Editing Diners of Amber

==''Introduction''==

<span style=color:darkgreen>''What follows is an Article called <big>'''The Diners of Amber'''</big>.'' 

<span style=color:darkgreen>''It was part of the [[Jeweled Amber]] Campaign using the Amber Diceless RPG.''  

<span style=color:darkgreen>''The campaign it was originally written for ended a very long time ago but i always liked reading this bit of it and occasionally editing it.''   

<span style=color:#darkgreen>''Putting it here means others might use it and enjoy it.''

<span style=color:darkgreen>''Over the years two more arcs of my game have used it, one currently in play.  ''

<span style=color:darkred>''The original Diner article website included an addendum section and was posted on a Geocities website. <span style=color:blue>Yahoo<span style=color:darkred>, in its infinite rapaciousness, devoured Geocites like a chop-shop that strips classic cars down and sells off the parts.  They shut it down when they found better was to make money. Geocites was as much about creating and supporting communities and i don't think their replacements, Wikipedia and Facebook, do anywhere near as good a job at it. But Yahoo was in it for the money so communities be damned.  

<span style=color:darkgreen>''Moving it to RPGnet has made the original format obsolete, so i have added the addendum here in ''italics''.  Also this writeup is specifically for the ''War of Balance'' games, the current and previous arcs, so it does not relate to the first game much anymore.  Not that any of those players are likely to ever find this.  If you do, dear friends, let me know.  Those games were some of the most enjoyable in my gaming experience.''  

<span style=color:darkgreen>''As of 3/3.2018, ive begun including ((GM-Notes)) to list where i had put lines in this article with them as guides for the PCs to find adventures or mysteries,  In the time the game was run some got looked into but not many. I put this here so if a GM decided to use the Diners article in their game, which i encourage, they will have some game ideas.  If you the GM decide to use the Diners of Amber Article, let me know.  I'll happily help facilitate that for you.''

A brief comment on the [[Jeweled Amber]] Game-  The campaign began in the 20th year of Random's Reign.  The Books of Corwin, as dictated to Merlin are canonical. The second series as written by Merlin includes available people and powers but is mainly a fictional representation of Merlin and his family as he becomes High Lord of Chaos.  In the Jeweled Amber game Swayvil is a title taken by the High Lord.  

During Random's reign new members of the blood of Amber kept popping up and causing troubles.  The final straw for Random was a man named Adrien, a son of Oberon, who acquired the Jewel of Judgment, and used it to sanctify the realm of Ygg, creating Mandalay, a Primal Realm.  One of the effects of this creation was a jeweled puzzle-stone road from the Castle of Amber to the Abyss at the scene of the Battle of Patternfall.  This road, called the Jeweled Road, cut through shadow and allowed a great deal of travel among shadows.  

Enraged at the creation Random demanded that all members of the family bring their hidden children to court.

[[File:Greenwhitedrapedsword.gif]]

==<big>'''Publication Credits on the Diners of Amber'''</big>==

*<span style=color:darkgreen>Notations in Green are ''Addendums''</span>

*<span style=color:darkred>Notations in Purple are ''GM Notes''</span>

<Font Face="MV Boli"><Font Size ="3">'''Random is a funny kind of guy. No one disputes that. One need only ask Brother Ben how he feels about being Marshal of Amber to get a sense of what a swell guy Brother Random is. As is said in shadow, a picture is worth a thousand words. Good thing because Ben does not seem to say much when asked. A picture is far more expressive.

Let us take a look at the pictures in King Random's Deck!

Admiral [[Jopin of Cabra]],(retired.) runs the tower and the whims of politics wash over him as unchanging as the sea. A solitary man by nature the Hero of Talgwin's Deep, the Battle of Diega Swan, the straights of Tortus, and the victor of [[Bunny Free]]'s Siege suffers visitors with marginal grace as long as they are will to work at maintaining the place some while they are there. It is a coincidence, I am sure, that so many little projects were on the venerable captain's to-do list when company arrives. Bring your overalls if you make the trip. A good pair of gloves and a couple of kegs of the best brew you can find will also be a wise piece of luggage for those who come a knocking at his door.

<span style=color:darkgreen>It turns out that this card is extremely useful if you want to sail a ship in to Amber through a trumpgate.  First gate on the left, straight on till morning.)

<span style=color:darkgreen>Recently Jopin found himself dragged back into active duty.  He is not amused.

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes; Bring your own overalls. PCs might just drop in on Jopin since he was a person in the books.  Also Jopin was being reactivated and might have sent PCs to tend his garden, feed his cat, or maintain the Lighthouse and its light.))

<span style=color:darkred>((GM_Notes:  I had thought PCs might do duty as guards in this place where others might trump in.))

The second reason is that the basement is an underground card-club that Random frequents, and may have a stake in, financially. Georgie Reno runs the card game. Random supplies the bouncers, who are frequently members of the Amber Guard, in double-breasted silk suits. Cheating is not tolerated and frankly is rarely attempted.

 

<span style=color:darkgreen>Addendum

<span style=color:darkgreen>I was speaking to Sergeant Garry Gavno, a Calro member of the elite Amber Guard, and a frequent pattern guardian, about Neal's Diner. He gave me the scoop on what they did to Sveldt.

<span style=color:darkgreen>The story is that Constance Kieln, a very tough Dreanan man of the House of Brolic, despite the name, who holds the rank of Captain in the Amber Guard, was one of the first Amber Guards man to do service under Random at the card club beneath Neal's. He was a sergeant then. He and several guys got the tattoo on their upper arm, and Sveldt thought it a very funny little device.

<span style=color:darkgreen>At a later time, while getting some other tattoo work done, Sveldt made his little insult. Constance dragged Sveldt directly to Amber, to the compound that the Amber Guard calls home. 30 guys, led by Julian, took him deep into shadows where monsters dwell and beat the living hell out of him for a couple months. They put a band of healing on him and fed him to a passel of lions and tigers and bears, oh my, who could rip him to pieces but not fast enough to keep the healing band from repairing him. So they ripped him up as fast as he healed for about a month. They then unceremoniously dumped him back at home, short three days.

<span style=color:darkgreen>That is as good an object lesson as I can imagine for those who desire to cross the Amber Elite Guard.

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes: Neal's Diner and this word i envisioned as a common spot for PCs to meet, perhaps neutral territory between feuding PCS and such.  Card games.  Maybe even if the PC is an Elite, serving guard duty here for Random. And of course, who is Neal anyway...))

[[File:Paglevarkitchen.jpg]]

Fourth is Aglevar's Kitchen. Mama Aglevar is a wonder. She must be what all, good cooking, mothers are shadows of. She is the mother hen of a brood of small ones that either never grow up or breed very true copies of each other because the same kids always seem underfoot when visitors arrive. The cat Buttons is as friendly as can be.

Overlooking the beach at Cabal's Neck, from the eastern edge of the 6th floor of the Castle Amber is a wide verandah balcony that is one of the most truly beautiful sights in all of shadow. Flora out did herself during Eric's reign when she converted a bare rooftop into one of the friendliest places in the city of Amber. 100 tables adorn this lush flower overgrown slice of heaven. Each table seems to have a great view and each seems to have ample privacy. Flora tells me that somehow the design of the place, with its rises and shallows seems to hinder the flow of sound from table to table, if not the flow of sea breezes and spring flower's scent.

This is the breakfast nook of Amber. Nearly all of the family, and most of the guests, try to get table space here to take their morning coffee. Waiters scurry unseen, the buffet is always fresh, and the coffee pot is always full. Tables seat between 2 and 20 people. It is not rare to find the Ambassador of Chaos and the King of Amber sitting together, taking croissants and cocoa at sunrise.

