[Amber] Who are these people?

[Panjumanju]

So, we know all about the Amberites proper, but who the unicorn are the denizens of the city of Amber? Are they shadow people that drifted in from the Golden circle? Are they some of Oberon's bastard children that were not born with Amber-level statistics?

There are bars and ports and not just an army but a castle guard, and a navy. So, who are these people?

//Panjumanju

[finarvyn]

The impression I get from "The Complete Amber Sourcebook" by Theodore Krulik is that some folks from Shadow were brought in to build Castle Amber. They were tradesmen, innkeepersm, and so on. The folks who came also tended to stay, and generations later their families are still in Amber. I think that John Betancourt used a similar background explanation, probably derived from Krulik's work.

I can't recall if RZ ever expressly explained this or if Krulik just made it up, but it kind of makes sense to me.

[Tolknor]

So, we know all about the Amberites proper, but who the unicorn are the denizens of the city of Amber? Are they shadow people that drifted in from the Golden circle? Are they some of Oberon's bastard children that were not born with Amber-level statistics?

There are bars and ports and not just an army but a castle guard, and a navy. So, who are these people?

//Panjumanju

Awesome question and a good one to really get some different visions.  

One of the things i did for both my games was sketch out the rest of the continent the City of Amber is part of.  I established other major cities for both Amber and Rebma; Ober in the North on land, Moin in the north under the water.  Garn near the stairs down to Rebma.   Yal in the west on land and Laj in the water.    Considering a mighty nation i would assume a reasonably high population in what are essentially medieval cities.   Consider populations around 1500 on earth.  (according to http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201d.htm)

1   Beijing, China   672,000
2   Vijayanagar, India   500,000
3   Cairo, Egypt   400,000
4   Hangzhou, China   250,000
5   Tabriz, Iran   250,000
6   Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey   200,000
7   Gaur, India   200,000
8   Paris, France   185,000
9   Guangzhou, China   150,000
10   Nanjing, China   147,000


Only Paris is European, though Constantinople had only changed hands a generation before.  The Asian cities of Beijing, Hangzhou, Vijayanagar, & Gaur speak to a heavy urban density that must have represented a high level of rural population to be able to feed such heavy urban cities.

I set my city of Amber at 200k, Paris in 1500.  Ober at around 100k  Garn, once a moderate fishing port of 10k swelled to 100k and vastly increased its port facilities after Patternfall.  Yal at about 30k.  Figure a rural population of vilages, towns, and hamlets, some on their own, some belonging to noble families. A population outside the cities of almost a million people is not unlikely over a vast nation.  Then include the watery reflection for a number around 3 million people in the world of Amber.

Now if you play the City of Amber as a small city of 10k the numbers go down dramatically, but i don't see that as realistic for a nation that is supposed to be at the center of things.  So small a nation would be easy to conquer despite having Benedict leading his military brothers in battle.
---

So one of the first things i thought about was what kind of population do the paired kingdoms of Amber and Rebma have on hand?  Beyond that what was the size of the kingdoms as they spread out into shadow?  Third how much interaction did the kingdoms have in the Golden Circle?

Those are heavy considerations as a GM.   The Amber books speak of interactions with Golden Circle kingdoms but does not give a real sense of how much interactions there is.  The Begma/Kashfa issues should be a mere example of what must be numerous political problems going on every day.  This implies many nations in the Golden Circle, possible a similar Green Circle for Rebma, all sending Embassies to court, complete with Officers, guards, secretaries, spys, business factors, and their families.

There also is implied by the water routes set down for trade that areas outside the Golden Circle do business with these countries and they probably have sent their embassies, merchants, and families.

Consider if in any of these realms, would royal and noble families want to practice Fostering and might send their young to be taught courtly manners in Amber and Rebma.  I bet that Viale and Moire's Ladies in waiting are a gaggle of luminaries from foreign royal families.    Do Flora and Llewella and Fiona have ladies in waiting?  Do Gerard and Julian take squires?

Amber is probably littered with people from any realm hoping to do business in Amber, and these youngsters would all take second place behind the sons and daughters of the families that serve Amber like the Bayles, Feldanes, Chantriss and their numerous peers.  

