Amber City

[RPGPundit]

So, first, what is Amber city like to you?
Medieval, renaissance? or lots of fantasy and magic in the streets? Just how "fantastical" is it? Are non-humans common on the street, does the average Amberite experience magic every day, or is that rare?

Second, what sort of places are you likely to find in the city?
Is it neat and orderly, or messy and dirty? Are we talking Toronto, or New York? Waterdeep or Port Blacksand?

RPGPundit

[Lawbag]

Its odd that Ive never considered what the dwellers of Amber would be like.

Giving it some brief thought, Id imagine the people would be well-cared for, rich, affluent, but still needing to maintain merchants and other service industries to keep the Amber-Powers happy.

I would also imagine the entire economy of the city would be based solely around the Castle and Rebma.

[AshenHaze]

I would Imagine that since everything else is a shadow of Amber, that it would have areas found in most cities.  Affluent areas and slums.  I play it as a medieval city but with plumbing and a sewage system.  Magic and technology to me seem to be variations found out in shadow.

[RPGPundit]

I don't think so, about the economy. Amber's economy would be insanely wealthy on account that it is the center for shipping from all the Golden Circle. Amber's power means that it no doubt gets the favourable end of trade deals with any of its lesser brothers in the GC.  

In my latest campaign I played this out as Amber having control of certain very favourable trade monopolies, often given to individual princes (especially Caine) and/or to Amberite Noble Houses.  

Of course, this means that there's also an enormous market for contraband.

And of course, Amber the state being immensely wealthy does not preclude there being extreme poverty in Amber city; though I tend to imagine that even the "poor" in Amber are relatively much better off than the poor in most fantasy-medieval cities.

RPGPundit

[boulet]

The ideas about Amber's economy and what business they're doing there interests me a lot : when you need to improvise what a PC sees while taking a tour of the city, it really helps to know what trades are flourishing. Wine is a given, thanks to Zelazny... what else ? I would try and draw inspiration from an Italian city who dominated the Mediterranean commerce during medieval/renaissance times. Venezzia seems a nice candidate since they had both commercial and warfare activities. Other interesting angles with this analogy could be : "Who's the equivalent of Constantinople for Amber ? Who's the equivalent of barbary pirates ? What about a good old crusade ?"

The problem that's bugging me about economy in Amber is : how can it be comparable to Earth economy ? I mean resources are limited in our daily life. For instance the production capacity of gold mines around the globe influences the price of gold. So what happens when one of our favorite prince/princess is bringing a full caravan/caravel load of gold from shadow ? They have such an ability to disrupt every product market in the golden circle, it's not even funny. What can that mean for economic policies in Amber ?

[JongWK]

Amberites can probably spot the different qualities of Shadow goods. "Oh, this is only gold from Earth. Nothing special..."

[RPGPundit]

Well, the limit is still what can be brought in; and yes, it can lead to strange effects in the economy (like what happened to Spain when it brought in all that gold from the americas). But its not like they have holodecks or something; and very few amberite princes are going to bother with bringing in cartloads of money from afar, since they are a) already rich and b) can get anything they want without paying for it; or alternately those few things they can't get can't really bought at any price.

RPGPundit

[Croaker]

I'd add that this takes time, and effort.

Sure, you can go in Shadow, find some gold, buy a Bayle wine. But it's so much easier to have underlings make money and buy it for you

[AshenHaze]

And...why would they bother.  I don't imagine destabilizing the economy in the Golden Circle would be of value.  I don't see the Royal Family involving themselves too much with the actual buying and purchasing of goods or trade in general.  As a central trading hub it would be a wealthy city, but as in all societies that wealth would not necessarily permeate all areas of it.

[RPGPundit]

Yes, I think the people that would be the real financial movers and shakers would be the Noble Houses of Amber, which of course do not have the benefit of the Pattern, only of Amber's political/military strength and knowledge of the GC's shadow routes.

Of course, certain Amberites would be an exception to this, as Caine was in my campaign.

RPGPundit

[Trevelyan]

I always think of Amber as being essentially a renaissance city but loaded with anachronisms that result from extensive shadow trade and the constant coming and going of assorted shadow dwellers.

The upper city is exceptionally wealthy and full of clean, wide boulevardes, bright, open squares and leafy quiet corners. There seems to be something of a cafe culture in parts of the city with the better restaurants that adjoin the major streets and squares having a great deal of outdoor seating. Sandstone yellows mix with marble, green and gold as the predominant colours. Something of a cross between Bath and Paris, perhaps, but heavily idealised. The wealthy merchants own businesses but rarely directly oversee them, and foreign imports from all over shadow feature educational and entertainment items predominantly. Books are particularly popular and a craze for reading obscure works of literature from shadow is currently in force.

Further down the mountain and closer to the dock things obviously change. The people, while still relatively wealthy have to spend more time working and less time socialising. The merchants here are typically directly involved in their work. Entertainment is a little rougher and the population is likely to include a few more immigrants. Anachronisms are of a more practical nature, intended to make life easier as much as to entertain. Buildings are still predominantly stone, but brick features here and there, and some upper stories are wooden.

At the base of the mountain, right among the dock workers, things are clearly rough yet there is still wealth to be found, albeit of a different nature. The local sailors returning home are relatively well paid while those from far shadows might find the city scandalously expensive. This fuels a lot of the violence in the area and makes gambling of all sorts popular as poorer sailors seek the means to afford life in Amber. Buildings in this part of town are mostly wood, with the largest and most well established palces featuring a stone clad ground floor to protect them from damage and flooding during infrequent storms. Ironically, the layer closest to the docks is likely to be mostly free of anachronisms other than the conversational references picked up by sailors on their travels. Anything more tangible tends to be taken further inland.

From a practical point of view, trade goods are still finite within the golden circle. Although established paths allow travel through shadow, those paths are finite in number (although more could be opened) and the destinations they reach are fixed. From a practical point of view, trading between Amber and Kashfa is no different than trading between London and China. The wealth of the noble families most likely comes from any connection they might have had to the royal family in years past which resulted in privilages access to certain trade routes, and the crown maintains power, at least in part, due to the ability to open and close certain routes when necessary (think Dune and the prestige inherent in spice mining rights).

The family themselves fall largely outside he system of wealth in that they alone can go where they like and trade in what they like. A prince with a desire to actively trade might find ready support from an existing merchant operation eager to expand into currently uncharted territories and secure a licence to control that route in perpetuity. Individual princes and princesses can, of course, find things of value wherever they go, but the king can limit the damage they cause to the local economy if they get too extravagant, but on a day to day basis most of the familiy are either in long term residence or long term absense so the issue never arises.