The following is the campaign log for the twelfth 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.
------
The PCs are:
- Dalziel,
son of Bleys of Amber. A scientist.
- Maarit, daughter of Sand. An orphan with a magic pendulum.
- Medore,
nonbinary orphan of Dierdre .
- Spinturnix,
(aka Nix), son of 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 are from the novels, such as the dashing Prince Bleys, Fiona the cleverest of Amberites by far, and Caine the least trustworthy in a family of murderous backstabbing bastards.
There's
a few new NPCs as well, such as Brute, which is a huge and opinionated
intelligent pig that works for Abn Haram. There's also this mysterious
black unicorn that keeps getting attacked by the standard white unicorn
that Amber reveres.
Setting the Scene: When last we
saw our heroes: Dalziel and Medore had taken the black unicorn to the vet. Maarit was
exploring a mysterious staircase between worlds with auntie Fiona. Abn Haram was having drinks on Bleys' flag ship.
Campaign log: session 12: 1 February 2021, turn by turn
Scene 1 - Abn Haram sailing toward Amber
Prince Bleys gets a trump call, looks like he's preparing to go against the King's fleet, or perhaps Caine's. The call ends with "I'll let him know that you saved his life." Then he walks back over to Abn Haram and only says "You have an opportunity to earn your birthright." Caine may be the worst bastard of the family, but Bleys has his moments, too.
"You have an opportunity to earn your birthright. The Kingdom is in peril. My brother Caine has declared war against the King. It's treason that can't be tolerated. He has to be crushed, immediately, and without mercy. In the next few hours, I will kill him, in the name of the King.
The only problem is, a quarter of the Amber fleet stands between us. I have them outnumbered, victory is all but certain, but it will take hours. Do you have experience with boarding parties, or naval engagements? If you fight as well as your father, I could give you a ship, and together we can trim that timer down. My brother the King would be very grateful. He may even consent to let you claim your birthright at this end of things."
They speak about the ships between them. Abn Haram explains some hesitance but a willingness to try. Bleys sends Abn Haram to serve as a "strategic advisor" to The Prophecy and engage a pincer movement to bring the fleet into full engagement. Bleys will continue to captain The Daystar. They lay out a plan in which their two ships will roll up a flank if possible.
Abn Haram gets a tour of The Prophecy, which is rigged out for war in many exciting ways, and crewed by the Men of Avernus. Abn Haram tests the feel of the energy in the air and finds the magic more available than he would have expected. They come in around the corner and Haram's ship ends up in the Vanguard of the attack. The fleets:
- 90 ships with Caine's colors (less than a quarter of his fleet)
- 270 ships with Bleys' colors manned by Men of Avernus
- 15 ships of another color (?) - these are possibly Gerard's, or at least Amber-loyal naval vessels that are not in on Caine's conspiracy. They've been outnumbered and sort of trapped in the bay for two days.
Haram sends Steward up to the Crow's nest to look for sneaky ships being sneaky. They sail up and engage. Haram reflects on the idea that it seems like the fleet wasn't very well defended (or ready for an attack from the outside). Abn Haram starts firing shots with a crossbow, with great accuracy. The ship rams and connects. He boards the ship and goes for an enemy officer. Haram stops along the way and gathers forces and they join his cause. Bleys' men sure don't like Caine. Abn Haram wounds the captain grievously. Upon questioning, he reveals that the ships are in Rebma. The captain is killed by Bleys' men.
Scene 2 - Medore attends Horse Surgery while Dalziel waits
Medore gets in an argument with the surgeon regarding anesthetic, demands that they give the horse/unicorn more. The medical staff is getting upset / worried / angry. The staff is surprised to find that she survives the anesthetic. She wakes up from the surgery far more quickly than they expect she would. They suggest that she shouldn't walk for some amount of time that Medore realizes is far too aggressive; he lets them know that she will recover rapidly but they should keep her sedated a bit longer. The Doc thought the surgery would be worse. They insist on staying with the horse recovering from its surgery.
