Threats to All of Reality

[RPGPundit]

In an Amber campaign, its not an usual GM tactic to bring the PCs together, or at least unify the plot, by providing a kind of threat that is of such a scope that it obliges all the PCs to get involved in some form or another. Usually, there are only three things that can do this: a succession war for the throne of Amber, a war between Amber and Chaos (or some other major foe capable of destroying the kingdom), or a massive cosmic threat to all of reality.

The third case is the one we're talking about here. What kind of "Cosmic threats" have you used in past campaigns, or have you thought about doing now? What kind of things can actually threaten the end of the multiverse in a way that would be interesting for campaign purposes?

RPGPundit

[jibbajibba]

In the last game I ran the threat to the multiverse plot, there were other parallel ones of course, was that Dworkin had decided that he got the universe wrong and he decided to remake it. So it was his intention to remake it. I tried to shadow this in a typically 'far too clever' way as one of the key PCs , the then Warden of the Pattern in the kick off scene was reading a copy of the Vishnu Purana in which the god Kalki purges the world of evil. This of course being a reference back to Lord of Light. Needless to say only got it like the time I put a French WW1 pilot Ace Pierre Lapin into a murder mystery based round the Fabian Society

[Croaker]

I had the universe become slowly encased in Ice, an ice that made both pattern and logrus harder to work

[gabriel_ss4u]

What kind of "Cosmic threats" have you used in past campaigns, or have you thought about doing now? What kind of things can actually threaten the end of the multiverse in a way that would be interesting for campaign purposes?

RPGPundit

I could say, but that would be telling...

those kinda beings have a way of hearing you even when they are supposedly 'gone & dead'

But yeah... some, beyond ancient beings, who will remain nameless... to be on the safe side.

[Croaker]

I wanted to do that one too, but never had the chance. I'm happy for you

[Warder]

The Pattern was damaged by brand and while it was eventually fixed by oberon I was never sure if he did fix all of its resulting problems. My take on it was that he missed a few shadows that were beyond saving. Instead he jumbled them into one semi coherent construct. The Merlin Cycle later states that the Pattern was sentient. So this construct developed semi sentient coherence too. And while it was pissed for beeing abandoned the tantrum it made alerted the Logrus of its existence. And the agents of both chaos and order had to hunt, soothe and somehow contain the construct while fighting off the competition. The balance of the Patern and Logrus is rather unstable. For fun, I would make the construct into some fixed form, a dog or a cat probably.

[Ivanhoe]

Ghostwheel decides that the game is over. Merlin agrees.

[RPGPundit]

Ghostwheel decides that the game is over. Merlin agrees.

Care to elaborate on that?

RPGPundit

[Klaus]

I saw one game where Shadow as the PCs know it is actually a shield protecting them from hordes of Lovecraftian Outsiders that were constantly trying to break in.

[JRC]

I doubt I would use it, but it is a cool idea I got from a book, can't remember it now.

Basically, for Amber, Merlin (or somebody) stumbles across a type of sorcery that works well in Amber.  Limited in scope but easy to use, such as creating electrical lighting, central heating etc.  Nothing amazing but makes life a lot more pleasant a civilised.  However, unknown to everyone, it is actually powered by the stuff of shadow, and shadows start collapsing drawing Amber and the Courts closer together.  The idea being the Courts blame Amber for this turn of events and attack, finalising in a 'Zulu' type attack on Amber castle..  There will be temptation to use this sorcerous power to combat the Courts armies which will just make things worse.

I was finding it difficult how to make it easier for the players to figure out the casual link otherwise the game would end with destruction of the universe or Amber and Chaos being near neighbours.

[RPGPundit]

Now that my Amber campaign is over, I can mention that the threat I created in the campaign involved the Shroundlings, which in my game were the remnants of the "Ancient Powers" from before the beginning of the multiverse, brothers to the Dragon and the Unicorn. Essentially, the Dragon and the Unicorn had actually screwed over the other Ancient Powers; in creating the Pattern and defining the Logrus, and thus establishing the multiverse, they had created a fixed reality in which there was no room for the other Powers; so Dworkin and Suhuy shut away the Shroudlings outside the actual multiverse, in a place "beyond the abyss". The Spikards were actually the manifestations of a massive construct that was created to seal away the Shroudlings forever.

But the patternfall war and the damage to the pattern damaged this ancient seal, and the Shroudlings began to leak back into the multiverse in subtle ways; from the beginning of the campaign, they were manipulating events to allow them to return to the multiverse, at which point they would end up devouring it.

At the end of the campaign, they did indeed get out (after events altered the original timeline of the second series, so that Merlin, who ended up losing his big battle with Dara and Mandor in this version of events, ended up being "rescued by" and allying with the Shroudlings). They devastated the courts of chaos, but the PCs eventually managed to draw them into Corwin's Pattern universe, where they were once again sealed away from the Amber-Logrus multiverse forever (Corwin, Merlin, and Coral, along with the Jewel of Judgment, choosing to go off with the Shroudlings to this brave new world where they hoped that the Shroudlings hoped that they could finally gain the existence that had been so long kept from them).

RPGPundit

[Croaker]

Sounds great and epic to me!!! It must have been lots of fun

[RPGPundit]

It was for the most part, though it was a campaign where many mistakes were made.

RPGPundit

[Qwilion]

Here are a few I have played with.

Brand from Tir na Nog'th.is gathering all the shadows of Brand from every world.

The Marquis of Truth a second son of Dworkin is slowly destorying shadows and the realms of chaos until there is one true world.

A plague starts traveling across the shadows killing everyone, a cure must be found, only to find out its not a plague but a single sentiance as it reanimates the bodies and its out to stop the cure.

A group of human sorcerers secretly lead by a madman of the courts  of chaos is killing off anyone who attempts to travel from one shadow to another.

The Horn of the Unicorn has been taken by Despil, but Mandor is the one really behind it all.

A Merlin shadow of a broken pattern creates a broken ghostwheel, things get worse from there.

A young and foolish amberite travels to a shadow of maddness where he discovers an insane shadow of Suhuy bent on destorying the logros and the patterns.

[Croaker]

A Merlin shadow of a broken pattern creates a broken ghostwheel, things get worse from there.

I like it, and it's quite actually possible

A young and foolish amberite travels to a shadow of maddness where he discovers an insane shadow of Suhuy bent on destorying the logros and the patterns.

Well, unless that suhuy gets access to some real power (like the merlin above), he's no threat at all