Moderator: Game Masters
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AMBER
In the wake of the great Patternfall war Amber strives for peace, or so some would lead others to believe. Under the banner of the newly crowned King Random stability would seem to be the order of the day, however, there are those that lurk in the Shadows of infinity, awaiting their chance to usurp this new found peace.
A basic Points system allows for broader character concepts with nearly unlimited avenues for a player to explore. Either jump in to the action within the halls of Castle Amber as one of the powerful elite who can control the fabric of reality and traverse dimensions, or vie for control over the Courts of Chaos as a Logrus Master. Players can be multi-dimensional Sorcerers or powerful Trump artists who can create artifacts that allow them to travel to people or places.
Come join the elaborate universe that is Amber and begin the epic journey that has already begun to captivate and inspire players.
Back Story wrote:Welcome to the Island of Afterward!
If you ask ten people from ten different regions the same question, you will get ten different answers, all curiously alike. The question would be "How did your people come to be here?".
Each answer would be unique in specifics, but the same in general theme: An event of world-shattering proportions - a global calamity, an Armageddon, a nuclear war, all caused by the inhabitants of each world themselves - occurred in the not too distant past of each of the peoples who inhabit the Island. But instead of perishing along with their worlds, a select number from each were whisked away to to a place they all eventually came to call "Afterward". Of each race or breed from each world, only a handful were saved.
They found themselves to be the only inhabitants of a continent-sized island. It was surrounded by treacherous oceans. Storms were almost constant, winds strong and variable and the currents were unpredictable. Towering waves formed from nowhere, without warning, taking down the hearty adventurers who sought to learn more of the place they had come to. Debris brought to the shores by the small tides proved there were other lands, but none were ever reached. Despite the vast number of tries to conquer the seas, no attempt to sail to a land beyond the oceans was ever successful. No one who sailed out of sight of land into the oceans were ever seen again. After several centuries, boat-crafting was eventually limited to small barge-like vessels which were suited only to carrying trade goods and the occasional passenger on a placid river. Even the large, fresh-water, inland sea (eventually called by common consensus) Holloweye Lake or Lake Hollow Eye, was avoided because of the fear of what happened to ships that went beyond the sight of land.
So the settlers turned inward, exploring their island. They discovered a limited mineral base - only soft metals, stone and wood were readily available as building supplies. It took much time, energy and effort to find and actually start mining and smelting iron. It was a relatively recent addition to the materials available for building and was quite expensive. There were animals that could produce hide and spun fibers for clothing. There was also silver and gold, plus plant materials for weaving. The weather usually allowed crops of one variety or another to be grown year-round and a knowledge of how to rotate fields so as to not deplete the soils ensured a generally plentiful food supply.
At first, each group of peoples kept to themselves, trying to build a life in each of the regions where they were brought. As each of the peoples managed to hammer out an existence, they also began to explore their island home, mingling with the others. They discovered that the "others" were just people more like them than not. Racial prejudices pretty much disappeared, having been left behind in the face of the enormity of what had happened to all of them and never passed on to successive generations. People were just people, whether they were six inches tall and female or ten feet tall and any gender their anatomy dictated. Color meant nothing.
Time, trade and the driving curiosity each race exhibited eventually brought them a common language. Another discovery was that some of the inhabitants could make things happen without any apparent cause - what everyone eventually came to understand as "magic". Even aided with this new and not completely understood ability, despite their best efforts, no one could explain how they had come to be on the island of Afterward.
It wasn't until 200 years had passed before anyone discovered the indigenous population of the world into which they had been brought: There be dragons here.
These dragons were magical beings, elusive when they wanted to be, able to appear as anyone, any place and any time. Generally, they kept to the periphery, watching and interacting only rarely with the new arrivals. What, if anything, they had to do with the new arrivals arriving was only speculation. The Dragons maintained that they were as shocked by the arrival of the "newcomers" (as they referred to anyone not a dragon) as the newcomers were at arriving. But what little was known about them indicated they were immensely powerful, immensely wise and very fickle of temper. They could be very generous, or very dangerous. But until a Dragon decided to tell another of their identity, no one could tell who was a dragon and who was just another person.
Because of the common experience of having seen their previous worlds destroyed, the original settlers passed an accord: No metallic machines of war would ever be built. No cannons, no guns, no tanks. The combination of metal and explosives was forbidden. On the one occasion where an ambitious warlord named Xilfret, who didn't believe in that prohibition, began producing firearms, the Dragons rose up en mass in a cloud that darkened the sun and reduced all those who dared disregard the prohibition to ash and slag - creating the middle desert. The Xilfret Event was seared into the memories of everyone, and the Xilfret Desert remained behind as mute testimony to the power of the Dragons.
No one EVER crosses the dragons.
Xilfret was simply jumping the gun, though. As the power of magic grew, it became useless to produce field weapons. One good spell could reduce that weapon to compost, rust or gravel in a moment or two. Magic became the battlefield weaponry of choice for overcoming the defense of cities. Magic was everywhere, more and more people had at least a trace of it and it couldn't be banned or stopped. But it could be controlled and places of learning were established to teach those who had the skill for spells how to use what they had. Field weaponry was still used in the form of catapults, which could be used since they used the same mechanical energy concept as any bow, but they only hurled stones or burning materials. Most Battle Mages could make short work of a catapult, though.
Unfortunately, the passing of time has another less considered effect: Population.
As time passed, the population rose. As the population rose, the resources available on the island dwindled. Some places had more than others. Petty jealousies arose and conflicts over those resources became more common. Greed, population pressure, limited resources and people from a thousand different worlds, cultures and races found themselves trapped in a pressure cooker called Afterward. No longer could autonomous regions be allowed to squander their resources. For the sake of future generations, it was time for the people of Afterward to organize so that the limited resources could be better apportioned for the benefit of all.
Villages banded together in common cause, creating factions that were split by philosophy, resources and even race. It's easy to trust someone who looks different when they don't compete for what you need. It's much easier to create artificial differences between people with a common origin when someone else has what you need and won't share it. As resources grew tighter, conflicts arose.
Recognizing the need to organize and have more direct control, the dragons issued one edict: Choose one to speak for all.
The wisest among the inhabitants - outside of the Dragons - recognized that even if all of the inhabitants of Afterward united under one banner, there was still the problem of population and limited resources. If a population can't grow, it stagnates and dies. So while having one ruler would, indeed, aid in staving off the inevitable for a time, the inevitable was still coming. There had to be some way of preventing that awful fate.
A rumor began that the Dragons had the answer to the ultimate population/resource problem. This rumor was never denied by any dragon. But the answer was as elusive as the Dragons were mysterious. Only the bravest, the strongest, the wisest, the most adept, the most diplomatic and the most flexible would ever discover even pieces of the answer. It would not be given freely. It would have to be earned.
It is now the year 920 - 920 years since the cataclysms that destroyed worlds and since the arrival of the original settlers. All of those originally brought to the Island from their home-worlds are now dead. Some of those alive today are their direct offspring, others are their generations-old descendants.
In the 920 years since the arrival, many villages have been constructed, iron works have been created and stone buildings, bridges and even roads can be constructed. But it is a time for fighting, for adventure, for exploration. Unity MUST be imposed on the land. Above all, everyone knows that without that unity, and all of the pieces of the answer to solve their ultimate dilemma, there is no hope of a future worth living in for anyone.
The clock is ticking...
