Pattern Sword Names

[RPGPundit]

Mornfleur - the Dawn blade. This is Bleys's sword. Clarissa gained two of the Pattern swords from Dworkin (through nefarious means, of course) and gave them to her sons.

Makes sense, but would that then be the same sword as his Golden Sword? Or something else?

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[Tarion'sCousin]

Makes sense, but would that then be the same sword as his Golden Sword?

Yeah, it tied things up neatly to do it that way. I wanted Clarissa to have done something historically that had consequences--besides bear Oberon three known children.

Also, it manufactured a reason why Brand had a Pattern Blade (besides due to the author's plot points). I mean, getting the good equipment for your sons is a viable reason for Brand (and Bleys) to have Pattern Blades, in my opinion.

Otherwise, it doesn't makes sense to me for Brand to have Werewindle. Wouldn't Oberon have given it to a better swordsman, like Eric, or Bleys?

[RPGPundit]

Yeah, it tied things up neatly to do it that way. I wanted Clarissa to have done something historically that had consequences--besides bear Oberon three known children.

Also, it manufactured a reason why Brand had a Pattern Blade (besides due to the author's plot points). I mean, getting the good equipment for your sons is a viable reason for Brand (and Bleys) to have Pattern Blades, in my opinion.

Otherwise, it doesn't makes sense to me for Brand to have Werewindle. Wouldn't Oberon have given it to a better swordsman, like Eric, or Bleys?

Well, that is a good question. You could argue he might give it to weaker children of his to give them some kind of counterbalance, but Corwin was certainly not a 'weaker child'.  You could also just chalk it up to some kind of cosmic-destiny thing.  Certainly, I can imagine Benedict or Gerard feeling like they really don't need a special super-sword. On the other hand, if Bleys had not been so favored, I imagine he'd have had some serious envy going on with his brother.

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[ultralogan]

No none of it makes sense. If Oberon were to give out magic swords and one went to Corwin, one to Brand then he would have only given them to those he saw as potential heirs. It's made clear that he didn't favor Eric after the Corwin incident, but could he have been surprised that Eric would kill Corwin given the chance? I think the anti Eric sentiments were more a reaction to the surprise and disappointment that Eric won. What I don't really understand is the line. Shadow can be anything, will it go there and get what you want, right? But there are limits, or Brand could have just "found another Jewel of Judgement" in shadow. Fakir just came from a Logrus walk and seems on par with grayswandir. In the RPG how do you limit shadows?

[jibbajibba]

No none of it makes sense. If Oberon were to give out magic swords and one went to Corwin, one to Brand then he would have only given them to those he saw as potential heirs. It's made clear that he didn't favor Eric after the Corwin incident, but could he have been surprised that Eric would kill Corwin given the chance? I think the anti Eric sentiments were more a reaction to the surprise and disappointment that Eric won. What I don't really understand is the line. Shadow can be anything, will it go there and get what you want, right? But there are limits, or Brand could have just "found another Jewel of Judgement" in shadow. Fakir just came from a Logrus walk and seems on par with grayswandir. In the RPG how do you limit shadows?

Last question is a good one.
Basically you can find anything in shadow but the more points it has the more localised its power. So you can indeed find another JoJ but its effects will be limited to a small number of shadows. Now within those shadows perhaps you can create a pocket universe going down the fractal route but you won't be able to affect externals.

So take some typical examples. You want to beat up your brother who is tougher than you so you shadow walk to a version of the DC universe and recruit the JLA. No Amberite is a strong as Superman or as fast as The Flash so you are good to go. Now the JLA is a pretty expensive item.... say each one is a 32 point 'creature' and they are Named and Numbered for ease.. so 64 points worth... a long walk. However, you will find that the JLA's powers only work in a narrow range of shadows and as they move away from their home they become progressively less impressive in Amber if you get there they will be no match for a Amberite (well actually the brain Wayne and the tactics of Wonder woman and Superman etc will still make them great allies).
You want to find Excalibur and make it Primal Damage to Children of Amber (16 points) no problem but .... take it out of Avalon/Camelot and it will quickly diminish in power.

Now this is my take on things. It works in play for sure. To get items with some sort of permanent shadow wide power you need to buy them thus making them part of your character or you need to use a power to create them. I am all for new powers by the way so I am not just talking Pattern, Logrus or Trump.