<span style=color:green>"The breakfast nook of Amber...."

<span style=color:green>Each of us are archetypes and this is the expression of hers.  

<span style=color:green>It is easy to underestimate sister Florimel. She cultivates the appearance of weakness and neediness and a shallow veneer that is so often attached to stunningly gorgeous women. It makes others defend them or provide for them.  Don't be fooled. She carries grenades in her purse. Her wolfhounds are never more then a whistle away. She is a crack-shot with bow or rifle, shuriken or butterknife.  She stood the line at the edge of the Abyss during the Battle of Patternfall, raining deadly arrows on the foethings. She is shockingly strong when she needs to be. I am told that during an argument Caine once slapped her.  Her response was to kick him in the yarbles.  Apparently medical attention was needed.  Caine denies it but i've noticed he never stand close to Flora when shes angry.

<span style=color:green>In our youth we were all given military training.  She fixated on archery.  She no longer competes in the [[Civilian City Cohorts]] archery tournements and is often their judges.  She has instructed both army and Elites in the longbow.  She may not be a wargoddess but Diana has nothing on her at arrow point.

<span style=color:green>Men have come to fear me, or Benedict or Gerard or Julian, and even Dierdre.  Remember Lothario, Floremel is of the blood royal and her knives are sharp.  

Many of the cards in King Random's deck are mere conveniences to the weary traveler who does not want to make an extensive Hellride just to get a slice of cheesecake or to play a few hands of poker; such being amongst the king's passions. The fifth card is not one of these.

Like any Oracle the Oracle of Mandalay is a solemn thing not to be approached lightly or disregarded casually. For thousands of years we of Amber speculated whether the shadow realms existed independently of our will, or if they came into being at our wish. Oberon and Dworkin have both come down firmly on the 'Always Existed' side of the argument and that pretty much settles it for me. The question about Oracles is does the destiny they see exist before they reveal it or are your actions locked into the fates they foresee by your submitting yourself to their observations. Six of one, Half dozen of another. You place your bets; you take your chances. You pay your losses with cash in the coin of blood.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Imagine putting this card in the deck? Its an instigation to get lost in shadow and never return. I only mentioned a few places i liked before but don't just look them up. This is a world. It has cities, realms, wildlife, forests, oceans, islands, and tens of millions of people that fled other realms to live here with the hundreds of millions of natives. It has an incredibly diverse ex-pat community with refugees from Amber to Chaos.  However, Amber and Chaos, as well as most Golden Circle and Black Zone worlds, have vibrant Embassies here and they are postings greatly sought after.

<span style=color:darkgreen>There is an elaborate gladiatorial combat system that is an obsession on this world. It also spills out into Chaos. It is in its full fruition on the world of [[Gesheka]] but is extremely well represented here.  The difference of course is that on [[Gesheka]] the Lords of the Games are all natives.   

<span style=color:darkgreen>I hold the rank of Lord Gladiator and they all know who i am. They also know that one day i will decide which of the 150 Lords of the Games i want to kill. After that, well, this is a BZTP world after all.

<span style=color:darkgreen>For more on the Gladiatorial League see the tome the [[Harness of Blood]].

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Note: This place is full of lots of the things to distract PCS from their duties.  And that is what i meant it to do.  Distract PCs.  As such it was going to be a place on a PC's hellride toward Chaos.  Or a walk down the Jeweled Road.  Additionally, the Gladiatorial League was intended to help school PCs in combat.  Even non-warriors need to learn the ADRPG form of spoken combat and to get the hang of it in a way that does not necessarily include bloodshed.))

If questions are asked of them, they can become quiet as clams. Friendly, smiling, helpful, dumb as the fish they catch by the ton, taciturn and secretive as the ''Costra Nostra''.

<span style=color:darkgreen>I took a sailing ship and found that in a southern sea, far from the location the card delivers its viewers, is a proper city called Hunkala, where the natives speak a Thelusian Thari with perfect clarity in the same way a Scotsman speaks english.  This moist seaport seems to be where many fisherman bring their catches and where vast amounts of salted, dried, frozen, and jerked fish seems to end up through a ratline of traders and merchantmen that mainly ply the southern waters.  Right next to the main wharf, near the center of an active market, is 300 feet of Jeweled Road.  I had no idea. Apparently there is brisk trade in fish to nearby worlds, not that i had ever heard about it.  Still, this makes me feel much better about this place despite my initial impression.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Lastly, as i traveled the planet, fishing, diving, relaxing, i noticed the types of fish were an odd mix.  I dove in a number of places and i have come to conclude that in the waters of this world are numerous shadow paths that are well established and used almost exclusively by sea creatures.  Perhaps a shadow of a Rebman trade route has cast its self into the deeps.   

<span style=color:darkgreen>New News0. Yes, Osric and Finndo are both alive. Amberites are tough to keep dead. Even the dead ones have their plans.

<span style=color:darkgreen>More Good News: Brand is footloose and fancy free. Can no on rid me of this troublesome brother?

<span style=color:darkgreen>A brief comment on money and the Dreanans. Since the usual Dreanan is confused at best about money and oblivious to it at worst, you can cheat a dreanan outrageously. You can charge nearly anything you want for worthless junk and most dreanans will pay it. You can convince them a one room apartment in the harbor district of the city is worth the same as a manor in the hills because its close to the water and the water is great. Despite having vast amounts of mithril in their world they frequently mistake mithril ingots for silver ingots and pay for a bottle of Bayle's with mithril. They don't even think of asking for change or saying something to the bartender like; "Start me a tab." I know this having seen it done. I told the bartended to start the Amber guardsman[[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Elites#Drusda_Brosc-Active]] who made the mistake a tab. A couple of months later heard that the same guard, one Drusda_Brosc, was shocked to be asked for payment despite having drunk 'for free' for months. I laughed so hard i gave the establishment a very large amount of mithril and told them to never charge the man again.

<span style=color:darkgreen>However.The Dreanans are not all stupid. Remember, shadow has vast diversities. If you are cheating one and they say something like, "Hey, i think you are cheating me." Flee immediately. If they figured it out that far, you have only a moment to escape before they lay hands on you and pummel you to pulp. Conmen beware, the Dreanans are willing to beat you senseless and take the punishment for lawbreaking if they think you needed killing. They don't kill lightly though. If you cheat them they may only break your arm bones. Each and every one. Each and every one every time they see you, for the next thousand years. Persistent and determined are our dour friends in brown and blue.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Its been a few years since I wrote the above addendum.  In that time I have taken a ration of shit from a lot of Dreanans about it.  What amuses me about this is that it comes from different angles.  

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes:So many things.  I intended for several PC enemies to come from Dreana and the House of Brolic.  Bleys hates these guys and he was my voice to the PCs.  Also, i imagined the PCs being deeply involved in Brolic politics including acting as Bodyguards, friends, even rescuers of Markosi Brolic.  I intended the PC to be gravely and even murderously insulted in public by Dunran the Sickly.  Fun ensues. ))

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes:This place has two things i wanted to have the players interact with.  Louis Armstrong and baseball.  I had hoped to have a PC. or perhaps my PC-NPC bring both to Amber.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Erasmus has one of the greatest Constant action machines in existance. But not the only one by far. Just the greatest one built a piece at a time. Others i have found are bigger, but came in to being by the forces of chaos and creation.  