Meanwhile, Dalziel ponders the pattern and envisions the animal hospital, and looks in on Medore. He tries to view a second location but draws back from that before risking physical injury.
Medore, upon listening to the various doctors' advice, feels the presence of a Tarot call. They make the doctors feel ignored. They also feel a bit confused by the strange call. They stand vigil all night and encounter no trouble.
Dalziel returns to the motel and then goes for a walk to find a car, but making effort not to walk too far and shift into another world. He finds an RV for sale with a "moose trailer" attached, buys it, and drives to where the clinic is supposed to be, but it isn't there. She recovers quickly but the doctors are nervous about it.
In the morning, Dal arrives, Medore gets a moose-care kit.
Scene 3 - Nix into the Forest
Nix and his three conscripts ride into the woods, being stealthy and having trouble identifying weir calls over howling hunting dogs. They encounter four riders retreating down the path, with one injured man. The men report that they were ambushed north of a destroyed camp. Nix sends two of the riders to escort the wounded man to the castle to report the situation, and he asks the fourth man to join him (or trade his silver sword). Nix euthanises the bird and takes its identifying marker.
They ride on but the howling gets worse, and the man mentions that some of the hunting dogs are out of control and going wild. Nix calls their ride to a halt and reconsiders how they're proceeding. He doesn't want to unnecessarily risk their lives....
So he calls down the hunting bird and asks it to set up a perimeter. The men proceed toward the hunting camp.
Scene 4 - Maarit and Fiona go through a Purple door
Fiona picks up the machine gun and she and Maarit open the Purple door, which leads to an Oddly-Colored Castle which has eye-straining colors. It's like everything in this world exists in duplicate, overlapping but offset. One copy color-shifted teal, the other color-shifted purple. But it looks a lot like the dungeons beneath Amber, other than being maddeningly sickeningly out of phase. (The GM has a cool picture he shows the players of what it looks like, but doesn't have the rights to repost it on this blog.)
They go through and begin exploring. They find an empty guard post with stacks and stacks of months-old dirty dishes, and they find a desk with a locked drawer and an old lock. On opening the drawer, Maarit finds a LogBook EyeSore;
They spend time examining the log, trying to decipher entries like the numbered B names. Fiona decodes the log and understands it to represent a betrayal on Bleys' part. Fiona declares it fake, or suggests this evidence is too sloppy. She doesn't believe it.
"That's... too convenient. My brothers don't leave smoking guns. I'm inclined to dismiss it out of hand. It's possible it was created by my subconscious control of pattern, as it's exactly what I wanted and it would appear to clear my name."
Fiona recognizes that the floorplan of the room you're in mimics some rooms back in the castle. They go out the door and find themselves among castle-like structures. Fiona discovers that they're "on a small island of matter floating in the vast emptiness of space." Maarit checks to see if they're alone.
Maarit and Fiona come to realize, perhaps, that the inside of the castle is bigger than the outside. They find an important door (the door that corresponds to the door of the Pattern Chamber if you transpose this map onto the map of the Dungeons back in Amber) and, upon opening it, find a big rocky cavern lit by flickering fire light that no longer strains the eye. Fiona suggests they can go explore that, but worries they'll get off course. Maarit says she's not worried about her mother being there, so they can go on and explore.
She points to two doors, one that leads to apartments, the other that leads to the pattern. The apartments lead to DWORKIN's space!
(GM's Note: It doesn't actually lead to Dworkin's cave near the Primal Pattern, just a place that looks very intentionally similar from the cave: essentially a shadow of that place. It takes the players another half dozen sessions to figure that out, because no one goes out of the cave to look at the Pattern in the meantime.)
Scene 5 - David on the Walls
A report from some of his men see that some of the men are coming back up the stairs and are carrying a fallen comrade slung over a horse. David learns that the Queen is in her bedchambers, gets word from the King's company on the beach: they reached the Faiella-Bionin, attempted to go down and found it blocked, and have moved on to see if the Tritons have pulled back to Cabra.