[ultralogan]

Very good answer, and it covers much of my questions. How would you deal with knowledge? I mean there  are several times in the books that knowledge of powers and how the universe works are the key to gaining the upper hand. Also with the JL example I can see that at creation but what about after? Corwin spent no time or effort finding his harry guys, and if you accept you can find shadow traveling creatures like Random's friends from nine princes, why not a shadow of pattern experts? Say religious fanatics who just happen to be right about everything? In one interpretation of reading the books you could argue that that shadow can't not exist. It just seems like so many things that you have to pay for at creation could just be gotten from shadow in play. Zelazny gives mixed messages on this in the novels. Blaise's armies (the one he used when attacking with Corwin, and the one Brand and Fi imply he is going to use) seems to have taken a while to gather, but Benidict marshals a force to threaten Chaos in a matter of (relative) hours. And again back to Fakir why spend points? why not just walk Logrus, in game, and say hey look magic sentient bracelet monster? Sorry, if I sound contrarian  I don't mean to be but I am thinking of using the amazingness of google docs to do a single, everyone can edit, Amber "game" and don't want to wast time after it starts. I'm planning for the worst with my players even though I mostly trust them with the material. It almost seems that they might get so in character they start looking for rules loopholes that way.

[jibbajibba]

Very good answer, and it covers much of my questions. How would you deal with knowledge? I mean there  are several times in the books that knowledge of powers and how the universe works are the key to gaining the upper hand. Also with the JL example I can see that at creation but what about after? Corwin spent no time or effort finding his harry guys, and if you accept you can find shadow traveling creatures like Random's friends from nine princes, why not a shadow of pattern experts? Say religious fanatics who just happen to be right about everything? In one interpretation of reading the books you could argue that that shadow can't not exist. It just seems like so many things that you have to pay for at creation could just be gotten from shadow in play. Zelazny gives mixed messages on this in the novels. Blaise's armies (the one he used when attacking with Corwin, and the one Brand and Fi imply he is going to use) seems to have taken a while to gather, but Benidict marshals a force to threaten Chaos in a matter of (relative) hours. And again back to Fakir why spend points? why not just walk Logrus, in game, and say hey look magic sentient bracelet monster? Sorry, if I sound contrarian  I don't mean to be but I am thinking of using the amazingness of google docs to do a single, everyone can edit, Amber "game" and don't want to wast time after it starts. I'm planning for the worst with my players even though I mostly trust them with the material. It almost seems that they might get so in character they start looking for rules loopholes that way.

I have done a fair few wiki games and so I know where you are soming from:)

I would treat knowledge of Amber a bit differently. You can only find what you are looking for you can't find the correct answer to a thing. An exampel may explain.
A PC finds a very complex message. Its got a cypher and a code and its a riddle. So you could argue all things exist in Shadow so I will walk to find someone that knows the answer to this, and as this has no 'points' it's simple. However, since you don't know the answer you can't find the answer in shadow. 'You can only find what you know how to look for'. You can find a guy that is an expert at codes, maybe a super AI. However you won't be able to check the outcome and in an infinite universe there will be infinite solutions but most of them will be wrong. So you find a guy and he gives you an answer but you have no idea if its correct.

Troops are easier. you can find lots of troops really fast. The simpler the troops the faster they are to find and they will be effective across more shadows. So the JLA will be great in their own shadow but weak by the time they get to Amber. How weak is a GM call. Generally the more effort put in in Amber the better I tend to judge the result. So ... If they spent 64 hours hellriding to DC universe and that took 3 game sessions and they really overcame some stuff on the way I would the JLA pretty effective even in amber. They mighe end up low ranks in Str and Warfare. They will have useful skills. If the PC say okay we have some down tiem I will ride to find the JLA okay now I have found them .... then that version of the JLA will fade much faster be more human-like by the time they reach Amber and be less effective.
Tech items like Batmobiels and Green laterns I wouldn't have work in any case.
The armies the protagonists bring to bear in the books are generally standard  humanoids. They are adept and trained but in ADRPG terms no better than Chaos rank. I have had PCs attack Amber with armies of Angels, armies of undead and all sorts in between. The more excessive the power of the creature the more their powers fade as they travel through amber. A horde of 2 point creatures will take a few hours to find but to get the most oout of them I woudl look at the Warfare of the leader and then give them a training time inversly proportional to that skill in order to acheive that level of effectiveness.
So .... in english the Rank 3 warfare guy would need to train his troops for 3 tiems longer than the rank 1 guy in order to have them fight as a rank 3 army. If the technology and tactics they are using are familiar I woudl set the base time as a week local shadow time. So the rank 3 warfare guy can find an army and in 3 weeks get them fully trained. If there was a change in tactics, say adding automatic weapons to a bunch of Robin hood style outlaws I would introduce a multiplier.
Now you need to keep all this vague. So the PC tells you he wants to gather an army. You can ask directly how tough do you want them to be? then explain that the tougher they are the more localised their power will be. A wise PC will then say okay I want a shadow wide army of 4 point critters ... or something like that. Then they say right they all worship me as a god so lets get going. I would then say referencing their warfare... you reckon it would take about a month to get these guys totally up to speed. You can get them decent in a couple of weeks. You tend to find that things sort themselves out pretty quickly in play. More so than other games Amber rules need interpretation and there is room for debate but .... as the GM you have a duty to ensure that your interpretation of the rules are clean and fair so you need to answer these sorts of questiosn in your own mind so you can rule on them very crisply.