<span style=color:darkgreen>I like this place for a lot of reasons.  I grew up in Amber and places my mother knew, and schooled in Thelusia.  But i found Gerard and I often sought out the solitude of the mountains and Amberites have a song in our souls for them, the reason unknown.  Gerard and I and a man named Del Que spent a year together far from anyone.  Trapping, hunting, singing, brewing homemade hooch and living without a care in the world.  The natives here are not war-like but make a very rough game of Counting Coup.  We played.  If asked, and in a suitably drunk frame of mind, when i was happiest in my life, its hard to say this was not one of those times.  Gerard and I have a bond between us from those times.  Its a bond i trust, but not one i want to test to hard.  

<span style=color:darkgreen>Among the peoples that seem to wander in are a variety of creatures of natural bents that are a bridges between man and beast.  They vary widely in physique. Titanthropes, Sasquatchs, Neanderthals, and some types creatures of these natures with lizard ancestry.  These creatures are elusive, even compared to the mountain men.  Yet they are creatures of great serenity and ingenuity even if their intelligence is not the equal of the more civilized peoples.  They are not typically social creatures, outside their own kind, but they do develop relationships with others if the circumstances allow.  The rope made of woven by the titanthorpes are extremely strong, of necessity, but is also among the highest quality for any number of uses.  Replicated copies of their rope is used on Vulsar for many purposes.  

<span style=color:darkgreen>Another note about Vine River, and an important one, is that while one may hunt here to ones heart content it is a place of healing.  Dispatch your prey if you intend to eat them.  A wounded animal will bleed out if the would is great enough but given a moment or two to recover will heal from great wounds.  This makes the Counting Coup rough.  You can get grievously injured and heal, reasonably quickly.  If you bring someone wounded here they heal fast.  Not instantly but a broken arm heals in a weak, a gut shot in a month.  Be careful.   

<span style=color:darkgreen>((GM-Note:The PCs might want to rescue indigenous people.  Never know.  Also, i have a huge interest in the mountain-man trapper period. Jeremiah Johnson, John Colter, Jim Bridger, Joseph Walker, etc. Real and fictional.  Jeremiah Johnson is one of my favorite movies.  I had hoped some of these heroes might come to amber as well.

==='''14. Wala Heights, Taxorami'''===

==='''15. Mandalay'''===

''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.  

==='''16. Castle Arden'''===

This castle is Julian's headquarters in Arden. Until recently it was not open to his brothers. Not exactly off limits, just secretive and not spoken about outside the secret circles of the Arden Guard. We all had seen various massive ranger encampments and fancy tents and giant log structures forts and manors but a frigging stone and stained glass castle?  Even Benedict was unaware of this castle's actual size till it turned up in the deck. That takes doing. Look at the damn thing. Its a bloody cathedral in a open piece of parkland. And no one mentioned it? Really????

Perhaps Oberon knew about it and kept it's secret but Random is a very different kind of king. He put a trump of the place right there in the deck. So much for secrecy, eh, Jules?

<span style=color:darkgreen>I do check my cup when he hands me a drink, though. I trust he won't poison me, but i don't think he is beyond putting a scorpion in it or a freeze-stone. Haha... Who knew he had a sense of humor? I think its a mark of the success of Random's reign that we elders are starting to be comfortable enough to play practical jokes on each other again.

<span style=color:darkgreen>I ran into a group of Rahz Ferso fans in the Harbor district of Amber. Outside Thin Whip's actually. They had read my article and came after me to avenge Ferso's killing. Frankly i am surprised he has fans that can read, little lone find their way to Amber. 8 of these guys thought they could kill a Prince of Amber. SO i scattered them across shadow in veils with the most diverse natural laws i could imagine. If any of them find their way back I'll squire them..  

<span style=color:darkgreen>So it was as i traveled into the far reaches of the most desolate plot of land i ever saw. First off, about 30 miles from the road the forces of the universe prohibit air travel.  The shadow is also not a complete one so if you you are piloting a plane, or starship as it turns out, over the Jeweled Road you are fine.  Take a right or left and 30 miles in you stop.  Hard. Fast.  Or if you bounce off the wall if you hit it at an angle.  This wall goes down to 50' from a surface.  Thanks, so i tried low level crafts, hover-cycles and such. but they puttered out.. frigging universe.   

((GM-Notes: Many individuals are sources of information for the PCs.  Braldig, Mama Agalvar, and Phil.  Phil is a cook.  Never know when a good menu i needed.

<span style=color:darkgreen>It has recently been pointed out to me that in both the regular notation on this card and in the above Addendum entry i failed to actually comment on the road itself, thus making the reader curious about it. This has caused a great deal of research and paranoia. Usually reading while paranoid is amusing but i am assured that enough real conspiracies exits in Amber that creating the illusion of one concerning such a massive thing as the Jeweled Road is just mean.

The card actually delivers the traveler to the archway on the left of the card, near a wharf for riverboats, and gondolas. This is Wet Wendell's Hothouse. Wet Wendell runs a really tight ship.  I consider him a close personal friend, which of course means i love him dearly and don't trust him a tiny little bit. Restaurant, card-club, distillery, boarding house, brothel, dance club, industrial hub, conference center and municipal offices all rolled into one. That's the Hothouse.

<span style=color:darkgreen>There is one thing about Drisna that the Travel Guides do not mention and they really should. You leave with an experience, your question examined, your knowledge expanded.  But there is a price.  If you assay the Oracle of Drisna it will give you a small pinch that will take some time to fade away, if ever.  You will sneeze for no reason.  Stutter.  Gain revolting body odor.  Lose your taste buds or your sense of smell.  You might gain the power to see invisible objects.  Be able to tell when you are lied to.  The effect could be almost anything, good or bad.  The effect might last an hour, a day, or a century. Be warned.  When i was young and assayed it i learned the information i needed on a small matter.  But i also vomited every time i smelled gin.  Hence why Caine drinks gin.  He thought it was funny.  All he got was a facial tick that went away in a week.  Mine lasted 10 years and i don't like gin to this day.  

((GM-Notes:  There are a couple oracles in the deck. An oracle is a strong way to push a PC onto a course of action.  I intended the oracles to have different levels of insistence. Drisna was forgiving.  Sitting here i could lightly suggest a wide range of options.  Sitting in the Oracle of Night, one was perhaps committing oneself and the whole game to a sweeping nightmare.  Big EP!  Lots of Prizes!  But beware, you will get a funny side effect!))

I would be doing a disservice to Oberon's Fire if i didn't speak about their Pepper Sauce. {I can hear the woeful sigh of ladies across the Golden Circle.  There are few things as hated by them as having people turn the topic of conversation at a soirée to a condiment}  

<span style=color:darkgreen>The Great Gorge is certainly the most well known place. Within 500 miles of it on either side is a east/west ridge of vast waterfalls. Above it is a lush plain stretching further then we cared to explore when love was on our minds. It seems that a thousand miles north of the divide is a mighty lake, fed by an even greater snowy mountain range. This volcanic range dumps lava north, melting the snow that falls year round. A very dynamic water system, a friend of mine told me when i described it.

<span style=color:darkgreen>South of the divide is the verdant forests, woodlands, and meadows that we have all come to love and to love in. Six hundred miles to the south the rivers start reuniting as they bunch into a vast collections of lakes braced by a third ridge of low mountains and hills. These are more rock-piles then mountains and they trickle the water down to a beach unlike any i had seen before. They show an active water system having washed away light soil from hard stone.

