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Nations, like plants and human beings, grow. And if the development is thwarted they are dwarfed and overshadowed.
C. McKay
Amber is a prosperous country whose wealth is based on agriculture, manufactured goods, and, most of all, trading. More later, but in the mean-time, here's a map!
![[Map]](ambermap.jpg)
The Duchy of Garnath is technically a part of Amber, but is actually a semi-autonomous nation ruled by Martin. Its status is essentially an "open secret" — many commoners may not know the degree to which Garnath and Amber are not one nation, but everyone of power does.
In general, Martin takes some pains to avoid coming into serious conflict with Tsark or Amber as a whole. He tries to avoid letting other nations use Garnath as a means of weakening mainland Amber. However, every few years, he pushes back on some relatively important issue, just to assure everyone that Garnath's unique status continues. He's open about his reasons for doing this as well: he thinks that Garnath serves as an effective check on the King's power, and that it may prevent the kind of arrogance that he sees Brand as having fallen prey to.
Garnath is comprised of some useless and largely ignored mountains surrounding the valley of Garnath, a primordial and threatening woods, with the city of Ejienne on the bay coast of that valley. Ejienne is Amber's second-biggest port and second-largest city.
Garnath has nearly no arable land, and is a huge importer of food (mostly from Amber proper, which is over-supplied). In a very real way, there's not much to Garnath besides Ejienne, despite the fairly large geographic area it comprises.
Ejienne was originally founded as a lumber-port, allowing Amber to tap Garnath's wood resources without the cumbersome overland hauling that would be necessary to drag wood up from Arden. Quickly thereafter, ship-building houses set up shop in Ejienne, and thereafter, a reasonable industrial part of town sprang up.
Garnath's only major natural resource is the wood from Garnath, though a fair amount of fishing goes on the area. Like Amber proper, Garnath tends to import raw materials and export finished goods. Unlike Amber, Garnath is seriously under-supplied with food. Garnath benefits from the same economic advantages as Amber, and is a rich nation.
Garnath has a very small "army" which acts as little more than a police force for Ejienne, and a terrifyingly well-equipped and trained navy (with an attached marine corps) that has been Grayson's personal project for the last half-century. The Garnath navy remains untested in a full-scale war, but it has not lacked for action over the years against pirates, in alliance with Golden Circle nations, or in helping out with monster-hunting duties in the valley of Garnath or mainland Amber. The professional soldiers of Garnath's navy are legendarily well-trained, equipped, and organized. The Navy has 60 ships of the line.
The Golden Circle is a political organization — a shared trade agreement which states that its members may not single out each other for particularly high or low tariffs on a number of trade essentials. It's not quite a "most favored nation" agreement, as other goods may be differently taxed, but it's the next best thing. Members of the Golden Circle also meet regularly to discuss a variety of issues communally. Golden Circle membership is exclusive and lucrative — there are other nations that trade with Amber or other Golden Circle that aren't in the Golden Circle, and they tend to be much less wealthy and powerful than the Golden Circle nations.
What follows is a map of the Shadows around Amber so bad it actually hurts me to post it on the web, and a brief description of all the major nations in the area.
Traditionally the most powerful of the Golden Circle nations besides Amber itself, Kashfa is a large coastal nation in the same Shadow as Begma and Eregnor. Kashfa imports a lot of luxuries and worked goods, and exports primarily food and textiles.
Begma shares a Shadow and a long-time rivalry with Kashfa, usually come out on the worse end of the deal. Begma is agrarian, and is renowned for its cash crops of tobacco and hemp, and a major importer of iron and copper.
The third Golden Circle nation in the Shadow which contains Kashfa and Begma, Eregnor is a small island nation whose Golden Circle status was primarily an attempt of Brand's to create a buffer between its two larger nations. Eregnor's trade volumes are too small to really affect most of the other Golden Circle nations.
A nation set principally on two large islands, Delma has a large navy that has a ton of pirate problems to work through. It exports a variety of spices and hardwoods that grow there and nowhere else. It takes in vast quantities of other woods to fuel its shipbuilding industry.
Nulesh is an island nation that shares a Shadow with Farell. Its principal exports are copper and gold, and it's a net importer of food.
