From the players' point of view, the story has unfolded like this. Orphans in an orphanage realize they are different from everyone else. In addition, they are under constant surveillance and seem to be the object of some kind of scientific study. They aren't the first group which has been subjected to this treatment. After investigation, it turns out that one of the children has a link to a strangely familiar person who can travel between dimensions. This strange person rescues them and takes them to a place called Castle Amber.

Rescues? Maybe not. Things in Castle Amber might be more dangerous than the orphanage!

Recap: GM's Perspective

An Evil Mastermind (EM for short) is bent on taking the throne of Amber away from whoever is currently holding it. GMs without a current Amber set-up can use the basic set of current events provided in the Amber rules: Random on the throne, and so on.

To this end, the EM devised a plan. Why fight alone when help can be manufactured? And why use inferior stock? Look where that got Corwin, for example! A small troop of Amberites would be ideal. But where to get them? Grow them, of course! Gathering genetic samples discreetly over a long period, the EM takes them to the Paranoid High Technology Earth described in Part I (and discussed briefly later in this installment). There, the EM finds a shadow scientist bent on unraveling the mystery of these dimension-hopping aliens and gives him the genetic samples and some technology from an even more developed shadow.

Of course, the EM prepared the shadow to believe in dimension-hopping aliens through a vivid visit or two beforehand...

This minion (Dr. Stevens) clones some Amberites and begins studying them. The EM then waits patiently for the clones to become viable Amberites before swooping down and collecting them for a few years of "education." This never happens, however, as the kids prove to be precocious beyond belief and are rescued by someone who is not the EM.

For any EM worth his or her salt, however, this turn of events isn't the end of the plan; it's only a temporary setback.

Roles

Deciding who will play what role will probably take at least fifteen or twenty minutes. GMs should make sure that everyone has at least one role active at any one time. It's no fun to be stuck with characters who never get to go and do anything!

Kids

First of all, those players with kid characters will probably play them in Part II just as they did in Part I. In a convention setting, however, some players won't make it for the second round. Even in an at-home environment, the role-playing group might be missing a player who was present at the previous game. Spare kids (characters without players) can be assigned to new players or farmed off to "dull" adult Amberites who don't take part in the events of Part II, (i.e. NPC adults ). It's a bad idea, however, to give two kid characters to one player: one of the two will likely be neglected, and the quality of role-playing will suffer.

Adults

In general, assign the gene parent to the child clone's player. For example, if Ella picked Fiona as an Icon in Part I, Ella's player would also play Fiona. GMs can adopt whatever power level they like: very little of this adventure is predicated on exact strength or power of the individuals involved.

Players may have picked an icon that is of a different gender than their child character: that's OK. Since this is partially science fiction, just assume the cloning process produced a child of the opposite sex. In the playtest, for example, King Random had two clone-children, a boy and a girl. (Needless to say, the Queen had something to say about the succession!) With luck, no one elder Amberite is burdened with more than one or two clone-children.

Adventuring Focus

Some scenes will be mainly adults with one or two children along for the ride (as scouts, or whatever). A few scenes, in Castle Amber, say, might be entirely child-oriented. In general, however, GMs should try to focus the role-playing on the adult Amberites.

That might mean if four players are role-playing an important meeting, the fifth player might adopt his or her child persona and do childish things while the meeting drones on.

The Final Mix

In the end, be sure that there is a good mix of adults who are being role-played. The role of the King (and/or Queen) should be reserved for the GM. At least one rascal should be in play, as well as one good-hearted soul. Having a mix will engender some fun political discussions, believe it!

Don't forget, also, that one of these adults will turn out to be the EM; either as him- or herself, or disguised as someone else (while the real adult languishes in grand Amber style in some inaccessible shadow, of course!).

Temps

Sometimes, it's a good idea to farm out a role or two. GMs might consider loaning out the King or the Chaos Spy, for example, while the EM is, of course, a PC.

Plot

As in Part I, this adventure is not structured linearly. Instead, a number of events are set in motion. The actors are identified, their goals listed, their means elucidated. How things progress is up to the players and to you, the GM. Here are the main storylines.