<span style=color:darkgreen>What Vance found was a region of numerous white water rapids of great complexity from the First ridge to the Second Ridge. He and i recently ran a few and i think i may start charting the good ones. I was amazed at Vance, really.  Ive long enjoyed white water rafting but it was sort of a private thing.  When Vance and ran these it was amongst the most fun I ever had with a relative while sober. The ones we ran were in the high 3, 4, and low 5 range.  We noted a few 6s and tried a few.. A rapid one runs while having a trump open as an escape route is a challenging one.   

<span style=color:darkgreen>Addendum to Fantalin'

<span style=color:darkgreen>There is a tavern called Bent Copper's Drop, near the White River in Fantalin. It is a college tavern. I could tell you some stories about that place, believe you me.

<span style=color:darkgreen>I would like to write those tales out, but i tear to think of them. Days of youth when you believed in impossible things like truth, justice, loyalty, honor, majesty, duty, and spoke deep pacts against anyone who soiled these things. But in time they were soiled. All of them. Truth is in the eye of the beholder, justice can be bought, betrayal has a market value, honor falters, kings are just men, duty is as much an anchor as a it is wings, and pacts can be negotiated if you know the right wizard.

<span style=color:darkgreen>So we grow out of such belief in absolutes and accept that these things exist not as glowing points, but as points on a tape measure. Things with starts and conclusions. Hopefully, things that can be regained. Then in our elder days we come to believe in them again, but this time, with a touch of wisdom, and a sad smile for those in the first bloom of youth, clutching these ideals to their breasts.  

(GM-Notes:I was always bummed i didn't get any PCs interested in higher education.  I had a lot of silly frivolous scenarios set in Fantalin around the school. Young love, feuding rivals, demanding teachers.  Fantalin is not just where young Amberites would be sent to school for book-learning.  All the Golden Circle worlds probably did as well, for centuries. Getting a degree at Fantalin and returning to Alagulpa Riesa, a small but vital Golden Circle shadow on the trade routes out of Diaga, would be like getting a Harvard law degree and returning to practice law in Fiji.  After Patternfall i had planned for young lords of Black Zone worlds and even young Lords of Chaos to attend Fantalin.   

Then at some point i hoped to introduce a person i hoped to have rock the Amber universe by accepting a very public teaching position;Dowager Queen [[Cymnea]].  This person would have the goods on the Elders and the PCs would do well befriending her.  Sadly, it never happened and she remains a recluse.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Here we come to a tricky part of this missive. The extra part.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Another thing i learned about Ang Ri is that it was originally four other worlds, each very different except for having similar lifeforms.  Not existing in a rational universe of stars and physics, but in the waves of variations that culminates in the [[Stuff of Chaos]], four separate worlds at various point came into contact and instead of erupting in shards of ruined worlds they melted together like flavored butters.  Now, centuries or millennia later, the cultures have grown together too.  It explains a lot about the way the people in this world interact.

==='''Fane of Zila'''===

He said something i have always liked, caught my atttention and made me seek him out when i found out he lived here.  "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  I know the feeling.

Vincent Van Gogh is, well, Vincent ''Friggin'' Van Gogh.  Now i have run into many artists that were Vincent Can Gogh.  But this ine is the most Vincent of Vincents i ever met.  He speaks eloquently on the value of madness for an artist and speaks in worshipful reverance of the ittinerant war-medic who saved his life when he attempted suicide.   

I'm told my brother Pierre can be found here with some regularity.  Someday i should visit to meet him.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Through my seeking in various places i found out something odd about this realm.  Adrian intended that the King Of Mandalay, be it he or his heirs, would have no power in Tir Mar Gala.  That any Lord of Mandalay entering the realm would have no power to effect people within it.  He was really serious about it.   

<span style=color:darkgreen>Recently i dropped by to do a little sightseeing

Well, not our Amber, but a [[Shade Realm]], Ambir. In his reality, he was Random, the last survivor of a violent throne war that swept Ambir at the beginning of Eric's reign. To hear him tell it most of the bloody parts were done when he and Corwen drove a VW bus into Amber. There they found Beniydict in the process of executing Fioyna. He and Corwen fought. They killed each other. Random took the throne. Cleaned the place up and set about securing the kingdom. Sadly he only had a few years to rule before Brandy, a female version of Brand, returned and destroyed herself on the Primal Pattern, wiping the shadows connected to Ambir away.

Frankly I didn't know Random liked golf but I asked him about it before I dropped in on this place. Turns out he is a fanatic about it. Who knew? Of the many things I thought I might do with my brothers over the years this was low on the list. Then after this card arrived and I asked him about golf and it all snowballed. Soon I found myself on the tee of the third hole at the Big Mount course at St. Masvir's with Random, Julian, Caine, Vance, and Flora. Turns out Flora played the pro circuits on Earth for about 90 years. She shoots 15 under par, my brothers. Don't bet a bent copper wing against her. She won that day, beating all her brothers.

St. Masvir of Arkens Links is an amazing place. Fully 23 complete 18-hole courses ranging in difficulty from bunny to masters. An awesome driving range. It has a Masvir Route of 300 holes. It also has a 1200 hole miniature golf course, a gigantic video arcade, a 12 mile miniature race track for go-carts, and an amazing amusement park with 200 thrill rides culled from the most maniacal places in shadow. Six Flags, a giant chain of amusement parks on many earth worlds. Only contributed 4 rides. The bar for inclusion here is high.

For those unfamiliar with St. Masvir, I shall enlighten you. He is an Earth Roman Catholic saint who settled world problems in an earth shadow of 1495 to 1655 by taking opponents in world crisis's and making them play a full Masvir Route of 300 holes. It is this route that is the center piece at St. Masvir's Links. A Masvir Route is a course of over 200 fairways that one picks and choose which they want to play. While most shadows have 9 or 18-hole courses as standard, Masvir courses are also popular in shadow.  

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes:I had a golf phase.  Not as a player, but as a spectator and a student of the game.  It has a rich history.  The scoring in the above bit is a bit off but give that a pass. I imagined this as a place PCs might bring those they intrigue with.

==='''The Stone of Skulls'''===

[[File:Pstone.jpg]]

The Stone of Skulls is a place where items can be given the chance to be empowered. It is a place where powers can be stolen. It is a crapshoot.

One of the things I have found in connection to the [[Travel Guides]] is that there is a wide swath of what are called 'Gamer Worlds'. These are worlds that are somehow connected in a symbiotic relationship, one shadow urban, high tech, the other of a wide range of descriptions, The connection being that certain individuals in the Gamer Worlds seem to be the objects of observation by people in the observer worlds. Call the Observers Players and the objects of observation Characters. There is a game 'Master' who has a wider connection to specific worlds and when a dizzying number of changes and actions occur the Game Master knows of it. Its questionable which way the power flows.   

There are an infinite number of shadows divisible. I have been assured by Dworkin that a full set of infinity can have boundaries, Like Chaos or the Abyss, or Amber. Arguing the illogical nature of that is pointless and hard on the furniture. In these urban worlds are groups of people who meet as regularly as clockwork to 'play' these role playing games. There they believe they haul us about on strings and make us dance to their music, whatever cacophonic forms it takes, and in fact do seem to view into the lives of the characters on the Gamer Worlds. A nearly limitless number of people on vast numbers of urban worlds viewing the actions of a eclectic variety of shadows.

These shadows have certain similarities that bear considering. Many have an 'unfinished' feel to them as if the Game Master didn't have the time to figure out a better way for people to get water than to carry it in buckets. They have a weird collection of technologies. Barbaric splendor worlds with flush toilets, public transportation, knights on horse back while the population ride bicycles, and magical entertainment devices like televisions, as if the GM-Game Master- can not conceive of a world with out such conveniences.. It tends to be confusing.

