To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
Hamlet (III.i.64-68)
Our GM picked this title from the beginning of the "To be or not to be" speech from Hamlet. Why? Because the whole campaign certainly had that flavor. It was mostly about people living their lives and the choices that entailed. And the consequences of those choices. And boy, were there ever consequences!
Shadow walkers have shifted
through here since September 1, 1995.
To see what's been changed recently, check the updates page.
 | Background | | Setting |
 | History | | Time line (Sessions 1-125) |
 | Powers | | Magic system |
 | Player Characters | | Former Player Characters |
| Elders
and other NPCs from the Amber books |
||
 | Amber |  | The Courts of Chaos |
| Avalon | | Faerie |
| Shadows | ||
| Artifacts,
Creatures, and Places of Note |
| Game Logs for Sessions 1-115 | | Character Logs for Sessions 116+ |
| Diaries, Poems and Other Stuff | | PC Conversations |
| Game Quotes |
| Links to other Amber pages |
Way back in the winter of 1993, Wendi Strang-Frost decided it would be fun to run an Amber game/torture session using the Amber DRPG rules. We foolishly volunteered. The game began in May of 1993 and finally came to an end 142 sessions later in May of 2000. During its seven year run, the game survived the loss of five players, the addition of seven more, and the drop from meeting weekly to bi-weekly, and then finally to monthly (alas), due to Wendi's burgeoning career as an artist. The rules pretty much followed those in the Amber rule book, although some partial powers were allowed. By the end of the game, advanced Pattern, advanced Logrus and conjuration did not exist, and there was a different magic system.
The game began just before Patternfall, and ended nearly 21 years later, Amber time. All of the player characters were children of the elders, and several of them eventually had children (and grandchildren) of their own. Thanks to the involvement of the players, Patternfall turned out a little bit differently than in the books. Most notably, Eric and Deirdre survived. Unfortunately, so did Brand. Several Amberites did die over the course of the game, though, including Dworkin, who was killed by Deirdre (or so everyone believed); Sand and Dalt, who were executed by Ahab at Oberon's command; Oberon and Delwin, who were killed by Benedict while he was under Dara's control; Dara, who was killed by Ahab; and Corwin, Ariadne and Ahab, who were all killed by the Serpent. The Serpent and the Unicorn also killed each other in this fight. The destruction of Ygg a short time later caused all magic other than faerie magic to cease to exist. It also caused the formation of a giant chasm of Primal Chaos where Ygg used to be, separating Amber and Chaos until a new Ygg was grown from a cutting of the tree growing near Corwin's Pattern. Ygg's return did not bring about a return of the old magic, however. Some years later, the destruction of the Orb caused the end of conjuration as a power, as well as the more advanced Logrus and Pattern abilities. With the elimination of the source of their creation, Logrus and Pattern had to draw their power from those who had taken them, thus greatly reducing their effectiveness. In an effort to make up for the loss of power brought on by the Orb's destruction, the Plane of Magic was finally located by several of the players and pulled out of the Abyss, allowing access to some non-faerie forms of magic (much to the dismay of the faeries).
At the end of the game, Random ruled in Amber, Despil ruled in Chaos, Moire ruled in Rebma, Ona ruled an empty Avalon and Auberon and Finndo ruled the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faerie, respectively. Years in Amber were marked from the beginning of Nicholas' rule over both realms. Prior to this, years were marked from the creation of the Pattern.
The excellent image of the Unicorn at the beginning of this page is the work of Wendi Strang-Frost and is © by her. Please contact her before reproducing it in any fashion. For more examples of her work, check out her web page, her online comic "Johnny Public" or the "Wavedancers" story in Elfquest.
Amber DRPG is © by Phage Press, based on the Amber books by Roger Zelazny.
All text on this page is © 1995-2002 by Kris Fazzari, with the exception of the attributed quote from Hamlet.
Last modified on September 16, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.