Politics

Everything is politics, especially in Amber. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine the political firestorm these clones cause in the halls of power.

Accordingly, there are several phases that must be played through during Part II.

First, temporary guardians must be assigned to the children. Amberites being selfish about their time, it is unlikely any one Amberite will opt to take more than one of the children. One option is for players to adopt the role of their caretaker in addition to that of their child-self. Another option is for players to swap these roles amongst themselves, in order to create more opportunity for friction. After all, what child ever gets along with their parent all of the time? Once guardianship has been temporarily assigned, there must be a council meeting during which the legitimacy of the children must be determined. Amberites being Amberites, some might wish to drown all the brats and be done with it, while others will promote them as being no different from the gene-parents.

Think hard: there are many matters to resolve. Where will the children fall in the succession? Are they truly Amberites? Could one of them sit on the throne one day? Are they to be considered as Oberon's children, or are they the same rank as Oberon's grandchildren?

After these thorny problems have been solved, it's time to hold a royal ball in order to introduce the new royalty (or psuedo-royalty, depending on the council's decision) to the various Golden Circle representatives in the capital. It is there that all the final arrangements will be announced: guardianship, rank, and so on.

Chaos

No other group outside of Amber has more interest in this new crop of Amberites than the Lords and Ladies of Chaos. Accordingly, they do their best to gather what information they can about the kids: where they came from, whether they are really clones, what powers they have, and so on.

The best way to answer many of their questions is to have one of the kids handy for awhile. Chaos will do their best, then, to lure one of the children away, and are even willing to expend one of their deep-cover agents in Castle Amber to do it. Later in the game, agents of Chaos might also show up to contest possession of various key pieces of evidence as the Amber investigation reaches out into shadow.

Evil Mastermind

The EM is still hard at work, of course, trying to come out of this situation with at least one or two of the kids while continuing to cultivate his or her plot. Ideally, becoming guardian of two of the orphans while concealing his or her true identity and ultimate aim is the EM's goal.

Circumstances may require more rough-and-ready goals, however.

Action

Much of the action in this installment will spring from the players' decisions. For example, investigating the RHOC more thoroughly, and checking to see if more clones inhabit the Paranoid High Technology Earth are logical steps to take. If the players who have adopted elder Amberite characters don't initiate such an investigation, King Random would certainly order it.

The action here, therefore, is described via the place where it occurs. GMs merely need to keep a general idea of time going in their heads. Making sure venues switch occasionally is a good idea, too, although much of the action does take place in Castle Amber, so back-to-back Castle Amber scenes are inevitable.

At the end of this section is a review of the key characters and what they wish to see happen. Cross-referencing place with various goals will drive the plot forward while allowing the players to direct the story.

Each item is labelled with a Phase marker. Phase I is early in the session, Phase II is somewhat in the middle, while Phase III is likely the final chapter of the game.

Castle Amber

There are a number of important official and not-so-official things that happen in the Castle.

Temporary Guardianship I

This scene is a good introduction to the "council meeting" process. King Random (or whoever) calls various elder Amberites together. There, it is announced that the children need temporary guardians, that these guardians must stay in the Castle (or close by, as Julian does), and that another council meeting will be held in order to determine their legal place in the family. Who gets what kid is up to the players. An elder without a corresponding clone child might object to multiple children being watched over by an enemy, while a clone of Brand might be a hot potato no one wants to touch.

Initial Spy Contact I

A Castle Amber servant makes nice with one or more of the kids, setting up a future travel "invitation." Some general questions might also be asked, in order to fill in gaps in the spy's knowledge. Later spy contacts will need to be created and placed by the GM to fit the ongoing story.

Investigation Orders I

If the players haven't already done so, King Random orders several senior Amberites to find out more about this clone situation. One or two kids must be taken along to facilitate the shadow-walking process, but only one or two.

Castle Amber School I

Since the kids don't speak Thari, it's a must for the children to be taught the language. Other subjects, such as courtly manners and dancing, can wait until each child has been assigned a permanent guardian. Informal subjects, such as the layout of the Castle or other interesting items of information, should also be available to the kid characters. Be sure to note any particular things learned on the character sheets.

