A Tree Full Of Holes

Thinking a bit about a quote from Nine Princes In Amber by Roger Zelazny, and how I wish I'd paid more attention to it at the start of my campaign more than a year ago:

I was a prince of Amber. It was true. There had been fifteen brothers and six were dead. There had been eight Sisters, and two were dead, possibly four.

The nine princes active during the original novels are: Benedict, Eric, Corwin, Bleys, Brand, Caine, Gerard, Julian, and Random.

The four princesses active during the original novels are: Deirdre, Fiona, Llewella, and Florimel. 

So that leaves 6 dead princes, 2 dead princesses, and 2 princesses of unknown status. Let's just call them 6 and 4 to keep it simple, as in many Amber campaigns any off-camera death is instantly suspect.

A few books into the series, we are told about Osric and Findo, who long ago died "for the good of the realm", so that leaves 4 and 4.

In the later novels, we are told briefly about Sand and Delwin, so that leaves 3 and 3. 

We're also introduced to a few others in the later novels, such as Dalt and Coral, but they presented in a way that makes it incredibly unlikely that they should be subtracted from that total. They were never part of the family when the "kids" were growing up, anyway.

The various third-party guidebooks about Amber (the "Complete Amber Sourcebook" and the "Visual Guide to Castle Amber") mention a princess Mirelle, so that leaves 3 and 2, for a total of 5.

Those 5 are presumed dead, and completely open for GMs of the Amber DRPG to fill in. A lot of word-count is spent in the novels telling us how Corwin and his kin are fratricidal and traitorous, so presumably several of these 5 died in ways that were memorable and/or suspicious. They could potentially give you great backstory and motivation details for the existing Amberites: lots of axes to grind over the tragic deaths of beloved siblings.

For some reason, I always forget about them when I'm starting a campaign. At the outset of Amber, I make individual decisions about the status of Osric, Findo, Sand, Delwin, and Mirelle, but I never remember during session zero that there's 5 others I need to decide on as well. I very commonly make a detailed birthorder chart that's canonical for my campaign, complete with pictures of the major NPCs to help new players wrap their heads around the massive family, but I never seem to remember to add 5 entirely new names to that list.

I need to put that on my checklist for future campaigns, I guess.  Make up some new siblings, and kill them spectacularly before the first session.

While I'm on the topic, I might as well mention that there's a couple different birth orders in the various sources, with the most important bone of contention being the switch-up being whether Caine is a full-brother or half-brother to Corwin. The novels give mixed messages about him. The guidebooks muddy it further, with the "Complete Amber Sourcebook" by Theodore Krulik claiming they share a mother, while the "Visual Guide to Castle Amber" by Neil Randall list Caine's full brothers are Gerard and Julian (and puts their births in slightly different order, as well).

Other places where the guidebooks contradict each other include:

Benedict, about whom the lineage charts in the two books disagree about whether he was the eldest or the youngest of the three children of Cymnea. He's the surviving one, and that's what matters, I guess.

Sand and Delwin are listed as the children of Harla in one guide, and children of Lora in the other. The two books also disagree about whether Sand and Del are older or younger than Random. To make it more confusing, the book that names their mother Lora says that Oberon did also have a wife named Harla, but that it's unknown if they had any kids. So there's no chance that Lora is a nickname for Harla.

The King Is Dead

 Crazy session of Amber tonight. Semi-accidentally killed off King Random. 

Over the past 15 sessions or so, a villain was using a network of special jewels to cast devastating attack spells at a distance, blasting anyone who had one of these gems. Two or three sessions previous, this had nearly killed 1 PC and her mother (Princess Sand), but the actions of 3 PCs working together had saved them both. One of them figured out how to use the Pattern Lens to seal the gems that Sand and the other PC had on them so they couldn't get blasted, and then rushed the injured Sand to a high-tech sci-fi hospital to save her.

These 3 PCs, it should be noted, all really liked King Random, and would genuinely want to save him.

Tonight, one of them was present when suddenly the King started getting blasted by the same methods, only through the Jewel of Judgment instead of these other Spikard-y stones. The first two shots incapacitate him, but since the one of those 3 PCs was nearby, and he knew the other 2 PCs were present at a high-tech hospital, they spring in to action. He Trumps his cousins, and passes the King's unconscious body through to the PC who had sealed the other gems. 

Who then doesn't seal the Jewel, and instead loads the KO'd King into medical scanner (kind of like an MRI tube) to diagnose his injuries, and leaves the King alone with just the NPC scanner technician while he steps out of the room to make a call.

This is a really bad idea, so before I pull the trigger, I subtly remind him that the King is wearing the Jewel and he could do something with it. 

This instead makes him consider running off with the Jewel for himself. Steal it, head to Amber to attune to it, draw his own Pattern, etc. He thinks about it a bit, and then ultimately decides to be better than that. He leaves it on the King, because there's a chance the Jewel might be all that's sustaining his lifeforce. 

(Which, to be fair, is a thing that does happen in the books, more or less. Corwin gets stabbed and says the Jewel may have saved him. But he's not really sure if it's saving him or dooming him, so Corwin stashes the Jewel in a compost heap.)

So, having resisted the temptation to steal the gem, the player instead leaves the KO'd king in the medical scanner, still wearing the Jewel that they know for certain was just used to blast him with sorcery twice. It was a great little moment of temptation and moral victory. Good stuff.

"Okay," I say to the players a few heartbeats later, "I feel I've given you enough warnings. About that, there's a series of explosions in the other room, centered on the Jewel." 

"Enough warnings -- oh, crap! You're right, I should have realized that!"

"Oh, it's okay," says one of the other players, "I'm sure the King has several centimeters of plot armor."

Nope. No he doesn't. No one does. Mistakes like this need to have consequences.

"Oh, no! He died in my hospital, on my watch. All his siblings are going to think I did this!"

Yep. Yes they will. And my game is suddenly pivoting in an entirely new direction.

Corwin Is Wrong

 Spoiler Warning: I'm going to spoil a bit of book 5 of Roger Zelazny's Amber novels, and I'm also really going to spoil his unrelated short story "A Rose For Ecclesiastes". 

 

I say the following sentence frequently when I'm talking in person about Amber, but it dawned on me that I'm not sure I've ever put it directly in writing on this blog:

I believe that the thesis statement or through-line of the first five Amber novels is "Corwin is wrong." About everything. Every 50 pages, the reader discovers something new that he's wrong about. At least once per novel, the thing he was wrong about is huge and world-shaking, and utterly transforms our understanding of the universe. Being wrong is kind of Corwin's thing.

This is important. Not only because it's a major theme of the books, and critical to their mystery and procedural plotlines, but also because Corwin is a misogynist. He is instantly contemptuous and dismissive of his sisters in book one, writing them off as unimportant, incapable, and at best worthy of his big manly protection. This, like everything else, is an assessment about which Corwin is tragically wrong.  Deirdre is a bad-ass hyper-competent warrior-woman who cracks the spines of werewolves with her bare hands, and all of his sisters are way more clever and skilled then Corwin gives them credit for. To say more verges on spoiler territory, but if you don't understand that Corwin is wrong about everything, those early opinions he shares about his sisters in book one are hard to stomach.