The Stone of Skulls resides in just such a world.

There are exceptions. The Stone of Skulls is such an exception.

One trumps in 500 miles or more away from where the image seems to indicate. Once there you must seek the stone on a directly northern route, travelling amongst the Gore-Tex clad peasants tilling the field with bicycle wheeled plows under the watchful eyes of the local lord or knight on his manly charger. You must fight a bizarre series of encounters as dangerous as swordmaster bandits, or seas of vicious rabid Hamsters. Rabid elephants are not unknown either. There seem to be a lot of giant things and a lot of rabid things and a lot of ensorcelled things. The GM of this world has a warped sense of humor.

Nonetheless one can certainly die here. Never doubt it. I was laughing so hard at the rabid elephant that charged willy-nilly about knocking over trees and scattering hordes of peasants, that I forgot it was really a rabid elephant and it stuck three feet of tusk through my belly and hurled me 30 feet in the air. Joke-time was over and I melted the beast into a puddle of char and grease before I hit the ground, bleeding and pissed off.

I mean really, Rabies? Rabid Elephants? That's just mean.

Why this card is in the deck I do not understand. Personally I think it is a threat.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Once there i found it to be a realm of Camelot in its earliest years. The Realm of Camelot here is a large one, and valiant, if a bit idealized. The kingdom is strong and knights come from realms far and wide to serve Arthur. YOung men in the bloom of youth recieve the accolade and serve the realm for many years before being offered a place at the round table.

<span style=color:darkgreen>The land of the fair maiden, evil sorceress, the knight Errant and the ruffian mercenary is a boggle to the mind.  There is something archetypal about this place and that should be born in  mind when traveling here.  

I found this out when i first tried the card. On the time option i picked 30 years, not certain what would happen, not being well versed in the particular history of the region, and unable to Trump out.  However, i had spent time in the Crusades of this world and had a general idea of who was who on what side as things went.  Had spent some time in the Napoleonic Wars as well, so my knowledge of history was general.  I had not visited the War of the Roses at that time.  

Well, I was a Prince of Amber without Letters Patent in England or France.  So I went to Rhodes for a couple years, got Knighted into the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. I had respected them in Jerusalem in another shadow. That it took some finagling to get knighted, considering it is no small tale.  Then i went to England as something of a high ranked Knight Errant.  I fought in the Italian wars mostly which i can tell you was a clusterboink of the first water but for a military prince of Amber they were jolly fun.  I knew little of the politics coming in, and being blocked from seeking information in a normal way i was forced to tough it out like mortals.  By 1520 i was in the retinue of Henry the Eight with an English Patent, familiar with King Francis, and had a squires and servants as befit a man of rank.  

It was a time of jousting, and courtly love, and intrigue and bad water.  It was delightful.  Longer then i expected since i was researching these cards at both Random & Dworkin's behest.  I spent 50 years in this world, nearly 2 years of time in Amber.  I lived here from 1490 to 1540.

When I determined the shadow my Trump was connected to was frozen, and i needed to return for a couple months at least to unfreeze the shadow, much to my surprise Benedict asked to join me.  When I prepared to return Benedict arrived dressed in the Horse and Kit of an Italian Condottieri, and took a single Amber silverwing to serve as my hired man.  At first this scared the ever-loving hell out of me, but in time i realized he was on vacation. We traveled together for 20 years, give or take a few separate excursions.  It was a strange and happy time, a carefree time, for we who had been taught not to get close to one's brothers. When we returned to felicity, we looked each other hard in eyes and shook hands.  I felt somehow forgiven.  I was sad to see our time there end, but there is no reprieve from duty.   

The pity is that once you leave, after JAugust 30, it won't deliver you to the same shadow.  It wants you to start in a new one.  I had to use the pattern to get back to the one i spent so long on.  If one speaks to men in my employ, you will find many came from here.  Including several currently serving in the [[Elite]].  I made a serious effort, suitable as a Prince of Amber, to bring them.  I fell afoul of the [[If I'd died without hop of grace clause]] But i accept the blame for that.  

So i said to ask me about Random's encouraging good behavior in his kin?  With King Random's permission i inform the holders of these decks, able to make them chime and open, what happened when i spoke to Random after i returned from the Field of the Cloth of Gold.   

Of the many things i never expected in my long life, it was crying while being knighted by Random.

Lastly about the Southern Beach.  It is dotted with small but efficient fishing villages specializing in whatever water fare is available.  Yet something about this wolds southern hemisphere causes the water to cycle around the planet rather then causing waves to crash on the beach.  This means the beaches tend to be rocky, pebbles, and a small amount of sand.  Tales tell of once a century storms where the waters change direction and toss hundreds of feet worth of sand against the South face of the Mountain Ring.  When the storm comes the villages break down what they can and they flee into the interior.  Afterwards they, and large numbers of the interior populace come out to reestablish the fishing communities.  A strangely communal project for a people that are mostly isolated.   

This realm is a twist of this and a twist of that.  It is a high tech age where man and machine blend easily and well.  Nu Yark is a place i have spent time in to unwind and enjoy the simple ease of plenty yet have the rough trade of greed near at hand.  This realm is dominated by this vast city that spawns out to the horizons.  It is a city of towering pinnacles of glass and steel.  Many of the [[arcologies]] that sustain their own populations in comfort and ease, at a price. Many an [[Arcology]] anchors Burroughs in this massive citystate.

Sometimes i dress up in black body tight armor and latex, and travel the dark ways and settle affairs for people unable to do so themselves.  I feel silly afterwards but while i am there its vastly entertaining.  If you are interested, i know where there is a good specialized tailor.

<span style=color:darkgreen>As I said i've spent some time here.  Its really out of my normal wheelhouse.  I grew up in Amber, Thelusia, and parts of places in shadow that have a similar <span style=color:red>''die on the sword''</span> lifestyle. But a few hundred year before Oberon did the shadowdance that led to Pattenfall, he abruptly took me here to meet and bond with a brother Oberon did not want to bring to Amber.  Knowing Kibar will read this, it is only fair to tell him that Oberon strictly forbade me from speaking of how we reach Amber. He also told me that he was leaving it up to me if i thought putting a knife in his heart and throwing the body in a bonfire was a good idea.  He said he could not make the call and anything i did he would consider for the ''Good of Amber.''

<span style=color:darkgreen>Its been many years since i wrote this comment.  I visited the place just to look in on it for the comment on its card.  I failed to see what was important to see.  I've recently gone back and spent a long few weeks there.  Its a wonderful place; like New Orleans under water.  Playful, a place where the elite black-sheep of Rebma's noble families and lesser sons play.  Much to my surprise its a place of piracy! Of the many sea lanes into Amber which run past Moins are many of the freebooter persuasion.  They are a rough lot, making their way raiding the merchant lanes into Amber, dodging the Amber, Diegan,  and Rebman navies; not an easy task.  I made friends in this community for a time.  Till they realized who i was.  Then i had to leave.  I did not see to their destruction, but i could not have stayed and not sunk in a knife or two. I left a few bodies of people i know were up to no good.  I am after all, a Prince of the Realm.

This chaos realm is typical of the kind of wild weather worlds found in the Black Zone.  Dark Skies, Lightning of a wide variety of styles.  Cats and dogs falling from the sky.  Don't get me started on the rain of frogs, or the rain of Frog Legs.  Growing up in chaos may be hard on the people but i assure you, its hard on the frogs.

