Places Everyone

Gregory and Aedan were having archery practice in the castle courtyard.

Gabriel arrived upset at the way his father was summoned to the castle.

Magni walked up innocuously, tried to shift non-existent blame to Aedan.

Raj was seen pursuing Fiona toward castle, both of them on horses.

Giselle’s whereabouts, and probably her existence, were unknown.

GM's Commentary

in which you will find some references to the actual events that occurred in the game -- usually less amusing (or flattering to Todd's character) than the Chronicler's version...

The Meeting From Which We Were All Excluded

In the meeting were Random, Fiona, Benedict, Flora, Brand, Gerard, Julian, and Aedan’s secret tape-recorder spell which he needs to talk to the GM about. 

Outside of the Throne Room were:

            Raj, stationed stoically at the door;

            Aedan, trying desperately to get in through any door available;         

            Gregory and Gabriel, who quickly realized the futility of getting through said door(s) and ventured down toward the Pattern Room;

            Magni, standing there only long enough to insult Raj, then following Gregory and Gabriel like a good puppy.

            Giselle was probably outside the Throne Room as well, but we don’t have any proof of that.1 

The doors to the Throne Room flew open and Julian stormed out, nearly losing his legendary self-control. Inside the Throne Room, everybody was still there looking tense except for Random and Fiona, who were gone. Brand left, looking rather amused as he limped away.

Aedan attempted to take Julian’s place in the meeting, but conceded the staring contest to Benedict. Our young hero2 followed Brand down the hallway, wrested some information vital to the survival of Amber from the evil villain’s lips, and ran off toward the Pattern Room.

1. Giselle, of course, was busy being innocent of Amber's difficulties, if not innocent, if you know what I mean. She had spent most of her young life serving her father, His Majesty Finvarra of the Third Realm, and to a lesser extent her mother, Florimel Barimen of Amber.--GM

2. ahem.

Journey Toward (but not necessarily to) the Pattern Room

Gregory, Gabriel, and Magni (a.k.a. the Three Musketeers) took the stairs. The stairs ended after only a few miles. They didn’t end at the bottom, but instead in a gaping chasm that you could probably jump if you could see the other side and you might make it. Go ahead. No, you go first. Please, I insist. On the contrary….

Aedan rappelled down the inner wall of the staircase using rope and climbing equipment he kept in a nearby closet for just that purpose.

The stairs and surrounding environs became markedly woodsy. Gabriel remarked on Flora’s decision to redecorate.

Gregory, Gabriel, and Magni hiked back up the stairs.

I’m sure Raj did something besides stand outside the Throne Room door, but maybe he didn’t.

An Explosion is Usually a Bad Thing

Big, Bad Explosion. Take what you’re thinking of and multiply it by another Big and Bad. Not good. Bad.

Raj and Gerard investigated the area where one of the castle towers used to be. They sifted through the rubble and found bits and pieces of Random and Fiona in a not-alive, bloody, meat-chunks sort of way.

Aedan sat in the Pattern Room (that was later proven to be Not the Pattern Room in Amber) and worried. When he stopped worrying and decided to do something, he found himself not in the Not the Pattern Room. He recovered and trumped Gabriel.

Gregory, Gabriel, and Magni, apparently tethered to one another as evidenced by their continued atypical Amberite togetherness, finally arrived back at the top of the stairs. They saw Aedan’s rope. Hmmm.

Aedan arrived on Gabriel’s trump and he and Gabriel rappelled down to the bottom again. More woodsy stuff. At the bottom, after a confusing encounter with the guards, Magni and Gregory trumped in. Gerard showed up too, and everybody slunk toward the Not the Pattern Room. Someone suggested that they were in Tir Na Nog’th. Gerard scarred the wall3, which seemed to prove that fact, so he left and didn’t answer any trump calls, the big jerk.

The big beast on the Pattern in the Not the Pattern Room roared in a basso profundo sort of way. Bathed in crimson light, the monster was composed of various Amber elders’ bodies in a John Carpenter-esque sort of way. Eight feet tall and six feet wide, it writhed on the center of the Pattern and made us all think of a certain poem Yeats once wrote for which he was tortured and killed oh so slowly.

Raj did something with the bodies, and I think he spoke with an elder Amberite or two.

More rumbling, explosion-like noises.

Giselle could have been asleep for all I know. Trees, a statue of her father and some woman, and a dancing dwarf in front of a red curtain. I think she was dreaming.4

3. "Gerard scarred the wall..." with his hitherto unknown Trump blade after hearing that Brand's whereabouts were unknown and that Gabriel (Brand's son) was last seen near the real Pattern room.

Gabriel was not, in fact, with the group after the point at which he and Aedan encountered the guards.

4. Giselle at this point was discovering the effects the explosion had on her father's realm. Where the castle at Kolvir had merged with the Arden and other nearby shadow realms (in part due to Julian's well-meaning interference), the fae realms had been forcibly merged with some elements of the City of Order, to equally destructive effect.

Giselle's father, Finvarra, could not be found in his palace; instead, a maidservant remarked that she had seen His Majesty in conversation with a dark-haired woman. Where the two of them had stood there was now a veined marble statue of the two of them.

About Those Seeds You Planted

Somehow, Gregory got away from the Not the Pattern Room. He was in the infirmary with Fiona’s corpse. Before he could do anything unspeakable, Gabriel trumped him. The Not the Pattern Room was breaking up with every use of Power. Everybody escaped through the trump call before they fell into the sea. Whew!

The castle was much changed. Vines grew everywhere. What had been stone was now often wood. There was a battle going on. Gunfire was heard from somewhere below the infirmary. Magni and Raj watched an Amber guard get shot. They subsequently stopped a little gray man from dragging the guard’s body away by killing him. They searched his body. Thus, they acquired guns.

Gabriel, Gregory, and Aedan secured the infirmary and attempted to make sense of the whole thing. Gabriel infused himself with Pattern and walked a few steps. Where he stepped, flowers grew from the carpet. He solved all the universe's problems and had a good laugh about it. The End.

Giselle lit things on fire, swallowed an entire ocean, and did other things about which we know nothing.

Magni arrived in the Great Hall, followed closely by Raj. They got the living guardsmen organized except for the two kowtowing toward the balcony. Magni went out on the balcony, wet himself with fear, and ran back inside.

Gregory, Gabriel, and Aedan arrived without guns. Gregory and Gabriel went off in search of Julian and his rangers. Aedan went out on the balcony. He should have come back by now. I wonder where he is….

Concerning the Three Musketeers, here is my opinion:

Gregory is Athos (oldest, most refined, calmest).

Gabriel is Aramis (gentle and patient when he's not provoked).

Magni is Porthos (loves life, enthusiastic, gregarious).

Aedan is D'Artagnan (reckless, devil-may-care).

Brand may or may not turn out to be Cardinal Richelieu.

Raj was in the book, but not in the movie.

Giselle was in the movie, but not the version you saw in high school.