The Diners of Amber

A commentary on the Place Trumps of King Random's Deck

By Prince Bleys of Amber

Originally Published Jan 7, 5250, New Warren Press, City of Amber, Amber.

Revised and augmented by Bleys of Amber, Aug 30, 5251

Reprinted and included with the Citizen Decks of the King Random's Trumps.

The Commentary has been subjected to augmentation as additional cards are added.

The Diners of Amber

Random is a funny kind of guy. No one disputes that. One need only ask Brother Ben how he feels about being Marshal of Amber to get a sense of what a swell guy Brother Random is. As is said in shadow, a picture is worth a thousand words. Good thing because Ben does not seem to say much when asked. A picture is far more expressive.

So what kind of expression do I set pen to page to provide? What kind of picture will I paint of our beloved monarch King Random I of Amber? How do I go about telling you the reader who steers the ship of state and yet keep myself from being sentenced to the bilge pumps of said vessel?

Let us take a look at the pictures in King Random's Deck!

The deck you most likely hold, unless my dear kinsmen read this and peruse their own deck, was the creation of the US Playing Card Company, Detroit, Michigan. Trust Random to get his printing done out of the country. What with all those hard working native playing card makers starving in the alleys of Amber.

For shame, sire.

I must admit that it is a clever trick that even these mass produced trump knock-offs occasionally grow new cards, change card names or images, magically change font, numerical value, and card back designs from time to time. Random always was a tricky guy. An especially tricky thing happened soon after the original decks were handed out to the kinsman and non-magical cards were produced. Not only did the deck mysteriously generate new images of Amberian origin, but also several trumps of Mandalain and Chaosian origins appeared. Dworkin has stated that no card has been included without the king's approval despite the artist or realm of origin. They all come before his perusal and approval.

I suspect Dworkin is trying to encourage tourism or militarism. It might be worthwhile to examine who owns the hotels and diners near the point of arrival the new trumps display. The reason I suspect Dworkin is that ol' granpappy cornered me and told me that from time to time I would be required to create new comments on newly added cards.

I told him that to do so would defeat the reason I did the first article called the "Diners of Amber."

His response was, "Tough shit, Kid. You gonna cross me?"

No, Grandfather, I am not.

Let me state for the record that I painted fully half of the original landscapes. Merlin, Dworkin, Fiona, Caine and Delwin painted the rest. Merlin tells me that the trumps with Chaosian title bars came from his personal trump deck. Dworkin claims to have done the ones with Mandalian title bars. Dworkin's manipulation of shadow and the pattern caused the vast array of duplicates to appear for the travel ease of the Cousins, who flow into Amber these days as if they were driven in on tour buses.

Perhaps in due time I shall apply myself to a commentary on them, as well as my beloved siblings. Fiona tells me that writing may wash away the angst I feel over my own grief. Really, sister dear? Perhaps I will start with you when the time comes.

As Corwin once said, "Come whisper me your objections."

But what does this have to do with the Diners of Amber?

Well, the Trumps of Amber are available at any of the more trendy places. I picked up the set I am examining at one of those nasty green coffee bars that seem to be popping up everywhere. We didn't have coffee bars when Oberon ruled. We had coffee shops that served breakfast eggs and potatoes swimming in bacon grease with black coffee you could float a nail on and you paid in silver or you got spit in your drink next time and you liked it. For those of you keen on details my favorite place was Aunt Galiray's Vale. It was near the castle road and served a meal an Amberite could really dig into. Corwin and I once had seconds. Those were the days. I hear Galiray is living in Garn now. Her vale is a Starbucks. How the mighty have fallen.

Speaking of which, these cards.

Pull out your own set and we'll go over them together.

King Random's Deck comes in two parts. Major Arcanum and Minor Arcanum. For those of you playing games with these, the Major Arcanum is good for Assassin's Gambit, Dangealri and Firs. It also has its uses for fortunetellers and real estate agents. Every place in the deck has raised its property values. Some have raised their prices. The lower arcanum is a typical playing deck. Four suits numbered 1 or ace to King, passing through nine, ten, Page, Knight, & Queen on its way.

There is no Joker in the deck. That was simply too good a jab to make at any one member of the royal family and despite voluminous advice on that matter Random thought it prudent not to single anyone out. For that I guess I do owe him a nod of gratitude. Aficionados of card games play either 52 card or 56 card Poker, Tonk, Canasta, Gin, Balru, or Hand's War. The pages taking the roles of wild cards where needed. I prefer the 56-card versions myself. I like a game with an element of uncertainty. Go figure.

Once upon a time I was having a few highballs in the library of Amber when one of the Cousins came in. She commented on the vast collection of fiction novels the library of Amber seemed to have. Complete collections of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, Historical Fiction, and mainline fiction of a thousand worlds fill every available nook and cranny not taken up by textbooks, philosophical treatises, dour histories, tomes of maps, and nearly every self-help book shadow has disgorged. She didn't think fictions novels belonged in the same shelves as the solid subjects. I taught her a valuable lesson.

I said, "Those aren't fiction novels. They're travel guides"

The cards are too.

But I digress.

The deck betrays Random's love of food, cards, and his hate of horses.

Herein submitted,

Prince Bleys of Amber

1 The Lighthouse of Cabra

The first card is the Lighthouse of Cabra. This picturesque isle sits miles out to sea and lights the way for ships bound to Amber's shore, either down one of the many merchant-shipping lanes or randomly out of shadow. Many a ship has smashed itself against that sudden shore, hence the reason for the lighthouse. Oberon ordered it built in the early days of Amber once he discovered the isle was too big to move. Osric designed it and he, Finndo, and Benedict did much of the actual labor. The place is a dour edifice, architecturally, but consider the creators.

Admiral Jopin of Cabra,(retired.) runs the tower and the whims of politics wash over him as unchangingly as the sea. A solitary man by nature, the Hero of Talgwin's Deep, the Battle of Diega Swan, the straights of Tortus, and the victor of Bunny Free's Siege suffers visitors with marginal grace as long as they are willing to work at maintaining the place some while they are there. It is a coincidence, I am sure, that so many little projects were on the venerable captain's to-do list when company arrives. Bring your overalls if you make the trip. A good pair of gloves and a couple of kegs of the best brew you can find will also be a wise piece of luggage for those who come a knocking at his door.

The reason this card is in the deck is simple. So many places in shadow dump travelers off at this first edge of Amber that Jopin got tired of sailing them over to the big city. Now he calls the admirty and some kinsman or other pops out and fetches the wayward traveler and brings him to the castle for....explanations.

2. Castle Amber

The second card is the courtyard of Castle Amber herself. It is by far the most commonly used trump in the deck since it delivers the weary traveler into the bosom of felicity itself. Of course the first thing one notices upon arriving is that a dozen pointed archery weapons are trained tightly on you. Ranging from the new repeating crossbows, the cloth yards of yew longbowman to the sinister clockwork ballistae Random uses to punch holes in iron-shod ships; the armed array is impressive. Additionally, a cool company of the most unfriendly faces to ever walk the last mile of a death row prison hold a collection of pointy and edged armaments to greet the visitor who arrives with less then friendly intentions. Sorcerers with very little pity back them for security.

Benedict takes nothing for granted in the defense of Amber. Invaders would be well advised to choose another route in. Don't try the stairway up Kolvir either, its been tried and the price was paid in blood; My own.

In Random's favor, it can be pointed out that the finest trauma team to be found in shadow also awaits the traveler who arrives having found shadow too frolicsome for their tastes.

3.Neal's Diner, New Velri City, Ruthar, United States of Antherica

The third card is the first of the Diners of Amber and a swell place it is too. Neal's Diner is in the heartland of Antherica, a technological epoch where the sound barrier is as newly broken as the color barrier is. New Velri City, in the state of Ruthar, is a charming city that never sleeps. Likewise is the always-open Neal's Diner, a well-appointed eatery by any standard. Random included this place for two reasons.

First is that this massive coffee shop style restaurant serves one of the best breakfasts Random ever found and I must agree. He has established a tab usable by anyone telling the waitress to "put it on Randy's tab." Laura Dearly runs the front. Everyone calls her "Laura Dear." Buddy Drummen is the magnificent chef. He is willing to make amber-sized meals but insists on being called 'Sir.' Wise people do so if they want to be sure all they eat is his cooking. After one particular meal I decided if Buddy ever makes it to Amber I will knight him myself. I never have gotten a straight answer concerning who Neal is.

The second reason is that the basement is an underground card-club that Random frequents, and may have a stake in, financially. Georgie Reno runs the card games. Random supplies the bouncers, who are frequently members of the Amber Guard, in double-breasted silk suits. Cheating is not tolerated and frankly is rarely attempted.

Many an Amberite Guardsman can be found as bouncers and clientele both upstairs and down. Across the street is a boarding house that is a who's who of Amber nobility and younger sons serving their term of service. Two movie houses nearby show talkies and silent films, and color movies are all the rage. What the point is in a color-silent film I don't get.

A tattoo parlor on the same block has a collection of insignia and designs that can be found no where else in that shadow. Bruno Sveldt, a disreputable character at best, is an artist of the first water in the craft of body art. He has learned not to mock the large, burly men, and the lithe and equally stern women, who come into his shop to have the green disc and golden laurel wreath, surrounding a white unicorn, tattooed on their biceps.

He made the mistake once; telling one such man that he must be part of a very tough gang of nancy boys and fierce butt-pirate swishes to want that tatted on himself. Bruno was missing for a few days, unlamented. Upon his return he was nothing but utter politeness and solicitude to any person who dared ask for that unusual design, and will put it anywhere they ask, at no charge. His hand never wavers till after the client is gone, then it shakes, he closes the store, and he drinks his whiskey through a straw.

4.Aglevar's Kitchen

Fourth is Aglevar's Kitchen. Mama Aglevar is a wonder. She must be what all, good cooking, mothers are shadows of. She is the mother hen of a brood of small ones that either never grow up or breed very true copies of each other because the same kids always seem underfoot when visitors arrive. The cat Buttons is as friendly as can be.

Mama Aglevar will cook anything you ask, any time of the day or night, as long as you are willing to clean some dishes, look after the kids, or do any one of a thousand kitchen chores that always need doing. She will critique your wardrobe, hairstyle, or your choice in significant or insignificant others. She can put a wicked edge on a knife but won't touch anything larger than a carving knife or a woodsman's ax. Don't even ask. I get all my pocketknives honed to delicious razors in her place for the cost of a load of dishes or a few magic tricks to distract the kids from yanking on Button's tail. Benedict claims to have taught her this trick but I think the knack is hers.

While I consider it a Diner of Amber it not exactly a diner. I told Mama Aglevar I was calling it that and she thought the joke a funny one and gave me a cookie. A big chocolate chip and oatmeal one. With raisins too!

Did I mention she won't cook anything to go? If she makes you a pastrami sandwich, my personal favorite, you better smear it with her homemade mustard and prepare to eat it there. If you grab it and run you will never hear the end of it. "Bleys, you can't just grab that and run! Eating like that will hurt your digestion, your complexion, your hairdo, your libido, your ingrown toe nails, your...."

