Geography of the Amberverse

[Panjumanju]

Much of this was never defined by Roger Zelazny, I think on purpose. But, going on what we can define, there is:

Amber ------> Shadows ------> Courts of Chaos

I was always adamant that Shadows are an ambiguous thing not necessarily related in their placement - you are not following 'routes' going through on shadow you know to another shadow you know to get to the corner store for cigarettes, that they are all some mess of possibility.

And I expect the lines of magic verses technology go something like:

No technology --------> Yes Technology -------> Lotsa Magic

This is something of an over simplification, perhaps, but helps to conjure a mental picture. Similarly, the structure of cohesion:

REAL! ---- > Kinda real / Not so real / Very ill defined ---> Real but strange

So, here's my quandary with the Georgraphy of the Amberverse.

The farther out one gets from Amber, the less real things are, the crazier and more nonsensical things are, and the less well defined by laws of science or magic or any internal consistency....then, the Courts of Chaos.

It's like a wall of reality and structure at the end of the universe. The Courts must have some stability, although strange they may be, and some consistency to function as they do. I always interpreted that the Courts would have an ever-shifting landscape, necessitating Shapeshifting as a day-to-day survival tactic, but every time we visit the Courts in the books (or even the surrounding shadows) they seem very sensible in design, just strange.

Beyond this, of course, is the Abyss.

I wonder about the shapes of the Courts of Chaos. Is it a line at the end of Shadow? Is the Courts a kind of semi-stable ring of REAL holding the Amberverse from flying apart into the Abyss? (Or perhaps ever expanding?) Or is to try and qualify it's shape some false-thinking? Could we imagine it instead as the lining of a globe holding all of reality and shadow against the Abyss?

Thoughts, anyone?

//Panjumanju

[jibbajibba]

Much of this was never defined by Roger Zelazny, I think on purpose. But, going on what we can define, there is:

Amber ------> Shadows ------> Courts of Chaos

I was always adamant that Shadows are an ambiguous thing not necessarily related in their placement - you are not following 'routes' going through on shadow you know to another shadow you know to get to the corner store for cigarettes, that they are all some mess of possibility.

And I expect the lines of magic verses technology go something like:

No technology --------> Yes Technology -------> Lotsa Magic

This is something of an over simplification, perhaps, but helps to conjure a mental picture. Similarly, the structure of cohesion:

REAL! ---- > Kinda real / Not so real / Very ill defined ---> Real but strange

So, here's my quandary with the Georgraphy of the Amberverse.

The farther out one gets from Amber, the less real things are, the crazier and more nonsensical things are, and the less well defined by laws of science or magic or any internal consistency....then, the Courts of Chaos.

It's like a wall of reality and structure at the end of the universe. The Courts must have some stability, although strange they may be, and some consistency to function as they do. I always interpreted that the Courts would have an ever-shifting landscape, necessitating Shapeshifting as a day-to-day survival tactic, but every time we visit the Courts in the books (or even the surrounding shadows) they seem very sensible in design, just strange.

Beyond this, of course, is the Abyss.

I wonder about the shapes of the Courts of Chaos. Is it a line at the end of Shadow? Is the Courts a kind of semi-stable ring of REAL holding the Amberverse from flying apart into the Abyss? (Or perhaps ever expanding?) Or is to try and qualify it's shape some false-thinking? Could we imagine it instead as the lining of a globe holding all of reality and shadow against the Abyss?

Thoughts, anyone?

//Panjumanju

think of two magnetic poles with a bunch of iron filings

[BillionSix]

I always imagined there were probably vast areas of very wild Chaos. Beings like the Ty'iga probably come from there.
But most of where we see, the actual Courts, are probably stabilized. The books mention "shadow masters" who do that kind of grunt work with shadows.
They evolved as shape shifters, but that doesn't mean they don't like a stable environment as much as the next guy. Humans can survive being rained on, but we'd still rather be in a house.

Brian

[Xanador]

Much of this was never defined by Roger Zelazny, I think on purpose. But, going on what we can define, there is:

Amber ------> Shadows ------> Courts of Chaos

I was always adamant that Shadows are an ambiguous thing not necessarily related in their placement - you are not following 'routes' going through on shadow you know to another shadow you know to get to the corner store for cigarettes, that they are all some mess of possibility.

Ambiguous yes, until someone with Pattern decides that they're not going to be ambiguous anymore. Corwin talks about time spent creating trade routes, presumably to the golden circle and other "nearby" shadows. So once those are set the ambiguity of those shadows is gone.

It's like a wall of reality and structure at the end of the universe. The Courts must have some stability, although strange they may be, and some consistency to function as they do. I always interpreted that the Courts would have an ever-shifting landscape, necessitating Shapeshifting as a day-to-day survival tactic, but every time we visit the Courts in the books (or even the surrounding shadows) they seem very sensible in design, just strange.

Beyond this, of course, is the Abyss.

I wonder about the shapes of the Courts of Chaos. Is it a line at the end of Shadow? Is the Courts a kind of semi-stable ring of REAL holding the Amberverse from flying apart into the Abyss? (Or perhaps ever expanding?) Or is to try and qualify it's shape some false-thinking? Could we imagine it instead as the lining of a globe holding all of reality and shadow against the Abyss?

Thoughts, anyone?