I mean, yes the novels are older, and from a less-enlightened decade... and I'm not saying Corwin isn't a wrong headed pig...but I feel like the truth that is clearly there in the subtext (but just not on Corwin's conscious radar) is a lot less dated and objectionable than it seems upon first reading of the first book. A book whose title, unfortunately, also pushes the sexism by declaring in large font that only male heirs of Amber matter. Even knowing it's wrong and that's subtly the point, there are still passages that are cringe-inducing. It's a shame, because the books are full of wondrously imaginative concepts, multilayered mythologizing, vivid and unique imagery, and clever wordplay. All of that greatness is potentially rendered unpalatable by his main character's sexist worldview, and by the slow understated way the author gradually reveals the inaccuracy of this aspect of Corwin's philosophy, threaded amongst all the other flashier things he's likewise proven wrong about. I would have loved to see Deirdre or Fiona or Dara directly call him out on this BS, and they never do. 

Now, I'm obviously a Zelazny apologist, but I don't think I'm just forcing my own interpretation into the text. Corwin assumes his sisters are irrelevant to the succession struggle, but (and here's where that spoiler alert comes in) his sister Fiona in particular is absolutely critical to the outcome. Corwin is wrong about her, repeatedly.  She's more powerful than Corwin, and understands more of the universe's secret truths than nearly all of her siblings, and is a far smoother schemer than any of them. She employs magics that Corwin can't hope to understand, breaks the laws of the physics, and makes it look like child's play while she's at it. She makes an assassination attempt in a room full wary, hyper-vigilant warrior-gods, literally under their noses, and then calmly interacts with them all for an hour after the blade is found sticking out of someone's kidney before strolling away olly-olly-oxen-free. If she had not parted ways from Brand, the villian(s) would have won. But that's not exactly clear-cut feminism. I mean, you could interpret Fiona's witchy ways and changing allegiances as yet another form of misogyny on the part of the author, especially if the Amber novels are the only thing you've ever read by him. For a long time, I've hoped I was reading authorial intent correctly, but also worried that maybe I was just giving Zelazny way too much credit.

Recently, I read A Rose For Ecclesiastes, which was one of the first stories by Zelazny to have ever been published. It's a remarkably clever myth-laden tale of a human linguist meeting an alien culture and falling in love with an exotic alien woman. As you read through it, you find familiar tropes of the star-crossed lovers, with an undercurrent about an ancient prophecy and a dying civilization. You think you know where it's going, and the glorious but predictable way it will surely end. Then you get to the last two paragraphs, and the rug is pulled out from under the main character and the reader alike. Gallinger is as wrong as Corwin. The woman he's in love with does not reciprocate his feelings, and he's a big dumb wrong-headed idiot for not realizing it sooner. And where you might expect then the story to follow other tropes about him carrying a torch and trying to win her love, it instead just ends. The brief but powerful realization of the sudden completion of the story is clearly this: being the main character of your own life story does not automatically entitle you to the love and admiration of others. Neither does it guarantee that the truth of the  world in any way resembles your biased perceptions and opinions.  Sometimes you're just wrong, and the only mature response is to incorporate the new information, and move on. Apparently, that's been part of Zelazny's message from the very beginning. 

(That, or I'm falling victim to confirmation bias.)

Shock & Awe: How To Do A Decent Benedict

 A second installment in my takes on how to do justice to Zelazny's NPCs. In my first installment I talked at great length about how tricky it is to capture the feel of Corwin, and discussed the methods I use to prep for any scene or session I know he'll be in. 

This time, I discuss Benedict, the first bloody bastard of Amber.

"...the old arguments were resumed as to who was more legitimate. Of course, you and Eric are both my elders, but while Faiella, mother to Eric and myself was his wife after the death of Cymnea, they-"

"Enough!" cried Benedict, slapping the table so hard that it cracked.  The lamp danced and sputtered, but by some small miracle was not upset. The tent's entrance flap was immediately pushed aside and a concerned guard peered in. Benedict glanced at him and he withdrew.

"I do not wish to sit in on our respective bastardy proceeding," Benedict said softly. "That obscene pastime was one of the reasons I initially absented myself from felicity. Please continue your story without the benefit of footnotes..."

-Corwin and Benedict, in The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny

 

Benedict boils down to three main traits in order from most to least: Short-Tempered,  Erudite, and Laconic. He's the eldest of the family, meaning that he's had the most time to accumulate a sizable vocabulary and extensive education. A particular set of skills, if you will. Also, it means that all the other NPCs seem like squabbling children from his point of view. Depending on how deep you want to stare into the implied Abyss, you may or may not also see Benedict as Oberon's enforcer or enabler: The big bully of the family. We're sort of told by Corwin that Benedict's amongst the moral best of the siblings, or at least the only brother likely to be above suspicion. Despite that praise, he's clearly a murderous bastard with serious anger management issues... even more so than his siblings. He's not above suspicion because he's a good guy. He's above suspicion only because if he was the secret villain, he would have already killed everyone by now.

We are told that Benedict spends millennia practicing warfare, running the same campaigns and battles over and over again with minor changes. Actively sacrificing countless lives to find the most effective solutions and the most efficient methods. I put forth that he treats the language with the same martial determinism. He has figured out the best words to use, and the sharpest way to wield them. He moves to convey his meaning quickly and precisely, and remind the listener that he's better than them. Shock and awe.

So when I know that there's a big scene coming up with Benedict in it, I try to think ahead (between sessions) to the sorts of things he's likely to say, and write them out. Then I run them through a few "algorithms", I guess:

1.) I crank up the volatility a bit. Figure out how might he say it with an air of menace or insult. The man does not hesitate to throw his weight around, and he does not suffer fools.

2.) Then I break out a thesaurus, and upgrade my native vocabulary with a few $5 words. Terminology that I can mostly follow the gist of when they came up in conversation, but which I'd be hard pressed to give a nuanced definition of without a reference.

3.) So armed, I pare it back down, so that there's not a lot of wasted words, nor time for people to interrupt. Benedict is lean, and so are his paragraphs. His sentences certainly aren't short or simple, but he doesn't pause to let you process, and he sure as hell isn't going to elaborate or repeat himself if you weren't quick enough to parse it the first time.

For example, in a recent session of my current A Horse Of Another Timbre campaign, Benedict and Random were talking, and Ben said:

"Your first duty as sovereign of Amber is to demonstrate the immutability of the realm, NOT the pursuit of your cornucopian fantasies of libertine socialist reform! Your overly egalitarian reign has fostered the appearance of caducity. This weakness will not be allowed to persist. You will end it, or I will end it, before our enemies can!"

Obviously, that leans most heavily on steps 1 (volatility) & 2 (vocabulary), and could arguably have benefited from a bit more of step 3 (brevity).   I delivered the lines as quickly and sternly as I could, though, and it made all the players flinch on Random's behalf. That's Benedict for you.

How To Do A Decent Corwin

 This was sort of buried in my recent campaign log post, and I thought it was worth breaking out and elaborating on.

Corwin is the hardest NPC to improv in Amber, by a long shot. Probably the hardest NPC I've ever had to portray in any game. Why? Because it's deucedly difficult to catch his voice, but anyone who's read even a single Amber novel will notice if you get your Corwin wrong.

We spend 5 novels inside Corwin's, so his personality is well-rendered. Corwin is sly and snarky, but also poetic. What's more, he has this amazing ability to make deep literary references off the cuff. I'm sure Zelazny cheated, by looking things up, and editing the hell out of every paragraph, so I cheat too.

Corwin is hard work. Before every session, if I know or suspect Corwin is likely to show up, I search quote sites on a variety of topics that seem relevant. The goal is to extract a couple of "clever" things that I can slip in and make them look like they were improvised. Shakespeare references are the gold standard for Corwin -- but you don't just literally quote ol' Billiam. You never just take an entire line of Shakespeare, or Tennyson, or Coleridge. You twist it around some way. You want it to sound familiar, and make the players nod along like they're in on the joke, or they at least found the easter egg regardless of whether they understand it or not. It's like Corwin really wants to show the other characters how smart he is, all the time, but he thinks the copyright police are going to burst in at any minute if every sentence isn't transformative. 