<span style=color:darkgreen>The Primal Realm of Calmir and the Kangular of Calmir are worth a bit more explanation since Dworkin was foolish enough to ramble about it when i was around.  

Dworkin, i can not imagine that you are a fan of this place, but i am now.

<big>'''''The Antheris Deck'''''</big>

<span style=color:darkgreen>Three cards arrived on the same day.  Not only are all three in the same shadow they are all on the same intersection.  I shit you not.  All three are within sight of each other at the corner of 5th and Bandoleer in Nenton, Antheris.  While the reason for this alludes me at least I only had to make one trip to review them.

[[File:Amberdinerline1.gif]]

The first of the Antheris Deck is Big Jim's Newsstand.  This is on the corner of 5th and Bandolier in the city of Nenton, Antheris.  This near-Amber shadow has a great deal of casual travel among the Golden Circle kingdoms.  Nenton is a trade route hub and distribution center.  Most tech works here as does most magics.  The standard of living is early space travel despite the availability of better due to the orbiting Amber Star Fleet bases.

And Big Jim Torrio collects it all.  Big Jim is hilarious.  He is fat, and athletic.  Cynical and idealistic. Wise and foolish.  He seems to know everything about everything, and since he is rarely wrong it isn't boasting.  He carries copies of the same magazines from dozens of different shadow.  He collects everything he sells.  He collects.  He has a rabid passion for baseball cards and he personally has been responsible for the development of the game in numerous shadows.  He collects Comic books, which are sort of like fireside tales in colorful pictures and cheesy language.  He owns millions.  He collects fiction novels and has one of the best collections i have seen.   

Remember what i called Fiction novels?  [[Travel Guides]], thats right.  

SO who is he?  Well obviously he is a wizard.  He holds a Shade Pattern imprint and a Broken Pattern imprint.  This makes him an Amberite of one of the lesser realms that somehow broke out of the locked systems that such shades rule.  I have shared many a burger with Jim and he refuses to talk about it.  I am sure something bad happened. Something he either escaped or started.  Since i know he will read this he knows I am looking into it. Casually, of course.

<span style=color:MediumSeaGreen>Traveling around that level of Shade i found no [[shadowtugs]] for the sea lanes or shadow trails that we younger elders put down in our own youth.

<span style=color:MediumSeaGreen>So i asked Jim.  He nodded and said, "We all have our regrets, do we not, Prince of Amber?"

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes:This was intended to be a big campaign.  A Middle-power campaign.  Something tough enough to be dangerous to tough cousins and players familiar with the universes history and my GM style.  The idea starts with much of what Bleys found.  A Shade Realm with a bad history.  My thought was one that failed before the actual creation of the Kingdom of Amber.  So that the power struggle may not have been dynastic, perhaps not even personal.  Just something that happened because all things are possible.  It occurred before Eric was born, before everyone else was.  Its something that happened when shadows of Oberon, Osric, Finndo, Benedict, Borlak and Clymnea was all that existed of the family of Ambir.  It was going to depend on what the PCs in the game turned out to be and how to get them all involved in a campaign together, what the goals and rewards would be.  Was it personal disaster between the family members?  Was it something that happened at the time of Finndo's time as King of Amber, thus effecting this shade realm?  What lesson on cosmology was needed? Are their chunks of power around. Apparently, the actual primal pattern of this realm is intact still. Perhaps the PCs would want the pattern itself for construct use, and things could move from there.  It would have a variety of shadows of people they would know like Bendict, Osric, Finndo, Borlak, Clymnea, Margot, and others from the dawn of time.  Legendary chaosians, Calmirians, who knows.  Pity it never happened. Anyway... make of it what you will.

Why Random felt the need to put this card in the deck when two other corners in this intersection already have trumps to them, i don't quiet understand.  But he's the King.  While there could be a nefarious reason i have come to think its just convenience.  This shadow has commerce with other shadows.  But a magic door opening in thin air and someone stepping through, right in front of your burger joint probably gets the king cuts in line.

Frankly i think he likes the name. He is getting awfully big for his britches.

==='''73. La Bisalta'''===

==='''74. Mc Hood's Roadhouse'''===

In many worlds you will find a place where the urge to expand and the development of gunpowder and steam locomotion meet.  This is one such place.  Mc Hood is a retired gunfighter, not that he shows himself often.  He has issues.

But his family runs Mc Hood's Roadhouse.

Here cattle hands and stevedors, gunfighters, gamblers, ranchers, sheepherders, farmers and travelers of every kind might gather. This roadhouse is in the city of Bowdie, California.  Yet it seems to also be on the cross-shadow paths of many of these similar shadows.  So while it might be odd to come into the common room and see gunfighters conversing with each other despite the fact one is Caucasian and the other is reptilian.

It is a nexus.  Through this place run a many shadow pathways.  Most in the same general epoch. The natives of this world have long since learned to not ask questions of the oddities that occasionally arrive here.  Similar to Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Mc Hood's Roadhouse is a gathering place for the eclectic and the lone wolves.  

<span style=color:darkgreen>Gunpowder and Steam Locomotion. Tallin Gum and Wind Power. Sandill and Flow Crust.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Its all the same. Weapons and movement of cargo. Its about the confluence of violence and commerce. Everywhere you go. Guns make the trains run faster.

<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">[[File:Blighted land.jpg]]<div>

This is just an invitation to commit violence.

[[File:Frasika Spire.jpg|200 px]][[File:Aley.jpg| 200 px]][[File:Blightedearth1.jpg|[[File:Blighted-earth.jpg]]]]

On some worlds people are just bound and determined to make their lives dangerous and short.  They take huge risks and if they are lucky enough to survive them, may get no reward at all.

This is an Earth/Aerth/Urth world that has seriously lost control.  It is a testament though to how people can survive almost anything.   

To go over the political dimensions of this world would be pointless.  They change.  Sometime around the late 1900s all law and order slipped away.  Wars, nuclear disasters, militarization, easy availability of weaponry, advancing technology despite worldwide carnage, an extremely vibrant commercial climate and little regard for human life are all big elements of this freak show of a world. National governments ceding great sections of their countries to corporations more able to provide services to the populace.  Many countries became little more symbolic.  Countries turning their military against their populaces.  Countries creating huge prisons for criminals of every type.  One of these is the [[New York Federal Penitentiary at Manhattan]]

The remaining Chikago metropolitan is over seen by the Frasika_Spire[[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Arcology#Frasika_Spire]]. A large Arcology at the top tip of Damnation Ally, a region of nuclear devastated land across the heartland of what was once the American Nation.   

Nuclear disasters destroyed vast swaths of it.  Industrial waste and human refuse have spoiled another chunk but some of that is being recycled.  City-States, corporate oligarchies, criminal orginizations, heavily armed communal groups, and small Regional governments rule this planet.  Many people cluster around huge corporate compounds that still do most of the producing.  Transportation of goods has become a death sport. Technological advances were extraordinary in the face of necessity and the greed and malevolence of the rich.

The roads of this world are dangerous.  There is an active sport called Autodueling that pits drivers against each other in both organized and chaotic conflict.  The sporting angle of it gives a modicum of legitimization to the production of equipment that is then used, often as not, to further the insane degrees of regular violence on this world. National legal systems have allowed death-sports as a defined exception to the laws defining Murder.

Transportation of goods is done on the ground and on highways despite the road warrior culture for two reason.  

