Editing Diners of Amber (section)

==='''Braldu's Retreat'''===

[[File:Pbralduretreat.jpg]]

Braldu's Retreat is a quiet place. Utterly quiet. Too quiet.

I think Braldu is associated with Mandalay but neither, Random, Adrian, nor the artist of the card, Dworkin, is telling. Asking Braldu just makes you want to itch.

Ren Braldu runs this getaway site for the hectic. I am told it contains thousands of isolated dwellings, three and four-room bungalows dot this shadow. You arrive at the Barn, sort of a check-in spot where Braldu takes you into the back room then into a far too calm den. There he finds out what environmental, dietary and religious requirements you have. Then he sends you through a gateway to such a place.

So if you like mountains, eat pork three meals a day, and serve the unicorn, you arrive at a mountain chateau, stocked with bacon and pork rinds, with a Unicorn shrine and all ten Books of Order. If you worship Buddy Fish the Wonder Dog, like the ocean, and subsist on weasel flesh and onion rings you will find yourself suitably prepared. Braldu has no sense of humor when it comes to these details. I learned that weasel flesh is very lean and not to joke with Ren Braldu.

Don't arrive with a bunch of people expecting to all be together. It isn't that kind of retreat. If you all ask for the same things you will all find yourselves in separate places that are a lot alike. Its not a Honeymoon realm.

Trumps into this shadow do not function, except this one that delivers you at the front desk. Nor do trumps work inside this shadow. You can trump out though with place trumps. I guess that is a kind of an escape clause. Braldu gives you a trump that does work and it only reaches him, or his associates.

The magic of shadow is so weak it is hardly able to levitate crackers. Sorcery, conjuration, power words, hexery, all do not function. Neither does Magery, Warlockrie, Listry, nor anything else I knew.

If you want some quality alone time, this is the place. A good place to get a lot of sleep or get a lot of reading done. The time relation to Amber and Mandalay is a very favorable 90 to 1.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Addendum

<span style=color:darkgreen>I recently discovered that this shadow has a cosmological oddity worth noting.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Braldu's is meant as a place of rest, and sleep is one of the most common activities. It is also a place of solitude. For some reason it is also a place immune to boredom. The nature of the realm is that what ever you choose to do with your time you really enjoy it and get plenty of relaxation out of it. Bodily functions move toward peak performance. If you are hugely fat and come here to exercise you really enjoy it, get maximum relaxation, and the time it takes to burn the fat is nearly cut to a 1/20th of the time.

<span style=color:darkgreen>If you come to read you can devour tome after tome without rest. If you came to paint then your mind tosses up visions that simply must be transferred to canvas.

<span style=color:darkgreen>After it all you feel like you have been asleep for months and had just woken up refreshed and ready to face the day, month, or year.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Pretty clever. Nice place to do magical research. 

((GM-Note: The idea that time barely passes and you leave rested might appeal to PCs determined to learn something or do something time consuming.