In the State of Denmark, there was the odor of decay...

So like I said, every session, if I plan on using Corwin, I brainstorm some topics that might be relevant to, or parallel of, the plots and themes and imagery of the game. Then I go looking for quotes that I can fold, spindle or mutilate into Corwinisms. I check quote sites on the internet, for sure, but I also check Zelazny's work. Sometimes there's already a Corwin line in the Amber novels that'll work perfect in this situation, which then feels genuine and immersive, like the way each of us have our favorite jokes and anecdotes we over-use.  And sometimes I do deep dives into Zelazny's non-Amber novels or his poetry. I have a dogeared copy of his "When Pussywillows Last In The Catyard Bloomed" poetry collection that I've riffed on or stolen from a few times. It's unlikely those will trigger the lightbulb over your players head the way that classical references will, but it definitely gets you thinking in Corwin/Zelazny's tone and style. 

We circulate,

the arm descends,

the diamond finger writes. 

That's three lines from a Zelazny poem, "LP Me Thee", which had on deck for when Corwin talked about how he felt like he had no control over his life and had to just sound the groove that had been carved for him. (With Corwin, there's always this tension of will he do the thing that loyalty and decency need him to do for the good of others, or will he choose this moment to seek personal goals at the expense of the universe. That makes him a good NPC, because him chafing at the need to be a hero and walking off in a huff means an opportunity is open for the PCs to step in and be better than him. But I digress...)

Having done a bit of this now, I feel like the "correct" amount of Corwinisms to drop into a session is two, or maybe three if he's really center stage for a long time. Less than two runs the risk of not feeling like Corwin, especially if the players don't catch the reference. More than three starts to come off as too gimmicky, and runs the risk of making Corwin less suave than he should be. Yeah, Corwin's a huge nerd, but he can also charm the seal-skins off a Rebman monarch. So I'll usually prep three or four especially Corwinian things to say, and just have them ready on deck with the plan to drop whichever pair fit into conversation the best. The ones I don't use can be stoppered and saved to decant some other evening.

Needless to say, running the game online makes it much easier to be Corwin. I've run a lot of Amber over the past two decades, but I feel like this campaign I've done my best Corwin. I can have my three or four prepped references and metaphors visible at the edge of my screen, so I only have to look left for a split second to harness the Corwin. 

But that also makes it tempting to go overboard, which is why I settled on prep 3 or 4,  and plan to just use the 2 that best fall into place organically. It seems to be working quite well, and it's not a particularly arduous burden on the GM to do before most sessions.

A Horse Of Another Timbre: Session 2 Log

 The following is the campaign log for the second session of my current Amber campaign. Most of this log was typed up by one my players (thanks, Brendan!) during the session. I've added a few notes of my own, and a couple of the other players appended a summary of a small scene they did between sessions.  Click here to start with session #1.

Campaign log: Session 2, 14 September 2020

Setting the scene. The ambassadorial party from the Court of Chaos retires for the evening. The King (Random) announces a feast for all present. That feast ends up being a giant rolling scene that involves nearly all the PCs.

The PCs are:

• Dalziel, son of Bleys. A scientist who has been in Amber for several months.
  
• Maarit, daughter of Sand. An orphan who never met her mother.
• Spinturnix, son of Julian. Grew up in Forest Arden.
  
• Medore, child of Dierdre, just recently arrived in Amber to learn Dierdre is dead.
  
• David Weyreth is a retired officer from the militaries of Amber.
  
• Abn Haram, the human-shaped son of Lady Nykae of Chaos.  
• Ava, daughter of Florimel and Lord Uldain of Chaos.
  

A scheduling conflict has caused the 7th player to have to bow out of the game, at least for during the school year, so the plotline with Ava has been put on hold.

Several of the major NPCs are from the novels: King Random, his wife Queen Vialle, his siblings Prince Bleys, Prince Julian, Prince Caine, Princess Llewella, and Prince Corwin. A few of the minor characters and supporting staff are technically canonical as well: Lord Hendon the castle steward, and Dik who worked in the castle library. 

Lady Nykae of Chaos is non-canonical, but is part of a small family of NPCs I'd made up for a previous Amber campaign 20 years ago, and just dusted off to get things set up quickly. It maybe would have been better to come up with entirely new NPCs, but with 7 players and a huge NPC cast it seemed better to start from a template I already knew so that I could improvise more readily.

Scene 1: David Offers Breakfast - David, Random, Bleys, Hendon in Amber
Random and Bleys speak after leaving the Ambassadorial Suite where the party from Chaos is staying. They begin discuss Abn Haram's parentage, Bleys is suspicious of David, but Random asks him to stay in reflection of David's gift of a drum set. David offers to make Random breakfast; Random invites David to join the feast tonight. David makes inquiries with the Steward, Hendon.


Scene 2: Abn Haram and the Strange Customs of the Amberites - Abn Haram, Nykae,
In the Ambassadorial Suite, Abn Haram and his mother chat, reflecting on the rebellious captain and his skill seemed outsized. They try to understand his motives - did he want an incident or want it to fail? Then they discuss how magic works differently in Amber than in the Courts of Chaos. They also try to determine what Random's motives are. Abn Haram decides to join the feast, and look for scientific and photographic equipment he can use to learn more about how magic works in Amber.


Scene 3: The bookworm goes on an adventure - Nix (Spinturnix), MarySue Fannigan, Julian, Large Cats, in Oberon's Loupe
While Nix is reading, he hears mysterious voices in the library, but can't find them. He looks for signs of recent Pattern-based shifting near the janitors closet where the voices seemed to originate, but he can't find any. He talks to MarySue Fannigan, a scholar from the shadow world where Amber lore is the central concern of the culture. She suggests ways the visitors may have traveled, including Tarot or Drawings or, most worryingly, through the mysterious methods that the people of Chaos used during the Black Road War.

Nix calls his father, Julian.  Julian decides he needs to visit Oberon's Loupe to see the dead cat. He detects Fiona's previous visit by the scent of her perfume. The library's taxidermist is planning to stuff the cat. Julian warns Nix that two potential things are bad in Amber, the Weir troubles and the rising power of magic near the city. Julian tells Nix he should go to Amber to find out what Caine is up to and try and find out what the others are up to; he warns Nix to keep Fiona out of the loop. He gives Nix a card of the city and returns to the forest.

After arriving via the Tarot, Nix passes the guard and goes to the library. He notices that Dik, the archivist, isn't in the library or in his quarters. Avoiding the obligations of the banquet, Nix retreats to the castle library to see what research he can find about other modes of movement between worlds.

Intermezzo: Medore and Maarit Have a Chat about Deirdre and Sand - Medore, Maarit
(Summary of play-by-post conversation between sessions 1 and 2)
Maarit helps Medore find quarters and get settled in. Medore and Maarit talk about how little they know about their mothers, Deirdre and Sand. Deirdre died in the war, and Medore hadn't seen her in years but just found out.  Maarit has never met her mother, raised as an orphan and only recently found in shadow by aunt Llewella and uncle Gerard.  Medore offers her army to Maarit, who declines. They make arrangements for the Medore's belongings to be fetched from the docks by a servant in good shape, and Medore also requests another consenting servant in good shape for ...other exercise.