I never knew eating while walking could be so dangerous.

5.Sea View Garden, Amber

Overlooking the beach at Cabal's Neck, from the eastern edge of the 6th floor of the Castle amber is a wide verandah balcony that is one of the most truly beautiful sights in all of shadow. Flora out did herself during Eric's reign when she converted a bare rooftop into one of the friendliest places in the city of Amber. 100 tables adorn this lush flower overgrown slice of heaven. Each table seems to have a great view and each seems to have ample privacy. Flora tells me that somehow the design of the place, with its rises and shallows seems to hinder the flow of sound from table to table, if not the flow of sea breezes and spring flower's scent.

This is the breakfast nook of Amber. Nearly all of the family, and most of the guests, try to get table space here to take their morning coffee. Waiters scurry unseen, the buffet is always fresh, and the coffee pot is always full. Tables seat between 2 and 20 people. It is not rare to find the Ambassador of Chaos and the King of Amber sitting together, taking croissants and cocoa at sunrise.

At night candles and oil lanterns that emit only light illuminate the garden. Glow globes sit on the tables themselves. The light is important because without them it is dark, dark, dark like a tomb. No city lights are visible. The castle itself blocks most of them. Even the great Signal Fire at the harbor gates is obscured.

Flora can be found here most nights, holding court amongst the ladies of the elite. Romantic dinners and private parties nestle amongst the vines and eavesdropping is considered a terrible breach of etiquette.

Let me tell you, there is one thing you do not want and that is to have Flora give you a lesson in etiquette after you have been caught showing that you need one.

6.The Oracle of Mandalay

Many of the cards in King Random's deck are mere conveniences to the weary traveler who does not want to make an extensive Hellride just to get a slice of cheesecake or to play a few hands of poker; such being amongst the king's passions. The fifth card is not one of these.

Like any Oracle the Oracle of Mandalay is a solemn thing not to be approached lightly or disregarded casually. For thousands of years we of Amber speculated whether the shadow realms existed independently of our will, or if they came into being at our wish. Oberon and Dworkin have both come down firmly on the 'Always Existed' side of the argument and that pretty much settles it for me. The question about Oracles is does the destiny they see exist before they reveal it or are your actions locked into the fates they foresee by your submitting yourself to their observations?

Six of one, Half dozen of another. You place your bets; you take your chances. You pay your losses with cash in the coin of blood.

This Oracle was once a powerful oracle near the Chaos Sway world of Gknfhnismznup and the vale that contained Ygg. Don't expect me to pronounce it. I called it Guknup. When the Mark of Mandalay was created the world was swept up in the forces of creation and purified. Now this pinnacle created by ugly forces of erosion rises above a newly verdant world. Above it swirls a constant series of clouds in a speedy succession of rain, thunders, clear, fog and stormy lightning. Cast your question into the wind and live with your results. You have been warned.

Gutsedvem

The sixth card is the magnificent pleasure realm of Gutsedvem. For a more intensive description of this shadow look for Bleys' Book of Gutsedvem, available throughout Amber. I love this place. This Black Zone world is one of the most friendly and peaceful worlds close to chaos. It is a pleasure world where nearly anything is available. Even cheesecake.

It is also originally, the closest world to the Courts of Chaos in the deck and those traveling that far frequently trump here first. The question is having done so what might be important enough that they can't stay just a few days here. Maybe a week. Heck, Amberites are immortal and whatever problems you were fleeing to Chaos to solve, settle or provoke aren't really that important. Have a drink.

You see the danger?

The Baths of Bali are orgasmic. Warm, thick, like swimming in photosensitive, psychoactive, empathic, and aphrodisiac Jell-O. The Halls of All have nearly every form of game, challenge, contest of skill or feat of daring. The Feast Hall has a table that is thousands of mile long heaped high with every kind of substance one might be inspired to ingest, from the most potent smoking herbs to the most luscious ice creams. Egad...

These delights having been pointed out first, its well to say that sexual relations can be found here, in vast varieies...

Racsir Isle

A small island in a massive world-spanning archipelago is the seventh card in the deck. I am not sure why Random included Racsir Isle but a couple things are clear. It is a great place for anglers, scuba divers, and water sportsman. Ships are common and thousands of little islands, some not much larger than one room, are connected by ramshackle walkways that make getting anywhere difficult. The people are friendly, open, and ask few questions. Nearly anyone you meet will gladly clean your fish, filet them, package them for transport or cook them up on the spot. They seem to have nothing else to do all day.

If questions are asked of them, they can become quiet as clams. Friendly, smiling, helpful, dumb as the fish they catch by the ton, taciturn and secretive as the Costra Nostra.

I asked Random what the deal was with this place. His response was," Don't you like fish?" I told him that I love fish, even love fishing, but there seemed something was wrong with the people there." He smiled and said, "Nope, that is just how I wanted them."

So take this shadow as a lesson in shadow navigation. Some places are just not full places. Ride on through them or deal with their vacancies.

Addendum

The Tombs of Amber

Now the fact that Random put this eighth card in the deck is a clear sign that he has a nasty twisty mind.

The card goes to a collection of Tombs on the face of Kolvir. The first one was a Tomb of Corwin that was constructed when it was believed he was dead. It turned out to be wishful thinking on Eric's part. Corwin once said that when he gained the Jewel of Judgment he considered blasting the thing to ruble but decided he might need it some day and it was a nice enough place to rest. Especially nice if the family could not arrange to dump his corpse in with the Ancestors of Darkness.

Since Patternfall a regular community of the dead has popped up in the area and a number of people visit it for clandestine meetings, quite gatherings and sometimes even raucous parties. I personally built Brand's Tomb. I figured no one else would care to, after what he almost did to us, but heck, I had some really fine times with my mad, tragic, and melancholy brother before he got shafted and died in the Abyss. Once upon a time I kept my booze supply in his sarcophagus.

Most of these are more monument then tomb. There are several of them here. All in all there are tombs for Corwin, Deirdre, Eric, Oberon, Brand, Finndo, Osric, & Mirelle. Of these only Eric has the good manners to lay dead in his. Corwin, is still amongst the living. Finndo is supposed to have died on the pattern at the end of his short reign but the details of this are fudgey and Dworkin isn't talking. Oberon lays in Chaos in a place the royalty lay their dead called the Tombs of the Ancestors of Darkness. Brand and Deirdre both died in the Abyss. Oberon and Random both confirm that both Osric and Mirelle are dead and properly buried but neither has had their corpses hauled back for burial.

Random once told me he thought having empty tombs could come in handy one day. I did not like the smile he gave me.

Brolic's Tower

The tenth card shows a tower, a tooth of stone, rising out of a crystal clear lake. The House of Brolic rules a vast realm in the Golden Circle from this edifice. The trump delivers you at the point that this view is taken from. A way station prepares visitors for the trip down to the shore, across the ferry, and up the winding trail that leads to the top.

Someone really nervous created this royal tower, someone really afraid of attackers. I would not be eager to try and take it by force. Within the realm of Dreana, where the Brolics rule, sorcery, conjuration, and even shadow magic does not work.

The interior is suitably medieval and gothic. I bet Oberon just loved the place. I find it and its people dour and depressing. If they don't like that portrayal they can kiss my hairy red-freckled arse.

Lou's Market, New Orleans, Earth

The eleventh card is another of the Diners of Amber that seems to have Random's recommendation, and grudgingly my own. Lou's Market has the best fish available. Something Amberites have a hard time admitting. They serve great food in a to-go market, or you can sit at the counter and dig in there. No fancy tableware just chipped plates and paper bags. Just bowls to wash your fingers and rags to dry them off. There are jars of condiments so vast that a chef might forget the fish and just sample custom mustards, salsas, sauces, dips and salad dressings. Are you interested in getting 10 pounds of heavenly batter-fried fish and a jumbo box of wedge fries, with malt vinegar, salt, and homemade tarter sauce? Lou's is the place. There is a park across the street, usually crowded with people, families, ball-games, and picnickers under a nearly always warm and sunny sky. Even the rain is warm and pleasant.

There is a cool Jazz club near by. Great jazz and blues roll off the horns and hands of geniuses. A card club a mile or two away is worth the walk, and surprise, they can exchange Amber silver & gold wings for the paper play money they use there. Just don't ask to buy your metal back.

Braldig's Tinkery

In the city of Gorsali in the shadow of Larengar is a vast collection of buildings where all shadow seems to deposit their dead tech, old machines, and knockabout clinking trash. I spent two months once just going through the nooks and crannies of this palace. I counted over 3000 rooms filled with the strangest array of broken parts I ever imagined.

So who owns this place? Erasamus Braldig. This is a cantankerous guy who is unequaled in simple tinkery. That is a polite way of putting the truth. Braldig is a hairy pain in the ass. I think he is the person that casts shadows of nasty old cusses. He makes his own gin, drinks it straight, eats his beef raw, and you can piss off if you don't like it. You got to love a guy so sure of himself that he doesn't give a tinker's damn about what anyone thinks of him. He is that tinkerer and he keeps his damns close to the vest. That's the kind of a guy he is.

I love him. Platonically of course....

I drop by to drink his gin and curse at him every so often. If he tells you to fuck off and get the hell out of his shop, ya know he likes you.

So why is his place in the deck? Well, because he can fix ANYTHING.

From crossbows and fountain pens to rocket ships and laser rifles. If it hums, clicks, spins, ratchets or arcs he can make it better. The price is putting up with his insults. Amberites are not known for their patience in that area. Yet I watched Benedict let this bastard bark at him for three hours just so that he would figure out what was causing a glitch in some construct of his. Benedict is a pretty clever guy, even for an Amberite, and he doesn't give up on tough problems often. He also does not suffer fools, nor insults, any better than any of the royals, less in fact, by far. So for him to come to Braldig is really saying something. That Braldig figured the trouble out in 3 hours is a testament to the difficulty of the problem and his true genius.

Braldig has a hobby that is really an obsession. It might be to see his progress on it that I drop by so often. He created and maintains the most massive constant action device I ever saw. Balls run down tube, flipping cards, that throw switches, lighting lights, cooking food, changing temperature, lifting levers, and swinging wires. Every action with a half-dozen equal and opposite reactions, no energy is lost. Random says he loves sitting in the middle of this device and just watching the thing run.

Me too. Drinking gin.

Vine River

Vine River is in the trump deck because it is a nice place go hunting. The mountains near this river valley are temperate, even in winter. A lush region of gentle mountains with heavily wooded areas and shallow, wide rivers abound in this sparely inhabited shadow. Deer, stags, moose, and a wide variety of game animals are here for the taking.

Some strange function of shadow causes mountain men, devotes of nature and solitude, to find their way here, leaving their home worlds behind. Most never know the difference, and few regret the transition. That they gain an unnaturally long life, such as those in worlds near Amber sometime experience, might surprise them. Many never question the fact that years and decades, even centuries have passed. They were not clock-watchers anyway.