One of the returning scouts reports a fortress ransacked, one of Julian's hounds had to be put down, several of Julian's men were dead. The group pushed forward to see what they could find and they were attacked by The Weir and many were killed. David pressed for details and learned that it was a ravening pack of wier, led by a noble-like wier that wielded swords and led the pack as they ambushed and killed the soldiers.
Bells start ringing from the city and another runner shows up. He reports on the situation in the harbor. Bleys' fleet seems to be thrice the size of Caine's, but Caine's remaining fleet might flank on return. The runner says the City Watch was asking whose fleet is on the King's side. They also don't know whether to take a side. David tells them to "Make no assumptions. No forces of number are allowed within the city limits."
The battle has begun in the port. It's suspicious that none of the officers have returned from the wedding.
A bit later, a man shouts "Help! Help!" He rushes into the courtyard and pants as he gasps "which Prince do you serve?" The guards stand before him and answer "The King!" A couple guards run off to help. David asks the man how the attack is taking place. He thinks Caine's soldiers are attacking Vialle the Queen. Other soldiers attacked.
When David arrives, he finds soldiers standing guard by the suite, and other soldiers cleaning up a bunch of blood on the floor. David questions them, mentions the runner but uses a tricky name. When the guard is distracted for a moment, David takes out three of the four guards and then bursts into the room, where an officer and a soldier are trying to break into a second room.
David maneuvers to prevent the assassin's escape, lets him get injured, then demands "WHO?!" He says the name of the only other commanding officer Colonel LeDorne -- the guy in charge of the other half. David doesn't believe it.
He goes to the inner door, and tries talking to her but she doesn't answer. A voice inside says the Queen is "Beyond your grasp." The soldier inside shouts out your names and a scribe inside writes the names of the soldiers in the book and throws the book out the window.
David tries to convince the Queen's guards he's trustworthy -- it seems like their story checks out.
1B - Abn Haram and The Thing Beneath The Bay
Abn Haram continues taking ships and sending them to the bottom. His usual tactic is to let the men board first, while he provides sniper fire, and then he goes in to help mop up. This keeps him well rested, and they take several ships in succession. Some they ram deep and send them down in a hurry, others they clear of crew and leave going down more slowly. The goal is speed, trying to roll up and envelop Caine's fleet in a hurry, for fear of Caine's potential reinforcements over the Rebman territorial waters.
Steward reports that she saw something dark beneath the waters, and she can't tell if its his Turtle or not.
The battles rage on, and are going well. Bleys did lose his flagship "The Daystar", but he transferred his banner to the largest of ships captured from Caine. Caine's flanks have collapsed, and the pocket is decisively being carried by Bleys' fleet.
Two ship boardings later, it becomes clear this dark shape is something else far more menacing. The water beneath one of Bleys' ships bubbles and boils and geysers, and then the ship breaks apart. This happens a few times as ship after ship is torn apart, each time by some boily geysery warning. Men who fall into the water near a targeted ship boil, but this seems incidental. The goal is clearly to destroy Bleys' fleet, not worry about individual sailors. (Andrew says in his head-cannon this is [The Thing Beneath The Lake], but the GM points out Oosland is far from here.)
The Prophecy is clearly next on the chopping block, and the Captain tries to outrun their doom. Steward comes down from the rigging, and Abn Haram hands her his card. A few seconds later the ship heaves to Port, and starts to come apart. Abn Haram dives into the water, and swims out far enough to avoid being boiled. He swims a long while, avoids getting destroyed from below, and swims fast enough to avoid being shot by Bleys' men who think he's just another Caine sailor in the water.
He reaches shore in the slummiest part of Amber (which is still pretty good), bloodied and battered but not severely wounded. Several of Bleys' men wash up as well. Most are arrested by the City Watch without much of a struggle, but he does see two of Bleys' men standing over a Watchman's body, presumably having killed him. To avoid being rounded up, Abn Haram breaks into a shack, and takes a nap under a tarp.