Legalese II

The exact function of the clone children must be decided. King Random calls this council meeting to determine how the children will be treated in the line of succession. While armed force seems to be the Amber rule of the day when it comes to who sits on the throne, the actual line of succession is still an important legal detail that must be nailed down. Otherwise, as any historian of old England can tell you, the future could prove to be even more divisive.

This scene should be one of the most entertaining of the session. Each player gets a vote, and only a player can promote an option for a vote. If players are familiar with Robert's Rules of Order, use it as a guide to handle the discussion.

Some options are:

• The kids are equivalent to Oberon's children, but are the youngest. Where each falls specifically might be determined by later investigation (who was decanted first?), but they are higher in rank than Oberon's grandchildren.
• The kids are equivalent to the children of the gene-parent they were cloned from and derive their rank from their parent's place in the family. This option won't sit well with the younger Amberites, who might well find themselves shifted down the line by these clones.
• The kids aren't to be considered full-blooded Amberites, but bastards. This distinction doesn't seem to carry much stigma in Amber, though it serves as a good launching board for insults.
• The kids aren't royal at all, are technological abominations, and should be put to the axe before they age another hour. This harsh position might be adopted by those who think of the unfortunate long-term consequences of cloning Amberites. A softer version of this might strip them of all possibility of holding royal office but leave them alive.

Note that no matter what the council's decision, these kids mean trouble in the future. No matter where they've been placed in the future power structure, they've changed the balance. When that happens, there are losers and winners. The losers are never happy about it, while the winners might try to change things even more in order to improve their situation yet again.

One thing that should be obvious, however, is that no more clones should be made!

Royal Ball of Introduction II/III

Once everything has settled down (III) or as an opportunity for various factions to gather and plot (II), King Random holds a Royal Ball in order to introduce the children and announce their place in the Amber royal family. Such niceties are appreciated by the various Golden Circle realms that surround Amber. This scene can serve as a winding-down event to finish up the game or as a winding-up event to further drive the various conspiracies afoot in the Castle.

Paranoid High-Technology Earth

This shadow has technology roughly equivalent to that of 2020, or that which we imagine might exist then. Gene splicing and manipulation is common. North America is largely a Commonwealth state, never having won the Revolutionary War.

There are only two locations in the shadow of interest to Amberites: RHOC and Dr. Steven's gene lab.

RHOC I/II

Once the kids escape, the school is shut down. If Stevens is still alive, he retires to his lab to review the most recent data and plan how to continue his experiments. If he's dead, his program is thrown into disarray and essentially stops moving forward.

Review the historical information given in Part I. These and other details about the RHOC part of the progam are easily found, as the school itself is empty and the soldiers dismissed, save for a few token guards.

In addition to the records, copies of the color photographs of trump can be found. The only thing that these photos show are various trump, mainly those of the gene-parents whose clone-children escaped from the RHOC. The trump are from an older deck, but otherwise provide no clues.

Somewhere in the RHOC is some clue that there is a lab somewhere within a few dozen miles from which the children came.

Steven's Gene Lab II/III

Once the characters track this lab down, crashing the door or sneaking in should be relatively easy. These are Elder Amberites we're talking about here, after all! The following disturbing news can be found here:

• Dr. Steven's Notes, which indicate he had help of an unnamed kind.
• Dr. Steven's Scrapbook, which includes video clips of a strange metalic humanoid wreaking havoc in Miami (EM wearing silver mercury type armor), surveillance shots that show indeterminate individuals disappearing, and so on.
• Ten different gene samples labelled "Alien DNA."
• Fusion Lab, where the genes are made into viable embryos.
• Womb Lab, where the embryos are cultivated and decanted.
• Fast Growth Lab, where the infants were subjected to fast growth processes.
• Records indicating that this site is the only place where this genetic material is stored.

Whenever the characters make it to the lab, they find "Series F" near to decanting in the womb lab. In the playtest, a hard-hearted Fiona shooed the other characters away before "taking care" of the problem, but in your game, anything goes. How are the players at feeding babies and coming up with names that start with "F"?

