primal Pattern, his universe will not be the same as the old one. There is no Abyss (because there are no Courts of Chaos). Shadow simply gets less and less real out away from Amber, until it is very unreal, then as one travels further and further things start to become real again until one arrives back in Amber. There is no Ygg, and shadows do not go mad after a certain point, though some are very strange. Strangeness is more widespread than it was before, and there are lots of underwater cities (shadows of Rebma), jazz music, and floating cities in dark lands (shadows of the Courts of Chaos).

Amber itself is a Venice-like city on the islands of the delta of a much-expanded River Oisen (the river that runs through the Vale of Garnath), with Castle Amber just below the top of a low hill which is the seaward end of a range of hills which run inland. Tir-Na Nog'th is still accessible from the top of this hill, which is still known as Kolvir. There are gondoliers and so on, on the rivers and canals which wind through the delta. There is still a large harbour area.

There are much better links with Rebma than there were.

Unless someone else really proves themselves, Martin will select Julian as his successor to the throne of the new Amber.


The Diary of Galahad, from the playtest of this game.

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