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Ordinarily we get a glimpse into the lives of the superrich through attendance at one of their ultra-exclusive parties, or by dropping in on them in their palatial retreats in idyllic, remote places. But for whatever reason, these Amberites don't seem to go to parties much, and we're not quite sure how to get to their idyllic retreats. We'll do our best.
The first Rich, Famous Person we're going to take a look at is Lord Keverian. We drop in on him in Weslinvale, where his cousin Katarina and her friend Liesl are flying their ultralight aircraft. One of Keverian's passions is equestrianism, and we catch up with him as he's riding his steed, Steed, through the air.
Leech: Good afternoon, Lord Keverian! What a pleasant day to go for a ride.
Keverian: You! Over there! Whoever fired that laser had better be gone by the time I get there, or else you'll never get the chance to be sorry!
Leech: Ooh, Lazer Tag. Is Lazer Tag popular in the circles of the superrich, Lord Keverian?
Keverian: Phaedron is firing crossbow bolts at nothing. Right! Stop the duel! This is ridiculous.
Leech: Archery, too! Quite an athletic bunch we have here. Lord Keverian certainly is no ``fat cat,'' and neither are his friends.
Phaedron: Ooof.
Leech: Now Lord Phaedron appears to be miming someone being tackled from behind, and quite realistically, too. It certainly is eye-opening; most of our viewers probably have considered mime rather common until now. Phaedron is now miming swinging someone's body around, also very realistically.
We now visit with another very Rich and Famous Person, by the name of Nikrowd. While he is not an Amberite, but rather a Rebman, Nikrowd also knows the very finest pleasures that life has to offer.
Nikrowd: An exquisite blend of flavors. My compliments to the chef.
Felicia: Hey! Cut that out! Get your hands off my food!
Nikrowd has also discovered that trump gates are very helpful in improving your bowling score. It also helps to leave a magic ring in a finger hole of your bowling ball.
Nikrowd: Well, I seem to have vaporized all the bowling pins in the building with my first ball. That's a score of 86,000 for me, and none for you, Corwin.
We now turn to one of the most interesting gatherings of Rich and Famous People in quite a while. It occurred very recently in a lovely place called Avalon, and we were lucky enough to be there with our cameras.
Pict: Yeeeearrrrrghh!! Phaedron sucks! Liesl sucks! Torquil is cool! Yah yah yah yeearrrrgh!
Leech: Quite a wild party; the Rich and Famous can be quite uninhibited when they want to be. Zounds, that looks like the Rich and Famous Lady Felicia over there. M'lady, could you tell me what you are doing?
Felicia:
Leech: Lady Felicia, are you all right?
Felicia:
Leech: Apparently the Lady Felicia is taking a well-earned rest from all the partying, which I believe is going on just a few miles in that direction, from the sound of it. Sink me, what a party it is, too. Simply everyone who is anyone is here. Over there is the famed diplomat Dalamar, also a noted falconer. And here is the Lady Mikele, all the way from the Courts of Chaos, with quite a splendid entourage. Let's talk to some of her beautiful attendant ladies.
Leech: Excuse me, my dear lady, is that a real scimitar you have there?
General Hassamid: Yes, pathetic little man, this is a real sword. And don't call me a lady. I am a woman. [thwack] [sound of rolling head]
Nikrowd, concentrating on a trump of Dalamar, reaches in and pulls out Dalamar. This wouldn't be such a problem if Dalamar weren't already there. In fact, there are 46 Dalamars all milling around already. (Hey, Horde is only one more level beyond Named & Numbered....)
Felicia deals out a trump scry. All the trump look like her. A few Dalamars wander over and tell her that trump scries are useless, and besides, they're all Felicia. No no no, she says. The Querant's Present Felicia, here, is Martin, inverted, and That Which Motivates the Felicia is the Front Hall of Castle Amber, and That Which Felicia's the Felicia is Osric with a picture of a lava pit painted over him, with a picture of Felicia painted over that. Inverted.
The 47 Dalamars get together and conjure the Army of the Rhine, a fleet of Imperial Starcruisers, and Cthulhu (Ubiquitous in Shadow). They then instill their creations with Warp Engine Speed, Psychic Invulnerability, Primal Damage, and the ability to cast the 9th-level magic-user spell `wish' 5 times an hour.
Rounding a corner, the party is confronted by Corwin-bar (very rare, 22 HD, claw/claw/snide comment, Lawful Evil, Genius). He is coming out of a 10' tall and 10' wide door, into the 10' wide corridor the party has been moving down at .02 miles per hour. Nikrowd realizes that each of his trumps is the minimum encumbrance of 1 coin, and collapses under the weight. Keverian decides to force the flimsy wooden door on the left of the corridor, to allow an escape route for the party, but rolls a 20 on his Strength check, and bruises his shoulder. The party rolls for initiative, and wins (this is the major difference from the system we actually use. We never actually win initiative.)