For combat-loving characters, this scene can provide a few minor challenges involving high-tech weaponry and gadgets.

Lost Amberite III

At some point, probably toward the end of the tale, the EM's plot will begin to unravel. The imprisoned Amberite will need rescuing. This scene might be best left to the kids, who can uncover an unbelievable clue, try to explain it to the adults but be rebuffed, and then peform the rescue all by themselves. Heroic, eh?

Wherever

Lots and lots of action should take place wherever. In some shadow on the way to the Paranoid shadow. In Forest Arden. Wherever.

These descriptions aren't supposed to be all-encompassing: they just cover the basic ground. As in any Amber game, it's impossible to cover all the bases. After all, there are an infinite number of shadows out there!

King Random

The King wants stability and an end to the nefarious cloning of his relatives (and possibly himself!) If he gets wind of a plot to rob him of his throne, he won't hesitate to sic his loyal siblings on the problem.

Then again, he might not have any loyal siblings, so he might just sic his siblings on the traitor and hope for the best.

Since Random is a nice guy, he's likely to oppose anything that is bad for the kids, but since he's a benign autocrat (by most accounts), he's going to agree with the majority when it comes to deciding what the legal standing of the clones will be. Random, of course, has all the power of his office at his disposal.

Chaos Spy

This person is deliberately not named. He could be a she, of practically any station in the castle. This spy of Chaos wants to know:

• Where the heck did these kids come from?
• Are they really Amberites?
• Are they really clones? (if it's commonly known the kids are clones)
• Are any of the kids malcontents (ripe for sweet-talking into a trip to Chaos?)

Of course, the spy also wants to follow up on any information about an ongoing plot to steal the Amber throne, should such a plot become common knowledge in the castle.

The spy has a few cute tricks up his or her sleeve, and GM's familiar with the ways of Chaos might think up a few more on their own. For example, the spy might give a target kid a stone that lets them communicate with the spy if they hold it to their forehead, but which also remembers any conversations the kid has (a magic bug, in other words).

Evil Mastermind

The EM ultimately wants the throne of Amber, but not immediately. Right at the moment, the most important things to the EM are staying secret and getting one or more kids away to a secret shadow for a few years of special "education." Whatever is necessary to complete these goals, the EM will do. That's why he or she is an Evil Mastermind: after all. If there were scruples involved, we'd be talking about a Good Mastermind, wouldn't we?

The means might be sneaky and evil. For example, the EM might murder someone (say, a Princess from a Golden Circle realm) at the Royal Ball and pin it on someone else, just to cause confusion in order to snatch a kid or two away. The EM is described at more length in the next section, so read on!

Evil Mastermind

Who is the EM? Well, what do you mean by "who?" As written, the EM is actually Delwyn, long lost son of Amber come back for what's supposed to be his and his alone. The EM can be whoever the GM wishes, however, so don't feel obliged to pin the job on Delwyn.

But who has been playing the EM all along? This is where you, the GM, must be clever. For Delwyn's little scheme to work, he's taken the place of an elder Amberite temporarily in order to regain one or more of the little tykes. Now, that elder can't be the one who rescued the kids (otherwise, there would have been no rescue at all!). And it can't be King Random.

Who else? Take your pick. Pick a player who's up to the last minute switch, a la "hey, by the way, you're really the villain here, and this is what you're doing." Pick a character who could logically be the villain. In the playtest, it turned out to be Julian. In your game, it could be just about anyone.

Tagging the Bad Guy

At some point during this session, begin having intimate chats with single players, away from the others. One of those will likely be the spy, making progress with his or her goals. Make up reasons to talk if necessary. Then, once everyone is used to the idea, take the nominee aside and lay it on the line.

They have been the bad guy all along, is what you tell them. And they've done a great job so far, because the player didn't even know it. Clever, huh? Well, don't be too impressed. It's an old trick.

