Sessions One to Three Logs and Quotes

We start with a brief prologue some four years before the main game takes place. Tsark decides to staff the position of harbormaster with a bright, up-and-coming young nobleman named Robert.

4 days before Midwinter, 49 Tsark

Robert gets an audience with Tsark and informs him that he thinks something's happening in Farell because of some scheduling irregularities. Tsark thanks him and sends Arthur out to take a look.

Arthur comes to the capital and main port of Farell and finds that it's closed, quarantined thanks to a virulent plague. After conferring with a local nobleman, Arthur decides it's a REALLY bad plague. Arthur and Tsark confer, and decide to station troops at the two Shadowpaths out of the Farell/Nulesh Shadow to help quarantine it. They get Caine to pass troops through.

Caine calls Victoria and fills her in on the plague situation.

Meanwhile, Victoria sends out birds of desire to everyone in the family, inviting them to the wedding of Jael and Atlas III (who is, among other things, Jael's half-sibling) this coming Midsummer. Jael was not informed about this and is not pleased.

Tristan is in the woods of Garnath, tracking down a dragon. He patiently follows the dragon for a while before getting a Trump from Grayson, asking him to look into the Farell plague situation. Tristan agrees to do so, but says he'll start in a few hours or days. Grayson's fine with that.

News of the plague trickles through to most of the Family-members.

Victoria enters the capital of Farell and chats with some priests she has there, and then finds a plague victim and hands him through to Fiona, who vivisects him and shares some details on the disease, which attacks the lungs and respiratory system.

Arthur and Victoria join forces to go find the source of the disease as Tristan comes to Farell and starts more cautiously poking around the situation. Arthur and Victoria both expect, at this point, that they likely have caught the plague. Fiona and others are reassuring that while they may be sick for a time, it's very unlikely that the plague could kill someone of Amberite constitution.

There's a lot of plotting and scheming throughout the Family that I'm not very able to keep track of. Gerard is enlisted to figure out whether or not the disease is cureable.

A few days later, Arthur and Victoria determine that the plague has caused a 70-80% death toll in the inland parts of the country, where it came first. Arthur and Tsark decide to cut off Farell and Nulesh entirely. Somebody cuts the Shadowpaths into and out of the Shadow.

Midwinter, 50 Tsark

In Amber, the 50th anniversary of Tsark's reign happens. During the day, Khrim parties in the city while Jael and Tsark seperately mingle in the palace. Tristan and Gawain go hunting with some of the manlier men of the nobility.

After sloughing off some of the dilletantes on small game, Tristan, Gawain, and a relatively hard-core group of nobles decide to tackle something more challenging. Tristan and Gawain pick up the trail of a smallish manticora, and most of the nobles decide, uh, not that challenging, thanks. Gawain, Tristan, and two of the nobles decide to keep on chasing the manticora while everyone else goes off to look for something more approachable.

Eventually, the hunting party finds the manticore, and Tristan and the three nobles flush it with arrows while Gawain charges in to lance it, which he does succesfully, though there's a pretty good chance it was already mortally wounded by Tristan's bowshots.

As the hunting party is trying to deal with the corpse, they're approached by a servant from the other hunters who shouts that they can't find the ambassador from Begma. Gawain and Tristan spring into action and go out to look for the guy. They find one member of the deer-hunters with his throat slashed open, and, continuing on, seen the Ambassador, wounded with an arrow-shot, and being menaced by a man in dark clothing. Tristan pegs the assassin with an arrow as Gawain charges down to help the Ambassador. Unfortunately, the Ambassador is thrown from his horse, aggravating his arrow-wound, and though Gawain passes him through to Gerard, he's unable to save him.

Tristan keeps the assassin alive, getting from him that he's named Andreth of the Second World house Jesby, that he was hired to do this job, and that the person who hired him was a tall man with dark hair and blue eyes. Andreth then passes out. Gawain and Tristan hand him over to the Amber dungeons, and inform Tsark of the situation. Tsark has Dara handle it, and Dara impresses on Gawain and Tristan that An Animal Killed The Ambassador, What A Shame. The guys both agree.

