Crisis of Infinite Ambers (ACNW99) AmberCon Northwest '99, Slots 3 and 4 (Fri 5 Nov 1999, 2PM - Midnight, with break for dinner) Post-game informational resource V1.0 11/15/99 Written by: Richard Uyeyama (ru e ama best com)* * Instances of the letter "y", the "at" symbol, and all periods have been removed (replaced with spaces) from the above e-mail address in order to prevent unscrupulous UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail) bot processes from adding to the amount of e-mail I already get... The latest version of this file can be found at: http://ruyeyama.best.vwh.net/amber/acnw99.html Document formatting, organization, and wording Copyright 1999 by Richard Uyeyama. All rights reserved. Crisis of Infinite Ambers is a work of fiction. All persons and events in the story are fictitious, and any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. Crisis of Infinite Ambers takes place in a variant (many variants, actually) of the world of Amber, originally created by Roger Zelazny, and subsequently adapted (by Erick Wujcik), with permission, for use in the Amber Diceless Role-Playing game. Mallory is a creation of Kevin Clark. Talia, Orpheus, Igraine, the Guardians, and the Adversary are creations of Paul Marshall. Ulrich is a creation of Timothy Carroll. All rights reserved. Tara, Michelle, Annabella, the Drifter, Derrik, Silith, Griff, Miron, the Gr'thal, and the Sh'thal are creations of Richard Uyeyama. All rights reserved. Crying Llewella and Corrupted Deirdre are creations of Richard Uyeyama, based upon characters (Llewella and Deirdre, respectively) created by Roger Zelazny. Contents: I. General Stuff What is Crisis of Infinite Ambers? What is this document? Who is this document written for? Should I be worried about spoilers, in reading this document? So are you going to run another Crisis of Infinite Ambers? Would you mind if I ran a Crisis of Infinite Ambers? II. Who's Who in Crisis of Infinite Ambers Mallory Talia Ulrich Tara Michelle Annabella Crying Llewella The Drifter Derrik Silith Griff Miron III. The Basic Plot, From Start to Finish Ulrich's prologue scene Mallory's prologue scene Talia's prologue scene in Amber outward from Amber an army in the way the battle the ambush the Drifter the search for Talia meanwhile... the rescue what to do... airlock 47b (or whatever its designation was) Outside, via an airlock the Gr'thal a pack of wolf-rabbit-bears, oh my! back at the, uh, table... an army out of nowhere race for the door! back at the table... we salute you, you who are about to die a blinding flash of white light Mallory's epilogue scene Ulrich's epilogue scene Talia's epilogue scene IV. GM's Random Comments The ending Mallory Ulrich Talia Talia's universe Orpheus Character stats Stuff levels Repairing The Ship The Gr'thal, a twisted thought The fun level of this CoIA game The amount of work involved, in putting a CoIA game together V. Things the Player Characters Didn't Explore The situation in Rebma Finding Igraine Tir-na Nog'th The Primal Pattern The Corrupt Pattern Use of the Corrupt Pattern Outside of Shadow The way through Shadow to the Gr'thal Other holes to the Outside The Courts of Chaos ---------------- I. General Stuff ---------------- What is Crisis of Infinite Ambers? Crisis of Infinite Ambers (CoIA) is an Amber Diceless Role-Playing scenario designed by Richard Uyeyama. Basically, each player in the game designs a unique character and universe. At the beginning of the game, all universes become meshed/merged into one. After being gathered together in Amber, the player characters are given the task of finding out why this has happened, and if it can be reversed. For more detailed information on the nature of the Merging, and the problems it has caused, see Annabella's explanation in the "in Amber" section of the CoIA plot summary, later in this document. What is this document? This document is a post-game informational resource, detailing character, story, and plot information for the first (ACNW99) version of Crisis of Infinite Ambers. Also included are some GM comments on various things. Who is this document written for? Anybody who's interested in CoIA. I did write this document up in such a way that those unfamiliar with the game could get some sense of what it was like, and what happened. There is, btw, some supplementary information included in this writeup that the players involved were not privy to during the game itself. Truth to tell, though, part of the reason I wrote this document up, actually, is so that I'll have a nice, organized resource I can look at, if ever I decide to run another Crisis of Infinite Ambers. Should I be worried about spoilers, in reading this document? You mean spoilers for a future Crisis of Infinite Ambers? Hmm, probably not. Any future CoIA is likely to have a different story and plot, based upon the mix of characters for that game. Some stuff may (may) get reused (the concept of the Gr'thal comes to mind), but since the scenario is recommended for experienced role-players only, the players involved shouldn't have too much trouble discerning between player knowledge and character knowledge... right? =) So are you going to run another Crisis of Infinite Ambers? I'm currently undecided. On the one hand, it was a lot of fun. On the other hand, it was a lot of work. We'll see. =) Would you mind if I ran a Crisis of Infinite Ambers? If you ask me politely, we can probably work something out. =) You can find my e-mail address near the top of this document. ------------------------------------------ II. Who's Who in Crisis of Infinite Ambers ------------------------------------------ Mallory (Kevin Clark): Lieutenant Commander Mallory, Unicorn Security Division. Mallory is the son of Commander Caine, head of Unicorn Security. Mallory is unique. Mallory has traversed the Circuit. Imagine a version of Amber that's actually a gigantic mining ship, travelling through space. That's The Ship (also known as The Unicorn). Since the Day of Meltdown (i.e. The Great Disaster), The Ship has been fragmented trans-dimensionally, folded into an infinitude of mirrors and reflections. Outside The Ship, there is only the Void; there are exits (airlocks) to the Void throughout the Ship. Mallory is a (junior) member of the Command Staff, working in Security, under his father, Commander Caine. Talia (Paul Marshall): Talia, of unknown past and parentage. Talia is unique. Talia has walked the Pattern, as well as the Corrupted Pattern. Amber and Chaos, both having taken severe losses by the end of the Patternfall War, are currently in a kind of stalemate. Using the instabilities caused by Patternfall, an entity (which Talia names "The Adversary") from Outside of Shadow manages to make its way into the universe, takes over (possesses) Talia (who at the time is living in Shadow, ignorant of her Amber heritage), and procedes to walk the Pattern. The Adversary is not completely successful (Igraine dies in stopping the Adversary), but does manage to create a Corrupt Pattern, distinct from the original, before it flees Talia. Talia's mind is badly damaged from this ordeal, but with help from various sources (including Orpheus, who appears to have helped her in secret), she manages to recover (as much as she is able), enough to be able to make a few friends (or "not-enemies", as the case may be) among those in Amber, and to walk the Pattern. Ulrich (Timothy Carroll): Ulrich, son of Brand. Ulrich is unique by the fact that all his other selves had been hunted down and killed, previous to the Merging. Ulrich has walked the Pattern. The war between Chaos and Amber did not end after Patternfall. By that point, neither side was willing to concede anything to the other side. And so the war merely escalated. By current time, both sides have taken serious losses (including nobles). Ulrich was raised in a shadow (perhaps a shadow construct) called Mittlemarch. Mittlemarch was destroyed in the wake of Patternfall, as the universe attempted to rebuild itself, only this time with a weakened Pattern. After Patternfall, Ulrich found himself hunted by his own kin, for the simple crime that he was Brand's son. The general line of thinking was something along the lines of: "Brand was bad. Ulrich may or may not be bad. But let's just wipe Brand's DNA completely from the face of the universe, just to be safe." Ulrich is currently on the run from both Chaos and Amber, wandering Shadow, and perhaps looking for a home. The only Amberite he's had contact with (who hasn't tried to kill him) is Bleys. Tara (NPC): Tara, daughter of Dara. Tara is unique. Tara has walked the Logrus. Tara comes from a universe where the Pattern preceded the Logrus. In fact, it was the creation of the Logrus (by Dworkin) which fragmented the previous stability of the universe (based on the Pattern), creating Shadow from the interaction between order and chaos. All standard "Amberites" exist, except as members of the Court of Chaos. The Patternfall War (or Logrusfall, or whatever) has not occurred. Dara is Benedict's daughter. Shapeshifting doesn't exist. Michelle (NPC): Michelle, daughter of Llewella. Michelle is unique. Michelle has walked the Pattern in Rebma, Amber, Tir-na Nog'th, and even the Primal Pattern. Michelle is from a universe where everybody is nice... or at least to her they are. Michelle has tons of Good Stuff. She's even on fairly good terms with the Dworkin of her universe. Michelle has spent most of her time after the Merging trying to figure out what effect the Merged Pattern might have on the rest of the universe. Annabella (NPC): Annabella, daughter of Flora. There are two Annabellas (maybe more, but probably just two). Annabella has walked the Pattern. Annabella is a theoretical mathematician, who studies the sorts of mathematics that most normal people (and even Amberites) wouldn't be able to make head or tails of. Most of the Amber people think studying mathematics is a waste of time (compared to studying magic, or the Pattern, or politics, or... whatever); Annabella's general comment on the matter: "Mathematics is pure. Universal. No matter where you go in Shadow, the *rules* may change... but the *math* is still the same." In the aftermath of the Merging, many many Elders died at the Castle (lots of Amberites were in or around Castle Amber at the time of the Merging). Upon meeting herself, Annabella was able to find a non-violent solution to the "fight to the death" compulsion; the two Annabellas agreed upon Mathematics as being the medium of battle, and so proceeded to work on a problem (GM note: Zelkin's Theory does not, as far as I know, exist in our world, so I can't really supply the details of it here...) which was, in all likelihood, impossible to prove (although it *had* been proven that proving that it *was* in fact impossible, was in fact impossible (does that make sense? good. =) )). Of course, theoretical mathematics being what it was, the Annabellas would have to take study breaks, as well as proper rest time for sleep and food, etc... Annabella was placed in charge of the Castle by Crying Llewella (see below), a move which was later approved by Dworkin. Crying Llewella's reasoning was that if any further Annabellas were to appear, they would probably just join