The following is the campaign log for the 17th session of my current
Amber Diceless RPG campaign, entitled A Horse Of Another Timbre. One of
my players keeps a log of the scenes, and another maintains a quote
list. As usual, I have combined them with a few extra notes of my own
after the fact. I post them here several months after, which allows me
to add in a few little clarifications without worrying too much about
spoiling future plotlines for my players.
You can also Start from Session #1 or check out the index of my Amber articles.
The PCs are:
- Dalziel, son of Prince Bleys of Amber. A scientist.
- Maarit, daughter of Princess Sand. An orphan with a magic pendulum.
- Medore, nonbinary orphan of Princess Dierdre .
- Spinturnix, (aka Nix), son of Prince Julian. Grew up in Forest Arden.
- David Weyreth is a retired officer from the militaries of Amber.
- Abn Haram, the human-shaped son of Lady Nykae of Chaos, and the long-dead Prince Osric of Amber.
Most
of
the NPCs this session are from the novels, such as King Random and his mean older brother Benedict.
Some NPCs are unique to the campaign, such as:
- Bellantine is an "Acquisition's Specialist" from a Library/Archive world called "Oberon's Loupe". She was first introduced to the campaign by a player's answer to a character quiz.
- Clem is a mediocre messenger and terrible spy working for King Martin of Rebma.
Campaign log: 12 April 2021
I have a note in the log suggesting that it's possible three scenes happened before anyone started taking notes.
Scene 1a: Abn Haram in Oberon's Loupe
Abn Haram and Bellantine chat a bit. He's looking for specific books, and won't say what they are. She offers to help, but only if he answers questions. He deflects, saying he's trying to get in touch with his mother. Belle seems to think someone here can handle that, so she goes to arrange it.
Abn Haram tells Steward to keep looking for the thing they came here to find. He himself will go looking elsewhere in the Library for something else. It's all tantalizingly vague.
Scene 2a: David and the Royal Disagreement
David followed Random from a distance. Random goes to top of the stairs to the dungeon, leaves most of his guards there. Random heads back to Royal chambers, where 2 guards wait outside.
Down the hall, two soldiers get in an argument, then a duel. This is a distraction meant to divert the King's guards away from their door, or at least provide audio cover so the guards don't notice what's happening inside the Royal Chambers. David gets one of the guards to go inside and check on the King. He doesn't finish closing the door, which is itself suspicious.
David sees a guard inside the chambers, his arm is extended in the air and he has his hands up and is surrendering. David discovers the guard standing with a blade pressed against his throat. Benedict is holding the sword in one hand AND THE KING BY THE THROAT in the other hand.
Benedict says “the King is reconsidering ‘cutting me out of the loop.’ “ Benedict’s arm is pink like a sunburn, and has little red dots (cherry angiomas) all over it – and there’s a dagger on the ground. David hopes King Random is being wise in his decision.
Benedict knocks the guard out with the flat of his sword, and then lets King Random down, saying “Never forget, Your Majesty, you serve at the whim of your family.”
Benedict instructs David to tie up the guard, wants David to be distracted too. Benedict’s accomplices in the hallway are keeping the guard distracted.
Benedict and Random argue about Random’s failure to “solve the problem,” which Random did not do quickly enough for Benedict’s liking. Benedict demands that Random take him to “the real Amber” so they can fix things. Random uses his gem to freeze Benedict a microsecond before Benedict skewers him.
Random rants about how much he hates Benedict and then says he should kill Benedict. He contemplates exiling Benedict from the realm, but acknowledges that he needs him, then mentions that he’ll always fear being murdered in his sleep.
Random frees David and the guard and the three leave the room together. The third guard is out there and the two distractors are gone. Random suggests the men leave, and says they should stay away from the water, and get somewhere safe as quick as they can.
David offers to escort Random, proceeds with him a way. When they get to the end of Random’s hold on Benedict, they sprint away and separate. David turns and goes back toward the King’s quarters. As he does, one of the runners from the front gate finds David and tells him that there’s a Rebman named Clem by the front gate, claims to be a friend of David’s.
David goes to see him and finds that he IS a “Rebman,” who appears soft. David shakes hands, and Clem, 19yo, pretends to recognize David. Maarit is waiting by the gate where Clem met David. Clem and David step off to the side, where he informs David that they haven’t met. He produces a scroll, which David handles delicately. The scroll, “David is Summoned,” ‘commands’ David to go to Rebma. David releases “Clem” to “go talk to his order.”