Farell is the most mineral-rich nation in the Golden Circle, exporting vast quantities of every major ore and metal, most particularly the highest quality steel in the Golden Circle. It's a vorocious consumer of Amber's high-quality manufactured goods.
Opel is a large, feudal nation. Its various barons and counts export and import a little of anything and everything — good deals can be made by those who can read its complex internal politics and know whose star is rising and what they particularly want.
This cold, harsh Shadow exports incredible furs and the highest quality lamp oil in the Golden Circle. It imports metals and exotic foods.
Rebma's aquaculture produces a continuous bounty of exotic foods that are much sought after by several of the other Golden Circle nations, but all in all its needs are sufficiently divorced from those of land-dwelling nations that its trade volumes are small, except with Atlantis.
There are some significant non-Golden Circle nations that participate in the trade cycles around Amber.
Arezia is described under the factions section.
Atlantis is described under the factions section.
Walsh's star has risen a bit as a new Shadowpath to Arezia has given it more trade opportunities. However, its tribal culture tends to limit its exports to art and miscellaneous oddities, rather than the staples that dominate the Golden Circle trades.
A land racked by constant succession wars, Uftal is a hazardous place to trade in, but occaisionally merchants from Farell trade their high-quality steel weapons for the best silk to be found in the area.
Deiga used to be an independent Golden Circle nation, but is now a territory of Amber.
The people of Amber (besides the Royal Family) are pretty much as you'd expect from our Earth in terms of strength and speed and such. They're a bit hardier — disease is rare in Amber — and a bit more longer lived — 80 to 100 years is not at all uncommon. Ones that hang around Royals tend to age more slowly, often living 300 to 500 years.
Amberites tend towards caucasian skin tones, though interbreeding with Golden Circle people over the generations has created large stable minorities of all the standard Shadow Earth ethnic feature combinations. Short hair is the fashion among men and unmarried women, while married women usually grow it out. About two thirds of all adult men affect facial hair of some kind.
The people known as the Second Worlders formed the bulk of the old Rebel land-army. They are a hardy people with pale skin, dark hair, and a gamut of eye-colors including some not otherwise seen in Golden Circle.
After the war, there were some 300,000 Second Worlders whom Tsark resettled in Amber and Deiga, many of them soldiers who had been seriously injured during the war. Their eventual colonization of Amber was a matter of religious prophecy to the Second Worlders, and they responded to the settlement with a baby-boom that started shortly after the war and only really started to tail off a decade later. In the year 50t, the total Second World population is around half a million.
The Second Worlders' home Shadow was extremely different from the norm in the Golden Circle, and this has caused a great deal of trouble for the settlers. Their old agricultural and, to a lesser extent, industrial techniques had to be relearned from the ground up, and there was a shortage of teachers. As a result, even fifty years later, there remain a not-inconsiderable number of Second Worlders who have only the most remedial of survival or trade skills that are applicable to Amber.
There was also an element of culture shock. Second Worlders do not speak Thari as a native tongue, and further have a social structure that is strongly incompatible with the native Amber culture. This has led many Second Worlders to, as best as possible, live and work only with others of their kind. In turn, this attitude (in addition to the status of the Second Worlders as an invading army) has made many native Amberites highly distrustful of this new minority population.
Though every significant population center in Amber (and, increasingly, in the Golden Circle as a whole) has a Second World population, the bulk of the half-million live in the south of Amber and in the former nation of Deiga (now an Amber territory). The city Aulory in Arden is nearly half Second Worlders, and there are several cities in Deiga whose populations approach that mark. The Amber government has for the last fifty years encouraged young Second Worlders to join into the Amber army and help patrol Arden, and a the regiments of the army based in the south are heavily composed of Second Worlders, to the point where Vetha (as the Second World language is called) is as common as Thari in many garrisons.
Second World culture is best described as massively feudal. Every adult Second Worlder would (prior to their integration into Amber) swear loyalty to a master, who would in turn swear loyalty to a higher master, etc. Eventually, everyone in the Second World owed fealty to one of six House Leaders: Sawall, Hendrake, Amblerash, Jesby, Helgram, and Chanicut. Those leaders live lives of paranoia and power &emdash each one was as unto a king until modern times, and all six houses survive to this day. Dara, Queen of Amber, is known to have been a member of House Sawall, though it's not clear to most people whether she renounced her loyalties to them or not.
