Threats to All of Reality

[RPGPundit]

Here are a few I have played with.

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

This was something I often considered, not necessarily just Brand but any number of Amberites, the idea in general of an amberite or chaosian getting all of his shadows of himself and making a huge army.

The thing that mainly stopped me was the fact that in most of the cases, the egos involved would make that army its own worst enemy. I can't imagine an army of Shadow-Brands all working in harmony; I think that at least half of the thousands or millions of brands would be actively plotting ways to somehow replace the One True Brand, while others would all have their own little agendas. It would be like herding cats.

I did something a little similar though, in my last campaign.  There was a group, B13, which was a kind of secret military group in one of the Shadow Earths, dedicated to protecting earth from supernatural menaces.  Its leader was a guy named Marcus Turbo.  Eventually, they made contact with some and then all the other B13s in all the other Earths, and all the other Marcus Turbos who ran them. They were being directed secretly by Delwin and Sand, and became quite a force to be reckoned with.

RPGPundit

[Qwilion]

I was just thinking of running it like Bhaal from Stargate SG-1

[weilide]

How's this for a premise? It's not quite a Threat to all Reality, perhaps, but ominous enough in its way...

Even when they're not active, trumps always maintain a tiny connection to their subject. Even when the subject is deceased, miniscule shadows of the personality remain. Of course, when trumps are in use the connection is immensely more powerful. Moreover, people important enough to warrant being the subjects of trumps almost always have their own collections of cards. Figuring in all the Amberites, plus a very large group of Chaosians, this means there are always at least a few trump conversations going on at any given time. In short, there is a large, constantly shifting network of people psychically linked to one another by way of the trumps. Over the millennia, various bits of psychic flotsam and jetsam –– passing preverbal impulses, half-forgotten memories, deep-baked neuroses and complexes –– have been shuffling randomly burrowing through the network trump call by trump call like internet worms, lodging in the subconsciouses of the callers until the next contact, and so on. Over time, these bits and pieces have been bumping into one another and occasionally fusing together, growing more and more complex in an unpredictable and highly non-linear sort of way. Eventually the whole system will become so complex that it will wake up and become self-aware. This entity will no doubt be extremely confused and frightened, and it will have access to a great deal of power it does not really understand...

[RPGPundit]

Not bad at all.

RPGPundit

[Warder]

This was probably done by you all already after reading Shadow Knight or handled in everybody's individual games. Still, I'm giving this a shot because I didn't read much about it here (the miracle child trope was used so often though, If your sick of it, proceed at your own risk).

After just watching Gormengahast the tv series and reading the last book, I started wondering at adapting it to Amber. Coral's unborn child, a new throne war spark, a contested prize between Pattern and Logrus became the obvious threat to all of reality. But what if this was a cooperative event between them? The birth of a new heir was depicted as the beginning of a new paradigm in Gormenghast, and the castles inhabitants appeared as frankly grotesque caricatures of themselves. So what if the same happens in Amber(Gormenghast appears as caught in time itself, stagnant to the extreme) and the PC's also become mockeries of themselves? Older amberites also become rather senile and overexagerated. Reality was shifted by the Pattern and Logrus to make the heir of Amber and Chaos grow up according to their wishes. Shadowtravel would just become simple meaningless old rituals, or simple insanity the royal family suffers from. The main goal of the PC's would be to turn everything back, maybe with the use of some heavy Trump artistry or thanks to Corwins Pattern that wishes its agents to remain as they were?

[Erebus Bill]

My current pbp game (of which none of my players browse here, I'm pretty sure of) has a number of red herrings for the 'man behind the curtain'. The game begins with strange attacks against Amberites and thier children. various normal shadowfolk are being taken over by cephalopod-like 'Corruptors' who then do their best to murder the PCs. Also some PCs are being tracked and attacked by horned beastmen who can follow the Amberites through shadow. They are large, tough, dangerous AND each hunting band carries trump-cards to call in reinforcements.

My main purpose is for them to think it is Brand who grew the Corruptors from their animalistic origins swimming in the Abyss, but it is truly Dierdre, driven mad by the Abyss and filled with partly-misplaced fury against her siblings for not saving her.

[RPGPundit]

My current pbp game (of which none of my players browse here, I'm pretty sure of) has a number of red herrings for the 'man behind the curtain'. The game begins with strange attacks against Amberites and thier children. various normal shadowfolk are being taken over by cephalopod-like 'Corruptors' who then do their best to murder the PCs. Also some PCs are being tracked and attacked by horned beastmen who can follow the Amberites through shadow. They are large, tough, dangerous AND each hunting band carries trump-cards to call in reinforcements.

My main purpose is for them to think it is Brand who grew the Corruptors from their animalistic origins swimming in the Abyss, but it is truly Dierdre, driven mad by the Abyss and filled with partly-misplaced fury against her siblings for not saving her.

That all sounds really good! And really original, except for the last paragraph.

RPGPundit

[AshenHaze]

I've always felt that Dierdre falls pretty naturally into the bad guy role after the Abyss.  In my most recent game of Amber, Corwin rescuing Dierdre opened the Abyss revealing Knights of the Abyss, whom Dierdre remained largely allied with and in opposition to Amber.

[RPGPundit]

It may just be the cynicism of having lived through WAY too many Amber campaigns, but to me neither Brand nor Deirdre "coming back" from the abyss, as villains, heroes, or whatever, are interesting in the least.

RPGpundit

[Rel Fexive]

They are the oldest of old hats.  A bit mouldy, smell funny.

[AshenHaze]

I've done it once before, though it was less Dierdre being the bad guy, but rather that when Cowrin opened the Abyss he allowed the "Knights of the Abyss" to ride forth, and it was them that was the initial threat to reality.  Dierdre ended up becoming an enemy after her son was murdered.  Recently I've preferred alternate starting points, such as starting at the beginning of the events in Nine Princes in Amber, or alternately in Amber with Gerard directly after the storm passed, with the ending of the story changed.

[gabriel_ss4u]

I've done it once before, though it was less Dierdre being the bad guy, but rather that when Cowrin opened the Abyss he allowed the "Knights of the Abyss" to ride forth, and it was them that was the initial threat to reality.  Dierdre ended up becoming an enemy after her son was murdered.  Recently I've preferred alternate starting points, such as starting at the beginning of the events in Nine Princes in Amber, or alternately in Amber with Gerard directly after the storm passed, with the ending of the story changed.

This is a fun way to start yer own story-line continuing from the books.
Everyone does the 'what happened to Brand & Deirdre' hing, don't sweat it. It's part of learning the story and where it can go. enjoy.

[Erebus Bill]

It's cool, I wasn't insulted. He's right; it is a common Amber trope, but it's an adventure I had written and never played fully to the end with players. Plus, I am currently playing in the first Amber pbp game ever (No tabletop games played, sadly) and consider myself a rather new player/gm for Amber. I have been gaming for over 20 years but only found Amber after college.

Once this adventure is complete, I will turn my head to something more unique for the players to experience.

[AshenHaze]

My most recent game culminated with a curse upon the Amberite line.  It was put upon them by Dworkin and Suhuy, in an attempt to draw the power from there blood to recreate the universe.  The curse started with the eldest Amberites and worked it's way down, freezing them in crystal.  My players (particularly the older ones) were extremely motivated to figure out who did it, and how to halt it.