Maarit dodges Clem and joins David
After being released by David, Clem heads off to the restaurant Maarit mentioned to him where he will sit alone.
As David makes his way back into the castle, Maarit walks into step with David and says hello. Maarit asks about the letter David just got, and David mentions that he knows she’s important.
They talk about the fact that Rebma is closed/locked.
Scene 4a: Nix and the Dark Forest
Nix hangs a couple spells on Strigiformes, finding the magic flowing a bit easier – “continuous additional change.”
Reaches out to Fiona, steps through the card and finds himself in Arden at Amaranthe’s Cottage. They’re a good distance back. The local birds seem spooked.
Fiona says Julian was “protective” and Nix suggests it might have been “shame.”
She says the wier drew the lines of energy to this place, but now it’s an afterglow. They chat for a minute, then Nix leads Fiona up the path to the cabin, giving the security calls but receiving no reply. As Nix approaches, there is a sweet scent in the air, the desert that Amaranthe made when he was young.
Nix finds a plate of his favorite dessert prepared in the house. They discuss the idea that it’s a trap. The food isn’t imbued with magic. The house is overrun with saplings and overgrown plants.
They go out back to the Dovecote, where Nix finds the yard overgrown. The dovecote is there, but the oak tree where Nix’s treehouse was is gone, the dirt where the tree was is disturbed. Fiona tests the space, the grave. Fiona points to five different directions, like energy ruts or a furrow. The scope and sense of power comes together and focuses on the grave space.
There might be signs and sigils around – Nix notices a little tiny wicker wolf sculpture and points it out to Fiona. She steps up to the grave and reaches up, imagines Julian’s blood on the tree. Fiona suggests that they dig up the grave. Nix retrieves a shovel and starts digging up the grave; the soil is infused with blood. He finds a wooden skull, pulls it out, and feels it out with psyche. It is a person’s skull and there’s a person clinging to it.
Nix reaches out to it psychically and the roots on the skull start moving. Collects one of the little totems/statues and takes a sample of the soil for testing/sanguimancy later.
He visits the Dovecote and finds a couple feral doves still living there. Amberanthe’s grave is open and there’s blood there. He collects some silver steak knives from the cabin and then he and Fiona leave through the gate in the wall and head deeper into the forest.
Scene 5a: Medore and the journey to Tir-na Nog'th.
Medore continues in the sky with Corwin(?), where a scrawny blonde kid stumbles into/through Corwin. His lip is broken and the kid looks like he'd been beaten up. Then Corwin gets into a scrap with a variety of fantasy creatures in horrifying array. Corwin wins the day, but it's brutal and the monsters get chopped to pieces.
Someone claps when Corwin wins the fight. Corwin says ... "Dad?' and squares off angrily.
Corwin is not happy to see Ganalon, who asks to let bygones be bygones. After a bit of conversation, Corwin attempts to sucker-punch Ganalon, but it's a GHOST. Ganalon's ghost claims the whole thing was set up for Corwin to view. It's a play.
Medore talks a little and Ganelon's ghost heckled them back. They hear thunder coming through the sky. There's a drumroll which rumbles loudly up and follows behind the thunder. (Nix and Fiona hear the drumroll on the thunder too).
Corwin reaches for Medore and very nearly misses the grab. Corwin comes through and the clouds are still rumbling in the sky, with the drumroll still rolling.
King Random's face appears in the sky and cautions or warns people in Amber about what's going on. Random indicates that he can close the control gaps that have been opened. He's worried that he'll be erased from history after he does his work, so he goes on a promotional tirade:
micro loans to impoverished communities.
he created pensions of a hefty and helpful nature.
Random plans to "decouple" the chain of destiny between Amber and Rebma, giving them independent destinies. Random declares that if he dies, Prince Martin is the first heir, and Benedict is the next heir.
Random reassures the whole realm and then disappears, turning back into a cloud.