2B - On the Road with Medore and Dalziel
Medore and Dalziel drive around Oosland in an RV with the Black Unicorn in a Moose-carriage. Dalziel begins to realize that some parts of Oosland have more power (the GM says "are more real" but Dalziel refuses to see it that way). They are a couple of diners, and some historic monuments or scenic views that he thinks would make great paintings. One plaque mentions "On this spot in *YEAR*, General Barimen defeated the Roundheads." They travel around a bunch, staying out of trouble, and giving the Black Unicorn time to heal.
They discuss a plan: "What if we call Corwin, have him go to the Dungeons, and then we travel through to him and let the Black Unicorn walk the Pattern if she wants?"
4B - Maarit and Fiona poke around the studio
Maarit and Fiona explore Dworkins apartments, tommy gun in hand. Fiona looks around, calling out to see Dworkin is around, and when there's no answer, she returns to the studio part where Maarit has looked at the first three of [Dworkin's Most Recent Paintings] . Fiona cautions her not to touch the canvases themselves, and that Dworkin will almost certainly know that we've looked at them. Then she calls out "Dworkin, if you don't want us to look at these paintings, now is your chance to object!" She waits a beat, and then starts with canvas #1. Maarit stands at Painting 3 or 4, but is actually watching Fiona's reaction. Fi looks at the first one, an image of Chaos at the Abyss, and asks "are they all this abstract?" Maarit says "They seem to zoom in closer in each one." Fi looks at #2, and bites her lip. It seems like maybe this means something to her. She goes to lift up the third drop cloth...
Since Maarit only looked at two of the paintings, she doesn't actually know for certain if they are exactly the same as the one's Dalziel had described to her yesterday. The first two were minimalist and abstract enough, and Maarit thought she was in the other place, so it would make sense that these are the ones that had been described in intricate detail in Dalziel's notebook. If they are, then they would look like this:
...and a heavy breathing sound is heard from the other room. Really loud, really heavy. Dropping the cloth, she calls out "Dworkin?" again. Then she steps out into the kitchen, clutching the tommy gun. A floating snake covered with eyes passes by the open doorway to the cavern. (One might wonder if this is just the tail of Blinky, but they haven't seen that dragon yet.) Fiona realizes she's trespassing, and suspiciously carrying a machine gun, which is not a good look when you want to convince a relative (or a relative's guard-snake) you're not setting up to ambush them.
Fiona ushers Maarit back into the studio, pulls a card out of her pocket, and whisks herself and Maarit away to the Crooked Forest, somewhere in shadow.
4C - Maarit and Fiona have a very important conversation
They talk a bit about what all is going on, and what the weird LogBook EyeSore might mean, and who is behind all of this. Fi reiterates the possibility that the log was planted to make Bleys look guilty, like a deliberate piece of Dis-Information done to make Fiona mistrust Bleys. Maarit is having a hard time following, so she asks "what am I missing?" Fi opens up. Ho, boy, does she let some things off her chest. Crazy tinfoil hat nonsense, or maybe an earnest glimpse at the greatest secrets of the modern era? She gets very emotional about it all, and chews all the scenery.
She points out that there was a time when everyone thought Caine was dead, in the middle of the Black Road War. Corwin found Caine's body, along with the body of one of these Spur-hand Mafia guys. Fi did autopsies on both. Caine was definitely dead, but as Corwin tells it, Caine mere faked his own death, planted the other body to frame Corwin somehow, and tried to murder Corwin in his sleep (and failed). Then, at the final battle of the War, Caine appears and helps Amber win the day. His appearance wasn't decisive, but also wasn't too late to matter at all. Just in time to clear his name, and Corwin's name.
A few years before that, Corwin was also the only person present when Bleys took a fall of The Eastern Stair. Bleys supposedly didn't have a deck, and Corwin through his at him, but didn't have time to see if Bleys caught it. Then Corwin continued up the stairs, tried to kill Eric, failed, and ended up in the Dungeon. Bleys wasn't seen for years, but then showed up at the last battle of the War, the same battle where Caine showed up, under basically the same highly suspicious circumstances.
