What's it like? what's in it? What should it look like? Should it be anything at all, or just utter emptiness?
RPGPundit
Odd thought: a backdoor to Corwin's universe.
I always imagine the Abyss as one large ocean where one can float around and get swept away by various currents. I don't know if there would be other islands of reality therein or not.
I always pictured it as a great nothingness, a lot like the phenomenon in The Courts of Chaos, except it's all psychedelic-colored like a movie screen at a Doors concert. But from that nothingness springs everything.
see, I always saw it as nothingness, pure nothingness, from which fuck all has sprung.
It is the opposite of chaos, which is filled with everything, and from which everything sprung. The Abyss isn't the source of everything its the absence of everything.
This is all very Kabbalistic, which is, I'm sure, what Roger wanted.
RPGPundit
I tend to believe the Abyss is not as the opposite of Chaos but as the eventual conclusion of Chaos. Pattern and Abyss are polar opposites with Chaos working as the agents of the Abyss. I think if you allow the Abyss as the great enemy to all, then you reduce Chaos to just another kind of Pattern by virtue of just wanting to exist.
I don't think these two visions are mutually exclusive - and as with all things metaphysical, manyfold truths and multiple interpretations are always more interesting than a flat, clear-cut explanation (I'm speaking RPG and fiction here, not reality or actual beliefs BTW).
My own personal (and, of course, debatable) take on the Pattern/Chaos/Abyss triptych would be as follows :
In the previous eternity/cosmic cycle/era/aeon, at the beginning of the universe etc (ie before Dworkin drew his Pattern), things were polarized in terms of two simple alternatives : Abyss (nothigness, the void etc) and Chaos (everything in every direction, constant change etc). These two concepts/things/forces existed as cosmic opposites - or cosmic poles if you will. One could not be defined (or have meaning) without the other - everything that was not Chaos was Abyss.
Then came Dworkin, who is both a great architect of reality and a trickster character (in that, he is reminiscent of various mythic figures including Prometheus - this parallel shows we really are in some kind of "primal mythic reality" here : characters such as Prometheus etc could be seen as distorted echoes/shadows/reflections of Dworkin - like Prometheus, Dworkin "stole the fire" (or the eye of the serpent that became the Jewel of Judgement) and tried to change the universe, defying the ancient supreme powers... but unlike Prometheus, Dworkin WON.
So, Dworkin draws his Pattern, bringing order to reality - order, form, something that is neither chaos, nor abyss... a third alternative that completely reconfigures the former cosmic order and puts Dworkin (and, to a lesser extent, his descendants) as "masters of the universe".
Thus, Pattern is what brought "reality" to the universe - as Amber and its infinite reflections (Shadows)... and those who master the powers of the Pattern master reality itself.
But what does "reality" means as opposed to "chaos" ? It means stability, not stasis - in Shadows of Amber, changes may occur, but in a logical or chronological process, not as a result of random chaos. This could also mean that Time, as an aspect of reality, might be a consequence of the Pattern - at least in the form we understand it. Time could be defined as "ordered change", as opposed to "chaotic change".
So where does this take us as far as Abyss is concerned ?
I think that Amberites and Chaosians are likely to have quite different visions of the Abyss. To Courts of Chaos scholars and philosophers, Abyss could be the "great void" from which Chaos itself emerged - its origin AND its logical conclusion. Most Amberites, on the other hand, would have IMO a much more pragmatic vision of things - Abyss is the "big nothing", from which you never come back... or, to get back to my previous musings, the end of all reality (equating it with death, on a more personal level).
I think Abyss is one of those great unanswered questions of the novels, to which GM's can assign any number of threads, depending on the game.
Personally, I don't like it being a power to which one can become attuned, though.
Quote from: OthaI think Abyss is one of those great unanswered questions of the novels, to which GM's can assign any number of threads, depending on the game.
Personally, I don't like it being a power to which one can become attuned, though.
Personally I think that "becoming attuned to the Abyss" means being slowly devoured by entropy - but some demented people might actually make this choice in exchange for some extra power. And of course if you are unable to "hold" this power, the Abyss might destroy you immediately, devouring you instead of gnawing through your very being.
Of course, ever considering to do such a thing would be complete madness... but then, complete madness is always an interesting theme to explore in a RPG, especially if it has echoes on the cosmic level.
One thing is sure, though, Abyss-as-a-power should not be presented as simply "another option" : Abyss-attuned beings should ultra-rare... but they can make terrifying opponents/menaces (including for Chaos characters).
Quote from: OthaI think Abyss is one of those great unanswered questions of the novels, to which GM's can assign any number of threads, depending on the game.
Personally, I don't like it being a power to which one can become attuned, though.
Or such attunement is a death spiral as suggested above.
I have always played the Abyss as a nothing so broken that Pit Divers are looking for treasures lost in time.
Quote from: OthaI think Abyss is one of those great unanswered questions of the novels, to which GM's can assign any number of threads, depending on the game.
So no "common tropes" there then?;)
I actually haven't seen too many people pay a great deal of attention to it.
The common trope associated with the Abyss that I've seen is "Brand and Dierdre are not dead" and rescue or catastrophe result.
Quote from: ArrefThe common trope associated with the Abyss that I've seen is "Brand and Dierdre are not dead" and rescue or catastrophe result.
An unfortunate one, in my opinion. Brand's too facile as a villain, too overdone.
If he's brought in as a sympathetic character, however...
I'd much rather see someone masquerading as Brand.
Quote from: OthaAn unfortunate one, in my opinion. Brand's too facile as a villain, too overdone.
If he's brought in as a sympathetic character, however...
I'd much rather see someone masquerading as Brand.
From a certain point of view, Brand is actually a fairly sophisticated villain: Shit, he did the whole "I want to remake the universe the RIGHT way" thing LONG before Hal Jordan ever did.
But yeah, I generally agree that having someone or someTHING in the Abyss pretending to be Brand (or better yet, Deirdre) is a better choice than actually just bringing back Brand.
RPGPundit
The Abyss has existed alongside the Courts for so long that the very competitive Chaosi are blase and merely wary of its dangers.
Yet allowing any Amberite to master it within the scope of a few years (canon suggests that only Benedict might have really had more time to study Chaos) is a very forced story line IMO.
This might be why many GMs stay away from it. Chaos campaigns could have other potentials.
I think the 'Brand / Dierdre return from the Abyss' is a hard road to do well and undercuts a central theme Zelazny layers into the series: legends die hard but they do die. There are a few good stories I've seen over time with this theme that don't undercut the Zelazny drama.
In effect, the 'Brand / Dierdre return' storyline (including the one offered in the rulebook) breaks at least three rules for canon genre by trivializing Zelazny's arc:
3. no one is safe from an united amber family (not a hundred Chaos Lords, not Brand, not nobody)
2. killing amberites is big mojo (it only happens every 2,000 years or so)
1. sacrifice (like Corwin or Oberon attempting to fix the Pattern) is the biggest mojo of all