Meanwhile, in Farell, Victoria and Arthur discover a gypsy-like ethnic group wandering the countryside, distinguished by their yellow head-scarves. They discover that these people, who are actually from a different Shadow, are carriers of the disease, and hypothesize that they brought it into Farell. Victoria sets about determining how devoted to their native faith these people are.

The Farell ambassador makes some pointed comments about the unity of the Golden Circle during the speeches phase of the evening, leaving most to suspect that he at least suspects that Farell has been cut off from the GC. The absense of Arthur, Victoria, and Gerard is commented upon by many, and they're filled in on what those three are doing. The rest of the evening passes uneventfully.

The next day, diplomatic manuevering breaks out in earnest. The GC ambassadors are in a tizzy about Tsark's pre-emptive decision to break the Shadowpaths to Nulesh and Farrel, and Tsark, after some conferencing, backpedals, offering to reinstate a sea-path to Nulesh, but not before the Nulesh ambassador makes a similar, parallel deal with Tristan/Garnath. Gawain, Job, and Jael are bombarded with requests to safeguard other Shadowpaths, which they don't make firm decisions on. Some of the GC members suggest that it's time for Arezia to join the GC.

There's a bunch more plotting and such, and the session closes.

Job Trumps Victoria and tells her that she has to come back to Atlantis. Victoria demurs, explaining that she's still sick with the plague. Job rolls his eyes and tells her that he's perfectly capable of counting, and there's no way she's been sick for seven days. Victoria comes back to Atlantis, and Job explains to her that someone has leaked all of Amber's proprietary Shadowpaths to the general public, allowing Golden Circle merchants to cut their travel time between Shadows by about a quarter, and eroding one of Amber's main trade advantages.

Job and Victoria Trump Gawain and discuss the situation, considering and rejecting the idea of killing every merchant captain in the Golden Circle, and thinking about Amber's likely response and who could have leaked the information.

Andreth Jesby (one of the assassins of the Begman Ambassador) gets word up to Tsark that he'd really like to not be tortured, and he'll be fully cooperative. Tsark decides to take him up on this, and talks with Andreth extensively about both how Andreth was recruited, who his friend was, and why Andreth is going around killing politicos. Andreth explains that he didn't realize exactly who the target was, nor that he was so high-profile. Tsark puts Khrim on figuring out more.

Khrim investigates the criminal elements of Amber City and thinks that there are some signs that there's a very well-hidden spy group that may have helped arrange the Begman Ambassador's death, but he can't pin anything down. He talks to Dara about it, and they decide to look for signs of a Random-based network in Amber City and Begma.

Jael infiltrates and investigates the Yellow Scarf People and finds that to all appearances they're unwitting cat's paws, not aware of their place in the schemes of unknown Amberites. She also finds that the Farell/Deiga Shadowpath has been destroyed in its entirety.

Khrim and Dara spend some time rooting out spy stuff in Begma. After poking lightly at Gawain and Victoria's spies, they come across a couple of people that they feel may be involved in a spy network that they don't know about. Khrim makes a courtesy call to Caine asking if it's Caine's. Caine says it might be some friends of friends, he's not sure. Caine promptly passes along to Tristan that Khrim's digging around in Begma.

Tristan talks to Random about the Yellow Scarf People and Farell in general. Random says that his information network there has been devestated by the plague, so he's not getting the information he should, but that the only Amberite who's hand he's been able to see in it is Fiona's -- she created the Farell/Deiga Shadowpath back in the day, and he thinks that the path seems a bit circuitous. Also, the Yellow Scarf People have a few legends about a red-headed witch. Tristan relays that most of the Family is considering blaming Random for all this. Random is just shocked to find out that he's not very popular.