In my last game 4 realms sent sizable portions of their military forces to serve directly in the Amber military for a few tours.  When they returned to their own militaries they would have gained valuable experience.

---
Now consider Bill Roth.  Here is a guy who knew Corwin & Merlin, and did well by them.  In the course of things this casual friend of two amberites gets swept into Amber and goes native.   How many times have shadow dwellers had Amberites as friends?  They could have spent decades with them, loved them, fought beside them, and then been brought to Amber.  They could have gone native and their children would have been born there as natives of Amber.  
 These would have filled out the trades at all levels, from barmaids to ship's captains.  

There are numerous pages across the web that discuss the trades in medieval towns.  Figure they are all represented as well as practitioners of diverse other trades found in shadow.

I had Jurt come to Amber when his brother Despil was Ambassador to Amber.  Jurt, using the name Thin Whip, opened an underground rave style club.  He staffed it with a rough assortment of people and the people of Amber came to his place, Thin Whip's Joint, in droves.  I also had Bleys as the owner and patron to theaters and art galleries.  How many times have the royals started something like a business and staffed it, then let it be run by others, who in time, went native and raised families?  The merchant navies must be filled with people Gerard and Caine dug up to sail for Amber, and their children and grandchildren.

I always told my players that people brought to Amber and who went native started to not breed as well as they did on their homeworld.  Just to keep populations from getting crazy as centuries built up.

I'll come back to this latter.  I think the short answer to who these people are is that they are a tiny fragment of a sliver of the population of shadow.

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

So, we know all about the Amberites proper, but who the unicorn are the denizens of the city of Amber?

I think to answer this question adequately, one must first consider just where exactly Oberon drew the Pattern.  He didn't draw it in Amber, because there was no Amber before the Pattern.

Once you decide where Oberon drew the Pattern, then you can ask: Who was already living there when he did that?

One possibility is that he drew it right in the middle of Dworkin's family lands in the Courts of Chaos...and the whole chunk of it got whisked away in that tension of opposites that created infinite shadow between the rest of the Courts and that one piece that became Amber.

In any case, I don't think that when Amber first sprang into being by the drawing of the Pattern that it was an entirely empty place, at least not that first reflection we know as Amber and Rebma.

[Croaker]

Now if you play the City of Amber as a small city of 10k the numbers go down dramatically, but i don't see that as realistic for a nation that is supposed to be at the center of things. So small a nation would be easy to conquer despite having Benedict leading his military brothers in battle.

Well, one thing I had in my throne wars is that "normal" Amber militaries had 2 points qualities in all attributes, something like this, I don't recall exactly.

So, sure, some players could pay for a whole shadow of creatures instead of bidding to be the general of Amber's north sea. But, unless the bidding went wild, this was not necessarily a wise choice, even going purely by points.

[Tolknor]

Well, one thing I had in my throne wars is that "normal" Amber militaries had 2 points qualities in all attributes, something like this, I don't recall exactly.

My game was post Paternfall and Random is a progressive king.

I generally had citizens of Amber(Rebma) rated as Chaos rank in everything except one stat each picked according to their interests.  Anyone who served in the Amber military (Army and navy) had their Endurance and Warfare raised to Amber Rank.  This encouraged the people to serve their country.  Soldiers from shadow, primarily Golden Circle folks, were lower ranked but gained great benefits by serving Amber. Strength could be boosted as well but was a separate course of study.

Also anyone inclined to study magic, (high psyche), was sent through military training and then to higher education to become military mages.

The elite of the Amber military were culled from the service to become Amber Guard. These individuals were from several sources.  Skilled members of Amber Military, in the 1 to 10 pip range in strength, endurance and warfare, were sent directly to the Guard.  Heroes and significant individuals from shadow were often brought by shadowwalkers to Amber and put into Benedict's care.   These often had significantly higher stats and often really cool magic items.

Officers in the Amber military almost always had done a tour in the Amber Guard.  The Unicorn tattoo of a Amber Guardsman brought serious clout in many realms.  Any officer who did not have it was often considered decorative or political.