Scene 4: Winner winner all the dinner: Dalziel and Maarit and Medore, then David and Abn Haram and Llewella and Bleys and Corwin and Dik in Castle Amber - topics of discussion:  The Weir, Forest Arden, Nykae, the Black Road War, Courts of Chaos, Deirdre, and Caine
Dalziel meets Medore and reunites with Maarit. Medore excuses themselves to freshen up, and Dal reflects on the wounds he got from the forest battle, heads for the infirmary. He drops off his clothing and then goes for bandages and food. Maarit and Dal discuss the dangerous Wier in the forest Arden. They don't know why the remnants of Eric's wier guard might have attacked.

Llewella searches the hall and does not find a seat for herself. She talks with David, whom she knew from his service during the war. David gives Llewella the latest news and some ideas about what's happened. Llewella moves over to talk with Abn Haram. Abn Haram and Llewella talk about many things, including the mutiny. Abn Haram reveals himself to be the child of Nike (ni-KAY) of the Courts, but is coy about his purposes. Turns out Llewella is trying to find out what's going on in the city - they spar a bit about her dislike of the Chaosites and bad memories from the Black Road war.

Maarit talks to Llewella, reveals that the delegation landed aground and came through the forest. Llewella indicates that she loves puzzles when she sees that Bleys has entered the room and asks Maarit to help her in solving puzzles. Maarit introduces Dalziel to Llewella. Dal reveals that he only met Bleys recently (after the war), then Dal mentions his assault from the Weir. Llewella mentions that the last time she heard of the Weir attacking anyone, it was several years ago when they attacked Random, Corwin, and Dierdre.

Maarit also introduces Llewella to Medore, who reveals that their mother was Dierdre; Llewella is sad about that. Medore tries to use Llewella's Tarot card for Dierdre without success; then they use Corwin's card. Corwin arrives to visit upon hearing Dierdre's name, causing much consternation. Medore shows Corwin the note from his mother, they talk it over. 

The last bit of food is cleared from one of the platters on a banquet table. When servants pick up the platter, a message is found, written on the tablecloth the tablecloth. It says "She tried to destroy Amber -- She should not be seated at our father's table". Luckily, Corwin and Medore are nearby. Corwin quickly covers it with a plate, and they quietly discuss who might have written that message. As Maarit, Dalziel, and Medore go to investigate the message, Corwin again puts his plate down and has a servant guard it. Medore introduces Maarit and Dalziel.

Dalziel walks over to meet Abn Haram. They start talking science right away -- Abn Haram mentions his equipment was lost. Dal and Abn Haram discuss sharing equipment and scientific findings. They talk about how they started getting interested in science, talk about the different worlds they've been in, etc. They compare their divergent perspectives on what Amber is (static vs. sterile?). Dal leads Abn Haram toward a more politic way of talking about the scientific reality of Amber to avoid apostasy. They're bosom buddies!

Dalziel and Abn Haram continue their discussion of science. While Dalziel is considering food, Abn Haram notices a servant staring at him; Abn Haram moves toward the servant, who leaves the hall; Abn Haram follows. In the hallway, they talk. The servant turns out to be the archivist, Dik. "A door is opened below." He gives Haram a black key. "Lady Cindray Karm remembers the ancient debt owed to her distant cousin Osric. This key is her birthday gift to Gehenna's finest son, and wishes you many happy returns." They bond over shared love of libraries, then Dik heads for the archive and Haram heads to the restroom.

Meanwhile, Corwin and Maarit look to see if any other platters have messages hidden under them -- and find at least one. They order more food to help keep the messages hidden. Medore approaches Bleys, alerts him to the messages. Bleys has some musicians start playing, which helps thin people out and direct attention away from the tables, then yanks the tablecloths like a magic trick. Corwin and Medore eat, and eat.


Scene 5: A Shocking Discovery - Llewella, Maarit, and Lord Denesh in Castle Amber

Llewella and Maarit go looking for the absent King. Llewella warns Maarit that Caine seems to be causing trouble. Llewella confesses that she can no longer walk between shadows, because she is constantly under attack from elaborate death traps and puzzles, likely from family - someone who survived the Black War and has been tormenting her for decades. She warns Maarit that there might not be a lot of people looking out for her, and tells her she's always welcome in Rebma. An armed guard waits outside the royal chambers - NO ADMITTANCE. They're refused. Maarit uses her magic pendant, which tugs her toward the Chaos ambassadorial suite -- more guards here! There's been an assassination attempt! Everyone is fine but the assassin is dead, and his allegiance is unknown. Guard captain asks Maarit and Llewella to leave the castle or go back to the party.

Scene 4b: More Dinner Conversation - Corwin, Medore, Lord Chantris, Abn Haram, Dik and David  in Castle Amber

Corwin points out people to Medore, a variety of folks. Corwin points out that Lord Chantris is watching an old sailor and staring daggers. The sailor belongs to Caine. (GM notes: The sailor is David. I think that went over several player's heads.) Corwin points out when Abn Haram leaves the room, and notices that Dik went too and was acting a little suspiciously. Corwin gives Medore a deck of Tarot cards and goes to intercept Dik; but Bleys calls Corwin over and they leave together out a different door. Medore goes after Haram and Dik.

David has stood around the banquet hall creepin' on most everyone's conversations.

Bleys and Corwin are talking in the hallway about Random and the Queen being so late to their party. Bleys says Random is not responding to his Tarot. They decide that Corwin will go find Random. Bleys will go try to wrap up the party, since he was playing Host for part of it already, and Corwin was an obvious late arrival. Dal will be sent to distract Abn Haram by taking him away from the party to someplace safe where they can talk science. Everyone agrees on the course of action, but Bleys feels Corwin is a little bossy / presumptuous. It's really important to Bleys that Corwin doesn't get to order him or Dalziel around. Dalziel's saner head doesn't lose sight of the situation and the shared goals, and gets them to stop arguing. During all of this, Maarit arrives and offers to help Dalziel with Abn Haram.


Scene 5b: Maarit and Llewella at the Gates - Maarit and Llewella at the edge of Castle Amber

Llewella decides to leave the castle instead of returning to the party. Anything bad that happens in Amber reflects poorly in Rebma, and so she needs to go tend to things there. Llewella gives Maarit her deck, so they can be in contact later. Maarit walks her out to the front gates of the castle. They notice that the guards are writing down in a ledger everyone who leaves, and at what time. Llewella walks up to the guards and bids them goodnight. While doing so, she makes an overt display of showing that there is no blood on her hands.

Quote Log Night 2, 9/14/2020

• “I don’t know any of the players, nor the plot, Mother.” - Abn Haram
• “I forgot about all the intrigue because now I’m talking about science!” - Dal
• “I believe so. She is extremely hard to kill." - Abn Haram
• "I've known Dick for centuries." - Corwyn

*sigh* The player who was keeps the quote log only remembered it was a thing in the tail end of the session. In addition to no doubt missing several great lines from my players, this timing also means my accidental penis joke was immortalized, and not any of the lines I'd painstakingly prepared in advance for Corwin. 

You see, Corwin is the hardest NPC to improv in Amber, by a long shot. Probably the hardest NPC I've ever had to portray in any game. We spend 5 novels with him, so his personality is well-rendered, and he has this amazing ability to make deep literary references off the cuff. I'm sure Zelazny cheated, by editing and looking things up, so I cheat too. Before every session if I know Corwin is likely to show up, I search quote sites on a variety of topics that seem relevant, to extract a couple of "clever" things I can slip in and make them look like they were improvised. Corwin is hard work. For example, my prep notes for this session suggest I was planning to say something along the lines of:

"Before I'm all 'Sound Trumpets' for 'things long lost', I should really start properly, by reiterating advice your mother hopefully already gave you long ago. In case she didn't, or you've mislaid it, here it is with a point finely honed by centuries on the family grindstone: Never trust a relative. It is far worse than trusting a stranger. With a stranger, there is at least a possibility that you might be safe."