Now you can use Conjuration and imbue creatures with real power. Conjuration is also shadow specific though enless you imbue it with permanency whcih means 10 times as long to cast (also I measure conjuration times in Amber hours so you can't whizz off to chaos and build a magic army in a day)

[RPGPundit]

No none of it makes sense. If Oberon were to give out magic swords and one went to Corwin, one to Brand then he would have only given them to those he saw as potential heirs. It's made clear that he didn't favor Eric after the Corwin incident, but could he have been surprised that Eric would kill Corwin given the chance? I think the anti Eric sentiments were more a reaction to the surprise and disappointment that Eric won. What I don't really understand is the line. Shadow can be anything, will it go there and get what you want, right? But there are limits, or Brand could have just "found another Jewel of Judgement" in shadow. Fakir just came from a Logrus walk and seems on par with grayswandir. In the RPG how do you limit shadows?

The way I run the game, the virtue of items that you put actual points in, as opposed to one you just find lying around in shadow, is that they have a measure of reality in them.  You can find a Vorpal Sword in a D&D shadow and spend precisely 0 points on it, but then it can just as easily be conjured away, its power negated by logrus or pattern, or simply fail to work in any shadow who's magical "rules" are sufficiently different from the D&D-world you found it on (on earth, for example, that vorpal sword might just turn out to be a normal sword).
On the other hand, the stuff you put points in have a touch of your essence, so they have Reality, and are more durable.
Pattern is the ultimate reality, so a sword made from pattern is going to be a very ultimate kind of Reality Sword.

Logrus is also reality, on the opposite end of the spectrum, so an object infused with reality from the Logrus will also be similarly powerful.

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[RPGPundit]

Very good answer, and it covers much of my questions. How would you deal with knowledge? I mean there  are several times in the books that knowledge of powers and how the universe works are the key to gaining the upper hand. Also with the JL example I can see that at creation but what about after? Corwin spent no time or effort finding his harry guys, and if you accept you can find shadow traveling creatures like Random's friends from nine princes, why not a shadow of pattern experts? Say religious fanatics who just happen to be right about everything? In one interpretation of reading the books you could argue that that shadow can't not exist. It just seems like so many things that you have to pay for at creation could just be gotten from shadow in play. Zelazny gives mixed messages on this in the novels. Blaise's armies (the one he used when attacking with Corwin, and the one Brand and Fi imply he is going to use) seems to have taken a while to gather, but Benidict marshals a force to threaten Chaos in a matter of (relative) hours. And again back to Fakir why spend points? why not just walk Logrus, in game, and say hey look magic sentient bracelet monster? Sorry, if I sound contrarian  I don't mean to be but I am thinking of using the amazingness of google docs to do a single, everyone can edit, Amber "game" and don't want to wast time after it starts. I'm planning for the worst with my players even though I mostly trust them with the material. It almost seems that they might get so in character they start looking for rules loopholes that way.

In your previous post you asked why wouldn't Brande just go into shadow and find another Jewel of Judgment; the answer is because it would be a Shadow Jewel of Judgment, it wouldn't be reality; it'd just be a copy. It MIGHT be a copy with some kind of essence of the real one (maybe able to make "broken patterns?"), but it would be nowhere near the potency of the real thing. That's why Amber (and the Courts of Chaos) are so important to the Amberites (and the Chaosians), because they're the only thing that's REAL.  Its a neo-Platonism thing.

Similarly, you could go to some shadow and find experts on the pattern in shadow; but they'd be experts of some pattern in shadow; their knowledge would be unlikely to extend to the real thing, so it would be imperfect; of course, if you took one of these guys to the REAL pattern, he might be able to more quickly discern some important things that someone starting from scratch might not. He'd still need the chance to get close to the subject matter.  

Could there be some group of sages somewhere in the depths of shadow that have real knowledge of the REAL pattern? Sure, but for that to be true it must be because at some point they were in some way touched by the REAL; not a shadow. So that means that at some point someone else was fucking with them, and it would have to have been someone (or some thing) very powerful. You find a group like that, and you open up a whole can of worms! Perfect fodder for the campaign.
At the same time, a group like that would almost certainly have their own agenda too. A good GM would make use of that.

As for the difference in how long it took Bleys or Corwin vs. Benedict to raise up an army... well, Benedict is one of the oldest amberites, with a vast knowledge of shadow in all likelihood, AND he's the greatest General who ever lived in the entire universe.  So its pretty likely that unlike his brothers, he didn't have to go out looking for his army; he probably has several shadows that he'd been tending to for several millennia, breeding warlike races and holding them ever ready for some War in Heaven, just saving them for the rainy day when he'd have to march them across eternity to bring fire and destruction to the multiverse.  That's just the kind of guy he is.

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