Peaceful, nomadic, nature oriented peoples sometime find their way here too. 1300 Nez Perce Indians arrived long before Patternfall and have been thriving ever since. Their leader, Chief Joseph is closed mouthed about his tribes fortunate rescue but will gladly assist hunters, trappers, and other peaceful people if he can. He is the ruler of this world he calls Wallowakias and Random has reaffirmed the Chief's title to the land, granting him the rank of Duke of Amber, if not quite a Golden Circle King.

Reane Vil Sar manages the royal hunting lodge here. She is a great lady. I promised I would say that because she has large sharp skinning knives and uses them with wicked skill. She has an infectious laugh that only makes her scarier. She arranges hunting expeditions of 3, 7, and 30 days up into the wilderness surrounding the Vine River Lodge. She is also married to Chief Josef granting her the rank of Duchess even if she never uses it.

Like many people in such places of royal importance Reane is retied from her original occupation. She served in the Amber military for 370 years eventually rising to the rank of Marshal and to serve for twenty years as chief of the Amber Guard. The tattoo on her forearm is well earned. She also served unofficially as Oberon's chief torturer.

Wala Heights, Taxorami

Amongst the Diners of Amber is a world that really expresses the point of view that the realms of shadow did not exist before we found them. Wala Heights is one of Random's favorite places in shadow. He speaks of it in Corwin's Chronicles. A place of violence, cards, hang gliding, sultry days and long nights. Thermals ideal for hang gliding and flying.

Wala Heights is an improbable collection of technologies and cultures, mashed together in a fashion that belies explanation. This realm has no ancient history or legends of empire and kingdom. Culturally this place is stagnant. Early in this shadow's history the urge to grow from city-states to empires never really took hold. For tens of thousand years this place has developed a vast patchwork of walled cities that adorn the incredibly rock terrain. Garden agriculture developed as an art here, attempting to get the maximum amount of produce out of the tiny areas of arable land. A class of merchants, who are the only thing nearing a governing body or a religious order, monopolizes inter-city trade.

One of the many City States is Wet Wendal's place in Halzir. More about that later.

This realm must be on a thousand different shadowpaths of a dozen different initiations. That is the only way to explain the diverse flavors of both foods and technologies. The fact that one city-state might have electric street lights and its neighbor might use oil-soaked torches for lighting its roads shows that good ideas travel slowly. The lack of any responsible city government in a city-state is not unusual.

Food here is scrumptious, strangely spiced and exotic, but the portions are small. The drinks are potent and usually mixed. The beer is nasty. The roast pigeon in mustard sauce is sublime. Look for Mickle Firn's Hovel. It is a great restaurant/ casino with crash space around back. The food they serve is what qualifies this as a Diner of Amber.

Warfare never really grew above band combat. City-states tore building supplies directly off the mountains they were built on and into. Bands, gangs, and block warfare has dominated this shadow where people never developed the knack for recording history. Plays, music, and art, all revolve around the here and now; names are frequently changed to reflect the local clientele and the creator's names are lost. A careful and dedicated historian could chronicle the history of this world by cataloguing and indexing the vast quantity of such performances. Having done so the historian would find that none of the people here would care.

"What have you done for me lately?" is the order of the day. People might remember what happened in their own lives but they know better than to try and tell anyone about it. Still, there is something to be said for the hedonistic, live-for-the-moment, live fast, die young, leave a nice corpse, lifestyle that dominates Taxorami.

Waste disposal is a problem in this society clinging to the sides of the rocky landscape. Organic waste and material waste are treated similarly but separately. Recycling is nearly a religion. Material waste is deconstructed to its component parts and reused ad infinitum. Everything here seems to have once been something else. The bottom of this process is that once things are too small to reuse they go into the mush that becomes the bricks and mortar the city is built with. Organic waste is deposited in mixing vats that sends it all through efficient wind-turned millstones that grind everything into mulch. The mulch is processed and elutriated till it is amazingly rich. It is then made available to the public for their wall gardens and personal agriculture.

This brings me to one disturbing thing that highlights their lack of a sense of history and it bears comment. Their funerary practices are grim, if practical. Wood is not exactly scarce but it certainly can't be wasted on pyres or cremation. Open ground is too scarce to use it for burials. With so many people, so crammed together, they are sensitive to bad smells, so the death practice of exposure is impractical too. Recycling is a way of life for these people. So the dead are tossed in to the huge mixing pits along with all the other organic waste products with little or no ceremony. Once a person is dead, his corpse is just meat. Cannibalism is a known, if not an active, practice. The bodies go into the mix. Luckily the millstones are good enough that the free mulch does not disgorge knucklebones and fingernails with any regularity.

No statues, monuments, or memorials remember the tales of the dead. Good works are unremembered; crimes not avenged in a few years are forgotten. Justice is swift and brutal. The preferred form of execution is to be thrown into the mulch alive. Understandably, people prefer to go down fighting if they picked a life of crime.

Lastly, in this land of forgetfulness, Random has managed to obtain a sense of immortality. He did it by importing millions of decks of indestructible and fine playing cards with his name and face on the back. Neat trick, brother dear.

Mandalay. This is a topic that will fill volumes and will scatter influences like silver amongst beggars. A few quick comments are worth noting.

Mandalay is a primal realm that stands beside, if a step behind, Amber herself. It is a realm of plenty. The ancient tree Ygg, apparently somehow akin to the Unicorn, the Serpent, and the Bear, was further sanctified by the creation of the Mark of Mandalay. Unlike the compact Pattern of Amber, the meandering Pattern of Avalon, or the shifting multitude of environments in the Lorgus of Chaos, the Mark of Mandalay is a massive circle that is easy to walk and unlikely to harm those who assay it.

The Hub of Mandalay is a wooden bar, 5 feet wide and 3 feet off the ground, surrounding Ygg, 8 miles away from its trunk. It slides away to reveal the Mark of Mandalay below. The interior of the mark is a 16-mile in diameter circle of grass that never browns. Here is found sitting groups, chairs, sofas, tables, and conversation pits. By the trunk is the Great Throne of Mandalay growing out of Ygg itself. Here sits Adrian in glory surrounded by the chairs of the Lords of Mandalay. Lords have his own chairs, suitable to their forms, that grow out of the ground at the tip-end of a root of Ygg. None but they sit upon them, not even Adrian.

Outside the circle is a vast ring 8 miles wide, beginning at the hub, where tents and encampments are arranged in an orderly and efficient manner. Benedict would admire the well-arranged walkways and paths, and the way the ratlines never seem to trip anyone. It is as if Ygg itself warns you silently to watch out for the ropes. Clever Tree. This is the Ring of Life. The Hub, Ygg, the Ring, comprise the Vale of Plenty. Low hills ring the Vale.

To the South of the Vale of Plenty is the Vale of Song. To the north is the Garden. To the East is the Vale of Flowers and to the West is The Vale of Rocks. The Jeweled Road leads east to west and has it's only break in the Vale of Plenty. Good luck marching an army through this mess. Eastward lies Amber; westward lies Chaos.

Adrian's Dramaturgy is in a small valley between the Vale of Plenty and the Vale of Song.

Now if you visit Mandalay here is the way to get food. You approach the bar and place your plates, bowls, schooners, trenchers, or whatever you want to carry food away in, upon the polished surface. You wrap on it two times and they are filled by the power of the Mark. Now what they are filled with is anyone's guess, and probably the mark's joke. Any type of food available in shadow is likely to arrive. I once got a peanut butter and banana sandwich, a plate of humis, a cup of ant-spiced coffee, a tray of bread made from corn and June bugs, and a decanter of the most delicious wine I have ever tasted. Diners beware.

Two things are guaranteed about the mana of Mandalay. None of it was made from sentient species, and all of it is edible. Of course people's tastes vary in shadow. There are some Black Zone worlds where they eat truly repulsive things.

The trick is that the longer you stay in Mandalay, the more often you visit, or should you take up residence in the region someplace, the more frequently the hub begins to know what you like to eat. Residents are even able to get the hub to learn what type of food you like in which platter. So if you feel like a balcony sandwich, bring the green plate, or like lasagna bring the red dish, or white mice in machine oil and chocolate sauce bring the black bucket with the chipped corner. I have managed to convince the Hub that when I put the crystal cup I stole from chaos on the bar I want that remarkable red wine. Splendid trick, really, and a fine way to encourage immigration.

Lords are able to place orders. Really now. A very splendid recruiting technique if I do say so myself.

One of the many oddities of Mandalay is that when one decides to travel from one area to another, they think on it and the distance seems to shrink. Consequently rather than walking the 29 miles from Ygg to the Vale of Song one needs to merely decide to go to the Vale and within a mile's walk one arrives there. Not actually teleporting, sort of like skimming, one frequently sees striders appear, take 4 or 5 steps, and disappear. Of course, the striders may be going someplace but they can turn aside at any time; another very clever trick in this very tricky place.

Addendum

Castle Arden

Now the time comes for me to say a few mean things about my dear brother Julian. Alright. I trust him least of all my kin. There, I said it. The discovery of Castle Arden is a case in point.

This castle is Julian's headquarters in Arden. Until recently it was not open to his brothers. Not exactly off limits, just secretive and not spoken about outside the secret circles of the Arden Guard. Even Benedict was unaware of its existence. That takes doing. Look at the damn thing. Its a bloody cathedral in a open piece of parkland. And no one mentioned it? Really.....

He raised his son Duncan there never letting on that he had spawned.

Perhaps Oberon knew about it and kept it's secret but Random is a very different kind of king. He put a trump of the place right there in the deck. So much for secrecy, eh, Jules?

It is a military establishment of the first order and one of Amber's last lines of defense. From there the defense of the land route and the shadow trails is administrated.

A word to the wise. The point the trump takes you is at least as well guarded as the courtyard of Castle Amber, but the guards here want official travel passes exposed upon arrival or metal will fly. Ask Julian if you can drop by before you attempt to trump in. Julian will not be responsible for kinsman who die at his doorstep because they did not understand the need for security.

Adrian's Dramaturgy

A short walk from the Hub of Mandalay is this valley dedicated to leisure and the performance arts.

Adrian's Dramaturgy is a massive collection of amphitheaters in a long, narrow, valley between the Vale of Plenty and the Vale of Song. Its complex of production areas, training and practice rooms, stages, stadiums and apartment buildings are a center of entertainment like few in shadow. The general tech level is high but different venues establish different tech levels for its viewers as well as it actors and crew. Why is any one's guess.

A thousand shadows send their best performers here to display their skills. Many of the performers never leave. They live in the Ring of Life, or in the apartments and condos in the region, and work in the Dramaturgy. Many live here, and living here, as in Amber, they become young and long-lived, if not immortal.

What do I recommend?