GM's addendum re: Random's Head In The Clouds. Based on my notes, this is pretty close to the speech that Random sent the universe:
0. Drumroll, please.... like a literal drumroll, booming from the heavens...
1: "Your attention please. This is an Amber Alert. Do not be alarmed by the giant floating head in the clouds. This is your King. I don't plan to do this sort of thing very often, it may only be this one time, but if seemed like if I was ever going to break out the Amber Alert system, today is the day. As you may already know, Amber has been attacked on multiple fronts. A member of my extended family has tweaked with the laws of Physics, taking advantage of metaphysical modulations that had been put in place in an effort to level the playing field. This has put Amber itself, and all her inhabitants and allies, in danger. The bay boiled, and I know that's scary, but trust me, it won't happen again. I can shut off the magic, restore from back-up, and lock them out of the control room. They will not get to push that button, so don't worry about what you gonna do without your ass." *chuckles* "That's a Sun Ra reference, and while it went right over most of your heads, statistically, trust me, there's at least one audience out there with whom I am just killing it.
2: The safety of the people and the realm, your safety, are my only concerns. There is a chance fixing things may cost me my life. When Dad did something similar a decade ago, it erased him from reality. I'm not particularly worried about that. I've had a good run, and it would be a hell of a way to go. Honestly, instead of my own neck, I'm a lot more worried about my legacy being wiped away and whoever follows in my footsteps not realizing what I was trying to do. So I'm putting it out there for everyone to know the point of it all. For 10 years now, the crown has been authorizing micro-loans both at home and abroad, especially to disadvantaged communities within the Golden Circle, and to immigrant minorities within Amber itself.
3: If you're a soldier in Amber's mighty armies, or a sailor in any of our fleets, you've probably heard rumors about the various compensation packages that were given out to in the past few months to some of your comrades who lost limbs in the Great War, or the stipends paid to the surviving families of those who didn't come back from the Long March. These were kind of inconsistently applied at first, because we didn't have a good bureaucracy in place to track who lived and who died. It is my intent that these payments reach all the survivors, and because we are a long-lived people, I have ordered they be be continued for 100 years after death or dismemberment in the line of duty, and I have now signed that into law. Your sacrifices will be remembered and your families taken care of.
4: Speaking of bureaucracy, I know a few of the Merchant and Noble Houses of Amber have been displeased with trade policies lately. The point of those recent changes was basically to improve the standing of all the people of Amber, from the dockworkers who bring in our many imports, to the entertainers who work in our pubs and concert halls, to the... well, everybody, really. But it's also important we protect our staunchest allies in the Golden Circle.
5: Most notably, Rebma, which lies just a few miles away and is our closest reflection. You've probably heard tales of how events in Rebma often parallel events in Amber, with certain people or places therein corresponding to people or places in our own city. We often hear it as going one-way, what starts in Amber is reflected in Rebma. I don't want to alarm anyone, but the time I spent in Rebma a few years back taught me that this one-sided version isn't accurate. It goes both ways. Yes, this means that if I don't do something to stop it, the recent upheaval in Rebma will manifest in Amber, and that bloody chaos we've seen thus far might not be the end of it. This is profoundly worrying, and grossly unfair to the people of both cities.
6: As I am about to fix other things that have gone wrong cosmologically, I will take this unique opportunity to fix that as well. It is my hope that by decoupling this reflexive property, I will break the chain of destruction and chaos, and empower both worlds to seek their own independent destinies. No longer will one world fear what happens in the other. This will also mean that any outside forces who may have recently sabotaged Rebma as a move to weaken Amber will fail in their sinister efforts. You have nothing to fear, I've got your back. Daddy Random's gonna fix this shit.
7: As I said, there is a chance that this action will cost my life, as it cost that of my father before me. Unlike my father, I will NOT be leaving the throne without a clear and unambiguous heir. Neither will I hang my legacy upon the whims of a mysterious creature no matter how sacred she may be. So, if I die, the Throne of Amber will pass to my son, Prince-Heir Martin. If he is unable to take the throne, it will pass to the eldest of my brothers, Prince-Royal Benedict. For the benefit of any rebel siblings I add, if anything were to happen to Martin, Benedict would be certain to avenge him. He confirmed that for me today.
8: Not to dwell on all this doom and gloom, but, in the event that this kills me, my beloved wife, Queen Vialle, says she will retire to Texorami. For the record, my wife could totally handle the job of running the place herself without me, and she'd be damn good at it. However, she's a stickler for the letter of the law, and as she points out, the letter of the law says the throne passes to the eldest son of the King. So that's Martin, and defaulting back to Benedict if... well, I already said that part. I should wrap this up.