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. A nod to Shakespeare's Edward III on the topic of reunions, followed by a colorful metaphor instead of just a straight-forward "trust me, I know what I'm talking about", and then leading directly into a quote from Zelazny / Corwin himself about how awful all his characters are. 

Some nights, I anticipate topics of conversation and have relevant Corwinisms locked and loaded. Other times, the PCs pull out Corwin's card unexpectedly, and I have to scramble to make him feel "extra" enough. This night was his first appearance in this campaign, and I put it in motion deliberately, so I'm fairly confident I was prepared and it went well.

Archive - More Amber Conspiracy Theories

I was toying with the notion of starting an Amber campaign again, and so I went looking through my old Amber stuff, including my old Amber Conspiracy Theory lists... and I realized I had only Archived half of them here on the blog. The others were thankfully still reachable via the wayback machine, but it's probably a good idea for me to repost them here for ease of reference.

Please excuse the frost and the dust, they've been in cold storage for years.

Unicorn as Pet or Pawn

Here's one theory that everybody likes to tell me is crazy. Dogma and Rhetoric, I say! What I'm proposing is that the Unicorn really isn't some godlike primal entity, but is just an ordinary horse with a horn on it's head. Well, not quite. I've already talked about the possibility of redheads or Random faking a Unicorn appearance in The Courts of Chaos.
It's not like Zelazny ever says "it's impossible for a shapeshifter to take the form of the unicorn". (In my campaign, all that stops them is social taboo, religious stigma, and the subconscious. It's a powerful enemy, and they are uncomfortable taking it's form. Sort of like a really religious christian not wanting to walk around dressed satanic imagery)

The Merlin saga really makes a big deal about The Unicorn and The Serpent being gods to the gods, capable of near omnipotence. There's plenty of campaigns out there set after Corwin's saga, but with little or none of Merlin's saga included. So, why must we accept the idea of serpent and unicorn being superpowerful? I've known gamemasters that rule no chaoslords can take the form of the Unicorn, and no Amberite can find a Shadow with Unicorns in them! To each their own, but I see nothing in the canon that says it must be so.
If your campaign is just based on Corwin's saga, there's no need for the serpent to even exist. For that matter, the Unicorn doesn't do anything that we can be sure would be impossible for a lesser being - maybe even for that bird that Oberon makes out of Corwin's blood.
Could the Unicorn be one of Oberon's agents? Perhaps formed from Oberon's blood? Could this magnificent beast just be a lousy 20 point creature? Could the entire religion of Amber be just a fallacy created by Oberon to ensure control of the peasantry via his own control of their God? Could Dworkin just have been crazy (heaven forbid) when he spoke of mating with the Unicorn? Sure, any or all of the above, and it wouldn't be the sneakiest or worst thing Oberon had ever done.
If the Unicorn is just a tool or pet of Oberon's, it makes a lot more sense for it to be pulling the Jewel from the Abyss. Oberon sent it there to do so, and Oberon picked Random. Maybe he thought his kids would be less likely against the imaginary god-horse than they would be to rebel against his own dying wish.

Or maybe Oberon's Unicorn was killed, or captured, and someone who wanted Random on the throne brought in their own shadow unicorn or a shapeshifter to bring the Jewel of Judgement to Random. Afterall, if the Unicorn is really all-powerful, and really has the best interests of Amber at heart, why does it get close enough to snag the Jewel from Brand, but not help innocent Deirdre out of the Abyss?

Hell, maybe there is no Unicorn at all, maybe it's always just been Oberon taking that shape.


Brand's Favorite Rug
So, we’re told that Brand is very sentimental, and didn't kill Corwin because the blood would stain his favorite rug. Does anyone believe this? Brand is a master of Pattern (and more, it would seem) and yet unable to find another rug just like it? Lowly Corwin can pull swords out of trees, but Brand can’t find a quality floormat, or at least a good drycleaners?

At the very least, there’s a story we’re not taking advantage of. If Brand is truly this sentimental, then we should ask ourselves why. Perhaps it was given to him by an old flame, or dear friend long gone. Are they dead, or merely alienated? If they’re this important to him, they must be more than some lame shadowling. If you really want your players to see your campaign as meticulously researched and crafted, come up with the background of the person who gave him the rug. A lady of Chaos? An unseen child of his? Or is it the last souvenir from Brand's favorite shadow-world, long ago destroyed like Corwin's Avalon.

In a more paranoid vein, perhaps there’s something magic to the rug. Maybe it reacts with Blood, shapeshifting to the form of the DNA that touches it. That could explain Brand being in two places at once on several occasions, as well as providing a motive for not shooting Corwin while upon it. Maybe it was a blood-activated trump, an escape route that Brand would be able to use if ever stabbed in his sleep and left to die.

Or maybe Brand just wants us to think that. He knows how suspicious Corwin is, expects that Corwin won’t believe he's that mushy over a piece of decor, and will start meddling with the rug. Perhaps it’s a trap or a curse. But those years in Shadow have made Corwin sentimental, so it doesn’t occur to him just how out of place sentiment is in Brand. In that case, here’s a trap lying about the castle years later for PCs to accidentally spring on themselves...

Fiona's Bad Timing
In Hand of Oberon, Fiona trumps Corwin and leads him to the Primal Pattern. This is after Brand has gotten the Jewel of Judgement, and is almost certainly headed there himself. They arrive a few moments too late: Brand is already on the Pattern, and Corwin has to chase him.

Fiona really cut thru shadow, taking only 15 minutes to reach primal pattern land from earth. But, wouldn’t walking the Pattern of the Mind (a sub-power of Advanced Pattern) have been much faster? Once there, she could have trumped Corwin. They could have talked at the Pattern instead of en route to it, and that speed would have prevented Brand from becoming partially attuned. Is this her error? or Zelazny’s? Or game designer Erick Wujciks? Certainly one of the following must be the case:

Possibility #1: Fiona doesn’t have Advanced Pattern, and can’t walk the Pattern of the Mind. She also doesn't have a trump of Primal Pattern Land. She must have been further away from Primal Pattern Land then the Earth is, so that Trumping Corwin first actually saved her time, instead of costing precious minutes. The problem is, has any campaign ever not given Fiona access to Advanced Pattern? She's definitely better at Pattern manipulation than Corwin, and she seems more skilled than most of the family. She's clearly in the top 4, along with Dworkin, Oberon, and Brand.

Possibility #2: Fiona has Advanced Pattern, but the rules for Advanced Pattern are incorrect, and just too generous for the source material. Walking the pattern of the mind and teleporting needs some other higher requirement. Perhaps to learn to teleport, you have to have actually drawn your own pattern first. After all, the only person who definitely uses this power in Corwin’s saga is Corwin himself, in the final chapters just after he draws a new Pattern.

Even if this restriction is truly the case, there's still a plot hole because a Fiona who can't Walk The Pattern Of The Mind can still probably make Trumps. She must have never painted a trump of that important place, which would seem unlikely. If I were her, and I knew of a primal place of order that three quarters of the family were ignorant of, I’d have painted a card of it years ago. I can't picture her not having done this, especially not if she's engaged in a multi-year strategy to weaken Amber by pouring blood on the Primal Pattern. She just doesn't seem that short-sighted to me.