Tristan Trumps Fiona and asks her about the Shadowpath. She acts offended by Tristan questioning her artistry and closes the Trump call.

Meanwhile, Arthur is out looking for a Shadow that could replace Farell as a supplier of metals to the Golden Circle. He locates several candidates and confers with Tsark and Dara about which one would be ideal.

Job Trumps Gawain and asks him a favor -- if Job dies soon, which he suggests is fairly likely, would Gawain nudge Victoria and Jael together some of the time. Gawain immediately starts to think of ways to keep Job alive, because he's not enthused about getting in the middle of that relationship.

Gawain asks Victoria to create a land-Shadowpath from Arezia to Opel, and calls Dara to give her a heads-up about it. She thanks him for the courtesy and says she'll bring it up with Tsark. Tsark shrugs and says it sounds okay to him.

Jael Trumps Fiona and goes to have tea with her in person, asking her about the whole Farell Pattern sickness situation. Fiona poisons the tea, which Jael notices and decides to cope with. I can't recall what information, if any, is conveyed in the conversation. Fiona Trumps out, and Jael deals with stomach cramps from the poison.

Tsark and Dara decide that they can't allow Arezia's Shadowpath to Opel after all, and Dara Trumps Gawain to tell him. Dara explains that with the current chaos, now's just not a good time -- that she and Tsark thought they could control the spin, and couldn't after all. Gawain lets the matter drop.

Almost everyone considers the power vacuum in Farell. The ambassador from Farell contacts Tristan about the possibility of marrying someone from the royal family of Farell into Leah's side of the family. Tristan's down with that. Dara considers marrying Khrim or Arthur into the royal family. Victoria and Gawain speculate.

Dara becomes aware of Gawain's meddling into Opel's internal politics and asks him what's up. He says that he's just doing someone a favor, no big deal. Dara says okay, but she'll be keeping an eye on things, and if it were anyone else, she'd be telling him to quit it. Gawain wraps things up in Opel.

Twenty-five days after Midwinter, 50 Tsark

Pursuant to some advice from Orlando, Tristan, Arthur, and Tsark get interested in the exact location of Oberon's death. Tsark contacts Deirdre and gets rough directions, and Tristan leads the king and crown prince off into Garnath, where they experience first-hand the nastiness of the monsters there. After some exploring around, they discover that the area around Oberon's death-site appears to be a black wood, similar to the stories of the Black Circle of Garnath from back in the day. The monsters are getting more serious, too.

After some discussion, they decide to go in, but Tsark Trumps Deirdre for back-up. Deirdre is aghast at the idea of going into the Black Circle if it's re-appeared. After some discussion, she goes to armor up, and eventually comes through in plate-and-mail, carrying an axe and a shield. This leads to several rounds of finding reinforcements and resupply, and the end result is that Gawain, Deirdre, Gerard, Tsark, Martin, Arthur, and Tristan, all in full armor, clank their way into the Black Circle.

The Amberites quickly find themselves surrounding by a silent sentinal of uncanny wildlife, mostly birds and small animals, but, as they penetrate deeper into the Circle, also deer and boars, all twisted and evil-looking. The Jewel of Judgement, which Tsark is wearing, is glowing red as they come to a small clearing that has a circle of mushrooms at its center, and, within that, a dead and decomposing body. There's some discussion of the whole matter, and Gerard offers to go into the circle and retrieve the body. Arthur and Tristan both make comments to the effect of "there's a lot of weird mojo here, and the circle's the center of it." Tsark says, unexpectedly, "'Ware the ground."

Gerard eventually does step into the circle, and instantly, weird whippy tendrils erupt out of the ground and attack everyone, and the collected monsters launch themselves as well. Tsark, Deirdre, Martin, and Gawain are all more or less able to keep themselves free of the tendrils -- Arthur, Gerard, and Tristan find themselves grappled. The monsters swarm Gerard mostly, and Tsark quickly frees Tristan, then hurls Arthur at Gerard, swords first. Martin jumps over to continue to defend Tristan.