//Panjumanju

Going by the Merlin books-

The Lords of Chaos themselves honestly don't seem to be the best shape shifters out there. Several types of demons seem to easily exceed them in ability. What I take from this is that the LoC are themselves not really beings of Chaos, they have some inherent Order mixed in their nature. This leads to seemingly paradoxical elements such as the following of rigid social codes and the rather stable nature of the Courts themselves. Maybe this is why the Unicorn recruited Dworkin to scribe the Pattern.

[Panjumanju]

What I take from this is that the LoC are themselves not really beings of Chaos, they have some inherent Order mixed in their nature. This leads to seemingly paradoxical elements such as the following of rigid social codes and the rather stable nature of the Courts themselves.

The paradoxical nature was always one of my favourite parts of the whole mythos, it just sometimes left me befuddled as to the geography of the place, and trying to reconcile that with the various hellrides and depictions of the Courts we see in the books. I just wish we saw more in the books, or in supplimentary materials.

I run a small radio station and I was interviewing Ed Greenwood, author of the Forgotten Realms series, last year. He was telling me that before Erick Wujick died, he was working with Erick on another suppliment book for the Amber DRPG that would have been entirely about the Courts of Chaos. He said they didn't feel it was adequatly covered in Shadow Knight, and they wanted to do more to define what the political structure was like, specifically the royal house of the Courts. I don't know what Roger Zelezny's involvement in this would have been, or even if he was alive at the time, but my heart kind of wrenches that we didn't get another book out of this.

//Panjumanju

[Xanador]

Indeed the untimely deaths of both Zelazny and Wujcik were a tragedy. Though Wujick was a very talented writer it seems as if he wasn't the best business man, so we're probably lucky we got the game we did.

The lack of information can be frustrating at times, but it gives GM's a free hand in those areas. So all I can say is, don't sweat it, make something up that fits your ideas and go from there. At least you won't have players saying stuff like "No the castle doesn't face that direction!"

[Amberfriend]

I always thought there was some kind of movement/fluidity to the shadows and to the courts. I viewed the whole thing as a globe with Amber at one pole and the courts at the other and the more stable shadows in the center of the two. The unstable shadows would be on the outside where they could move more.

I pictured that when an Amberite walked in a shadow it moved less. The more a shadow had interaction with Amberites the less it moved. I see the Golden Circle as places that the Amberites are at so frequently that they no longer move and regular trade routes have evolved.

I picture the courts "Black Circle" as places they regularly trade with, but move about. The Logrus Masters would have to find/repair the trade routes constantly.

[Evermasterx]

The lack of information can be frustrating at times, but it gives GM's a free hand in those areas. So all I can say is, don't sweat it, make something up that fits your ideas and go from there. At least you won't have players saying stuff like "No the castle doesn't face that direction!"

I can imagine Erick saying something like: "Mmhm, you're right... This is strange! What are you doing about it?", and a new campaign could start.

[Panjumanju]

I can imagine Erick saying something like: "Mmhm, you're right... This is strange! What are you doing about it?", and a new campaign could start.

It's true. The very fact that speculating on the structure of the Ambervese leads to a thread of differing opinions speaks well of the source material.

At the climax of the last Amber game we did, one PC inscribed his own pattern and walked away into another universe, and my players spent weeks out of game speculating as to the nature of that new universe, and if it was bound by the laws and conventions of the old.

Juicy stuff.

//Panjumanju

[Evermasterx]

and this is what I love about Amber: you can't be sure of nearly nothing, and nearly everything is possible. It is not a game for people with lack of imagination... unless the GM has enough imagination for them too.

[Atgxtg]

First post here and it is just a thought, but I think the geography of the Amberverse is laid out the same way as the Pattern.

Rather than a line from Amber to Chaos, it is a disc with Amber in the center ("Amber is the center of all things"), surrounded by shadows ("all roads lead to Amber"), with the Abyss on the Edge and the Courts beyond. Similar shadows are clustered together in bands, or rings that spiral out from the center. And since the image of the Pattern in the Jewel or Judgment  is in three (or more) dimensions, it could just as especially be a elongated sphere rather than flat. Those who walk the Pattern sorta imprint the map of Amberverse into their genetic structure (or alter the Amberverse according to their genetic structure, or both, allowing them to walk through and mold shadow. So by walking the Pattern one travels across all of creation. And by mapping it, you set things into a fixed pattern. I kinda see Dworkin creating the Pattern as locking the universe into a fixed state and the primal pattern as a sort of roadmap.


Again, nothing solid to back this idea up. It is just another way of interpreting the amberverse.

[RPGPundit]

I see chaos as this enormous infinite amorphous blob, with all of shadow shooting out of it like a spike, a spear in the hide of a great beast, with Amber at its end.

RPGPundit

[BillionSix]

I see chaos as this enormous infinite amorphous blob, with all of shadow shooting out of it like a spike, a spear in the hide of a great beast, with Amber at its end.

RPGPundit

Or Corwin's Pattern.

That's the trouble. You get this visual in your head, then the existence of a second Pattern throws it all out of whack.

[Panjumanju]

That's the trouble. You get this visual in your head, then the existence of a second Pattern throws it all out of whack.

Which, I think, was the point.

//Panjumanju

[jibbajibba]

You new guys will have missed my premise that Trump is the ultimate power and the Pattern and the Logrus are just trumps of the Universe in different styles ......