9: I thank you all for your loyalty and perseverance in these trying times. The danger is almost past. The storm will arrive in under an hour. You'll want to shutter your windows and get somewhere safe from flooding, as it's probably gonna be a real thrasher. Random out."
Scene 6a: Dalziel Into The Storm
Dalziel puts together a flotilla of airships, and starts out for Amber. This big storm blows in, and he can't seem to shake it, no matter how much he tries to hellride away from them. Then Random's head appears in the storm, and gives the same message Medore and Nix saw. Dalziel decides he needs to get directly to Amber, so he pulls out the card of the Muster Field.
Passing through the card takes 20 seconds, and instead of ending up in the field, he's just in this wet stormy grey place. He tries to follow memory path towards the castle, but his memories aren't lining up with the terrain. He spots some sort of barrier that's providing some blockage from the rain, and it turns out it's a door that won't open. He nearly falls off a ledge in the greyness, like maybe he's somehow in The Grand Stair now? He gets out a penlight to try to get a better look at things, and rainbow auras instead of a light stream pours out. He shines the rainbows on the door, and suddenly he's in the Muster Field and the storm isn't quite as bad as it was before, either. No sign of a door anywhere.
Scene 2/3/6b: Dalziel, Maarit, and David talk
Dalziel gets to the castle. He runs into Maarit and David, who it turns out, had also heard a drumroll in the sky during their walk in a courtyard, and looked up to see Random's message. They go to the kitchen, get some butcher's string for Maarit to tie to her Pendulum, and so David can make soup. They talk at length about the state of affairs. David wants to get invited to "the REAL Amber", but can't quite get it to happen. There's some discussion of whether Dalziel's dad is Bleys or Droppa MaPantz.
The Rebma Situation: Suddenly, Maarit remembers she left Medore's army on the shore, and there's a terrible storm! She runs out into the storm (which isn't as bad as it had been), and crosses town. Once she's outside city limits, the storm is much worse again. Trees breaking. Waves smashing in deep up the shore. Ice cold rain stabbing like needles. She rushes down the road, and figures out she's actually passed by where the army should be, and where the Faiella-Bionin, without seeing either of them. She gets out her pendant, and asks it to find them. Thunder. The stone pulses once, then suddenly a hose of water rains down from the heavens targeted directly at it. Thunder. The stone stops glowing. Thunder. Glass breaking. Silk tearing. Thunder. The rain lets up. The pendant does nothing. Instead of a storm, she hears a waterfall.
Maarit backtracks the beach to where the Faiella-Bionin's lights should be visible. Instead, there's a bottomless black void the width of the stairs, and two waterfalls cascading into it. Llewella is going to be pissed. Is this what Random meant when he said he'd decouple Amber from Rebma?
Maarit returns to the castle, where Dalziel and David are mostly geeking out about Engineering topics, with a side of metaphysics and conspiracy theory.
The Quotes Of Chaos
If I get caught breaking into his chambers I’ll be killed, and I don’t want that. -Jeremy
NOTE TO SELF: When hiding from Bleys, go to a shadow where Wine cannot be made. - Jeremy
"I promise not to pick any locks ... today." -- Abn Haram
“Nothing personal, but the best thing I could do for my reign right now would be to end you on the spot.” - Random to Benedict, before stupidly not doing that.
“We are both going to run down that hallway and at the end we are going to go separate directions. -Random @ David
“Just to rule things out, does it strike you as unusual that your mother’s skull would be made of wood?” -Fiona
Corwyn "What do you have?"
Kaylin (as Oberon): "Syphilis"
"Apparently, fire is always an option." -- Mariit
Dal: Are you saying that Benedict was pressuring Random?
David: Yes sir, with his fist!
"Some of my best friends are heretics" - Dalz
David: Who is your father, then sir?
Dalz: He hosted the party the other night in lieu of the king.
David: Oh, Droppa MaPantz!
Dalz: If only he were! I would trumpet my lineage to all who would listen.
Maarit: Yeah, I was on fire.
Dalziel: That sucks! But what happened to your hair?
Maarit: I. Was. On. Fire.
Maarit: Do you have any string?
Andrew: Dal produces a spool of monofilament, probably enough to wrap around the solar system a few times, but as he turns it around in his hands, it crumbles to dust in Amber's physics.
Dalziel: "Errr... no. I guess not."
Rolfe: [pulls tented fingers away from his grin:] Okay, that's Canon now.