The Cabri Carts are the best snack carts to be found anywhere, with a vast profusion of finger foods and drinks. Each is staffed with a stand-up comedian or improvisational actor auditioning for parts in the established theaters. Auditions might take years as they dispense portable potables. The results are outrageous, profane, bizarre, often morbid, and hilariously funny. You have to give Adrian credit to have this in mind when he carved the Mark.

The Resheika Theater presents only works by Shakespeare, Alvian, Dresir, Mondolian, Shaw, Arthur Miller and the famed, and well-respected dramatist, Bleys of Amber. I was there once and, honest to the unicorn, I caught a performance of one of my own works, from my early years. I was overwhelmed. The Resheika Troop does only the highest of class productions. I am, however, still awaiting my royalty check.

The Hop Shop is a comedy shop where the Cabri come for open mic nights and you are very likely to see famous celebrities from the length and breadth of shadow plying their trade. I caught Robin William, George Carlin and Droppa Ma Pantz doing a three-man show once. Spectacular. The fare is happy-hourish, the bar is well stocked. It has a vast selection of smoking herbs. Truly a thing of wonder.

The other end of the scale is Miko's Bashery. This place caters to, aaa..low brow humor, shall we say? Here you will find people destroying a wide variety of things; not for the weak of heart. The only rule is that you can not kill it specifically for the show. However, you can kill it, even sacrifice it, if you plan to eat it afterwards. Oh, and no sentient victims.

As for Miko's I will state this for the record and Adrian can bitch me out if he likes. I saw Rahz Ferso's act and was laughing my head off as he bashed planters, and water bottles and portraits of Amberites. But when he shape-changed the fuzzy faces of the kittens to look like Oberon, then gleeful took his time smashing them and playing with the severed limbs. Well, that was over the line. I don't care if he ate it.

So I hunted him down in shadow and iced him, roughly; tough luck for the smash fans. Like I have said before, you place your bets, you take your chances.We can't fix everything we don't like in shadow but I can certainly fix things that take the time to piss me off. Call me a harsh critic. Next act?

Kanil Dri's is a concert hall for orchestra and opera. Never a dull moment, never a note off key, never a warbling soprano unless the libretto calls for it.

The Bijou Multiplex is a massive movie theater with 10,000 screens. Rooms hold 12 to 12000 seats. The IMAX and ALLMAX halls seat up to 20k. The holoform rooms seat as few as 2 or as many as 30. Show times are set ahead of time.

The Bellevue Multiplex is next to the Bijou. It has 5000 small theaters that can be reserved for private shows. Then the renter may either provide their own tapes or discs, or pick from the unlimited collection owned by the Bellevue itself.

Shiki Lee's is a jazz/swing Dance club. Great tunes, great beat and lots of movement, cold drinks and willing women. Adrian, you lucky dog.

Lastly, The Forum of Gold. This massive concert hall features mainly loud techno music of the sort earth-folks term Metal or hard rock. The big bands and the big shows from a thousand different techno shadows either come here or have their shows holographically presented here. I have a private box.

Speaking of Holographs. Many of these venues kype holgraphs of performances out of shadow. Takes some of the juice out of seeing things live but it is probably a heck of a lot easier that way.

Addendum

Phil's Diner

Next on the travelogue of the Diners of Amber is the mellow nightspot called Phil's Diner.

This place is best described as a good place to get a decent cup of coffee any time of the night or day. It is a workingman's cafe and is usually pretty quiet. Sit at the bar and nurse your miseries over a cup of Phil's fine java.

The neighborhood is a reasonably safe one despite this shadow being lodged in an epoch of rum-runners, bathtub gin, speakeasies, illegal casinos, corrupt politicians, and gangland slayings. Fair enough excitement to be found if you take the time to look for it.

I must admit I have visited this shadow often enough to have bought a townhouse a block from Phil's. Phil works the midnight shift himself, and will gladly tell you about his 30 years as a military cook. He served in the Spanish American War, World War I, and even did some time in India under the British.

He likes to talk military stuff while he cooks for the next day. The place smells of baked apples all night as he makes the two dozen apple, peach, prune, pumpkin and lemon meringue pies he needs for the next day. He has a cute little service he provides the locals. They drop off their lunch pails after work. Then in the morning they come by, have breakfast for 1 buck, usually 2 eggs, 2 sausage, 1/2 a potato, toast and coffee. Then they pay a buck 1.75 for breakfast and a full lunch pail. The pail lunch contains a meat sandwich, an orange or an apple, a biscuit with a slice of cheese, and thermos of lemonade in the summer or cocoa in the winter, and a slice of fresh baked pie. They usually flip him 2 bucks, giving him a tip. That is until a day or two before payday when they are counting their nickels and dimes. Phil understands.

As we travel shadow we find absolutes. Phil absolutely makes shadow's best cheesecake and this is the ultimate reason Random wanted a trump of this place. Know your monarch, love him, praise him, and feed him cheesecake.

So if you show up of an evening don't be surprised to find yourself slathering mustard on wheat bread and slapping down bologna to feed some factory worker the next day. The fringe benefits are great coffee, friendly conversation, and a slice of fresh apple pie. Or, if you are lucky, a slice of his cheesecake on the house.

Don't let Phil fool you though. It might surprise you , as it did me, and would certainly surprise the factory men, but Phil has not only cooked for Blackjack Pershing, Teddy Rooselevdt and Eddie Rickenbacher but for Benedict of Amber. Yep, he served Ben for 122 years as his chief logistical adviser for provender. Mainly a shadow role in Avalon, he none the less is a shadow wise wearer of a broken pattern imprint and a sorcerer of no mean ability.

He is enjoying his retirement though and sees no reason to return to active duty. I respect him when he says the greatest power being a shadow-walker has given him is the power to find someplace to be happy.

May the Unicorn so bless us all one day.

addendum

The Church of the Unicorn, Amber

This card places one at the Royal entrance to the main shrine of the Church of the Unicorn. Here comes the Royalty of Amber to pay obeisance to our grandmother the unicorn. I would really like to say something glib and clever about that but I think I shall show a modicum of restraint. Let us say merely that we all know what this place is, and why we go there.

Jeweled Road, Cantal, Diega

This card could have been designed to deliver one anywhere along the road but Random chose Diega.

Diega is a vast shadow and a reasonably loyal member of the Golden Circle. It is approximately a day's ride, shifting shadows or following one of several shadow-trails, to reach Amber. Diega is in the same position Amber is technologically. All the same rules of nature, chemistry, and magic apply. The weather patterns and colorscapes are the same. They share the same sky. Also the same general laws, government and military readiness. They form one of the first lines of defense against invaders on the land route toward Arden. Diagans provide something close to a 12th of the Amber military, et al. Count Anshar Di Maris is on the Amber Security Council as the GCST representative.

The trump delivers one to a place outside the city of Cantal. It is a massive city that bears a similar layout as the city of Amber. A large number of land and sea trade routes converge in Cantal, narrowing to three major sea routes, and one major land route. The land route is now covered by the Jeweled Road. Much of the business in Cantal relies on this. House Fasray alone moves thousands of ton of merchandise culled from shadows deeper inward than the Golden Circle extends. The business of finding good stuff and selling it dearly in Amber reaps huge rewards.

He selected this particular point on the road for a reason he may not want known. So of course I will tell you.

Look at the card. See the first tree on the left? Do you see how there are four trees in a row behind it running down the road, on the left? Well, once upon a time, Brothers Random, Brand, and Bleys had a very long lunch beneath the branches of these trees; beneath the furthest of the five. We shared Diega delicacies with three charming ladies of the House Fasray. Ilean, Nalya, and Kela. Kela shared a delicacy with his majesty that he had not tasted yet under the tree in front. Brand and I were enjoying our own repasts at the time but we were gladdened that our kid brother, so small amongst his elders, was finally going to have some really juicy gossip we could hold over him.

Until now, anyway.

Addendum

Halzir, Taxorami

Halzir is a strange section of a very strange world. I waxed rhapsodic earlier about this shadow so I won't repeat myself but Halzir is a different kettle of fish.

This is one of the Diners of Amber. Three ribbons of stone, a thousand feet long, 300 feet tall, and 200 feet wide rise out of a calm blue sea. The ribbons extend down 200 feet below the surface of the waters. Over the centuries these once solid ribbons of stone have been mined, carved, and populated. Bridges span the ribbons and nearly twenty thousand people live here.

People here live on fish. The ribbons span a major spawning route and thousands of fish swim north to south every day. They just toss out nets from their windows, lower them and drag up a couple of fat trout for supper; maybe a couple dozen for smoking or drying.

One would think they would get tired of a diet so heavy on fish. I did mention the fact that the Taxorami are forgetful, right?

The card actually delivers the traveler to the doorway on the extreme lower left of the card, near a wharf for riverboats, and gondolas. This is Wet Wendell's Hothouse. Wet Wendell runs a really tight ship. I consider him a close personal friend, which of course means i love him dearly and don't trust him a tiny little bit. Restaurant, card-club, distillery, boarding house, brothel, dance club, industrial hub, conference center and municipal offices all rolled into one. That's the Hothouse.

Wet Wendell passes for a Mayor in Halzir. In much the same way he might also pass for a governor of Taxorami. Or an emperor, pirate, robber-baron, procurer, pimp, or Indian chief. He is a pretty funny guy and knows very well about Amberites. Knows most of us personally. While Taxorami is physically nowhere near a Golden Circle world, Wet Wendell's has held high level meetings of a dizzying variety. One of the preliminary Patternfall Treaty documents was signed here. Two Golden Circle Treaties were signed here. A private defense agreement between Caine and Wet Wendell was worked out here. Both Random and the last Swayvill have been known to the vacation here. Wet Wendell understands about reservations, emergencies and the need for added security measures.

Wet Wendell also makes no secret of his eagerness to have Taxorami welcomed into the family of Golden Circle Signatory Kingdoms. Of course, that usually requires a monarch, or at least some kind of shadow spanning government, something the Taxorami are simply not culturally able to grasp. Signing a Golden Circle Treaty with Wet Wendell of Halzir would be like Amber signing a Golden Circle Signatory Treaty with Luxembourg on the earth world of your choice. He is eager to do favors for Amberites, even the nobles, if he thinks they might one day have enough of Random's ear to advise him on this matter.

The problem is that while Wet Wendell desperately wants a GCST, he is enough of a politician to entertain the possibility of signing the Black Zone Pact Instrument as well. He has been building up favors at both ends of shadow against the day he is in striking range of either a GCST or a BZPI and a working pen. This irritates Random, bothers the new Swayvill, and delights those of us that like to see our monarchs get a little pissy from time to time.

The Berlin Train Station

All right. This one is my fault.

I have made a practice of visiting places where doomed people reside, and where their fates have been demonstrated as hopeless in nearby shadows. This is one such place.

It is an earth world in the middle 20th century in a country called Germany. A fascist regime called the National Socialists rule. In this shadow they began a war with the country to the east of them, called Poland, destroyed it in days, and marched directly to the massive country of Russia and conquered it in months. They then settled their differences with their other neighbors and sunk in to managing their internal racial problems.

