FAQ

It occured to me that in the course of our quotes, our journals, and our logs, that some stuff just goes unanswered. Some of it in jokes. Some of it in game events that we don't really explain. Stuff like that. So, here's the all official FAQ.

This FAQ was last updated 11.26.99

1.0 Setting

1.1 What is the Vitae?
1.2 Who are the Waveriders/Moonriders/Oleai, and what do they have to do with the Vitae?
1.3 Who is Osric, and why does he have a Bright Pattern instead of a normal one?
1.4 What's a Pattern Zombie?
1.5 Why is Jeremy Franklin sometimes a bad guy?
2.0 Inside Jokes
2.1 Why is Maladin "Christian"?
2.2 Why is Dalen the Harlot Queen and Patron Slut of Amber?
2.3 What is the deal with Aaron and sticky buns?
2.4 Grotto the Dog?!
2.5 Uh, breast related sound effects?
2.6 What's the connection between bunnies and Aaron and Maladin?
2.7 Okay, that explains the bunnies on the homepage. Now why is there a tortoise and a hamster?
1.0 Setting
1.1 What is the Vitae?
The Vitae originally appeared in a piece Cort wrote and posted to the Amber Mailing list way back in *gasp* 1993. To read the full piece, check out the archived version of it on the Amber Mailing List FTP site. Essentially, it stipulates a different duality besides Order Chaos. Vitae is the force of life, opposing the power of the Abyss and destruction. The influence of the Pattern and the Logrus interacting creates waves which those initiated in those arts can use to travel through shadow. We're not entirely certain how much Cort has deviated from this cosmology in our campaign. Perhaps those who are Vitae initiates know, but I, personally, am uncertain.
1.2 Who are the Waveriders/Moonriders/Oleai, and what do they have to do with the Vitae?
Waveriders in general are those who are capable of riding the waves of Vitae. One specific group of such Waveriders are the Oleai. More popularly known as the Moonriders of Ghenesh, the Oleai were the origional inhabitants of the Vitae. Eventually some of them went off to make the Logrus, and much later, after most of Chaos had forgotten its' heritage, House Barimen went off to create the Pattern. Unlike the Logrus, the Pattern was not created to take into account the existance of Vitae dependent creatures.

When the first creation wave hit, many Oleai were killed, on the order of Billions, only those who had the talent/quick thinking to figure out how to resist the waves and enter them survived. Darwin at his finest.

The Oleai didn't claim Ghenesh until recently, it was just a convient portal to get to Amber. Amber only thought they had wiped out a strange invader from Ghenesh, with the possibly exception of Dworkin, they had no idea the ramifications of what they were fighting.

1.3 Who is Osric, and why does he have a Bright Pattern instead of a normal one?
Osric is actually a canon character, one of those people that so little is known about that they make a lovely plot device for GMs. Osric is one of Benedicts two full brothers, the other being Finndo. They are known for having died for the good of Amber.

In terms of Dreaming in the Real, we first must understand what the Bright Pattern is. Cort uses an elemental template for the Patterns: Amber being the Earth Pattern, Rebma the Water Pattern, and Tir-na N'ogth being the Air Pattern. the fourth, the Fire Pattern, was Osric's Pattern. When Osric "died" for the good of Amber, he took the Pattern he had the greatest affinity for with him. The Fire Pattern, or "Bright Pattern" has been horribly warped, and now only the dead can walk it now.

Cort's original ideas on this also appear in an archived essay on the Amber List FTP site.

