Editing Diners of Amber (section)

==='''Mandalay'''===

[[File:Mandalay1.jpg]]

Mandalay. This is a topic that will fill volumes and will scatter influences like silver amongst beggars. A few quick comments are worth noting.

Mandalay is a primal realm that stands beside, if a step behind, Amber herself. It is a realm of plenty. The ancient tree Ygg, apparently somehow akin to the Unicorn, the Serpent, and the Bear, was further sanctified by the creation of the Mark of Mandalay. Unlike the compact Pattern of Amber, the meandering Pattern of Avalon, or the shifting multitude of environments in the Lorgus of Chaos, the Mark of Mandalay is a massive circle that is easy to walk and unlikely to harm those who assay it.

The Hub of Mandalay is a wooden bar, 5 feet wide and 3 feet off the ground, surrounding Ygg, 8 miles away from its trunk. It slides away to reveal the Mark of Mandalay below. The interior of the mark is a 16-mile in diameter circle of grass that never browns. Here is found sitting groups, chairs, sofas, tables, and conversation pits. By the trunk is the Great Throne of Mandalay growing out of Ygg itself. Here sits Adrian in glory surrounded by the chairs of the Lords of Mandalay. Lords have his own chairs, suitable to their forms, that grow out of the ground at the tip-end of a root of Ygg. None but they sit upon them, not even Adrian.

Outside the circle is a vast ring 8 miles wide, beginning at the hub, where tents and encampments are arranged in an orderly and efficient manner. Benedict would admire the well-arranged walkways and paths, and the way the ratlines never seem to trip anyone. It is as if Ygg itself warns you silently to watch out for the ropes. Clever Tree. This is the Ring of Life. The Hub, Ygg, the Ring, comprise the Vale of Plenty. Low hills ring the Vale.

To the South of the Vale of Plenty is the Vale of Song. To the north is the Garden. To the East is the Vale of Flowers and to the West is The Vale of Rocks. The Jeweled Road leads east to west and has it's only break in the Vale of Plenty. Good luck marching an army through this mess. Eastward lies Amber; westward lies Chaos.

Adrian's Dramaturgy is in a small valley between the Vale of Plenty and the Vale of Song.

Now if you visit Mandalay here is the way to get food. You approach the bar and place your plates, bowls, schooners, trenchers, or whatever you want to carry food away in, upon the polished surface. You wrap on it two times and they are filled by the power of the Mark. Now what they are filled with is anyone's guess, and probably the mark's joke. Any type of food available in shadow is likely to arrive. I once got a peanut butter and banana sandwich, a plate of humis, a cup of ant-spiced coffee, a tray of bread made from corn and June bugs, and a decanter of the most delicious wine I have ever tasted. Diners beware.

Two things are guaranteed about the mana of Mandalay. None of it was made from sentient species, and all of it is edible. Of course people's tastes vary in shadow. There are some Black Zone worlds where they eat truly repulsive things.

The trick is that the longer you stay in Mandalay, the more often you visit, or should you take up residence in the region someplace, the more frequently the hub begins to know what you like to eat. Residents are even able to get the hub to learn what type of food you like in which platter. So if you feel like a balcony sandwich, bring the green plate, or like lasagna bring the red dish, or white mice in machine oil and chocolate sauce bring the black bucket with the chipped corner. I have managed to convince the Hub that when I put the crystal cup I stole from chaos on the bar I want that remarkable red wine. Splendid trick, really, and a fine way to encourage immigration. Lords are able to place orders. Really now. A very splendid recruiting technique if I do say so myself.

One of the many oddities of Mandalay is that when one decides to travel from one area to another, they think on it and the distance seems to shrink. Consequently rather than walking the 29 miles from Ygg to the Vale of Song one needs to merely decide to go to the Vale and within a mile's walk one arrives there. Not actually teleporting, sort of like skimming, one frequently sees striders appear, take 4 or 5 steps, and disappear. Of course, the striders may be going someplace but they can turn aside at any time; another very clever trick in this very tricky place.

''Mandalay.. hmmm. Its a dare. Adrien turns out to be a son of Oberon and a long time resident of Chaos. He has contacts deep in shadow and some kind of affinity with the natural forces of shadow, apart of the sentient ones that seem to take care of themselves. I hesitate to call him the Arch-druid of Amber but the term is not far from the mark. Adrien is part of some deep game from the beginnings of the creation of Amber and I can't get Oberon of Dworkin to tell me a damn thing about it. 

((GM-Note: Too many ideas to list easily.  Mandalay is a new player on the multiversal stage and what might happen here is vast.

{to visit Mandalay's Information Center, click here-[[Mandalay]]}