Outside of the capital of Nazi Germany lays a train-station that is a convenient place for me to arrive if I plan to do some stuff in this shadow. It has a direct line to a collection of crematoriums of epic proportions in the region of Poland where whole races of people are being exterminated. Tartars, Jews, Mongolians, Muslims, Chinese are all being turned into smoke.

So I go there and throw monkey wrenches in the works, liberate the doomed, and relocate them elsewhere in shadow. Call it a hobby. I hate Nazis.

So I left one of my own trumps on a stack of finished place trump originals and when Dworkin created the multiple decks there it was.

I will give a bottle of Bayle's Red, of any of the good vintage years, for any Nazi rank medallions over the level of Colonel as long as proof of death comes with it. I am not squimish.

Vale of Flowers

Trust Delwin to take a lush heaven of flowers and life and to paint the trump in 20 shades of dull. The Vale of Flowers straddles the Jeweled Road as it meanders toward Amber. His trump looks like a paint-by-the-number landscape.

This lush meadowland is filled with the green of spring and flowers in their first bloom. It is restive, even calming, and camping here is sublime.

I have heard that Adrian has decreed that if it is in his power he will direct the invading forces from either pole into certain vales where they will act out their orgy of death. If Chaos is the aggressor the battlefield will be the Vale of Rocks; if Amber is the aggressor the battle will take place here amongst the snapdragons, daffodils, and camellia bushes of the Vale of Flowers.

Big Tree

Yep, it's a big tree. Can't miss that.

There is not much to say about Big Tree. If it is a Diner of Amber it only serves fresh fruit. Massive trees, tens of thousands of feet tall, and wide, rise out of the ground on a narrow trunk. The roots extend hundreds of feet down, raising a parcel of land into the sky. This ends up with a series of strong roots supporting the tree hundreds of feet in the air.

The place must be really close to Chaos.

Oracle of Drisna

Yow. Drisna. This Oracle is a terrifying place; it is a place of revelation.

I spoke on Oracles earlier and this place meets all the criteria. A narrow bridge reaches the top of an isolated spire over a chasm thousands of feet high. The base of the mountains is lost in a shimmering illusion of blues and river water in this frigid realm. The pathways lead no where else. I traveled for ten days in all directions and could find no other sign of inhabitation.

Don't try to build here. If you mortar one stone to another it will crumble within ten hours. Tents collapses, decomole deflates. Weird. The place really does not want you to stay. The atmosphere disappears 20 feet off the ground, the water mist is sleep inducing. There is neither plant life nor any native animal life. Neither insects nor fish.

The spire of Drisna is a powerful artifact. Upon arrival your senses will be bombarded with a vast sense of power. Magic is more powerful here by a factor of ten. All my hung spells wove off their racks upon arrival. Conjure a candy cane out of shadow and a ton of suckers arrive.

The Oracle itself is an experience worth having. A colonnaded temple surrounds a low altar. Mounted into the altar is a glowing globe a foot across in which swirl colors in smoke and oil. Place your hands upon it and place your question. You will be swept away into realms of imagination where your question is played out and options are examined. Not for the meek.

There is really only enough room for one person at a time. Regardless the experience is not a group one.

Salisgir, Unari.

Defiantly not a diner.

Well, depends what you eat.

The Great Gorge of Unari houses a waterfall of amazing beauty. It is a vast region of incomparable appeal. Watercourse, flower draped bowers amidst smells of honey and roses.

I was surprised when Random wanted this card included. Nearly all of the elders have had assignations of the romantic kind in this shadow at one time or another. Rumor has always suggested that Osric, Finndo, and Benedict were conceived here. It is a great place to make whoopy.

In retrospect I must admit it makes some sense. Man can't live on bread alone.

Addendum

Fantalin, Thelusia

Ancient Thelusia. Vast and mighty is the second ally of Amber, the second signatory kingdom of the Golden Circle. Only Rebma sits higher in the Council of Nations overseen by Amber.

Thelusia is like the next-door neighbor you can't get to return your hedge trimmers and who never asks for his snow-shovel back. So many interactions occur between the kingdoms that the cultures are nearly identical. This has cosmological reasons as well as practical ones.

When a stage show goes on the road, its first stop is the Imperial Theater of the Dramatic Arts in Fantalin. While there are universities aplenty in Amber itself, the Imperial University of Thelusia houses the Amber Chair of Sorcerous Arts. This is in Fantalin. The Great Green Shrine of the Unicorn is the most massive temple of the Unicorn in the Golden Circle, dwarfing the Shrine of the Unicorn in Amber. The Athenaeum of Oberon, attached to the Imperial University of Thelusia, contains more original manuscripts from the Golden Circle than any known place. The Museum of Imperial Thelusia is the second greatest Museum in the GC containing more masterpieces than they can display.

Fantalin is the capital of a nation that comprises the entire known surface area of the planet it resides on. Even Amber shares her sphere with Rebma. Fully 1/4 of the military of Amber comes from Thelusia. It is the first major kingdom outside of Amber that is not in some way a Shade of Amber herself. It is big. All of the elder royals were unceremoniously dropped at Fantalin by no less than Oberon, and educated by the School of Royal Rights, Fantalin. Perhaps Random should revive the custom.

I would dearly love to poke fun at stodgy, loyal, ancient, and fanatically pious old Thelusia, and at my alma-mater IUT while I am at it. To tweak the noses of the Deans and professors that so dominate the culture and act as Miss Manners to its superior, Amber.

But I can't.

In Corwin's chronicles Oberon in the guise of Ganelon speaks of his youth in Avalon. It stuck in my memory. I have hoped, even prayed, since I read Corwin's Chronicle myself, that before Oberon slew him those words were originally Ganelon's. That Oberon repeated them to Corwin, at an appropriate moment, as homage to the man Ganelon once was. Corwin swears he repeated the tale intact.

Ganelon says, "Youth, love, beauty-I knew them in Avalon. Proud steeds, bright metal, soft lips, dark ale. Honor."

We should all have such a place. Fantalin, in Thelusia, was mine.

Reluctantly, Addendum

Augmentation to the Original

Here we come to a tricky part of this missive. The extra part.

What lie below this point were not part of the original trump deck published Jan 1, 5250. Forces that remain anonymous despite my personal suspicions magically added them. As I stated in the introduction of this reprinted version of my article. "Diners of Amber," I believe it is Dworkin mucking around with these cards. But he isn't talking and I am not forcing him too. I am merely putting my cards on the table, as it were.

So if my edge in commenting on these is too dull or too bitter, you know the reason and who to deliver your complaints. As I said above, and as Corwin once said," Come whisper me your objections."

The Addendum

Beyond here, there be Dragons....

Ganras Galleries, Vies

This is a good place to get a painting done or have a glass of tea or wine with really pretentious art critics in the earth world of 19th century Vienna/Vies in the Great Kingdom of Austrasia. This nation spans the globe of a world where Napoleon and France conquered the world by 1840, leaving a strong imperial monarchy and several generations of able rulers. As has been commented on before, in shadow anything is possible.

For details on Napoleons impressive career visit the Addendum

Call it a Diner of Amber for one reason-These people really know their beverages. This world sports a populace where the average man-on-the-street knows volumes about teas, coffees, beers, wines, alcohols, medicinal sodas, and pharmacology. This said, those that specialize in an area can really tell you something about the damn tea you are drinking...

King's Retreat

This place is a very interesting one and I think its inclusion in the deck is a little tweak at the rest of us.

This was Oberon's little hide out where he apparently spent thousands of hours. Now Random is king and the place is his.

The trick is that only Random can activate this trump, despite the chill it emits, it will not chime to the touch. It is a closed place. It is here in the deck so no mater which deck Random confiscates he can use it to escape. Clever potentate, a word for thee; my deck holds no such card and the trumps in your deck burn as merrily as any others.

Gerard's Hunting Lodge

Imagine? Gerard has a hunting lodge. Stuffed with dead things, tankards, beer kegs, flattened empty animals, candle lanterns, roaring fireplaces, and a kitchen designed to cook entire carcasses.

About what you would expect.

Hunting trips can be arranged through Gerard. His chief guide, Talowar, is a Nez Perce Indian from the Vine River tribe. A quiet, but friendly guy, he knows more about hunting, trapping, skinning, and other woodsy things than any man I ever met. He has one quirk that is really difficult to get used too. He knows more jokes about beavers than I ever heard. A night of listening to them was one of the most hilarious nights of my life despite my belief that there were not that many jokes about beavers in all shadow.

His point was, in the end, aren't all dirty jokes about beavers?

Addendum

Oracle of Night

I have spoken about oracles a couple of times in this work. I have also mentioned that several cards have appeared in the deck after the original publishing date. I also related that Dworkin made it very clear I would continue to comment on the new cards. With these points in mind I give you the following.

The morning I peered through my deck and discovered a trump of the Oracle of Night and the Tower of Grief I broke out in a cold sweat. I remained in it for an hour. Then I went to the Sea View Garden and I drank a bottle of gin. Lastly, I wept.

Fiona found me. Someone ratted me out. I showed her the card, she checked her own deck. She sat speechless, till she began drinking with me.

It all started at the Oracle of Night.

Whoever is putting these cards in the deck is playing a dangerous game.

The Oracle of Night is a terrible place and the font from which many woes have flown. Brand, Fiona, and I sought in shadow for a powerful oracle. We sought the most powerful oracle we could find, the three of us, with all our powers focused on the task. We came to the Oracle of Night.

Therein we found the Seat of Seeking. Brand sat first. I was second. Fiona was third. Soon after we followed the paths laid before us. It led to our cabal, my assault on Amber, the marring of the Pattern, Brand's imprisonment, Oberon's death, the Battle of Patternfall, Brand and Deirdre's falls into the Abyss and eventually to the Unicorn anointing Random.

I am of a mind to raise an army as I tread shadow and to lay siege to the Oracle of Night, bringing it down to rubble. Sadly, it is protected by chaos.

Addendum

Tower of Greif

The Tower of Grief is a very special place in Shadow. It is a place of great sadness and loss. It is a place to come to rest and leave your cares.

It is a temple of suicide. It is a mausoleum of the living. It is the last place you want to find yourself and sometimes it is the only place to be.

There is a saying in shadow that I like. "Don't go to Chinatown."

I don't particularly know what it means but I think it expresses the Tower well. Sometimes there are places we fear, and dare not visit, but eventually must confront. I confronted my grief in the Tower.

The Tower rests in a shadow near the Abyss and the Chaosians go there frequently. Once it was a construct of Chaos but the creation of Amber stranded it on this side of the abyss. Its mighty spires, three of which are pictured in the trump, contain balconies in vast numbers, none of which may overlook each other. Neither can sound of wailing or angst escape their walls, though laughter will. The heartbroken, the hopeless, the defeated come here. Those who could not bring themselves to weep, shed tears in the Tower of Grief.