Possibility #3: So, that leaves us with the ultimate conspiratorial view of Fiona. She planned it. Her timing was intentional. She tricked Corwin out on to the Primal Pattern, expecting him to skewer Brand. As it is, he does stab Brand, and his blood does damage the Pattern further. But, like Brand, she didn’t expect Corwin would know how to summon the storm that carried Brand away.

So, she was still playing the game open ended, willing to let Corwin kill Brand, obliterate the Pattern, and strand himself on the black parts and die. She wasn’t counting on his calling a tornado or using Greyswandir to cut a trail through the damaged parts.

The obvious implication is that Fiona was already attuned to the Jewel and was prepared to make her own universe as soon as Corwin’s suicidal sacrifice was complete. She’s colder than Corwin ever imagined.

Everway/Amber names

One Everway campaign I ran was a follow-up to an Amber campaign (where Eric destroyed the Universe and all the PCs gave their lives but failed to stop him). As a result, we (I was one of two GMs for both campaigns, the other was Sarah, my wife) put some thought into what Amberites Eric would bring back for his new Universe, and how he would refashion them. Here's a short brainstorm list of Amberites and possible Everway names for them in Eric's universe.

Eric
Errata, Firstborn of Amber (he revised the Universe)
Errant (he may be absent often from Amber, exploring the new reality he created)
Eriach (the word means a fine paid to the family of someone you murdered. In otherwords, eriach is a synonym of weregild, which is cool 'cause Eric's army in Amber were werewolves.)

Oberon (Eric's Dad)
Overlord (for a very draconian King of the Universe)
Over One (sounds like Oberon, and is slightly less ominous than Overlord)
Auburn (perhaps too feminine, but it would indicate Errata doesn't harbor any bad feelings)

Faella (Eric's Mother)
Fae (she was but a fleeting ephemeral presence in his childhood, dying while he was quite young. As a result, she's somewhat idealized and unreal in his new Universe. In the new Universe, all the Amberites are her children, and Eric is the eldest of her kids.)

Dworkin (Eric's secret grandfather, inventor of Trump)Art (anything less would be insulting)

Cymnea (Oberon's first wife, the mother of Benedict)
Unicorn (all the ex-wives, save Faella, are wrapped up and washed away, bound to Dad's old horse)
Chlamydia (sums up his feelings quite nicely)

Siblings with easy names:
Benedict - Benediction
Bleys - Blaze
Brand - Brand
Caine - Cane
Florimel - Floral
Random - Random

Siblings with trickier names to Everwayize:
Llewella - Lore Well (she's always been so bookish and quiet)
Fiona - Fiat (a decree or legal proclamation)
Dierdre - Diesis (in music, a division of a tone, an interval of less than a half step. Eriach has invoked some Errata over her)
Corwin - Corvee (it means a forced labor exacted by a government. This indicates a slightly bitter Eriach)
Gerard - Gerent (meaning: one who manages or governs) or Gladiator
Julian - never did find a name we liked for him. He's too manly to be Jewels.
Finndo - Finder
Osric - again, we didn't think of a name we liked, and it was unlikely he'd be needed anyhow...

An Amber Vignette

I know Jeremy thinks I spend far too long prepping stuff for RPGs, but sometime it results in cool little things like this transcript of a "cut scene."


Let’s play make believe. You are Random, King of Amber.

Years ago, you collaborated with Fiona and Bleys. You gained the throne and they got to slowly change the nature of the Pattern, so that balance was restored, and their relatives in chaos [via Clarissa] are free to set foot in Amber without fear of [order-induced] illness. This put and end to Oberon & Dworkin’s domineering choke-hold on cross-shadow transportation. Then some damn nephew of yours [a PC] accidentally broke the tool that Fiona used (to not only tune the Pattern and redirect the nature of the universe, but also) to control Dworkin’s mind. Her influence on these things is now undone, and all is beyond control. Oops!

Several battles later, you are saving Fiona and her son [another PC] from Dworkin and those loyal to him, when you realize you’ve walked into a trap. You trump your wife, Vialle, hoping she can pull you to a place of at least temporary safety. But as you are reaching her, Dworkin reaches you.

You awake: gagged, bound, blindfolded, and psyche-barred. About the only sense allowed to you is hearing. And indeed, you hear Dworkin’s voice, relishing every minute of his victory. But he’s not talking to you.

“Your husband has failed you in several important ways, water-breather. He has failed to protect, allowing first your injure by the Hepanians [a minor NPC threat from the Golden Circle], and now by drawing you into the trap set for him. A more noble man would have sacrificed himself to defend you.”

Someone, presumably your wife, is struggling against restraints not far from you. You can hear her motion, but you can’t reach her. You can’t see her. You can’t call for help. It’s your fault she’s there. You can’t even speak to make threats or to lay your bloodcurse on Dworkin, who is continuing to harass your wife:

“Second, he has failed to provide you with a child, when surely, as King and an Amber Royal, he could have summoned or created the greatest of fertility specialists, or at least found an environment conducive to your conceiving. But, no. Instead, he favors his heir by the most recent woman he abandoned, Lady Morganthe.”

He laughs ever so slightly, Her anguish is muffled to a whisper by the gag.

“Lastly, and most reprehensibly, he has failed in that which is, by all accounts, the only flaw to that beautiful frame of yours. He has failed to give you eyes, so that you might see.”

“He knows that all his many brothers remember well the laws of physics and biology they learned as youths playing with their blades. Tissue rejects others tissue in Amber. This, coincidentally, is what prevents shapeshifting there, what held away the hordes of chaos for so many eons previous, and provided protection for us all. It also prevents transplants from holding stable on the Real World.”

“He and his red-headed conspirators changed that rule with all the others they rewrote to help their chaotic allies. He knew that it really was in his power to gift you with sight, but to do so would reveal his handiwork to his family. Even Gerard would see that something had changed if suddenly a mere Rebman commoner could hold a transplant in Amber. Too much for coincidence, after all. It would show your husband for the traitor he is. And so, you were not given that greatest gift, because your husbands love for you is insignificant compared to his fear of his brothers.”

“I, however, fear no one. I also hold no one responsible for the actions taken by those who have used them for their own pleasures. That’s why I have these.”

You hear the sound of a container being wrenched open, pressurized so it releases a hiss of gas and unidentifiable odor. Her struggling stops.

“I’ll give you what he wouldn’t, Vialle. Eyes that see and work in Amber, so you can behold the scheming pathetic little backstabber you call mate. It’ll take but a few minutes to implant the lenses and within an hour they’ll be permanent.”

It doesn’t matter how hard you throw yourself against the restraints or scream through the gag, they won’t budge and you can’t make yourself heard over Dworkin.

“I don’t even ask for anything in return. This is purely for altruistic reasons. I just want you to feel loved, Vialle, like someone really cares for you, ...since obviously your husband doesn’t.”



(Dworkin, when he's playing the villain's part, is my favorite Amberite to portray. I present him eccentric and goofy any time he's not the badguy, so that when the tables turn, he can get damnably creepy and nasty. He's your dottering old senile grandfather, whom you never expected to be a scheming psychopath.)

Befriend a Red-Head

This is from an email I sent to my players just prior to character creation 2 Amber Campaigns ago. That campaign was one where there wasn't a red-head trying to destroy the Universe. Guess what happened anyway.

Befriend a Red-Head: The Campaign will start just prior to the events described in Nine Princes in Amber, with each character having some sort of friendly or useful relationship to Bleys, Fiona or Brand. If you have any specific requests for who and what your connect to one (or more) of these individuals is, I’d be happy to hear them Thursday.