First is the availability of easy to construct, extraordinarily dangerous remote control drones has all but eliminated air travel.  Its difficult to mount enough armor on a plane large enough to ship cargo in. There is an underground anarchist organization called the Civil Air Patrol, that treats destroying flying vehicles as a sport.  10 points for a Cessna, 50 point for a F-4, 500 pips for UPS Air Delivery planes. Effort

Shadow does not judge good and evil, but it does punish the stupid.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Caine brought me here once. He said he wanted to find a world that had taken consumerism and militarism to the extremes. Someplace he could get a vehicle built for dangerous work. He found it. I spent a bit of time learning the hows and whys of this place and it makes no sense at all. It is a conflict of paradoxes.

<span style=color:darkgreen>This world is one of the most stupidly violent worlds I ever found, and i've looked, but it keeps you on your toes.

===<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">'''Hasik Station '''<div>===

<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">[[File:Hasik Station.jpg]]<div>

Hasik Station is a dirty place where the paths of trade crash into each other and leave a big mess. And everyone gets a taste and everyone gets rich.

Soldiers, fleet marines, ground troops, merchants, spies, and lunatics of a thousand flavors.  And they are all armed to the teeth and trying to make a gold [[fullwing]] as easily as possible. The poor recycle, and recycling is big business. Its not corruption if its the way business is always done.

On the planet Shatiro, a moon really, around a huge blue gas giant of planet called Halot, circling a sun called, the Sun, is a metropolis called Gadat. It has a population of over 12 million people and is only one of 9 metropolitan areas spaced out across a vast desert. They grew up around oil refineries and oil production facilities. The continent is dirt, overgrown and clogged with traffic from the subterranean rail systems to the ground level roadways systems to the many levels of air transport corridors.  

The average temperature outside is from 90 to 130 degrees. Sometimes higher. Hot by most people's standards. They have given up on having outdoor trees. Water rests below and depending on the source is not hard to bring up.  The 9 cities of this moon are on aquifers that are massive, enough to support generations of people. Of course once the water is brought it rarely goes down again.  They have managed elaborate methods of keeping water here. Vast hydroponic farms recycle water through plants. A thick grass that grows a foot high is grazed on by lumbering beef animals that never run even when they are directed to the slaughter. The grass is often mowed and used as a base for a type of granola bar of mixed vegetables and bound in The Sweet Flora, shipped in from Adzikies in Winter by travelers.

Somewhere in the history of this world civilization broke down and a study of how they survived might be instructional.

In Gadat is a gigantic hub of industry called Hasik Station. It has the technical facilities to qualify as an interplanetary space-station, the storage areas to satisfy the needs of tens of thousands of traders, the charm of a trucker’s diner, and the cleanliness of a gas station bathroom.

It’s a rough place but you can find what you are looking for in the vast cubbyholes of shops in this place. There are several long lanes where merchant ships make port and customers come on board through ally side shops to look over wares.  Hand carts, wandering robot salesman, and guys selling watches and music boxes out of their trench-coats. Pickpockets live like kings.  

For all the muck of this place, it has some big upsides.

I don’t know about calling this place a Diner of Amber but it does have some foods to recommend it.  There are hundreds of noodle shops throughout the place.  There are food carts filled with incredibly flavored meat on a stick that are lovely if you don't think about the kind of meat it is. A salted beef jerky is a traditional snack and is ubiquitous, found in almost every kiosk as an impulse purchase by the cash-box.  

Erasmus Braldig owns a repair station here staffed by his apprentices.  Need something repaired, see them.  There is a bizarre range of items available in the shops here that might be from here or from anyplace in shadow.   

Alien races, not native to this shadow where it turns out they were alone, have a foothold here and there. Elves in particular, of the Drow variety, are common.  So is a race of essentially orc from a nearby shadow just up the Jeweled Road are a frequent sight.  These orcs are merchants as much as raiders. All identifiable non-native races are called "Hasik Folk".  This pisses off the native Hasik people enough to cause them to be either fiercely protective of aliens or radically xenophobic about them. Go figure, no middle ground.

Guilds of all kinds vie for trade and customers.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Shatiro is not the only inhabited moon around Halot.  Halot has 70 or so moons of which half are inhabited on a regular basis.  Nor is Halot the only planet around their sun.  8 other planets circle it.  4 gas giants and 4 rocks.  There is a regular trade by star freighters and inner system ships pushing speeds fast enough to make star travel reasonable.  Yet on none of the inhabited places in this system are new ships being built.  All native space ships are hundreds of years old, often held together by wires, welds, and duct tape.

<span style=color:darkgreen>One is a garden of a world in the sweet zone.  It is full of life, a wet world of mighty trees, raging oceans, vast plains, and amazing beaches.  Despite there being the remnants of once mighty nations no one sets foot on it. It is the Garden to these people and is the world of their origin. For unknown reason when the people left to explore their solar system they decided to leave this world alone to recover from the ravages dealt it by a developing people.  Im sure there is more to the story then that but their history seems to start when the left their home world. Its a blind choice of educators to just not discuss what drove them to the stars.

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes: First off, like many places, this world has cubbyholes of people for any nefarious need..  Secondly, with an ethic of making a [[fullwing]] any way one can, the opportunities are vast. This options aside were bigger game ideas. One was the PCs defending the Jeweled Road segment from attack, maybe even establishing an embassy near it to show the flag.  Another idea was for the PCs to unravel the mystery of why the garden world is avoided. I thought a virulent disease, one possibly dangerous even to Amberites, might infest the world. Maybe a hidden city of people whose ancestors didn't leave with the diaspora.  

<span style=color:darkred>((GM-Notes: I had a large mad max/wasteland warriors campaign in mind.

===<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">'''Lisel’s Teahouse'''</div>===

<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">[[File:Lisel.jpg]]</div>

Lisel’s Teashouse is a tiny place on wheels. A collection of Vardo Wagons in the center of the big city.  It can be found in the megatroplois of Unkantar.  This highly technological world has a lot of people of a wide variety of shapes and sizes. It has technological wonders and gigantic corporations.  It has urban centers with populations of over a million in a single [[Arcology]]. Most urban centers have several archologies besides having spread out metropolitan regions. This planet also has vast agribusiness empires that feed the multitude not lucky enough to live in the tightly controlled Arcologies. (See [[Arcology]])

Stress between the arcologies and the urban centers they stand above is high.

Yet strolling among the shadows of the high-rises and the travel centers of the arcologies is a collection of gypsy Vardo wagons pulled by very tough looking mules. A large modern cargo truck follows the wagons as well. Gently urging them onward from the front reclining seat of the lead wagon is a short and well stuffed woman with long gray hair turned up under a straw hat.  This is Lisel. When she parks for the evening, usually near some cultural event or activity,  a whole little village appears.  A small village. A fire pit is set up and a fire lit.  Chairs are set out.  Samovars are set up on tables next to the wagon. Silver, gold, mithril, and glass start brewing a variety of fragrant teas. Homemade cheeses, jams, and handmade crackers and scones appear.

Lisel is a wonderful talker, a historian, and a bit of a fortune teller.  People come and gawk at this rustic woman in her homespun garb with her painted mules, colorful wagons and strange collection of attendants.  People look her over but for some reason few come to take seats at the fire in one of her available folding chairs.  But some do.  They soon have tea in their hands and Lisel is happy to read their tea leaves once they are done.

She does not charge for the readings. But a donation jar clearly encourages generosity.