in the mathematics duel, so it should probably be safe to leave Annabella in charge... One of the Annabellas (the one dressed in red at the time of the Merging, if anybody was curious) is from Talia's universe. In comparing their universes, it seems that Talia's existence was pretty much the only real difference between their two worlds. Of course, Talia's existence catalyzed certain other events (the intrusion of the Adversary into their world, etc.), so... Crying Llewella (NPC): "Crying" Llewella (so nicknamed for the fact that her eyes were usually quite moist (in her universe, this was the case for all Rebmans) in air, giving the impression that she was crying) was the first person to try to bring the chaos in Castle Amber to some sort of order, following the Merging. In spite of the danger to herself (and to her other selves), she used her authority to structure the Castle defenses (in case the Merging was actually the precursor to an attack from Shadow), and to begin the process of sequestering Amberites in the various rooms of the Castle, so as to minimize any further bloodshed. Crying Llewella was forced to kill at least one of her other selves during this process. When the two Annabellas arrived in the Throne Room later, Crying Llewella, after finding out what their situation was, turned over the workings of the Castle to them, and sequestered herself in an empty room in the Castle. The Drifter (NPC): Ulrich's Uncle Bleys had apparently met the Drifter a long time ago, and had once mentioned this in passing. He'd described the Drifter as some crazy guy who claimed to be from "outside of Shadow". Ulrich didn't really think anything of it at the time, but when both Talia and Mallory had made mention of things outside of Shadow, the memory resurfaced. The Drifter's importance became clearer later on, when he became an important source of information for the party. Derrik (NPC): Derrik (m) of House Hillgrave. Derrik is unique. Derrik has walked the Logrus. Derrik's highest stat is Warfare. Derrik has a couple points of Bad Stuff... which probably explains how he got to become leader of his little band (the Chaos-side task force; the Chaos equivalent of what the player characters are for Amber). Silith (NPC): Silith (f) of House Lankar. Silith is unique. Silith has *not* walked the Logrus. Silith's highest stat is Psyche. Silith is their party's Trump expert. Silith is very observant; the fact that Derrik is the designated leader (and therefore draws most of the attention) helps Silith out greatly in her observations. Griff (NPC): Griff (m), the Houseless. Griff is unique. Griff has walked the Logrus. Griff's highest stat is Strength. Griff is big and scary. He doesn't look completely human. Mallory would doubtless think he's had bio- or genetic or engineered enhancements, or something. Miron (NPC): Miron (m), of Chaos. Miron is unique. Miron has walked the Logrus. Miron is a Sorcery genius. 'nuff said. ----------------------------------------- III. The Basic Plot, From Start to Finish ----------------------------------------- (Note: For the sake of brevity (or relative brevity, anyway), some stuff has been simplified, or left out; this is, after all, a *basic* (as opposed to detailed) plot writeup... =) ) [Ulrich's prologue scene] Ulrich is wandering through Shadow, trying to avoid both the forces of Chaos, and those of Amber. He stops at a friendly little inn for the night. He wakes up in the middle of the night, soon enough to avoid being immediately killed by his Uncle Caine, who has finally tracked him down. They fight. Ulrich fares poorly, and is about to be killed by Caine, when a gunshot is heard, and Caine slumps to the ground, dead from a single shot through the throat. Ulrich looks outside, where the shot came from, and there sees... his Uncle Caine?! This new Caine also looks confused, saying "You... I thought I'd killed you years ago..." Ulrich gets a Trump call. It's Annabella (dressed in blue), who he's never met before. Ulrich decides to go for the unknown risk (Annabella), rather than the known one (Caine), and Trumps through... [Mallory's prologue scene] Mallory and his team are out doing airlock checks. In his opinion, probably a waste of time. It's not like former Commander Brand could have survived being spaced, and is somehow trying to find his way back into the Ship, or something, right? But here Mallory is, doing airlock checks for Captain Random. The red light Mallory spots normally indicates that the outer airlock door (the one that leads to the Void) is open. The inner door is ajar. Strangely, though, the decompression klaxons are silent. Mallory has only two soldiers and one tech at this time (the other soldiers and techs are doing checks on other parts of the deck). They explore to find that the airlock door is indeed open, but rather than the Void, it appears to lead out to an area of infinite white nothingness. Then some of their technology (com-panels, PDAs, etc.) begins failing. Then this ferocious creature (Mallory later described it as looking kind of like a wolf, kind of like a rabbit, and kind of like a bear) leaps into the Ship from the whiteness, and attacks one of the soldiers. They manage to kill the creature, and Mallory orders the tech to seal the outer airlock door (which he does an admirable job of). All forms of communication having failed, Mallory is no longer able to contact the Bridge, or even the rest of his team. While pondering what to do, his PDA (which had previously not been working) chirps, indicating an incoming call. It's Agent Dworkin (though he is dressed kind of strangely), who convinces