Amongst the many powers of the tower is that from its balconies you can gaze out into shadow and view any funeral, memorial, or rite of death in shadow, at any time of the shadow's history. Eerie shit. I have it on good authority that the balconies were filled to capacity only once. When the funeral procession for Oberon came snaking out of shadow, dragging the remnants of the Black Road to the Fane of Zila, over the Abyss, and down into the very tomb of the Ancestor's of Darkness. There wept the Lords of Chaos for the death of Oberon, that they could cry at his passing, and bemoan the coming of a less lenient liege to Amber. .

If the Tower of Grief and the Oracle of Night seem similar it is because they are in neighboring shadow veils. The Oracle of Night is the first shadow of the Tower of Grief. They are one shadow away from the Fane of Zila.

Take what warning you may from the proximity of these edifices of gloom.

Tir Mar Gala

This place, like Tir no'gath in Amber, is a stairway up to a shadowy reflection of the Hub of the Unicorn. It appears only once a month

Unlike Tir No'gath this is not a realm of prophecy, it is a realm of solitude. It is a cloudy realm that is death for the deathless, rest for the restless, and peace for the haunted.

Adrian tells me that in this cloudy realm one need only lay down to sleep to doze into peaceful, dreamless sleep. The sleeper wakes briefly once a month, to decide if he wishes to continue his rest. They may even determine how long they wish to rest. A month, a year, a century is all the same to Tir Mar Gala.

While here they can not be trumped, detected, taken against their will, nor slain, harmed or found. One may heal here, so if you are damaged, crippled, maimed or otherwise injured, and need some rest, this is the place to let all your cares go by.

Addendum

Moondance Café

Amongst the Diners of Amber is the bright splash of grease and pastels called the Moondance Café and it is a really strange place even amongst the spires of New York. One might get the wrong idea about this shadow if this is the only place you visit. Then again it is not far from 42nd street and I guess that counts as a weird zone too.

The Diner is staffed by waiters, waitress, cooks and busboys dressed as celebrities from the 1950's of the earth shadow. This dynamic period had many stereotypes that are entertaining to watch them work in.

Now Random would not have allowed this in the deck if it was just for the weirdly dressed folks. Nope, this is a fine diner. The Blue Plate Special is a hearty meatloaf with potatoes and that really plasters an Amberite's' ribs. Breakfasts are hearty and the coffee cup is never empty. These, however, are not the specialties.

The specialty the Moon Burger is a double meat patty, with all the fixings. A full 3/4 pound of red meat, cooked to please. On the side is a big plate of kris-cut fries, and a large cup of either cole slaw or the soup of the day. Friday is clam chowder day and it is a recipe Dame Margot claims to have created.

Yummy.

Rebma

Rebma, the first Jewel. The first of the Golden Circle Kingdoms and the only other nation on the sphere that Amber inhabits. Oddly, they have never been very involved in the politics of Amber. Oberon never took a Rebman wife, though Llewella is the result of a brief affair, and Martin is the result of a dalliance of Random's. Rene is the result of a one-night stand between Moire and Corwin.

Things have changed. Rebma is a player in the game of nations in the Golden Circle Kingdoms, taking a leading role in the new era of King Random.

Moire is Queen here still. And something about Patternfall really put a bee in her bonnet. Or perhaps a minnow in her hairnet. She replaced Sir Masr won Vieak, the venerable Ambassador of Rebma after a distinguished if forgettable term of over a thousand years. The new Ambassador, Baron Sir Honsol Moir Tral, is a distinguisherd proper, and respectable young nobleman of the ancient Moir Tral family. He is also a sly, crafty, and extremely dangerous devotee of both the spoken and the written word. He also wielded a mean spear at Patternfall so his knighthood is by no means honorary. He earned his spurs the old fashioned way, the bloody way.

Rebma was never really an open society till after Pattenfall. They had active trade missions, embassies, cultural exchanges, and political representation. They contributed to the defense of Amber with a full quarter of the navies and merchant marines. They managed the sea routes into Amber.

But all of these were done elsewhere. People rarely ever went to Rebma. People thought even less about the great cities of Moins just under the water outside the northern city of Ober or the industrial city of Yal under the waves of the beaches of western Amber. We didn't think of them because we never visited them. Neither Oberon nor Moire encouraged either tourism or fosterage.

Now things have changed.

Moire has encouraged tourism in this new age. She has opened the universities to the sons and daughters of the nobility of the GCST kingdoms as well as those of Shadow. Sir Honsol Moir Tral has let his daughters serve as Ladies in Waiting to Queen Vialle. Of course his daughters were always fond of Vialle during the lonely years before she was engaged to Random.

Rebma seems to understand that having the Queen of Amber as a native of theirs is a good thing. Imagine...

Sardi's, New York, New York

Now we are talking. `

Right dab in the middle of New York's Theater district is a watering hole of the elite. This is THE place to come after a night of theater and dancing. I brought the whole company of Dalwil's Feather to Sardi's one night and they fed us like kings.

I recommend making reservations though, rather than just dropping in. You want food to go, hit Calrabon, but if you want fancy food, served in the best atmosphere, this is the place. Also, their portions are human-scaled. Making a reservation insures that the portion sizes will be more in line with what we of Amber desire. Pay in gold; tip in gold too.

I prefer the Shrimp Sardi. Really tasty and bite sized, but call ahead to scare the Neuva Cuisine crowd away.

Check out the wall of caricatures while you are there. Celebrities of the shadow are displayed here. Amongst the known people are less well-known faces of Bleys of Amber, Random of Amber, Gerard of Amber, and even Llewella of Rebma.

One quick thing. I got Benedict roaring drunk here once. I even paid for damages.

A word of advice; Don't get Benedict roaring drunk. He has issues.

The Gugenhiem, NY, NY

This is one of the finest museums in New York and in Shadow too. Of course just because they store some swell stuff is not why this card is here. It is here because it is an unusually good place for clandestine meetings. Hard to bug, lots of walking space and you can see most of it from the railing and see if you are being followed.

It is also as good a spot to arrive in New York as any, except maybe the palace.

Footman's Garage. Los Angeles

One has to give Random credit for cleverness. When I saw three new cards arrive in the deck that sent the traveler to the same New York shadow I asked him what was on his mind. I could understand the Moondance, the Gugenhiem, and even Sardi's, but the Footman's Garage?

Then he told me that the Footman's was in Los Angeles of the same shadow. I was perplexed. I asked him if that was the most important landmark in a city of twelve million people?

Want to guess what his response was?

"Hey bro, nobody walks in LA"

Right. So I took a look.

Random keeps a fleet of cars stored here. Ask for Randy's Fleet Service and check what cars are available. If you know to ask, they know to check them out to you. The manager is Freddy Footman. His grandfather opened the place 60 years before. Freddy is a Hispanic gentleman that has a degree of intelligence that his dour expression hides. Freddy once served as Benidict's driver.

Random keeps a sweet group of rides here. A Jag, a mazaratti, and a cool custom Rolls Royce limousine and a collection of crotch rocket cycles. There are a couple Taurus', BMWs, several ford pickups, and a few Mercedes too. Many of the Amberites keep stuff here, all part of 'Randy's Fleet.' I keep two T-bird classics here, a '56 and a '67, as well as a 2000 Roadster. Flora keeps a red corvette. Benedict keeps a locked section where he keeps his own toys. Merlin dropped off a VW rag-top I borrow sometimes and Corwin keeps a jeep and a Harley. Caine keeps a '32 ford stretch limo that is low on amenities but very high on cool. A few miles away Julian keeps several racehorses, Gerard keeps a very nice luxury yacht, and both Random and Delwin keep a few airplanes.

Of course there is also a couple other things in the Footman's Garage that confuse the employees. There are two Hummers packed with camping gear, several one ton trucks and a dozen large buses, a bobcat, A flatbed with a forklift, a back hoe, even a cement truck. One just never knows when one will need to dump a couple tons of quick cement into a big hole; or what one might want to bury under a couple of tons of cement.

Hidden from public view are twenty M1A battle tanks, 5o Bradley troop carriers, and a hundred battle ready Hummers with mounted Vulcan cannons. There is also a number of helicopters, several harrier jets, 4 Tie Fighters and 4 shuttle crafts. There is also a complicated transporter system linked into the Amber Star Fleet multiversal computer system that can delver any of the these vehicles, especially the military ones, anywhere in this shadow or to transport off planet. All these toys are locked, stocked, and ready to rock!

That's my king.

Addendum

46 Alrus, Begma

Begma has an ancient relationship with Amber. It is amongst the Golden Circle Kingdoms and trades in many of the items common in realms of barbaric splendor.

Alrus is the capital of Begma, a coastal city swelling with trade from a vast inland plain. Amberites wake each morning to Begman tea and slather their bread with Begman butter. An extraordinarily vast trade in food stuffs insures a peaceful relationship between Amber and Begma.

Besides, Begma lies just outside the regions of the Shade realms. A near, but not really similar shadow of Amber.

47 Church of the Serpent

Of all the bizarre places that might find there way into King Random's Deck it boggles my mind to find this card here. I told Random he was nuts.

He said he was only being fair. He said in time there would be a Church of the Bear, the Tree, the Dragon and other creatures.

If you say so, Random.

48 Lighthouse of Hiemnal, Kashfra

The Lighthouse of Hiemnal is a very traditional feature on the coast of Kashfra. A recent signatory of a Golden Circle Signatory Treaty, Kashfra received Random's agreement that no place trump would directly deposit travelers inside the gates of the capital city of Jidrash. Perhaps they are not quite ready to trust their new allies.

Kashfra and Begma are traditional enemies, fighting over a border region called Eregonar. The king of Kashfra is Rinnaldo, the son of Brand of Amber and Jasra of Sawall. The actions of these people were prominent in Merlin's semi-fictionalized novels. A tall, red-headed, fast talker who can sell law books to Chaosians, Rinnaldo, also called Luke, is a friendly and gregarious fellow. His mother is a mean cuss and I have told her so to her face. Of course, I've boinked her too. After many years of usurpation, political wrangling, assassinations and negotiations, a GCST was finalized despite the rabid, even frantic objections of the Begman nation, people, and royal family. Having an Amberite sitting the throne goes a long way to smoothing over political difficulties, especially when the son prefers Amber and the mother is an advocate of chaos. Rinnaldo turned down the offer of a Black Zone Pact Instrument from none less then the old Swayvill himself.

This world is in a Sword & Sorcery age. Flora once described it as 'Barbaric Splendour" and that pretty much covers it. They trade in furs, exotic spices, unusual jewels, and a wide variety of minor novelty magic.