Fi found that hard to swallow. She'd talked to Bleys not long before he and Corwin went on that march. She says Bleys had a deck, and was supposed to call her for an escape if things got bad at all. She figured he'd call well before the last possible moment. You don't really want to leave it up to even your most trusted sibling to save your life, especially if them choosing inaction spells your own death. Bleys didn't call her, so she assumed for a few years he was dead.
Now this note suggests Bleys may have been in a double-cross situation, actually siding with Brand. Again, she says the brother she knows wouldn't leave a smoking gun like this around. So she knows to distrust the log... and yet, having read it, it has managed to poison her mind. She's often wondered about all these coincidences and faked deaths. The notion has crossed her mind, if Corwin's not the great hero he sells himself as, he could have murdered Bleys and Caine both, and produced dopplegangers to clear his name. She's thought it, but never bought into that logic because of a completely different secret that she also spills to Maarit.
At the battle at Chaos, the suddenly alive Caine fired two arrows at Brand. The first hit Brand in the throat, and while it wasn't instant-death, it was clearly good enough. They say the second arrow hit less cleanly, but as Brand fell backwards into the Abyss, he grabbed Dierdre by the hair and pulled her with. So Corwin says he saw.
But from Fiona's point of view, it was different. The second arrow wasn't badly placed, it was expertly done. It penetrated the elbow weakpoint in Dierdre's armor, pinning her to Brand, and ensuring she would plummet with him into the Void. Fi saw it, Random saw it, Bleys saw it, Caine obviously knew it, and it's likely Lord Chantris and Lord Feldane saw it too. And they've all been lying for 10 years.
Random wanted a peaceful reign, no fratricide, and he talked Bleys (if that truly is Bleys) and Fiona into being quiet for the sake of the peace. Fiona was against it, because if Corwin ever finds out, the three of them will look just as guilty as Caine. Corwin is doggedly persistent. If ever anyone were to let it slip that something was fishy, Corwin would worry it until he'd figured enough to start the bloodshed again. And let's be clear: she doesn't think Chantris and Feldane are up to the family's standards at lying. She's been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Now she has a log that seems to confirm that Bleys is against her. What if it is true? What if things were more than they appeared in all these surprise survivals? Who could be behind it? Would Caine and Bleys work together? If Corwin was lying, does that mean he's calling the shots on their conspiracy? What if Corwin replaced Caine and Bleys? What if it goes further than that?
We always assumed we're hiding the truth of Caine killing Dierdre, and so thankful Corwin hasn't figured it out. We assume Corwin loved Dierdre like no other, because he tells us so again and again, and stays far from Amber in some place called "Paree" (Paris?) drinking and mourning. What if it's all an act? What if Corwin killed Dierdre because she's the only one who would see through his scheme? What if Corwin is so broken with grief because ordering Caine (or his double) to murder his favorite sister was a crime too far? What is Corwin's hand in all this trouble?
Then again, the log could be put there to poison her against Bleys. It's also theoretically possible, because of her high degree of control of Pattern, that her subconscious could have manifested this piece of damning (but false) evidence to justify her own paranoia.
It's a lot to think about.
Maarit says "Well, I'm supposed to go get an army that's waiting out there in shadow, and bring to Medore. Wanna come with?"
The Quotes Of Chaos
"More drugs! She’s burning through them too fast!" - Medore (Horse surgery)
“I let them know they did a serviceable job.”- Medore
“Shouldn’t have eaten those Fun-Yuns” - Dal
"I dont like the answer either, but I don’t trust either of them." - David
During the naval battle:
"Her job is to look for invisible ships or ships that can sail on land, things like that…" - Abn Haram
"I kinda want to break his back or something but that seems a little too showy, I’ll stab him in the guts so he isn’t going to die right away, but probably doesn’t feel like fighting." -Abn Haram's player
“Bleys is the one True God, First among equals! Ruler of the Gods!" - Sailors
"Well good thing he’s on our side." - Abn Haram.