Mallory to come to his location. Dworkin gives Mallory the coordinates, and Mallory activates the PDA... [Talia's prologue scene] Talia is out in Shadow, exploring beyond Amber for pretty much the first time. By accident or fate, she stumbles upon the site of a massive battle. (Here's the quick explanation: Eight Guardians kept closed the main Gateway between Shadow and the Outside. One of the Guardians had gone insane, probably due to certain actions of the Adversary. Another had died, trying to stop this Mad Guardian. So now there were six. The Gateway was no longer as stable as it had once been. And now, in order to fulfill its purpose, the Mad Guardian was systematically destroying the Shadows which surrounded the Gateway, in that way hoping to cut off access from Outside. Benedict had been in the region, and so moved (with limited forces) to oppose the Mad Guardian's now-vast army. This is the battle Talia stumbles upon.) Talia sees an opportunity to take out the Mad Guardian, but underestimates the vast power it possesses. Talia is about to be struck down when Benedict reaches her, and saves her life. He then battles the Mad Guardian (and presumably eventually falls to it), allowing Talia to escape. The Pattern seems difficult to bring up, so Talia uses the Corrupt Pattern instead, and beings making her way back to Amber. Along the way, she encounters a two-legged riding beast, and so switches from walking to riding (and switches from Corrupt Pattern to Pattern). Talia receives a Trump call. It's Annabella (dressed in red). Annabella brings Talia (and the riding beast) through to Amber... [in Amber] Mallory, Ulrich, Talia, and Tara find themselves in the Throne Room of Amber, with two Annabellas (one dressed in red, and the other in blue), and Dworkin. The Annabellas explain the basic situation: For reasons unknown, all Ambers have become one. Now whenever two (or more) versions of the same person meet, they feel compelled to duel to the death. The surviving sequestered Amberites wish to know a) what the heck's going on, and b) if it can be somehow reversed. However, anyone going out from the relative safety of Amber is in danger of meeting a parallel self, getting killed, and thus being unable to complete any such mission. Thus, a group of unique (and therefore safe from being killed by a parallel self) individuals has been gathered, in order that they might be able to find out the cause of the Merging, and might find a way to reverse it. And this is why the player characters (and Tara) have been brought to Amber. Some conversation ensues. Mallory turns over the wolf-rabbit-bear specimin to Dworkin. Dworkin eventually disappears. Michelle appears (probably via a Pattern teleport), and introduces herself. Apparently, since Trumps don't seem to work for anyone who has a parallel self still wandering about, Michelle (who, like the player characters, is unique) will remain as the party's (Trump) contact in Amber. Michelle passes out Trumps (which Dworkin had apparently made earlier), so that each party member now has Trumps of everybody else (including Michelle). Eventually, it's decided that getting a night's rest before starting out would be a good idea, and so Annabella assigns them all rooms, and they retire for the night. [outward from Amber] The next morning, after breakfast (Michelle joins them, but Annabella, working on a new lead (in the proof they're working on), does not), and some discussion, the party gathers supplies, chooses horses (except Talia, who brought her own mount), and heads out into Shadow. After getting out from the area immediately surrounding Amber (Arden, etc.), they pause to discuss where to go from there. They eventually decide upon finding Corwin's Pattern, for reason that it may be a potential anomaly in the structure of the universe (and therefore may yield clues to the cause of the Merging, or may even be the cause itself). They head for Corwin's Pattern, but once close to where it should be, find themselves going in circles (a walking cycle of about a half an hour). Checking Corwin's Trump, they find that it's not working; additionally, it feels warm, rather than cool (about as warm as it usually feels cool). The party decides to give up on finding Corwin or his Pattern, and discusses what to do next. They eventually decide upon checking out the hole to the Outside that Mallory had found, and so make their way towards that. [an army in the way] Along the way, they spot an army camped (defensively) around a small hill. A little testing shows that this army has deliberately been Placed in their path. Mallory, doing a little testing of his own, finds the army to be hostile. Talia recognizes the army's emblem as being similar (but definitely different) to that of the Mad Guardian's army. The encampment seems to be centered around a specific tent, almost as if the tent were what was being guarded. Mallory (from proper cover, with the rest of the party, this time), scans the camp through the vision of the Circuit, and barely manages to catch a minor anomaly: there appears to be a sort of "blind spot", right about where the central tent is. The party decides this is definitely worth looking into. Ulrich wanders off into Shadow, eventually gathering together a small army (a couple hundred soldiers) of soldiers willing to fight to the death for him (the Knights of the Holy Board?). He brings them back, and plans a direct frontal assault against the encampment. The rest of the party plans to attack from the other side, using Ulrich's attack as a distraction, in order to be able to reach the central tent. [the battle] Ulrich