She has three constant companions beyond the collection of animals that are plainly visible when she settles in to camp for an evening.  One is a short elvish looking hobbit with a very discerning palate for teas. His name is Antil Gardener and he can talk tea for weeks.  One is a fat hobbit who tends the fire and the dinner fair, named Largo Baggins.  One is a Leprechaun named Vonny who seems very quiet and withdrawn for a leprechaun but is a whirlwind of activity, silently taking cus, refilling cups, bringing nibbles. She tends to stay away from the animals who seem to fear her.  

Another frequent traveling companion is Gacia, also know as Grace, daughter of Evelyn, granddaughter of Oberon.  She rarely brings up her heritage and depends on her harpist skills.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Alright.  I went and spoke to Lisel and i had a horrifying shock.  She is wonderful.  She is knowledgeable.  She is funny as heck.  However, she is a dangerous.  She comes from deep in the gamer worlds and from sections of it that interact with the [[Tosa/York]] universe.  I have a particular horror of this region of shadow for personal reasons. There is a vast variety of peoples with a incredibly diverse collection of powers.

<span style=color:darkgreen>So Lisel turns out to once have been the Paramount Arch-Druid and Seer of realms closely connected to the fallen Shade of Amber in the [[Tosa/York]]. Realms destroyed in the fall. I am relativly certain, if the research was done, that she might turn out to have been Fiona in that shade of Amber before it fell; Now living under a new name. She went into Exile by the assistance of [[Tolknor]] of York. She gained a Broken Pattern Imprint along the way of the Highest order. The hobbits were Arch-druids in their own rights who fled with Lisel to York. The leprechaun is another refugee but she is not running from shadows.  She is [[Vonnilia]] and is a crazy scary little piece of unfettered powers who has lain with monsters best not named, bore their children and does not sleep well.  She only feels safe around Lisel, or when on a mission for [[CHAD]].  I have my reasons for distrusting [[CHAD]], and Vonny is one of them.

<span style=color:darkgreen>It all seems natural as catastrophes go.  But it occurred at the time of Patternfall and there are tales of small battles fought by the wizards that make sense if they had a tiny piece of the Black Road come here to light things off.  I can get no one to confirm it, but i have a strong suspicion that the appearance of the Black Road and the battle by wizards to eradicate it may have started the calamities that effected this world.  Ive asked around, they are not talking.  

This city has almost a million people and they all live off the cross-desert traffic somehow.  Either provisioning the caravans, feeding the merchants, or tending to their own needs.

==='''Englewood Diner===

The Jeweled Road is a vast construct that can not be measured in miles, nor in days, nor i gather in eons. I doubt it can be measured in anything but metaphysics and poetry.

Imagine a stretch of road about 20 miles long and a quarter mile of open field on either side of it.  This plot of land will move between shadows at random.  Luckily the twenty mile long and half mile wide plot has fields, gardens, a few farms, livestock, wooded land, and even streams sometimes. The employees of the diner live variously on the farms and shacks on this region of land.  The waitress is often Ruby or Emerald, or Alice.  The cook is usually Carl; a heavyset older white-man.  Sometimes Zebadiah; an extremely spry elderly black man. Occasionally Enrique; an elderly Hispanic man.  or Dashel; a nephew of mine, and an Amberite of whom the less said the better. On rare occasions the cook is Gulliver, traveling east, and an Amberite, i think, of a Shade of Amber he won't talk about. I've asked.     

That this card arrived in the deck reflects the dangers of our times.  It also does not function.  Yet.  That it arrived in the deck at all is a sign that someone thinks it will work someday.  On that day i suspect someone will lead an army through it.  I suspect Benedict will lead that army.  I suspect i shall be standing beside him, in armor, with weapons of war, not the clown, the drunkard of war or the failed prince.  If that occurs, then heed me foes of Amber, i shall acquit myself as a Prince of Amber.  As one who almost conquered Amber by force of arms.

===Alda Cora Prima===

The Coasarect of Alda Cora Prima[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Arcology#Alda_Cora]] is an Arcology in the world of Trinea. This highly advanced construction houses 1.2 million people and was the prototype for 30 other constructions in the Alda Cora model. There are hundreds of other ecologies on this planet.

The Dinning Room is massive, with a giant bar, and a huge hearth big enough to spitroast a [[Perfectly Normal Beast]]. I know because i've done it.  The Kingdom of Amber owns a collections of private bungalows her and so do a couple dozen other concerns and kingdoms.  The Monarchs have a small collection of tents near by and friggin [[CHAD]] is looking like they are going to take over one of the westward Caravansa for one of their Guildhalls.

The great Waymet headquarters, the Rue Katal, is halfway between Amber and Mandalay.

This tiny limited system is a collection of tiny shadows.  Possibly thousands of them.  It attracts reclusive, isolationist individuals and groups from all over shadow who prefer isolated and deeply cold weathers.  Turn left and under a bush is a portal to someone icy haven.  A shadow causes by a rock outcropping hides a narrow gap that leads to a large dark and cold cave under an icy yellow sun.  These people like their privacy.  

The main, and to my knowledge only, city in this realm is Triqis..This is the location the trump brings one to and a chilly slice of ice it is.  Its a town of around 3000 souls living in stone buildings built against rock faces and small thick walled wooden halls.  Wood is hard to get as this place is 8000 feet above the land's treeline and there are no paths down i heard of.  

Its been long known this tiny place existed and its origin is lost to the earliest days of Amber. There is a feeling of something deeply ancient here but it does not advertise what it is.  There was little or no reason to visit it. There was some trouble with it a many centuries ago that caused me to be there for a short time and deal with a little trouble, as a favor to my father. Most people who come here never leave.  In fact the Wardens unofficially let new arrivals know that they will not be looking in on them. In the course of my work here i saw the dwellings of some of the isolated peoples here.  Time and ingenuity is on their side. Log cabins, tipis, fur trapper tents, renovated caves, tree houses, decomole, and a wide range of other habitats fill the hard to find homesteads here.  

When i came here i was shocked to find a place that was hard to believe people chose to live here.  Im a rugged man and have spent years living in the wilds.  But this place looks like it is purposefully trying to freeze you to death. What i further am surprised by as was Random, is that Dworkin put this card in the deck without the king' permission.  There must be a reason.

This sailor's retreat is inhabited by retired sailors and their families and dependents, as well as a .  There is a small commercial trade among the isles.  They make a variety of lovely fruit wines.   

The ''Conclave of the Unicorn'' is in the Far Isles as well.  It is a place for monks, nuns, priests and other members of the religious communities to retire from Amber.  Founded by Queen Harla, it is a quiet place of faith for those who have lived a life of service and wish to end their lives in privacy.

<span style=color:darkgreen>Call me whimsical but i was deeply unhappy when the Far Isle card appeared in my deck.  It isn't that the possibility of one of the hundred or so kinsman using the deck that saddens me.   Its that the millions of people in Amber and shadow who had either no idea or had forgotten that this curious place exists.   

<span style=color:darkgreen>I've been coming here since i was young.  I had a small hut on a beach on the far side that had wonderful sunsets and cool nights.  It wasn't easy to get there but a young prince could hitch a ride with a navy ship on the the way to the Blue Sea Base fairly easy.  From there it was easy to tour the small isles, the little hamlets, the tangles of beached ships turned into homes for those who loved the sea but could no longer sail upon it.   

<span style=color:darkgreen>After my disastrous involvement in Patternfall, and my decades of alcoholic abuse and involvement in the theater i took the time to build a place for myself.  I went out into shadow and hijacked a ship of the line, the ''Mars'' a 48 meter and a beast of the waters.  I brought in and dragged it up on the beach and converted it to a personal residence.  Should any of the hundred plus kins man wish to see the place just give me a call.