Open-Ended: Don’t expect this to follow the same plot the books do. Specifically, the PCs could cause or prevent the “official” schism between those three, and your actions will either put someone on the throne or betray them and cause their deaths. Don’t be afraid to reach and change things, but also don’t be surprised when events don’t follow the same script as the novels.

The Bottom Line: My GM-ing style is based very strongly upon a desire to empower my players. Every NPC I play has at least one weakness, discover what it is and you’ll defeat them. There are no unwinable situations or unkillable uber-NPCs. The PCs actions (your actions!) will be the single-most important influence on the fate of the Universe, so be bold. Don’t let my NPCs overshadow you, for your Player Character is more important than any NPC I could ever play.

Running Amber NPCs

This was apparently an email letter to another Amber GM, which I then converted some time ago and put on my old Amber website. That site is gone, but I still had the file. It's got some interesting character insights, and worth the read if you're an Amber fan.

Running Amber NPCs

I frequently receive questions from new GMs on the web, seeking advice on their campaign. One regular question is the following:

“I am somewhat uncomfortable trying to play the existing Amberites as NPCs. I guess I don't want to be wasting time and energy making sure I'm playing them all "right" (i.e., in-character by Zelazny's standard) but don't really want to do it "wrong" either. How have you handled that? Was it an issue/problem for you?”

This is most likely to be a problem if the overwhelming majority of your players are veterans of the game or long time fans of the novels, and this is the first campaign you’ve GM’d for them. If that’s the case, I recommend visiting my page on alternate and atypical Amber settings. Your best solution in that situation might well be to run your campaign in an alternate Amber with few or none of the normal NPCs and trappings so as to prevent the players from thinking they know more about the campaign world(s) than you do.

However, if only a small percentage of your players have previous amber experience (such as reading the novels or having played in other campaigns), you really should stick to the Zelazny setting. It really does require less work on your part (since the setting has already been created), and if they haven't read the books, there's no chance of them thinking your portrayal of an NPC is "wrong". They won't have the frame of reference to notice any "mistakes" you might make.

The real truth of the matter is that there really isn’t a "wrong" way to play Zelazny's NPCs. After all, Corwin (and Merlin in the second series) is the only one we spend enough time with to really get to know. Anybody else could have been deceiving Corwin, ANYBODY. And even if they weren’t actively tricking him, he could have just gotten the wrong impression.

Myself, I intentionally twist peoples expectations, and to good effect.

For example, it seems that most Amber veterans think Benedict is the guy to save Amber in it’s darkest hours, and they tend to call him when there's real trouble: My Benedict is an abusive bastard, he was Dad's enforcer, and the family bully. Sure he'll save Amber but you'll all watch your backs when in he's in town.

Beyond a doubt, Corwin and Merlin are the hardest to portray. Because we see so much of their thoughts and actions in the books, people get a really good idea of what they're like and are generally correct, too. If you have Corwin do something out of character, everybody calls you on it, and you feel like you've made a mistake.

But if you have Julian do something odd, chances are the Players won't notice:
Even if they do criticize you on it, your response can be "Julian has 3 scenes in the first 5 books. How can anyone claim to know all the nuances of his persona in 3 scenes?"

or "This is my Julian, this is how I play him. There were a lot of gaps in his history and personality that I, as GM, filled in. I know his past, and how he'll react to situations and people. If you watch me closely over the next few months, perhaps you'll get to know my Julian well enough to understand him too. But if you want to get to know him, you’ll have to do it in-character, I’m not going to casually tell you what makes him tick."

Chances are, you'll never have to say those things. As long as you seem confident in your portrayals, your players won’t question you. They'll just accept it. In the year my current campaign has been going on for, I was called to task once for Benedict's actions by my friend Tim. Tim has GM'd many times before and always played his Ben as the nice uncle who watched out for all the family's best interests. So, to him it seemed odd for Ben to be threatening King Random so often. In response, I just said "that's how you chose to interpret Ben's persona in your campaign: as a nice guy who just wasn't sure if Corwin could be trusted in the novels. I respect that, and if I were playing in your campaign right now, I would accept that portrayal and have my PC treat him as a friend. But in my Campaign, Benedict is the abusive older brother that everyone fears. I hope that you'll respect and accept that." Tim did respect my decision, it was never a problem again.

The secret to playing Zelazny’s NPCs is, make your decision on how you want to play each of them, be confidant in your ability to play them, and be consistent in how you play them. Even if they balk at first, the players will quickly come to respect you. (Tim’s character now plays a balancing act, trying to keep Benedict’s wrath and fury aimed at other NPCs while meanwhile he plots good old uncle Ben's assassination. And all the players seem to enjoy it.)

If the prospect of running all of the usual NPCs still seems to daunting of a task, another trick you can use is to have some of the family absent deep in shadow.
Figure out how you want to play a few members of the family and have the rest be in exile or on vacation. You can then focus mainly on the NPCs you understand or find interesting yourself. I started out my current campaign mostly focused on Random and the Redheads. Llewella's only had 2 scenes, she mostly stays in Rebma. Flora's had only a half dozen scenes, all in her son's world. Julian mostly stays in Arden, and only gets played when someone intentionally seeks him out. Gerard and Caine mostly stay with the fleet. All of them are unknowns, the players can't anticipate their responses, which is fine, because the PCs barely know them.

But all my Players know Fiona and Bleys and Random and Benedict really well. They have defined personalities that can be counted on to respond in certain ways. My players are constantly saying things like:

• "Oh, Ben's gonna kick the **** out of you for that one!"
• "Random's gonna flip his lid"
• "of course Bleys will help you with your fencing, but if you go in there dressed like that he's gonna hit on you too"
• "Corwin's and his daughter are just butting heads again, give them a day or two and they'll sort it out."
• "I'm just worried what Fi will do when she hears about it, she's been under so much stress lately"
  

One good way to get a grip on the characters is to first make a list of what you've gleaned from the books about their persona:

1. "Julian is stoic"
2. "Gerard is insecure, thinks everyone else is smarter than him"
3. "Fiona is generally calm and cool, but with flashes of biting sarcasm"
4. "Corwin is still very emotional about Deirdre"
5. etc. etc.

Then, analyze this list, and come up with a few pivotal moments in their early lives that you feel could have made each character act this way. Having access to a handful of seminal events in the NPCs childhood gives you a great anchor to work from.

Example: Oberon used to criticize Gerard very vocally whenever he'd make a bad decision. Now, if anyone calls Gerard a fool or even just tries to point out to him an better plan of action, Gerard takes it personally and gets really confrontational. If anyone seems to excel at
problem solving or intellectual pursuits, Gerard will either avoid them or try to impress and scare them by showing off his strength.

More Examples: Deirdre is so militaristic because of the way Oberon treated her. This abuse led to her rage and desire to one day grow good enough with a blade to seek her revenge.

Eric never took a stance against Oberon when he would be abusive to Deirdre.

As a result of his guilt, he did take a stand to protect Fiona in her childhood. She was young and impressionable, and thought she was in love with him because of it.

Eric rejected her after a brief and ill considered romance. As a result, Fiona tends to strike back by using men as playthings. It was this attitude that led to her cabal with Bleys and Brand falling apart.

On a related note, years before that cabal, Fiona seduced young Julian. She then, in full family style, used him, broke his heart, and cast him away for someone else. As a result Julian both hates and loves her. He's never resolved his emotion over this. He keeps thick emotional barricades around himself, pretending not to care for anyone and letting no one into his heart.