attacks. Battle ensues. The other party members attack from the other side of the encampment. Tara draws her sword (which howls psychically; very scary for Human-ranked Psyche) and leaps into the fray. Lots of soldiers. Lots of death. Among the enemy camp, there are no survivors. Of Ulrich's army, only twelve Knights have survived. All party members are unharmed. Ulrich leads the surviving Knights back to their home Shadow, while the rest of the party explores the central tent. [the ambush] Inside the tent, they find an old man, bound completely to a chair, and mouth taped shut. He seems to be trying to say something. All of a sudden, there's a massive flash of light, which blinds everyone except for Mallory (whose helmet's glare protection helped a bit), who sees a man appear out of nowhere, make some weird gestures, grab Talia, and disappear (with Talia). Mallory tries looking for a Pattern trail, but instead finds a sort of black smudge, which really doesn't help him. He goes back and rejoins the rest of the party. [the Drifter] (Ulrich reappears somewhere during this scene, but I forget exactly where...) Mallory, upon examining the old guy through the image of the Circuit, finds that the old guy is the "blind spot". The party untapes the old guy's mouth, and starts questioning him. Apparently, he's the Drifter. Getting too much more information out of him is a slow process, however, since he keeps saying things like: "We have to rescue the Girl!", "She is the Key! The Key to Everything!", and things like that (Ulrich later commented that "He talks like Dworkin."). Eventually, however, they find out the following: The Drifter used to be part of a group called the Gr'thal, who do favors... for a price. For whatever reason, he became disillusioned with the Gr'thal, and so left, and has been living in Shadow ever since ("I am the Drifter. I belong..." (sweeps arms) "here now."). The Gr'thal are from Outside of Shadow, but can be reached from either Inside or Outside of Shadow. It is possible that the Gr'thal could have caused the Merging, but he does not know, not having been with the Gr'thal for quite a while. They should be able to reverse the Merging, however (for a price). Also from Outside of Shadow are the Sh'thal, who are the ones who have taken Talia. The Sh'thal wish to bring about "the destruction of Everything". Somehow, Talia is specifically necessary for their plans. By this point, the party decides that rescuing Talia (who is not responding to her Trump) might be a good idea. [the search for Talia] The party Shadow-seeks for Talia, and manages to find the Shadow she's in. Looking for a trace of the black smudge, they even narrow the search down to a particular building (it's a two-story building). Mallory and Ulrich go in. Tara remains outside, keeping the Drifter safe, and available for a quick Trump escape, if either Mallory or Ulrich requires one. Mallory and Ulrich check out the first floor, which is empty. They check out the second floor... and get shot at. Coordinating their efforts, they manage to corner some guy with red hair (neither Mallory nor Ulrich gets a good look at him), in a room with only one exit. [meanwhile...] Talia wakes up, bound completely to a chair, mouth taped shut. A man stands guard; he's massively Corrupted by the Corrupt Pattern. He smiles evilly. He seems to be waiting for someone or something. Time passes. Talia hears a noise behind her, instinctively tries turning around (but is unable, because she's tied to a chair). When she turns her attention back to her guard, she sees him slumped on the floor, dead, a dagger stuck in his neck. Talia catches a glimpse of red hair, going out the only door to the room. And that's when... [the rescue] Mallory and Ulrich burst in the room! Talia's tied to a chair, in the middle of the room. A dead guy's on the floor, near the entrance. Other than that, the room's pretty much empty. Mallory and Ulrich rescue Talia. Then they get the heck out of there. [what to do...] After the party is together again, Tara leads them several Shadows away (for safety), then they pause to discuss things again. After questioning the Drifter a bit more, they eventually decide to head for the hole to the Outside that Mallory had found, and seek the Gr'thal from there. [airlock 47b (or whatever its designation was)] They make their way to the airlock. They encounter no further armies along the way. They find the airlock, which has been completely welded shut (Mallory's tech did a commendable job!). Mallory finds a technician's toolkit, and starts cutting the airlock door open; Ulrich helps, with his (bitterly complaining) sword. They get the door open. Again, it leads out to infinite white nothingness, rather than the Void. The Drifter confirms that this is the Outside, points the direction they should go to find the Gr'thal, but insists that he cannot go with the party ("I am the Drifter. I belong..." (sweeps arms) "here now."). They part ways with the Drifter. [Outside, via an airlock] Mallory finds some spare voidsuits, and everybody dons one, as a precaution (Tara eventually dispenses with hers, because she finds it hampers her movements... and she doesn't seem to share Mallory's fear that the Outside might suddenly recede, leaving them in an airless Void, so...). Outside, there does seem to be a ground to walk on (it's a featureless white ground), so they start off in the direction the Drifter had indicated. About halfway to their destination (both the airlock door and their destination are distantly visible), Ulrich offers to stay as an "anchor" in this featureless white domain, just in case