How Real is Rebma?

[RTrimmer]

The answer I've used is, "Just as Real as Amber."
Because:
It's in the same world/shadow as Amber and has a fully functional Pattern.
While Random says that it's a ghost city, and that everything in Amber is reflected there, Morganthe was real enough to bear a fully Real son to him. The Amber family is not reflected there. Only the Jewel of Judgment's reflection in Rebma is not, quite, as Real as the original.
Moire says that if she gave Corwin and Llewella troops to attack Amber the chaos would be reflected in Rebma. Perfectly true in a mundane way: Amber is very close to Rebma and sending troops to attack it would be an act of war.

Where do the Rebans come from? They are fae of various sorts, and like most of the more powerful, world walking fae, are descended from Chaos exiles and refugees, as well as from the odd wandering Amberite. The Courts generate a lot of refugees.

Tir-na Nog'th is different.

[zircher]

Yeah, any place having a functional (as in not broken) Pattern defines reality and can cast Shadows.  At least, that's how I would roll with it.

I've got a copy of the Rebma draft somewhere (hopefully not a dead hard drive), that would be fun alternate game to run.

[RTrimmer]

And re: the mirrors in Rebma. Shroudlings?
So, Nereid powers (shapeshifting, waterbending), Siren powers, Shroudling powers and contacts, the Jewel of Rebma (Mega water bending, equivalent to controlling the local weather), odd Fae powers, clairvoyance and precognition (?, Vialle) are all possibilities. And somewhere in the giant, multivolume Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny (probably in The Road to Amber*) it's mentioned that Llewella can teleport around Rebma's territory.

*available locally via the library alliance, and on Amazon. There are no legal electronic versions.

[zircher]

That would be fun, moving between connected bodies of water would effectively be teleportation in Rebma.

[finarvyn]

This is a great question and I have nothing to back up an answer, but off the top of my head here are some thoughts.

(1) Amber is somehow stronger than Chaos, at least according to Erick's scale. The "why" of that is uncertain. Amber isn't a shadow of anything that we know of, other than the Primal Pattern.

(2) A "shadow" of something is assumed to be weaker than the original. How does Amber compare to the Primal Pattern, as if we knew that we might be able to decide something about the strength of shadow patterns.

For example:
Primal = 1.0
Amber = 90% of 1.0, so 0.9
Rebma and Tir = 90% of 0.9, so 0.81
and so on.

(3) Do we have any reason to believe that Rebma is more/less real than Tir, other than the fact that Tir is a "ghost" city (which might imply simply that it lives in another dimension).

I love to ponder this stuff.

[Brad]

Considering even Amber isn't technically "real", I'd say Rebma is just as real.

The .9, .81 thing above, are we sure Rebma isn't a reflection of the primal pattern and not the Amber pattern? Seems like it has to be, or else the pattern there would function more like a broken pattern to some degree. If I'm not mistaken, Martin first walked the pattern in Rebma, which seems to support the "as real as Amber" view.

[zircher]

Fun thought, what if the primal pattern actually casts four equal shadows?  Tir = air, Rebma = Water, Amber = Earth, and a yet undiscovered fire shadow?

[jhkim]

Considering even Amber isn't technically "real", I'd say Rebma is just as real.

The .9, .81 thing above, are we sure Rebma isn't a reflection of the primal pattern and not the Amber pattern? Seems like it has to be, or else the pattern there would function more like a broken pattern to some degree. If I'm not mistaken, Martin first walked the pattern in Rebma, which seems to support the "as real as Amber" view.

Fun thought, what if the primal pattern actually casts four equal shadows?  Tir = air, Rebma = Water, Amber = Earth, and a yet undiscovered fire shadow?

Yeah, I think it works better to consider Amber, Rebma, and Tir as all first-tier projections of the Primal Pattern. That's how I've usually conceived of it.

I didn't think of it in terms of four elements, though. Is there anywhere else in Amber myth that uses air/earth/fire/water?

It could be land/sea/air as a trinity, but there could be cloud/cave/ocean that leaves room for other environments - like a Forest Pattern in a giant tree, or a Desert Pattern in a huge geoglyph like Nazca lines.

[zircher]

Trying to remember, did the Keep of the Four Worlds have an elemental theme in there some where?

[finarvyn]

Trying to remember, did the Keep of the Four Worlds have an elemental theme in there some where?

You are correct, sir. Here is a quote from Trumps of Doom:

It lies at the crossroads of the worlds of the four elements, where it rises from the earth in flames, assailed by the winds and waters.

[zircher]

You are correct, sir. Here is a quote from Trumps of Doom:

It lies at the crossroads of the worlds of the four elements, where it rises from the earth in flames, assailed by the winds and waters.

Wowzers!  That falls in line perfectly with my 'cosmology' that where the four elements intersect there is a focus of power (Primal pattern, the Keep, and perhaps the Courts of Chaos as well.)

[jhkim]

You are correct, sir. Here is a quote from Trumps of Doom:

It lies at the crossroads of the worlds of the four elements, where it rises from the earth in flames, assailed by the winds and waters.

Wowzers!  That falls in line perfectly with my 'cosmology' that where the four elements intersect there is a focus of power (Primal pattern, the Keep, and perhaps the Courts of Chaos as well.)

Interesting. I totally missed this in my Zelazny reading. So the big question is if Air/Tir, Water/Rebma, Amber/Earth, then what is the Fire Pattern?

Maybe there's a fiery underworld below Mount Kolvir.

[zircher]

[ground shakes and steam starts venting from the mountain...] 

Random: "Interesting, I didn't know Kolvir was a volcano."
Julian:  "It's not."
Random: "Oh."

As they say in the Powered by the Apocalypse games, play to find out.  :-)

[Thondor]

What a great thread, and question!

My main take is that Rebma is just as real. I like the idea that something in Amber is reflected in Rebma goes both ways -- something big happening in Rebma will be reflected in Amber.

As for the fire/air/water/earth — given the way that the pattern is described as shedding light and shooting sparks, I think you already have your fire married to the other one.

As an aside when I set my game "Amethyst" around Corwin's pattern, it was located at the top of a huge tower, surrounded by a rooftop garden. There are chestnut trees which always seem to be in blossom.