There is a very minor, yet extremely interesting, brand of sorcerers in Kashfra. They create very minor, and extremely useful, magic items that work in Amber. They work there because they use miniscule spells based in full sorcery. These items replicate the nearly ubiquitous "Continualist Items" such as heat stones, cold stones, fire stones, and freeze stones, amongst a wide variety of others. These items will flood into Amber, changing the way homes are heated, streets are lit, food is cooked and stored, drinks are cooled, and ice is created. Rinnaldo really sold us a bill of goods convincing our king this makes up for the frolicsome state of affairs in Kasfra

Part of the agreement in the GCST is that the Council of Wizards, led by Jasra, will be joining the Royal Academy of Sorcerers at Fantalin. Jasra herself receiving a newly endowed Professorial chair; the Kashfran Chair of Temporary Magic. The Council of Wizards, being poor country kin and only partly trained in true sorcery has a lot of ground to catch up. But Jasra, as Queen of the Keep of the Four Worlds, has control over a rather nice power source despite being reluctant in the extreme to allow its use. To gain admittance to it one will have to bargain well, and remember that Jasra is chaosian by birth who snared, and wed, a prince of Amber.

The rumor is that Rinnaldo told her that she could play nice or go home to Chaos in a tightly sealed box. She blinked.

Addendum

Mandalay seems an ideal realm and every time I visit it I like it more. In a vale to the northeast of the Hub of Mandalay is a quiet little realm apart from the universe. Wide golden boughs span beneath a soft sky, where flowers abound in a realm of terraces, gazeboes, and private nooks. The air smells of honeysuckle and love.

Adrian assures me of several things about the Garden. First is that conception will not take place, nor can diseases transfer. In fact a person with a social disease who sleeps the night alone in the Garden awakes cleaned of the taint. Many magical conditions can be cleansed by a night of rest here. Also, those who enter the Garden together can determine whether or not others entering can find them.

The realm is littered with tiny cabins, gazeboes, covered niches, and secluded meadows that can provide privacy to the lovers. They can not be disturbed nor interrupted, not contacted by trump nor surprised by REALLY loud screaming.

Adrian is a very clever guy, if not a subtle one.

50 Vulsar Star Base

Vulsar; The planet of greens and yellows best seen from space. This is because next to nothing grows here that tops 3 feet unless it was brought from off planet. No natural animal life above the insect level except a sparrow like bird that zoologists can not explain why it is even found on this world since no evolutionary trace of it can be found and it pre-dates space travel. Lucky sparrow. Eerie. This is probably why Star Fleet chose it as the main star port in the eastern edge of the Milky Way.

Vulsar is in a shadow that developed along the line displayed in the Star Trek Travel Guides. Called fiction in many worlds, Benedict none the less found the place.

So what is there? Criminy, what isn't.

Pictured is the city of Vulsar Station. It is the governmental center of this planet. Across the vast plains are the construction facilities that produce hundreds of spacecraft a year. Thousands of Orbiters, and tens of thousand of fighters come out of the vast production regions of Vulsar. While replicator technology is rampant they assemble the big stuff by hand.

This is one of the shadows Benedict subtly conquered assuming their technology into the Amber Navy. I remember the day he returned to tell Random about the addition of a thousand starships to the Ship of the Line navy. He chuckled. Actually giggled, saying "Resistance is Futile, Resistance is Futile, Resistance is Futile!" Gave me the chills just to hear him. I am not exactly sure why, but then I don't spend that much time in tech shadows.

No attempt was made to bring this universe of diverse races and creeds, all living under one banner, into the Golden Circle. Ben just walked in, pile-drived shadow manipulation on the folks, and their United Federation of Planets seemed to them to always have been members of the Amberian Federation of Planets, the Amber Star Fleet and a direct part of the nation of Amber. Despite the lack of free will involved, it is probably a step up for them.

Shhhhh!!!!!! Don't tell them this. It's a secret.

Two points about why this card is in the general deck.

While not a Diner of Amber, specifically, they have replicator technology that can instantly duplicate any food it has been programmed to create. So most of the foods you find mentioned here can be replicated. Takes all the fun out of travel.

Secondly, and most importantly for my kinsman, this trump delivers you to The Vulsar Receiving Hall. A giant place starships could pop into and not disturb the furniture. Landing shuttles and all forms of magical & technological transportation forms deliver people here. While it is large enough for massive formal receptions that is not why it is important. The finest Trauma specialists Benedict could assemble wait here. Stasis fields, regenerators, resuscitators, and trauma Docs await the mangled battered and otherwise trashed Amberite with baited breath. Cool trick, Ben.

Now, let us not accuse Benedict of driving the people too hard in this technological wonderland. In the tropical regions is a series of islands that compare favorably with the most beautiful beaches to be found anywhere. There you can find a dark skinned, long-haired, thong clad sex goddess on the lounge next to you, sipping her mia tai and smoking her ganga dubage, who asks you to smear sun tan lotion on her perfect body, especially those hard to reach areas. Oh, and can you refill her drink, four is usually her limit, but today she wants a sixth!

So while you slather her with the sloppy stuff, plotting your strategy to remove the flimsy twine covering her point of entry, she casually asks for your take on the cross-dimensional exposure of the Benedictine-Amberic warp capacity problems inherent in piloting a starship at warp through shadow. Particularly in-between veils near shadow storms and Chaos effects, and especially considering the trisectional theories that Lord Vance and Prince Benedict debated at the Amber Star Fleet Grand Technical Convention meeting this morning, of which she is a Spatial Engineering delegate, and instructor at the Amberian Star Fleet Acadamy of Advanced Sciences.

I tell you, it is enough to put you right off smart girls.

51 Jack Rabbit Slim's

Gracious me. Jack Rabbit Slim's?

It is times like this when I have start rethinking my opinion of our monarch.

This place has been described as a wax museum with a pulse. I think of it a sugary drop of nostalgia from a land that never was. It rocks.

As you come to this Los Angeles Hot spot there are a couple of things to remember. One is that this place is about a mile away from the North Hollywood location of the Footman's Garage. So you can go there & pick up a car first. Heck, borrow my '56 t-bird so you'll fit in. Just return it with a full tank of gas. The second is that being dressed right is a good idea. Hit a retro place for 50's chic. Third is that if you trump directly there ask for 'Randy's Table' at the maitre` tri-de`s station. They will take you to a booth, shaped like a cady, a big pink, finned, love goddess of a machine. That is a Cadillac automobile for you sword swinging, horse riding, lute playing, types.

The front of the place is neon and light, brick and glass. As you enter there is a slot-car track where miniature cars wheel around the course trying to out run each other bereft of gasoline. Tables line the walls, booths surround the raised dance floor that dominates the front room. Back rooms are available for private parties but they loose something in their seclusion. Waiters and waitresses dressed in 50's attire serve the flamboyantly named meals that are elegant and wild with a bit of country size and a bit of urban spice. Listen to the rockabily swing and the rock and roll hop.

I recommend the Bill Haley's Comet Platter. This is a 2/3-lb. onion burger with pickles, lettuce, mustard, grilled onions, two slices of cheese, 3 pieces of bacon and two avocado wedges. It comes with a huge plate of French fries and a giant 32-oz drink. Try the vanilla coke or the cherry coke. These are colas with a splash of vanilla extract and cherry juice.

I tried explaining onion burgers to the chef at Oberon's Fire in Calrabon. He was horrified. So I brought him here and set him up with a comet platter with a $5 milkshake. Now you can get an Onion Burger at Oberon's Fire.

The owner of this place is Elvis Beam. He knows very well about Amberites. He is a thin, wild guy who dresses like Elvis Presley, a musician in shadow, and who laughs easily and fights hard.

He knows a lot about Amberians, and here is why. He was once the King of Amber.

Well, not our Amber, but a Shade Realm, Ambir. In his reality, he was Random, the last survivor of a violent throne war that swept Ambir at the beginning of Eric's reign. To hear him tell it most of the bloody parts were done when he and Corwen drove a VW bus into Amber. There they found Beniydict in the process of executing Fioyna. He and Corwen fought. They killed each other. Random took the throne. Cleaned the place up and set about securing the kingdom. Sadly he only had a few years to rule before Brandy, a female version of Brand, returned and destroyed herself on the Primal Pattern, wiping the shadows connected to Ambir away.

Only he, Flori, and Lewellen escaped. As the three of them traveled shadow they managed to find their way to a Broken Pattern of the True Realm. Once they assayed it they gained greater power over shadow and found out that they were mere shadows of reality. They found themselves to be shadows of the true players of the Great Game, their own lives and trials merely reflections of the True Patternfall. They learned that at the time that Brand marred the true pattern, Brandy had destroyed theirs.

To say they were depressed is an understatement.

As they traveled shadow they had a wide range of adventures but eventually found the Shadow Earth so many of us have spent time on. It being strong from the attentions of so many Amberites over the years; it was like a beacon. There they spent many years in this shadow, eventually finding a place of rest. Random, now Elvis, started Jack Rabbit Slim's, having found a similar watering hole in a nearby shadow. Flori, now Marilynn, lives in Los Angeles too, and can usually be found here. She is an actress famous for her roles in heavy make-up that only she dons. One can guess how that is done, eh, fellow sorcerers and shape-changers? Lewellan, still Lewellan, is apparently a surf bum in Polynesia some place. He drops by occasionally and is an expert at Broken Pattern Trump art. He is also a fair hand at cards and abstract art.

Of course abstract art is not a safe pastime for Amberites. Picaso and Dali had no idea just how wild shadow gets nor did they know that their weirdest art might be realistic portraits of Lords of Chaos. To paraphrase, Art imitates Life.

55. The Stone of Skulls

The Stone of Skulls is a place where items can be given the chance to be empowered. It is a place where powers can be stolen. It is a crapshoot.

One of the things I have found in connection to the travel guides is that there is a wide swath of what are called 'Gamer Worlds'. These are worlds that are somehow connected in a symbiotic relationship, one shadow urban, high tech, the other of a wide range of descriptions, The connection being that certain individuals in the Gamer Worlds seem to be the objects of observation by people in the observer worlds. Call the Observers Players and the objects of observation Characters. There is a game 'Master' who has a wider connection to specific worlds and when a dizzying number of changes and actions occur the Game Master knows of it.

To say this gives me the heebie-jeebies is a vast understatement. Caine and I once found large collections of 'fiction' novels that outlined real and imaginary details of all of our lives. It seems that there may be people in shadow able to know our darkest secrets and most private joys and crimes simply by the agency of letting themselves open to the operations of the game.

Do the math.

There are an infinite number of shadows divisible. I have been assured by Dworkin that a full set of infinity can have boundaries, Like Chaos or the Abyss, or Amber. Arguing the illogical nature of that is pointless and hard on the furniture. In these urban worlds are groups of people who meet as regularly as clockwork to 'play' these role playing games. There they believe they haul us about on strings and make us dance to their music, whatever cacophonic forms it takes, and in fact do seem to view into the lives of the characters on the Gamer Worlds. A nearly limitless number of people on vast numbers of urban worlds viewing the actions of a eclectic variety of shadows.

These shadows have certain similarities that bear considering. Many have an 'unfinished' feel to them as if the Game Master didn't have the time to figure out a better way for people to get water than to carry it in buckets. They have a weird collection of technologies. Barbaric splendor worlds with flush toilets, public transportation, knights on horse back while the population ride bicycles, and magical entertainment devices like televisions, as if the GM-Game Master- can not conceive of a world with out such conveniences.. It tends to be confusing.