the airlock door (the only exit from the Outside that they know of) is not discernable from their destination. The rest of the party proceeds. [the Gr'thal] They reach their destination. A low table. Seated (on the featureless white ground) on the other side of the table are three individuals who look somewhat reminiscent of the Drifter. They are the Gr'thal. They appear to speak only when spoken to, and reply in sequence (left to right, from their POV), each in his own style (side note: I suspect that this particular system of communication was designed in order to be able to handle the widest variety of linguistic variations that the Gr'thal might encounter; unfortunately, the third Gr'thal's manner of speaking usually didn't add anything useful for conversations in either English or Thari, so after a while, I got lazy and stopped using him ("You've figured out how the third one talks by now, so...").). In speaking with the Gr'thal (at some point during the conversation, Tara (who had not been doing any of the speaking) Trumps Ulrich, so he can listen in), the party finds out that the Gr'thal *may* have caused the Merging (their answer wasn't too clear), but definitely *can* reverse it (for a price). The price, as stated, for undoing the Merging, is "An eye. An arm. And a memory.". The price for keeping the Sh'thal from entering Shadow: "Your left hand. And your right ear." [a pack of wolf-rabbit-bears, oh my!] Meanwhile, Ulrich, who is waiting all alone in the infinite white emptiness, spots one of those creatures that Mallory had earlier described, heading straight for him. One creature, okay, no prob. Then he spots about twenty more behind it. Tara notices the situation. "You want some help?" she asks. Ulrich pulls Tara through. Tara draws her sword, and... doesn't leap into the fray. Noting Ulrich's tactics, she instead covers his back, working in tandem with him, to repel the attacks from all sides. Soon, all the creatures are dead. Tara and Ulrich decide it might be safer if the party was all together, rather than split up. They walk back to the others. [back at the, uh, table...] Tara and Ulrich make it back uneventfully. More discussion ensues. Discussion is interrupted when four people appear out of nowhere, led by a man with the Logrus up (after quickly surveying the situation, he does drop the Logrus). He introduces himself as Derrik, of House Hillgrave, and implies that his group is the Chaos-side equivalent of what the player characters are for Amber. (side note: unfortunately, no one from the Amber-side task force was polite enough to introduce himself/herself (well, Ulrich did later, but...), so the player characters never got to find out anybody else's name! (besides Derrik)) More discussion ensues. Derrik brings up positives and negatives for both of the main choices they have (i.e. unMerge the universes, or leave them all Merged). Before any sort of consensus (or decision) can be reached, an army appears out of nowhere. [an army out of nowhere] It's a pretty massive army, and completely surrounds the little table (and everyone gathered around it). Leading the army is a woman dressed in black and silver. It's Deirdre. Talia takes a closer look at her. Yep, it's Deirdre... but there's something wrong about how she looks. She's eaten almost completely through by the Corruption. As are some (but not all) of the soldiers in the army. Mallory, realizing that these are probably agents of the Sh'thal, and that they probably want Talia alive, puts his blaster to Talia's ear and threatens to kill her if they attack. Deirdre calmly signals the attack, and the army rushes forward. Mallory, unfortunately, was bluffing, and lets Talia go. Tara draws her sword and leaps into the fray. Ulrich covers her back (as she did for him earlier) for a while, but retreats (after warning Tara) to the table before getting cut off completely, knowing that if something is to be done, it would have to be done there. Griff and Miron leap into the fray. Silith exchanges a few words with Derrik, before joining in the battle herself. Derrik is apparently thinking along the same lines as Ulrich, as he also stays near the table of Gr'thal. Talia realizes that the enemy troops have probably been specifically instructed not to harm her, and so begins making her way towards Deirdre. Once close enough, Talia puts a gun (gun obtained earlier from the airlock Shadow) to her head and threatens to kill herself. Talia isn't bluffing; she pulls the trigger, but nothing happens. Alas, Deirdre had used the Corrupt Pattern to change things so that the gun no longer worked. Talia runs, heading for the airlock (Talia had left her sabre behind, thinking that the gun would be more useful). This takes Deirdre a bit by surprise, but then she quickly pursues. [race for the door!] Mallory sees Talia flee, with Deirdre in close pursuit. Realizing that Talia is the Key to Everything, he takes a bit of a chance, activates his (sporadically working) anti-grav belt, leaps over the soldiers blocking his way (one of them swings a sword and nicks Mallory's voidsuit (no real damage)), and runs, thinking to somehow distract (or kill?) Deirdre. Mallory realizes that he's not going to catch up with Deirdre before she reaches the airlock door, but Talia, at least, will be able to reach the door before Deirdre does. [back at the table...] Meanwhile, the battle against Deirdre's army continues. Things are not going overly well. The characters (and NPCs) are holding the army back, but it becomes apparent that, unless something drastic is done, they (the sorely outnumbered characters) are eventually going to