Eric saw through this, recognizing that Fi treated Julian just how Eric had treated Fi centuries earlier. He made an effort to befriend Julian as a result.

We now have a Fiona that uses sex as a weapon or means of control, a Deirdre that rebels against her father and is bitter and resentful that Eric defended Fiona and not her, an emotionally wounded Julian, a guilt-ridden Eric, and secret motivations to explain why the various family members interact the way they do.

None of this of course is ever stated in the books, yet it (and any of a hundred other possible interpretations) does fit the framework of what we see of the characters and their relationships.

The trick here is to find some sort of web of personality traits and events that defines the characters in your mind. Not just how they act, but the reason behind it. The players don't necessarily ever have to learn the "truth" about the NPCs pasts. But your being aware of a few details as GM will allow you to improvise the NPCs behavior and reactions in consistent and intriguing ways. Your players will feel part of a real world, not a two-dimensional scenario, and they'll appreciate it. They might even be in awe of it if they've mostly played hack & slash before.

Well, that’s all the advice I have on playing the “famous” NPCs. I’d also have to recommend re-reading the DRPG rulebook, Wujcick packed it full of good ideas and tips.

To get your creative juices flowing, I’ll leave you with a couple more ideas, these drafted from my campaign. . .

My Bleys is a closeted gay man, who tries to out-macho all his brothers to hide his own insecurity in this family of raging testosterone. I found a similar Bleys in the character quizzes of the Sleeping With The Enemy campaign. I’ve further complicated him by giving him guilt-baggage from the most horrible thing that ever happened to Fiona, which he still perceives as his fault.

My Random looked to be the most friendly, honest, and open-hearted of the Amberites. 8 months into the campaign everybody learned he'd taken the throne by means of plotting and cabal. So for a while the PCs hated and distrusted him.
Random, as youngest and smallest child in a family full of Herculean bruisers like Oberon, Ben and Gerard found it easy to identify with shadowlings. Especially those in the golden circle, who were more real than most of shadow, lived near to Amber’s greatness, but had no power or rights in the grand scheme of things.
Bleys and Fiona came to him with a plan to make Chaos equal to Amber. He agreed to conspire on the condition that the redistribution of wealth and power also strengthened the Golden Circle and the average citizens in Amber. Together, they stole the throne from Oberon.
When the PCs finally heard what Random’s motivations for usurping the throne were, many of them swung back to respecting and supporting him.

I put similar twists into virtually all my major NPCs. Concepts that just barely fit Corwin’s descriptions of the family, as if his perception of everything were biased and just slightly skewed. It keeps my players on their toes.

Those are just ideas, and long winded ones at that. I apologize. On a related note, I don't necessarily buy that the Lords of Chaos are immortal. In Corwin's saga we don't see any that are particularly old. For all we know, Duke Borel could be in his late 30s. They could have lifespans only as long as shadowlings, or hundreds of years like the
non-royals of Amber city. The Pattern is the source of permanence and stability after all, so one could argue that it's initiates have immortality while initiates of the Logrus, symbol of change and transformation, have short life times and possibly reincarnation. And yeah, I have a page about reincarnation in Amber too, but that's a whole other can of worms...

Anyway, thanks again for writing, hope some of this was useful. Good
luck with your campaign!

Rolfe Bergstrom

in-character procrastination

I've run three different Amber campaigns utilizing a timeline that would eventually lead to the reshaping of the universe if the PCs don't figure out who the real villain is in time to stop them.

For the record, the players have dropped the ball every time. The score is Fiona 2 - Eric 1 - PCs 0.
I think people secretly like to watch Amber boil away into chaos.

Reincarnation in Gaming

Reincarnation is a theme I've explored several times in gaming. I keep coming back to it in RPGs every couple of years. I make sure I never hit on it in two back-to-back campaigns, because I don't want it to feel like a mandatory part of Rolfe's GMing.

That said, I really enjoy what it does to storylines. Here's some examples...

1) I once ran an Amber campaign once where the Amberite PCs were incarnations of Chaosites from the days before the Pattern was drawn. Certain NPCs were holding grudges from things that had happened in a whole different lifetime. It really got the plots moving quickly, though was perhaps a little heavy-handed, to tell players "You hate him from the moment you meet him, as though he'd already done something unforgivably horrible."

2) In 7th Sea, Sarah's character was the reincarnation of the wife of a Senator of the Old Republic. Her character was an archaeologist exploring the ruins of that Senator's villa. Her past self had engaged in a sorcery-creating bargain with things beyond the veil, would her latest incarnation make the same mistakes?

3) In my current Scion campaign, I just dropped a bombshell. One PC was captured by a Villain who didn't kill her because she looked so much like his wife who'd died two thousand years ago. I dropped just the right hints, and the player jumped at them. The villain had turned to evil to get revenge at things that had been done to that wife. He felt remorse at his own gradual corruption and dishonor over the centuries. He fell upon his sword, leaving the PC with a lot of issues to ponder.

4) In another Amber campaign way back in the day, we had one PC and one NPC who were both suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder and Shape-Shifting. When the NPC got hit with a pretty nasty metaphysical attack, she split into parts. Each healed as an incarnation of a different one of her personalities.

I'm really looking forward to one day running a game where the PCs are reincarnations of PCs or NPCs from another campaign. It'd be especially cool if they were reincarnations from multiple campaigns or a whole other setting/system. Very Moorcockian.

Perfect for Amber

The following Random Question showed up when editing my blogger profile, and I thought it'd go great on an Amber character quiz...

"For your birthday, your aunt gave you a maple syrup dispenser shaped like a rooster. Please write her a thank-you note:"

EDIT: What Silence posted a comment that is highly amusing. It's from the point of view of a character he played in a campaign I ran.

Amberite Quote

The following quote/anecdote came from an Amber campaign I ran earlier this year. The part of Diedre was played by me. The part of Andre was played by Rob Daley.

Dierdre hands Andre a glass of wine.

Andre sips from it.

Dierdre gawks. "How DARE you drink from my glass?!?"

Thanks to Jeremy for emailing it to me this week when he stumbled across the notecard he'd written it down on.

Trust (Previously posted to a forum somewhere)

One of my favorite gaming moments was in an Amber DRPG campaign. It went as follows:

A PC had spent over a year of game time trying to make up with his estranged NPC mother.
Doing all sorts tasks and quests on mom's behalf...
Learning how to shapeshift into human form so the sight of him wouldn't reminder her of the traumatic events of her youth...
Killing all of mom's enemies...
Keeping all of mom's secrets hidden, despite lots of in-game time spent figuring out the deceptions in the first place...
Fetching the most powerful artifact in the universe, and giving it to mom...

So there they stand at the edge of the Primal Pattern (the magical scribble that defines and sustains the entire universe).

Son apologizes for everything he's done wrong in the past. He enumerates all the things he's done trying to get her love back. The roleplaying was really, really moving.

They embrace. Mom says "I forgive you. Do you forgive me?" He's distracted by the emotion of it all.
She steps back, and the PC sees the bloody knife in her hand. His throat gurgles.
Not only did she kill him, but his "divine" blood flows across and obliterates the Primal Pattern, unraveling the universe so Mom could create a new reality WHERE HE WAS NEVER BORN.

Gotta hand it to Starr, the player of the character that had just been outmaneuvered and murdered. Eyes bulging...

"After all that, she killed me! THAT'S SO COOL! I should of known she'd do that."

I asked Starr to be my co-GM in the next campaign I ran, as we clearly had similar ideas about what makes a good story.