Deirdre screams for Tsark to get the hell out of here, she'll guard Arthur. Gawain comes to the conclusion that they'll probably all survive except for Gerard, and that he can't do anything to save Gerard, and starts to retreat. Tsark activates the Jewel of Judgement and speeds up remarkably. He yanks Gerard free and starts a retreat as well. Tristan escapes out into Shadow, and Martin and Gawain cut and run. Deirdre scoops up Arthur and follows them. Last out are Tsark and Gerard -- the latter badly wounded. Gawain Trumps Eleanore and hands Gerard through, at which point she loses Trump connection. Tsark Trumps Dara and then collapses suddenly. Arthur Trumps Dara, and he and Deirdre go through to her. Tristan rejoins Gawain and Martin, and they all take a place Trump that Gawain has through to Castle Amber.

In Castle Amber, things are on high alert, and stressed out guards order Tristan, Gawain, and Martin to stand down. They do so. Deirdre wants to tend to Tsark's injuries while Dara manages the castle. Khrim goes into rumor control, keeping word of the whole thing from leaving the castle.

About an hour later, Tsark wakes up, not really much the worse for the wear. Everyone calms down. Eleanore gets word to the Castle that Gerard will live, though he's lost an eye and is in a coma.

A great deal of discussion follows about what all that meant. Tristan, Martin, and Grayson spend a tense couple of days seeing if Ejienne will be attacked, but nothing much comes of it. Later, Tristan sneaks back up to the Black Circle and finds that things have calmed down a bit there, though he's now seeing humanoid figures in the black woods, which is a first.

The session opens with Jael's attempts to find out more about the caravan ambushes in Arden by taking a caravan back and forth through Arden in an attempt to get attacked. She keeps this up for two weeks, and eventually her trip coincides with a full moon.

Forty-two days after Midwinter, 50 Tsark

Jael is awoken by the sound of someone's neck being broken. She plays possum as she starts to get a sense for the situation -- a few superhumanly strong people seem to be raiding the caravan camp, aided by probably one archer.

As the camp wakes up to the attack, Jael realizes that the archer is unbelievably strong, and she orders her handpicked men to come to her and retreat. Two of them die in the process (one to the archer, another to one of the Weir who are amidst the camp), and Jael and the remainder rush off into the forest. Soon after, Jael realizes that they're potentially being pursued.

Jael sets up an ambush for their pursuer, and soon enough, Jenna steps into the killing field. Instead of attacking, Jael and Jenna parlay. Jenna asks that Jael identify herself, and Jael explains that she's Victoria's daughter. Jenna says that she has no quarrel with Jael, and that she didn't know that a Family-member was with the caravan. Jael asks what Jenna's doing, and Jenna explains that her people need to eat and get a variety of manufactured essentials. Jael asks about her more long-term plans, and Jenna suggests she wouldn't be too unhappy to see Tsark off the throne.

Jael and Jenna's band have a bit of a tense stand-off as Jael's people slowly retreat, until dawn when the Weir melt back into the forest.

Over the next few days, Jael enlists Khrim's help in checking out the ambush (which doesn't turn up a ton of new information), and everyone's eyes turn towards Farell. Jael sets up a sort of commodities/futures market to create high-risk investment opportunities for wealthy people across the Golden Circle, but particularly Deigans, interested in acquiring properties in Farell. Meanwhile, Tristan has brokered a scheme to have one of his mother's relatives marry into the royal family of Farell, and Tsark continues to push both large amounts of humanitarian aid into the country and small amounts of troops.