fall. Ulrich makes his decision. He waits until Talia is safely beyond the airlock door, then says, "I will pay your price!" to the Gr'thal, and asks them to make things so that the Sh'thal will be unable to reach Shadow. The Gr'thal agree, and extract their price. It happens too quickly for Ulrich to see, but all of a sudden, there's a lot of pain, and a lot of blood, and he's missing his left hand, and his right ear. Unfortunately, Ulrich doesn't have any healing spells, but Miron, in a spare moment (and at Ulrich's request), flings one back at him, and the bleeding slows considerably. [we salute you, you who are about to die] Their universes now safe from the Sh'thal (and their desire to bring about the destruction of Everything), Ulrich sees that his purpose in life in now complete. But he will still go down fighting. Ulrich draws his sword and leaps into the fray. He fights his way back to Tara, and fights in tandem with her, guarding her back, perhaps in repayment of what he sees as a debt of honor. Deirdre, now cut off from Talia, turns to face Mallory. She draws her sword. Mallory heroically draws his sword, and faces off against her. They fight. Mallory starts off fighting defensively, then is forced to fight even more defensively... then even more defensively... He realizes he's going to lose. He stakes everything on one last attack, readies himself, and leaps... Talia gets through the airlock door, quickly scrambles, finds her sabre, turns around... and where the airlock door had been, there is now only wall. [a blinding flash of white light] All of a sudden, there's a blinding flash of white light... [Mallory's epilogue scene] Mallory leaps towards Deirdre... and stumbles against something. It's not Deirdre; it's not a person. He recovers his sight, and sees that it's a com-panel. He tries contacting the Command Center, and immediately gets a line. Mallory requests transport back to the Command Center, and activates his PDA... [Ulrich's epilogue scene] Ulrich is temporarily blinded, and half-panics, sweeping his sword defensively around himself. He trips over a chair, and hits his head against a bedpost. He realizes that he's back at the friendly inn where he started this whole adventure. His hand and ear are still missing, so it probably wasn't all a dream. Also, there's still a bullet hole in the window, and signs of blood on the floor (the floor had been scrubbed, but you could still tell it had been stained with blood), right about where Caine had been lying. After taking stock of the situation, Ulrich gets his Trump deck out (side note: he does still have Mallory's, Talia's, Tara's, and Michelle's Trumps, though they don't feel cool to the touch anymore), and pulls Bleys' Trump. He contacts Bleys. They have a short conversation, and Bleys pulls Ulrich through ("Have I got a story for you..." Ulrich says to Bleys.). [Talia's epilogue scene] Talia, temporarily blinded, naturally suspects some sort of attack. She twists, rolls... and hits her head against a wall. Her vision comes back. She's in the Throne Room of Amber. Annabella (dressed in red) is there. Talia asks Annabella what's going on. "I assume that you succeeded in your mission, did you not?" replies Annabella. Talia looks quite weary and bedraggled, so Annabella suggests that she (Talia) retire to her quarters to get some rest. Talia concurs, and retires to her room. Talia finds a neatly folded letter, addressed to her, on her pillow. The letter reads: "Hope you are feeling better. I shall come by to see you in a week. Orpheus." Talia goes to sleep. ------------------------ IV. GM's Random Comments ------------------------ The ending - In case it wasn't entirely clear, Derrik saved everybody's, uh, posteriors. He paid the Gr'thal's price, and had them unMerge all the different universes. Of course, this alone wouldn't have stopped the Sh'thal's quest for Talia, so it's a fortunate thing that Ulrich had also made his request of the Gr'thal. Hmm, nobody with any Good Stuff actually lost anything to the Gr'thal... Mallory - When Kevin first approached me with the idea for Mallory's universe, I was all "Wow, this sounds really cool." We sort of bounced ideas back and forth after that, and he worked out the rest of the details of the universe. I think it'd be a lot of fun to run (or play) a game in Mallory's universe; unfortunately, we only had a couple brief scenes there. Mallory was pretty cool, too. He and Talia worked as character foils to each other, which was pretty amusing at times. Ulrich - In Ulrich's writeup, Tim outright gave me permission to set up some sort of tragically heroic fall for Ulrich, if I wanted. While I didn't specifically engineer things to happen that way, Tim did play Ulrich right (i.e. in character), and the opportunity did come about, at the end of the story. Unfortunately, Derrik had to ruin it all. ;) Well, not all, I guess; Ulrich did still lose a hand and an ear saving Everything from the Sh'thal... Talia - I hadn't really thought about it at the time, but, for those of you who have read Stephen R. Donaldson's "Gap Cycle" books (warning: minor *SPOILERS* upcoming, for those of you who haven't), Talia is totally Davies Hyland (well, not quite *totally*, but...). She's lost, searching for an identity, and is being actively pursued by some Outside forces, who wish to use her in some unknown way in order to bring about the destruction of Everything. Davies is probably a Bad Stuff character too. Actually, I'm not sure if anybody in the Gap series is a Good Stuff character... except maybe Koina. Or Min Donner. =) Hmmm, the Sh'thal as Amnion... scary. Talia's