Second Worlders were a massively military culture in the years before their relocation to Amber &mdash harsh conditions in their home Shadow and constant struggles between the clan made it prudent for every able-bodied adult to have some training in combat. The loyalty structures translated easily into companies in an army, and the discipline and practice of the Second Worlders paid off in the Third Rebellion. But after the war, it was just one more thing which made native Amberites wary of their new neighbors. In addition, it's proven very easy for Second Worlders, with no useful skills besides warfare, to turn to crime as a means of supporting themselves, or just to express their frustration.
Among more integrated Second Worlders, and particularly the younger generation, the bonds of House and loyalty are increasingly seen as a relic of a bygone age, and the Second World community is being put under increasing strain by those who do not wish to swear loyalty oaths, or, if they do, don't take them as seriously as the more traditional would like.
Very little is known of this enigmatic people, who first came to Amber under Eric's devices, acting as elite commandos. They are now known to be a tribe of Shadow-folk who are affected by the phase of the moon — in the light of the full moon, they gain an enormous amount of strength and endurance, making them comparable to Amberites.
Eric's deal with the Weir involved sleeping with their women, and he eventually sired a child with them, unbeknownst to himself. This child in turn had three daughters: Jenna, Ilsa, and Elke. After Eric's death, Tsark and Jenna came to a deal in which the three Amberite Weirs were removed from the tribe itself. Apparently, somewhere along the line, Jenna and her sisters came to feel that they were being betrayed, killed the servants who had been attending them, and escaped to Amber to walk the Pattern. Elke died on the Pattern, but Jenna and Ilsa succeeded, and declared themselves enemies of Amber. After a cross-Shadow fight, Ilsa died at the hands of the Royal Family, and Jenna escaped.
Now, there are increasing rumors of Weir haunting Arden, but thus far, they have not been confirmed.
In recent years, increasing numbers of monsters have been appearing in Amber, particularly in the forests of Arden and Garnath.
By far the most concerning of the creatures that have taken up residence in Amber are the dragons. These creatures were once relatively common in Amber, but Oberon, Benedict, and, towards the end of that time period, Eric made a policy of hunting them down and killing them all. No dragon had been seen in Amber for milleniae before one reappeared on the night of the hundred year anniversary of the failure of the Second Rebellion.
Dragons are large reptilian creatures, with relatively narrow bodies and bat-like wings. Their scales vary from dark green to black, and are extremely tough, often able to turn weapons even backed with Amberite strength. Dragons are agile fliers for their size, and excellent swimmers. They appear to be able to breathe water or air equally well. At least some of them can exhale fire. It is unknown how intelligent dragons are, but at the very least, they seem to be clever animals.
There appears to be one truly huge dragon in Amber currently, with a wingspan of perhaps 90 feet. Much smaller (wingspans of maybe 20 feet) are more common, and several have been killed in the last fifty years. Nevertheless, dragon sightings are growing slowly but steadily more common.
Dragons are extremely dangerous, and have wounded many Amberites over the years. In general, most of the Family would be reluctant to tangle with a dragon if alone. The primary issue with them is that they're extremely strong and extremely difficult to injure.
More common and less dangerous than dragons, but still fearsome, are the manticorae that haunt Arden in particular.
Manticorae have the general physical shape of oversized lions, but with bat-like wings, a tail not unlike a scorpion's, and a vaguely human-seeming face with sharp, shark-like teeth. A full-grown manticora stands ten feet tall at the shoulder, with a relatively compact but powerful body. Manticorae are clumsy fliers, and some seem not able to lift themselves at all. In general, they seem to prefer to keep out of the air. Manticorae are not venomous, despite the appearance of their tails, but those attacked by a manticora rarely last long enough to need to fear poison in any case.
The Amber army has developed standard methods of hunting and killing manticorae — the creatures are large and bulky enough that a few squads of men can generally pepper them with enough crossbow shots to make them slowly bleed out. A dense screen of pikemen can usually convince a manticora not to charge. The more martial Family-members can generally count on at least surviving an encounter with a manticora, and probably on killing it in the process.
Copyright 2005 by Michael Sullivan. Contact the maintainer at e@apparentlynot.com.