History
“The Great Game” was based on the Steampunk genre and drew heavily from the RP game “Castle Falkenstein”. Each of the characters were children of the Elder Amberites who were helping defend an outpost against an attack by forces from the Courts of Chaos during the Patternfall war. On their voyage back to Amber, they encountered a Pattern storm which completely transformed their world, or them, depending on your point of view.
Brigid was the daughter of Fiona. She was a physician and surgeon, well-trained in all the medical sciences, and a sorceress whose magic power came from the Fae. During the Pattern storm, she was transformed into one of the highest Fae, one of only two characters who were physically transformed. (The other became a dwarf.)
Amber, too, was transformed: steam carriages on the streets, cannons on warships in the harbor, pennants for all the major family members (including Eric) flying above Castle Amber. Even stranger was that everyone was much nicer, friendlier, more solicitous, more concerned about our predicament. To characters used to the infighting and backbiting that was the undercurrent of Amber, it was quite a shock.
The question was: was Amber transformed, or were the characters and their memories? With quite un-Amber-like concern, the Elders were very solicitous that our true memories would return and everything would right with Amber once again. The characters were more concerned about maintaining that they were unchanged and that it was Amber that changed. (“Pod people” jokes are common during this part of the game.) In the mean time, everyone was anticipating the Great Ball to be held soon, and we were all invited.
At the Ball, we met more of the Elders, including Fiona, Queen of Egypt who arrived on a salon chair carried by slaves. (There were no “Queen of de’Nile” jokes, alas) and Prince Brand, who we later discovered was the Adversary, the Lord of the Unseelie, and it was our responsibility to deal with him because the Elders were a) unaware of his status or b) forbidden to take any action against him. We were able to do so, by the vehicle of a cold iron arrow, but that didn’t entirely banish him, only his semblance as Brand.
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