[RPGPundit]

I've never had it come up in my games; however, I would presume that they come out of the same place that everything else in the multiverse came from, they were created ab ovo when the pattern was made.

[Panjumanju]

they were created ab ovo when the pattern was made.

Huh.

People keep coming up with interesting responses that I wouldn't have thought of.

Internet forums work!

//Panjumanju

[Tolknor]

Ya, i tend to over-think things.   Its the historian in me.  I tended to write up stuff for my games that the players never really ran across.  A couple of my players would sit and sip whiskey with me and talk population density, Cultural influences of shadow on the theater crowd of Amber, military training run by Benedict and a dozen of his closest shadows all working together.  

We also talked a lot about comparisons with the City and nation of Amber as Paris 1500, London 1650, Rome 50 bce & 100 & 300,  Beijing 1300.  others too.  

We talked about a Genghis Khan/Timur Khan person I called Borlock, a son of Oberon, bringing millions of horseman in and subjugating Amber like China.   Rough time for Amber.

The people of Amber would have to be pretty resilient, living in the center of things, with so many enemies in shadow that might come storming into Amber at any moment!

[Croaker]

Well, that's also where the golden circle comes in. As a buffer between Amber and Shadow.

And the closer one is to Amber, the more they would be aware that Amber's good or ill fortunes are reflected into their own realms

[RPGPundit]

Well, that's also where the golden circle comes in. As a buffer between Amber and Shadow.

And the closer one is to Amber, the more they would be aware that Amber's good or ill fortunes are reflected into their own realms

Yes. Amber itself is usually only ever in danger from Civil War or Existential Threat.  The whole "Mongol Horde" thing actually sort of happened once already, with the Moonriders of Ganesh.  Benedict kicked their asses.

Now, the GC, that's where all the levying for power is; because they represent pieces in the Amber game, access to Amber, and ways to gain influence over Amber.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

Huh.

People keep coming up with interesting responses that I wouldn't have thought of.

Internet forums work!

//Panjumanju

We aim to please.

[Tolknor]

Well, that's also where the golden circle comes in. As a buffer between Amber and Shadow.

And the closer one is to Amber, the more they would be aware that Amber's good or ill fortunes are reflected into their own realms

This was why a Timur or Attila character like Borlak interested me.  He had no concern of shadow and Amber's effect on it.  No concern over the politics of Amber and the GC.  And as tough as Benedict is and as big an army as he might raise, a horse-based raiding army that could be millions strong needs to keep moving.  We envisioned him leading them from shadow to shadow, raiding everything they could find, killing on a monumental level.   In game play I never ended up having the PCs go deal with his army but they met him several times, and learned enough about him and his to know that it would have to come to it someday.   We chatted a lot about how to deal with them.  Nuclear weapons, high tech arms, Aggressive magics, pattern manipulations.  I had several players extremely paranoid.  

 Sadly the campaign petered out as players moved, got new jobs, families etc.  life goes on.   Long after the game one of the players talked to me about what i had planned for him and i told him that i was going to let a PC get worried enough to pick the fight first.  Till then he was just a scourge of  shadow that came and went, leaving nothing behind.  Shadow has all things after all.  Borlak was just one of them.  

A side conversation was to wonder why Chaos didn't do just this.  Why didn't they just dump the Abyss and all its hordes on to the Black Road and tell them to go wreck havok.  In the end the only answer that satisfied us is that it was not the way Zelazny wrote the story!

[Croaker]

A side conversation was to wonder why Chaos didn't do just this.  Why didn't they just dump the Abyss and all its hordes on to the Black Road and tell them to go wreck havok.  In the end the only answer that satisfied us is that it was not the way Zelazny wrote the story!

Well, the black road can only let that many creatures pass.

And who knows? Maybe the black road only let the sturdier creatures go. The truly strange and chaotic, despite its protection, could not leave them home.

How to put it? Let's say Amber is 10, chaos 0.
Creatures who die at 7 can't penetrate in Amber. But if the black road has a level 05, they can. This change nothing for the beasties who die at 0-4

[RPGPundit]

Precisely. The Road could only move so many at a time, and there were limits even then to just how much "chaos" could actually stand to be in the more amber-end shadows, much less Amber itself.