Life is cheap on these worlds and justice is swift as a sword but you can never seem to kill the big bad guy no matter how many of his henchman you stab, shoot, scorch, or vaporize. Women tend to dress smuttier then in real worlds and that gives one a tantalizing guess as to the proportion of male gamers to female gamers!

One assumes that the degree of detail in the world, and the vast number of everyday activities that never reach the perceptive threshold of the GM, tell of the creative abilities and vision of the GM and the players.

Or they may all be spies. Voyeurs into the actions of others, dice falling to illustrate the actions broadcast from the unfinished reaches of shadow.

I have played these games, and though they may be insights to the actions of my enemies I shall heretofore avoid playing them because the thought of someone over my shoulder, dangling and plucking my strings is at once fearsome and tantalizing.

Again, heebie-jeebies.

Why, you ask, do I go on so?

The Stone of Skulls resides in just such a world.

Men wear the badly preserved skins of animals they hunted with bows despite the fact that a worm in that world exudes a nylon silk that is woven into a Gore-Tex-like fabric that the commonest peasant uses to keep warm. Knights and warlords ride horses while merchants direct spoke-wheeled wooden wagons propelled by magic and everywhere bicycles are available. Terrible menaces to the universe in the forms of evil sorcerers, liches, lycanthropes, Ork-kings, thief guilds, and cruel gods are regularly and competently slaughtered by groups of 'adventurers' of the strangest combinations one can imagine.

Powerful magics are as easy to acquire as touching an item to a big rock with a candle-topped skull.

Now to our great joy, most of what appears in these worlds is limited to these worlds. Universe-devouring god-slugs can only attempt to chew up tiny sections of shadows before sword wielding knights, and wand wielding mages come striding up and kill them. Undead kings that seek to conquer all the multiverse, rarely get far beyond a single shadow. Powerful magical items that can change the tides, mutate the races, or etch the moon, are useless outside a shadow veil or two of their points of origins.

There are exceptions. The Stone of Skulls is such an exception.

One trumps in 500 miles or more away from where the image seems to indicate. Once there you must seek the stone on a directly northern route, traveling amongst the Gore-Tex clad peasants tilling the field with bicycle wheeled plows under the watchful eyes of the local lord or knight on his manly charger. You must fight a bizarre series of encounters as dangerous as swordmaster bandits, or seas of vicious rabid Hamsters. Rabid elephants are not unknown either. There seem to be a lot of giant things and a lot of rabid things and a lot of ensorcelled things. The GM of this world has a warped sense of humor.

Nonetheless one can certainly die here. Never doubt it. I was laughing so hard at the rabid elephant that charged willy-nilly about knocking over trees and scattering hordes of peasants, that I forgot it was really a rabid elephant and it stuck three feet of tusk through my belly and hurled me 30 feet in the air. Joke-time was over and I melted the beast into a puddle of char and grease before I hit the ground; bleeding and pissed off.

Once you battle the creatures of whimsy either cast by a GM or observed by one, you reach the stone. It is a scene of suitable splendor and the effects it gives can be potent. It is a cheep way to kick a powerful tool up a notch on the power scale. Points of advantage are where you find them and they can be found here.

Once you leave this realm the powers remain.

One last comment. To those who read this, dangling my strings; If it is all right with you, I would like to have a nice peaceful life for awhile and I hope to never meet a rabid elephant ever again.

I mean really, Rabies? Rabid Elephants? That's just mean.

56 Willie's Tavern

Why this card is in the deck I do not understand. Personally I think it is a threat.

This is a local tavern. People come here everyday after work. Have a few beers and a burger with fries. They play pool, watch 'The Game' and then hop in their pickups and go home.

There is something going on here i don't know about.

57. Camelot

Camelot? Angel's and Ministers of grace defend us.

There was a time when Corwin once sought out a place of nobility and honor. He ran right into a vein of tales, legends, people, places, and monsters the like of which boggle the mind. Uncountable numbers of these veins exist but this is the one he found. In the centuries that followed many of his brothers heard the tales of Arthur, Lancelot, Gwain, Lot, Tristan, Guennivire, Isuelt, and all the rest. Having heard them, we sought them out, to live amongst them or to fight against them. Sometimes both.

So now this card arrives and what does it do?

58. Field of Gold

Ah, France

In the days when men were bold, women were delicate and horses were proud steeds there was a short time when chivalry ruled. When Kings met to joust,

59. Twilight

If this place is supposed to be a secret why is it in the deck?

60 Nu Yark, Nu Yark

This shadow of New York is in the regions close to Chaos.

It is in a high tech world that is a cacophony of interlocking loyalties. Nation-states, Municipalities, tribes, Houses, Tongs, Gangs, Corporations, and associations. Gang warfare at the very lowest levels up to the regional wars of nations and the merchant warfare of corporations.

This is a very dangerous world, and Nu Yark is the center of it. Other cities of note in this world are Parrus, Lundon, Muskow, Soo Poloa, Hung Chow, Ticoyo, Sydny, and not to be forgotten, Las Angles. All are equally dangerous.

But danger is the name of the game. With out danger, we might as well just ride tour buses.

The technological level is extraordinarily high. Replicators, transporters, stasis fields, hover craft, blaster weapons, phasers, holographic tech, you name it you can probably find it here.

Obviously, this causes a great deal of conflict but that seems to be what they strive for.

This all said there is great beauty here.

I keep an apartment in the Randow Tower on the 432 floor. Its a quaint 30 room apartment with all the amenities. Crime may be commonplace here but so are the police, the military, the Corp-Cops, and a vast number of 'security specialists' to balance out the criminal element.

61. Moins

This is the second city of Rebma. The Kid Sister of Rebma.

I could go on about the cultural affairs recently opened to Amber. I could discus the people, the art, the passion for living.

But why? Lets talk Fish.

Rebma, as we all know is underwater. Moins is the breadbasket of the deep. Vast schools of fish are herded like cattle here, then gathered, sorted, dispatched, packaged and made ready for export to the dry realms in need of their fish for thier fish and chips or their shrimp cocktails.

62 Forever Gate

This card is to a dry and barren ruin of a landscape in which remains the Forever Gate. This is a transportation portal to any time and place in this shadow.

If you were to jump ship immediately on arriving you would find that there is no living thing in this galaxy. Not a bush, a tree, nor a prickly skinned porcupine. Nothing. It is a completely dead shadow. Millions and millions of galaxies with uncountable stars and planets and no living thing exists in any of them.

And there is no one to tell you why except the Forever Gate. But if you ask it, it will merely tell you that there are no living things because they died. Great. Thanks for clarifying.

What I have picked up is that this realm is 1 to 1 Amber. Making research time consuming. Also the longer an Amberite stays there, the more unfavorable to Amber it gets, 1 to 1, 1 to 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2, 2.5, 4, 7, 9, etc.

Once there were vasty empires, ancient races, technological space-faring nations, unified planets, and uncountable people. There were wars, peace talks, parades, carnivals, vast trade routes and intergalactic exchanges. Sometime in their history, someone somewhere caused a chain reaction to occur that eradicated any creature that can be scientifically called life.

I believe this card is in the deck as a challenge to my kinsman to dedicate the time to find out what happened, why and to fix it.

I'll pass.

65. Temple of Resolve

Here is a quiet place to seek enlightenment.

Rebmaras? Really? A technological shadow of Rebma above the water as well as below it?

We sometimes forget that Rebma is an Empire too, and the capital of an empire at that. Many are the watery shadows where dwell kings and presidents loyal to the line of Mior. This one is a place with humanoids of the Rebma form, able to breath air and water, that is ruled by a elected council.

Each province provides a Elector and the Council of Electors appoints a Consul for a 6 year term as chief executive. Each 2 years they elect a vice-consul who serves for 6 years. The 3 vice-consulships ships overlap obviously and in theory provide continuity of leadership. The ruling Consul may be chosen from any person having served as vice-consul in 22 years. Campaigning is actively discouraged and frequently the victor of the election has no desire to serve. If they refuse they must enter exile for 6 years. Makes for some rough politics and only the ample presence of water keeps their hands clean.

Pictured on the trump is the Arcol of Remien. An Arcol being short for Arcology. The trump delivers one in the Square of Lan, a fish shaped god no longer worshipped in this cosmopolitan city.

One gastronomical peculiarity of this world is the size of their shrimp. They call them Pol Bulls but the only difference between them and what we think of as shrimp is that Pol Bulls weigh over a ton. Dumb as stumps, herdsman swim up to them, neatly pith them, then attach balloon-like floats to them for harvesting. They breed quickly I hear.

Consequently Pol is the staple meat of this realm. Pol steaks, Pol burgers, salads.. everything. I like shrimp. Seeing a 800 pound shrimp roasting on a rotisserie is awe inspiring. Recently Pol has become a import to Calrabon. It can be had at Oberon's fire, at a price.

One comment on the people here. They are, like most aquatic peoples, a soggy lot, and frequently naked. Unbashful about nudity, they are prudish in the extreme about sex. Scoring with a Marrian is a point of pride. Though the ride is rarely worth it. Shadow is too full of willing playmates to grope a soggy trout.

But there is one thing in this place that is worth noting, for the militarily inclined. They have perhaps the most amazing array of underwater weaponry available. Clockwork crossbows that fire as fast as machine guns. a wide array of propellants to fire bullets. Rapid fire net guns.

Electricity works funny in this shadow, not shocking people, so you can sit in a cafe, underwater, eating Pol Bull burgers while watching Kilf Soccer on a television. Freaky really.

68. Calmir

This card is in the deck, but it does not work.

This is a primal realm created eons before Amber and destroyed eons before Amber. A realm of limited shadows, called Eigenstates, or time paths. The Kangular powers the realm as the Pattern powers Amber. But when you assay the Kangular you gain the power to travel in Time in Calmir, rather than in shadow.

I itch just thinking about it. I am assured that at sometime in the future the Realm of Calmir will cycle out of the unchartable depths of Chaos to join the rest of us in Existence. I'm not placing bets.

Addendum

In Conclusion

The original intent of the Diners of Amber article was to mock the crown and cast pearls before, well, Random. As time has gone by, and I have added to a work that seems to grow weekly, I have become oddly engaged by the project. I am not sure yet if this pleases me but there it is.

While rewriting and editing this tome I noticed that I use the term "I must admit" quite a lot. It leads me to the nasty conclusion that despite my natural inclinations and paranoia, and my, well, sizable ego, that I have gained some grudging respect for young Random and his activities. Don't hold this against me, my countrymen, it surprised me too.

Random's tastes have always been a little more urban than my own. Having researched the places these cards send one to, I have had an education in the high tech as well as a reminder of who the allies of Amber are.

May our travels be peaceful and may our monarch grow wise.

More to come, I am pretty sure.

Prince Bleys of Amber