The real trick is to make sure your newly minted villain plays his or her role well. Sinister things should start to happen. Notes should begin to proliferate. Once the secret is out, violence is apt to erupt. Once that happens, try to keep the mood friendly between the players, as head to head competition can breed bad blood.

The Bad Guy

Delwyn is an Elder Amberite. He's tough, roughly as tough as any of his contemporaries. His exact abilities can't be set, because the power level of the game you're running isn't known, but think of him as tougher than Corwin but weaker than some of the old-timer Amberites who have been hobnobbing with Chaos lo these many eons. Magic, Logrus, Pattern - whatever fits the bill, Delwyn has.

In essence, he needs to be tough enough not to succumb to any obvious application of any of the powers. The good guys will have to think their way through the process of defeating him, although ganging up on him should eventually work.

If it comes down to combat, that fight will be the climatic scene of the game. If this happens, make it good. In the playtest, Delwyn managed to whack Fiona's arm off at the elbow, but got dropped through a floor when she zapped the paving stones. He was chased pell-mell through the castle, dragging one of the kids for awhile (who managed to escape his silvery grasp by faking a faint).

Eventually there was a grand melee on the spiral stair down to the Pattern room. Gerard and Caine played tag with him all the way down the stairs. Gerard discovered that tackling a porcupine hurts. Mere yards from the Pattern and possible escape (Delwyn was pretty tired by then, but the players didn't realize this) the players managed an attack on his silvery armor and stopped him.

The Bad Guy's Stuff

Armor

Delwyn has a special "suit" of armor. Combine the hard yet malleable silver metal the bad guy from the second Terminator movie is made from with the concept of armor. This armor slithers around on Delwyn, staying out of sight unless he's threatened, in which case it can quickly "grow" a helmet, gauntlets, and so on.

The armor isn't just defensive, either: it can also protrude weapons of various kinds, from spiked gloves to a mace to a long sword. Here is the armor 'statted out' for Amber Diceless RolePlaying.

Vitality: Amber
Stamina: Amber
Armor: Invulnerable
Damage: Deadly Damage
Psychic Sensitivity: Danger Sense
Psychic Resistance: Psychic Neutral
Item Healing: Rapid Healing
Item Shape Shifting: Limited Shape Shifting

Obviously, this is a very powerful item. It was made for Delwyn by his sister, Sand, and will only serve him in the event it is stolen or captured somehow.

Be creative with this item: with it, Delwyn can damage those who close for a wrestling move (ever grab a porcupine?). If faced by someone with a dangerous weapon, he can safely snatch the business end and make a quick contest of Strength for it. He can survive quite a drop: not only is he an Amberite, but his armor can absorb a lot of impact.

The armor does have an exploitable weakness, however. While it is Psychically Neutral, it is not particularly powerful psychically. That means that a psychic attack directed at the armor itself has a good chance of neutralizing the armor in some way. A powerful psychic might even be able to control the armor and force it to do something unpleasant to Delwyn: choking comes to mind, but there are many, many yucky options in this department.

Ring

Shapeshift: Named and Numbered

This ring gives Delwyn the ability to shapeshift into one Elder Amberite (the person he's imitating), one anonymous Castle Amber servant, one anonymous Amber citizen, and his sister, Sand.

The End

After the dust settles, the adventure is over. In a convention setting, it's time to wave goodbye to folks you might never see again. If you're running this game at home, you've probably made some converts to Amber Diceless RolePlaying.

If the game is to continue, GMs should remember to handle the precedents carefully. After all, if all it takes to clone a real Amberite is some tissue and a high technology shadow, there will be some odd things happening over the next few game years.

The solution is easy enough: fiat. There can be a subtle shift in the universe that precludes such cloning. Maybe the folks in the Paranoid Shadow Earth did something just so (by accident) that let the clones survive, and future experiments all fail.

In an ongoing campaign, one of the most interesting things to explore is the ongoing relationship of the clones as they age. Anyone for an "Amber Teen" game? At home, letting this unusual situation develop can add some life to an otherwise preset universe. Zelazny's Amber, while a delightful place, is fairly static. These kids represent a big change in the fundamental political situation.

Child's Play: Part 1