Amidst all the infinite realities of Shadow, the golden city of Amber stands at the center, true pole of the multiverse. Or so it had been believed, before the Patternfall War. The Courts of Chaos at the other pole of reality had brought war to Amber itself via their accursed Black Road, but had been soundly defeated.
King Oberon is dead, long live King Random! Though chosen by the Unicorn of Amber, Random still has to deal with the scheming of his older brothers and sisters, and now, their increasing brood of children. The Courts of Chaos are restless in their defeat. And who knows what other threats may exist among the uncounted Shadow-worlds?
Prince Corwin, one of the prime architects of the victory, has gone missing. His son Merlin has gone questing after him and has also not been heard from in some time.
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The first Amber series is considered canon; the second series is not, though I am borrowing some elements from it. (Notably the Logrus.) Basically, if it was in the original Amber Diceless RPG, you can consider it fair game.
Characters must be able to fit into the royal Court of Amber. This does not preclude Chaosian characters - perhaps they were hostages taken as part of the peace agreement ending Patternfall, or part of the entourage of the Courts’ ambassador - but I won’t accept more than one or two.
Elders are not an option. :) You can play a child of Oberon, but if so they have to be quite young, along the lines of Dalt or Coral.
Shadow characters are fine, so long as they have some means of traversing Shadow. I’m open to unique powers for doing so; in past Amber games I’ve run, I’ve had powers based on attuning to Ygg, to the Abyss, and even to Shadow-storms, just for reference. I’ll entertain the idea of Broken Pattern users too. No spikards, I despise them. (Sorry. :)
I’m including Natures for Amberite Royals. You can make up your own Natures, but please follow the template of the existing cards - end the name with one of the four stats: Strength, Warfare, Endurance, and Psyche. That area is one in which you reign supreme among your generation.
The one tweak I’m making to the Storium mechanics is that if you go up against somebody in an area where they’re supreme and you aren’t, you can’t win a conflict against them unless you can justify having an overwhelming or at least totally unexpected advantage. (ie, Corwin beating the berserk Benedict by the Black Road.) Generally this means you can’t play Strengths against them, but I encourage creativity.
You can, of course, try to change the type of conflict to something more congenial, but that’s risky - you may have to narrate getting wounded if you try to shift a Warfare fight to a Psyche one, for example.
(Elders are usually supreme in a way PC’s can’t match. There are some exceptions - a Supreme Warfare character could maybe beat Flora with a sword, for example.)
Don’t take the Pattern (or Logrus) as a Strength unless there’s something unique you can do with it (and describe it!). I’m taking Pattern (or Logrus) attunement completely for granted as part of the setting. Trump Artistry is another matter; if you don’t have a Strength saying you can do it, you can’t.
Sorcery, Conjuration, Power Words, and so on can be taken as Wild Strengths so long as it’s justified from your character background. If you want to learn one of those things (or Trump Artistry) in-game, talk to me in the comments.
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Two people have expressed interest who have not read the books. For them, I strongly suggest taking one of the premade Royal Amberite Natures. What this means is that while you look completely human, you are vastly stronger, faster, and more untiring than ordinary mortals, and you don’t age after reaching adulthood. (Though please don’t make them older than maybe a century or two at most.) You heal extremely quickly and can (over a period of years) even regenerate limbs - especially if you’re supreme in Endurance.
Your character doesn’t know why they are different, or didn’t until very recently. Your background can be literally anything you can imagine - we’re talking about an infinite multiverse. (Though if you want to be from our own Earth, that would make perfect sense - Amberites have been hanging out here for centuries.) We’ll discuss in the approval process how your character came to the attention of Amber’s Court.
Strength encompasses hand-to-hand combat as well as the more obvious feats of strength.
Warfare includes fighting with weapons, strategy, tactics, and leading military units.
Endurance is how long you can keep going, how fast you heal, and how long you can keep using supernatural powers. (Even without being supreme in Endurance, you can still last MUCH longer than ordinary humans. Corwin and Random once made a bet to fence until one of them called it quits - Corwin begged off after four solid days because he had a hot date!)
And Psyche is sheer mental willpower. It’s the raw power behind all the supernatural abilities. It’s also possible to engage in direct psychic combat, though my interpretation is that this is generally quite difficult to initiate without something to help enable it.
If you want some sort of magical powers, be aware they will only work in your home world unless you take a Sorcery Strength. In that case we would need to discuss what the source of your power is. Technological stuff does NOT tend to transfer well between worlds at all.
Hosted and narrated by:
The_Shadow
Started 05/24/14.
Scenes played: 4
License: Community License