Khrim is pursuing his life of leisure in City Amber when he falls across a riot brewing in the industrial part of town. He steps in to help defuse things, and also places a quick Trump to Despil (the captain of the castle guard), who sends troops to contain the riot. Between them, they prevent the situation from escalating too far, and eventually send everyone home except for a small number of arrests. Khrim investigates the situation and finds that due to the current economic turmoil, the owners of a textile mill were creating stock that they couldn't sell, and decided to shut down the mill until such time as they could clear their back-stock. Their workers, facing no way to earn a wage, were the core of the riot.

Tsark, Khrim, and Dara talk about the situation and Tsark eventually adds several new government controls to prevent such things in the future -- bridge loans to keep businesses in business and a small agency that will keep abreast of when similar closings or other major changes might happen. Khrim, meanwhile, works on turning one of the ringleaders of the riot into an intelligence asset.

Tristan goes back into the Black Circle at Garnath and contrives to follow a Shadowpath away from it, curious to see what it connects to. However, after a time, he loses the path. He goes and talks to Orlando, who reluctantly agrees to help him out with the matter some time in the indeterminate future.

At this point, Gerard recovers from his coma and returns to Castle Amber.

Forty-one days before Midspring, 50 Tsark.

Eventually, Tristan, Orlando, and Gawain hike into the Black Circle, where Orlando picks up a Shadowpath. He follows it long after neither Tristan nor Gawain can detect it at all, and eventually they come to a sea-cave out in Shadow. Orlando exhibits no desire whatsoever to go into the cave, and departs. Eventually, Jael and Tsark are Trumped in, everyone armors up, and goes into the cave, which turns out to house a sort of crustacean monster, quite large in size. A fight ensues. Jael, using a spear, shows herself to be considerably more competent than was generally known, and Tristan continues to favor the use of a longbow. Initially, Gawain and Jael take point, but Gawain gets knocked down and has to concentrate on not getting trampled. At this point, Tsark jumps onto the creature and tears off an armor plate, after which point Jael and Tristan fill it with puncture wounds and it quickly dies. Everyone comes out the cave filthy and foul-smelling.

The monster-hunters spend a lot of time discussing the whole affair and eventually figure that there's not much point trying to track down every monster out there (Tristan asserts that there are some 300 or so Shadowpaths going out of the Black Circle). The matter is eventually tabled.

Meanwhile, back in Castle Amber, Khrim and Gerard are eating a quiet lunch when Deirdre walks into the room. She laughs when she sees Gerard and says, "Gerard, I always said that you were a small man in a big man's body, but if you keep getting whittled down like this, you'll just be a small man." Gerard hurls a table at Deirdre and leaps at her. She bats the table out of the way, ducks onto Gerard's blind side, and punches him once in the face, once in the kidney. He grabs her shoulder after the second punch and hurls her against the stone wall. She impacts with her back first (crushing most of her ribs and causing spinal damage), and then her head snaps back and hits the wall, shattering the back of her skull. She instantly goes into cardiac arrest. Gerard snarls and leaves. Khrim initiates CPR.

Servants rush to tell Tsark of the matter, and he arrives on the scene. He calls Eleanore and arranges for her to get to a medical Shadow. Once there, they pass Deirdre through, and she is intubated. Khrim goes with her to guard her. After extensive medical work, Deirdre is stabilized, albeit in a deep coma and with extensive brain damage.

The gossip flies. Half of the Family gets in touch with Tsark to let them know which side of the matter they fall on.

After consulting with Dara, Tsark decides to banish Gerard for a period of seven years. He finds Gerard and tells him this. Gerard doesn't take it well and storms out. Tsark arranges for Deirdre to be moved to a Shadow that's not in Eleanore's care.

Thirty-nine days before Midspring, 50 Tsark.

Tsark calls a Family meeting over dinner. Everyone attends except for Gerard, Eleanore, and Fiona (well, and Deirdre, obviously). Tsark explains that Gerard has been banished and that if Deirdre wakes up howling for blood, she'll be banished as well. Dara adds that this is a lenient punishment that will not be repeated. Nobody openly complains, though there's a lot of murmuring. Most of the family seems pretty shocked.