Corwin-bar whips out an Uzi, and fires it into the party on full auto. Five party members are killed outright, and Keverian only escapes by holding Nikrowd's lifeless body up to shield himself from the bullets. He then rolls on the girlfriend table, and hits a critical disaster -- he falls in love with a psycho drug addict with a green Mohawk who works for Zyvacorp.
Fortunately for the party, everyone's number 2 clones show up together, Felicia's with a memoRandom declaring Keverian's new girlfriend to be a Traitor and a Commie. Katarina investigates a side corridor, and finds three prisoners being held in manacles attached to the wall. Her orders don't include rescuing prisoners, however, so she reports to the Internal Security agent Torquil that three people have infiltrated the party. He shoots the infiltrators with his laser, and then Katarina, as she didn't have clearance to know that he was Internal Security.
Corwin-bar's agent Marseilles rounds the bend, pursuing them. Merlin and Mandor go on hold, and Torquil misses his activation roll. Dalamar rolls to hit Marseilles' hex, and misses the hex, but Marseilles is caught inside the radius (he couldn't dive for cover because he had already acted this paragraph). Oh yeah, what's Dalamar's special effect? Marseilles turns out to be vulnerable to magical attacks, and we argue for a while about whether a conjured grenade is a magical attack or not.
Marseilles' unconsciousness turns to death as we switch to a system where STUN and BODY aren't separated. Mikele uses the Logrus to grab Martin's treasure, and pulls it to her home base. Nikrowd, however, plays Power Run, and since his rings regenerate hit points as fast as he uses them, he grabs Corwin-bar's treasures and is running back with them to his home base when he gets hit by Deidre's Water Wall, which pushes him back and forces him to drop the treasure, which is then picked up by Felicia. Keverian plays his Inhuman Presence with a 6 and an Add and a 5. Felicia gets locked in a mental battle.
One Paul Gray has no neck Two Paul Gray has no neck Three Paul Gray has no neck Four Paul Gray has no neck Five Paul Gray has no neck Six Paul Gray has no neckDalamar spots the enemy first. ``Chaos Marauders!'' he shouts, and they mysteriously join his flock of birds. Venomous Creeps slither out of the lake and grab Felicia's horse (``hello, are you good to eat? Waaah!'') Skyhorsenet strikes back, sending its virtually unstoppable killing machine back in time to destroy Corwin-bar. The Morgenstern 101, T-800 model, appears naked in the Forest of Arden. In the Amber stables, the last hope against Skyhorsenet, Killjoy, I mean Lovejoy, I mean Mountjoy, appears, looking very much like an ordinary naked horse.
We skip the first bit, where the horses try to obtain proper clothes so that they blend in better with society. We catch up with Mountjoy as he (she?) is trying to find Corwin-bar in order to protect him against the inevitable attacks from Morgenstern. Unfortunately for her (him?) Corwin-bar is hiding already, and there are no convenient passers-by to interrogate, at least none who understand Horse. Mountjoy trots around the remains of the village near Avalon for a while, looking for some grass to eat.
Meanwhile, Morgenstern has donned a police uniform, which doesn't fit terribly well. He rides furiously through shadow, to the outskirts of Avalon, where he whinnies a lot because he can't get through the shadow barrier. He checks around for some nice looking oats or something.
The future stretches out before Corwin-not like a highway at night, with the oncoming traffic allowed to pass but cars going out from Avalon are not. As he crests the mountain pass, two cars coming the other way appear side by side, filling the road. Nikrowd is passing Morgenstern, mostly because Morgenstern's hoof keeps slipping off the accelerator. Nikrowd is cranking down his side window, and although he is going at Engine Speed (well, he's got an engine, what do you expect?), the onrushing wind doesn't seem to be affecting his perfect perm. Distracted by the act of rolling down his window, Nikrowd doesn't notice the hapless Corwin-ur until it's too late. Nikrowd swerves, and skids into our principal antagonist. At the last second, however, Corwin-2 uses his personal control of shadow to make the road three lanes, and he miraculously survives.
At mid-season, the current standings:
The Central Division
W L
Random's Amberites 8 4
Finndo's Henchmen 7 5
ur-Corwin's Robots 2 10
Mandor's Weirdos 11 11
The Eastern Division
W L
Nikrowd's Nikrowds 13 12
Dalamar's Stuff 9 2
Keverian's Scary Guys 8 3
Felicia's Trumps 73 54
Mikele's Babes 7 4
Katarina's Duellists 1 1
Torquil's Picts 0 11
The Benedict Division
W L
Benedict 11 0
The Oberon Division
W L
Oberon Oberon Oberon
Until next time,
Hasta la Vista, um-Corwin!
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