universe - I will admit that until I got Talia's universe writeup, many details of the CoIA plot were still fairly nebulous. Then Paul sent me his Talia writeup, and things just started falling into place. So I'm actually doubly glad for the work Paul put into the Talia writeup. =) As part of Talia's history, he also included a number of non-standard Amberites, some of whom I was able to work into the CoIA storyline, and some of whom I wasn't. Orpheus was a great find for me, and is probably the most important of those NPCs, as far as the CoIA storyline is concerned. Orpheus - Orpheus was actually doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. Since the player characters never quite caught up with him (yes, he was the flash of red hair who rescued Talia), they were probably unaware of the things he was doing. Truth to tell, Orpheus was so subtle that even I lost track of him after a while. I'm sure he has quite a tale to tell, when next he meets Talia... Character stats - Everybody designed Warfare characters! I wasn't really expecting this to happen, but then, with only three players, I guess the odds weren't all that bad. I'd originally designed Tara to be the Warfare character in the party, in case the other characters weren't quite up to par. As it was, she did still have the highest Warfare stat among the party, though, so... Stuff levels - Wow, *lots* of Bad Stuff! Adding everybody's Stuff together (from the Amber-side party), the sum turned out to be -11. Tara, btw, was a Zero Stuff character. Michelle (whose Stuff is not inculded in the above sum) had tons of Good Stuff... but then, that probably explains why she got to spend the whole adventure in Amber, where it was *safe*. =) Repairing The Ship - Mallory came up with the idea of asking the Gr'thal to repair The Ship. A very interesting idea (one I hadn't considered beforehand). Yes, they could have done it (the price the Gr'thal stated was the same hand-and-ear price that Ulrich paid for his request). Mallory decided not to, however (there were too many unknowns for the risk to be worth it, he decided), and was later far too busy (fighting Corrupted Deirdre, etc.) to change his mind. It was quite an interesting idea, however, so I thought I'd mention it here. The Gr'thal, a twisted thought - I wonder what the Gr'thal are doing with all the body parts they're collecting? I keep getting this image of them building some sort of Frankenstein's monster out of all these Amberite/Chaosian bits... The fun level of this CoIA game - This game was a lot of fun. Even though we had only three players, we did have pretty good character balance, and did get some good character interaction going (especially between Mallory and Talia). The players all seemed to be having fun, which is usually a pretty good sign. =) The Knights of the Holy Board sequence was a lot of fun; Tim (and Ulrich) played the sequence through perfectly. Some of the in-battle propaganda Ulrich fed his troops was really great. =) The amount of work involved, in putting a CoIA game together - Wow, this was a *lot* of work. For the players and GM both. I definitely want to thank my players for all the pre-game work they put into their character and universe writeups. I sincerely hope what they got out of the game was worth all the work they put into their characters! As for me... yeah, I think it was worth it, for me. The game ran pretty smoothly, and it was a lot of fun. I'm still not sure if I'm willing to go through all this work (and stress!) again (i.e. run another Crisis of Infinite Ambers), but it was definitely worth doing at least this once. As for the future... we'll see. =) ---------------------------------------------- V. Things the Player Characters Didn't Explore ---------------------------------------------- And finally, some things the player characters didn't explore (in no particular order): - The situation in Rebma. Unsurprising, considering there weren't any Rebman characters in the party (well, Michelle was, but she already knew the situation in Rebma). - Finding Igraine. Igraine had died saving Talia's life in her universe, but it's quite probable that she (Igraine) may still be alive in the universe Talia didn't come from (i.e. the other Annabella's universe). Of course, this probably wouldn't have added anything significant to the plot, but I did consider it as something Talia might attempt to do. - Tir-na Nog'th. Things were weird enough already, but Tir-na Nog'th could have added even to that. Who knows, the characters may have even found some clues there (maybe). =) - The Primal Pattern. Michelle probably would have suggested examining the Primal Pattern for clues, except that she'd already done so herself. - The Corrupt Pattern. I suspect that the Corrupt Pattern could have gotten the player characters to the Gr'thal, but I probably wouldn't have recommended using it for that purpose. It's possible there may have been some other clues there, too. - Use of the Corrupt Pattern Outside of Shadow. As it turns out, the Corrupt Pattern was actually stronger than the regular Pattern, Outside of Shadow. - The way through Shadow to the Gr'thal. This is the way the Chaos team took, actually. - Other holes to the Outside. As it turns out, the hole that Mallory found was actually the closest to the Gr'thal (Mallory's a Good Stuff character!). - The Courts of Chaos. It's always possible that the party may have found some clues there. On the other hand, the Courts of Chaos may not have been the safest place for the player characters to go... especially since none of the player characters had any allies in Chaos. (eof)