[Amber] Some quick thoughts

[Croaker]

I'm vaguely thinking of reworking my cosmogony for Amber.

So, in short, we have the Abyss, which is destruction and entropy.

Either there is spacetime, with random life/matter/energy spring in it for a moment before being destroyed, until, randomly, the Phoenix appears, OR there is nothing, not even spacetime, and the phoenix and all come from the future to ensure their own existence.

So, anyway, suddenly, we have the Phoenix, which is Creation, and thus life, matter, energy, appear and populate the abyss. If spacetime didn't exist before, it does now.
And where there is something, there are possibilities, there is change, so the Serpent comes to life then, too.
Due to their influence, the Abyss acquires kind of a mind and an avatar, in the shape of the Wolf, which seeks to devour creation.

There are some others, too, either major powers (I'm seeking others cosmic dualities) or minor ones. Almost all of them would either become spikards or chained to spikards, future shadow power sources.

So, how did the universe look back then? Creation expanding, flowing outwards. And since there was only one universe, but no Order, every possibility existed at once. If you took the blue pill, you also took the red pill. The older you were, the more "vast" you were, the more powerful too. And being the embodiement of Chaos, the Serpent had more possibilities, and thus was the most powerful of all beings.

Now, either the Serpent created the Logrus in order to bolster his own power, by "tainting" new creation with its power, making sure most of their possibilities were subservant to him, or it was done later, to protect it from the Pattern, to avoid extinction.


The Unicorn, jealous of the Serpent's power/fearful of its rise, conspired, maybe with the Phoenix, to bring an end to its reign.
She contacted what would become Dworkin, and they used the Serpent's own power against it, fleeing at the edge of creation, drawing the pattern out of the possibility of the Serpent's Weakness, cutting right into creation, ensuring that the only possibility that remained was the one in which the Unicorn was Supreme... At least in Amber.

Due to the interaction between Order, Creation and Chaos, all the variants of Amber were spread over a variety of Shadows, no longer coexisting. Only the Unicorn and Dworkin, being too tied to Order, were unique. This is why dworkin is mad: At least in part, he remembers the times before, and many variants of him still exist in his mind.

So the universe was remade in the image of the Unicorn: Order gave the model, chaos envisionned the variations on it, and Creation gave the building blocks for these ot exist (shadow), while, at the edge, Destruction still eats at those bits of the universe that are discarded or unlucky.
The other powers were chained across shadow (although some may have cooperated willingly), to give it a squeletton, ensuring shadows did not wander aimlessly. The Phoenix either lives, or is imprisonned, at the heart of the Pattern.
The Serpent could not be eliminated, but its power was cut many times. In the courts, shadows still exist, but are thin enough that things are close, so close, to what they were before. This is why the courts and the logrus are dangerous: You may shift upon any variation about them without even noticing. And who's to say that every living being in Chaos isn't a variation on a few Lords and Ladies?

And thus, how do Patternwalk works? At each step, you briefly relax the power of Order, allowing 2 separate shadows, 2 separate possibilities, to again become one, and then you relax it, stranding yourself in a different shadow than the one you were before.

Shapeshift is the art of doing that, to your body: You counteract the influence of the Pattern, allowing various possibilities to coexist in your body, and then select the one you want. The more extreme the shapeshift, the more time it takes, because it takes time for the remotest possibilities of mutation to appear.

Trump works on similar principles: It uses the network created by the spikards and pattern to locate a specific person/place, and then abolish the influence of Pattern, making 2 minds or locations as one: When you enter a trump contact, what really happens is too alien an experience, what you get is what you remember of the "True" contact, which is a chaotic fusion of the minds.

So that's it. Quite rough still, but you get the idea.

[Artifacts of Amber]

Agreed with fleshing this aspect out as part of the Cosmology of Amber.

I think having worked out these factors helps me run a better game as I immediatetly know how powers interact and the greater forces of the universe work. I know the "Rules" of reality. It helps me decide the interaction of things deep in the background.

I truly don't expect players to delve deep enough to figure it out though I did once run a game for seasoned Amber players that involved how the universe was built becuase it was screwed up and the needed to fix it. I had to develop the cosmology very fully to do so.

Sounds like your basic ideas are strong. I usually build like this and star hammering it with "what ifs" to give me a solid working structure.

Good work

[Panjumanju]

I also work out a similar 'how the universe works' structure before starting an Amber game. This one seems well-structured.

One of the things I enjoy most is that it can be different every time.

//Panjumanju

[Artifacts of Amber]

Yea it can be different but as I get older I get more set in how things work just to keep from confusing my addled mind.

I try for some sort of universal balance with certain powers balancing, but not necessarily, opposing each other.

It's fun to think about as well. Even if I never use all the ideas I have or my players never uncover certain universal truths. They may wonder how something works but never long enough to investigate it.

[Croaker]

Thank you all for the return

Sounds like your basic ideas are strong. I usually build like this and star hammering it with "what ifs" to give me a solid working structure.

Yes, this was one of the goals, being able to picture what would happen should the pattern/logrus/whatever disappear.