1.4 What's a Pattern Zombie?
A Pattern Zombie is any normal Joe who's been turned into some sort of initiate of the Bright Pattern. There are two kinds of Pattern Zombies. There's the ones like Fumaris, who are pretty much risen dead, and can only mindlessly chase after strong sources of Pattern. The other is the general Bright Pattern initiate, who died immediately prior to the walking of the Bright Pattern. Lentaro is one of the latter.
1.5 Why is Jeremy Franklin sometimes a bad guy?
In addition to playing everybody's good friend Maladin, Jeremy F. also volunteered to Voice for Cort. This basically means that he runs a set of NPCs that Cort has assigned to him. So far we've only seen Osric's goons running about and making people's lives miserable. If Jeremy is playing any other characters, we don't know about it.
2.0 Inside Jokes
2.1 Why is Maladin "Christian"?
In the legendary trip to Shadow Earth, the only pairs of men's pants in Flora's rooms were reeeaaally tight in the crotch. Aaron, in a bout of helpfulness, suggested that Maladin should wear a pair of underwear (briefs, to be precise), or else people will be able to tell "whether he's Christian or not". Maladin got that it was a religious thing, but didn't realize it meant circumcision. He thought it was the underwear. (Yeah, Mormon jokes ensued.) So, the thing was sort of dropped, until Maladin was hit in the butt by what we called an orbital laser. (Cort is swift to point out that it technically wasn't an orbital laser). Jeremy F. insisted that the aliens knew Maladin was Christian, and that's why they shot him there.
2.2 Why is Dalen the Harlot Queen and Patron Slut of Amber?
It started off with a few innocuous events. First was her spacing out when approaching Len in the first session. Then there was Len leading Dalen into Castle Amber, saying, with a wink, that she was with him. At the tea party the next day, she ended up spacing out and snorkeling in her soup. Maladin happened to be seated next to Llewella, and had all sorts of scandalous things to say about Dalen, from her "drunkeness" to her "association" with Len. Since then, the joke still pops up infrequently, especially when Lentaro had a proposition for Dalen. Despite attempts to shift the title to Rhyss, it keeps drifting back to Dalen.
2.3 What is the deal with Aaron and sticky buns?
The first session, Andy pointed out that he didn't want the standard thin Amberite. He had his Amberite be "festively plump". Well, the first time Aaron had breakfast with his mother, Flora, she had a rather normal breakfast, and Aaron was given a small fruit salad. After breakfast, Aaron went sulkily up to his room and ordered sticky buns. And then Aaron's nightmares began. The next appearance of sticky buns was with the legendary Kalissera (who's name is spelled differently every time), who lured Aaron off to a little picnic basket filled with sticky buns. Though Kalissera is notably well endowed, Aaron only seemed to be looking at her basket of food.

Since then, the sticky bun jokes have persisted. Also refered to as sweet rolls, sticky rolls, or sweet buns, we've hounded Andy about it ever since. At AmberCon NW, Cort sought out all of Andy's GMs and encouraged them to include sticky buns in the games Andy was to play in.

2.4 Grotto the Dog?!
Another first session legacy, Grotto was the ultimate bad stuff character, being the child of Deirdre and Dworkin's dog. It inspired a slew of Scooby-Doo jokes, and occasionally comes up still.
2.5 Uh, breast related sound effects?
The legendary Kalissera first appeared with this charming smile, which Cort had gave a little "ting" sound with. We joked that she'd had her teeth recently tuned. Later, when Cort had her appear, he'd stick his chest forward to emulate the chestiness of Kalissera, with another little sound effect.
2.6 What's the connection between bunnies and Aaron and Maladin?
During the session on 12.5.99, Aaron had a little experiment. Which most people knows that you should run in the other direction. However, Aaron convinced Maladin to help him with this experiment. It seemed that Aaron wanted to try messing with the waves in the Vitae, but couldn't sense them. So, he needed Maladin. With a bit of experimentation, Aaron was able to break open a wave that was heading from Amber to Chaos.

This caused the quintissential essence of Aaron and Maladin to get dispersed with everything else that the deluge of scattered Vitae touched. The wave from the Chaos end of things switched everything back, except Maladin and Aaron. Not having anything else to work with, the wave restructured them into typical denizens of the shadow: 3-foot tall rabbit-like creatures, with little gathering pouches on their side.

A bit of Advanced Pattern use was able to switch things back. Maladin made Aaron swear he would not tell anyone about it, especially Lentaro. Since Lentaro is incapable of heckling Maladin about it in-character, the webmaster for the site has been forced to underhanded trickery.

2.7 Okay, that explains the bunnies on the homepage. Now why is there a tortoise and a hamster?
Originally, the bunnies were the only thing on the home page, in order to mock Aaron and Maladin's player, but then Dalen's player said, "I probably won't think it's as funny once there's a tortoise up there." The tortoise thing came about because she once shapeshifted into one, and later when Lentaro had a proposition for Dalen, that involved the fact that Dalen could change into a tortoise, the jokes ran wild.

And, of course, Lentaro's best described as a big, anthropomorphic hamster.