in the Shadow of Greatness

Mysteries of Amber: Founding Rebma

I've started this a few times—and wonder now why it is so hard to get it down on the page.

Rebma is the mirror of Amber.

Just think for a long minute about the potential of that for stories and drama and personal relationships and Everything. Rebma is Amber backwards. Not darker. Not a subset. Not a gender-switched cliche.

The complimenting Other.

Folks say that Deirdre is a cardboard character and her "screen time" is too limited to know much about her. Maybe so. Here's Roger giving us a small conversation between two women who obviously know each other well:

And how much Moire seems to know of them all before they even tell her...

Oberon crafts Amber from the raw material that Dworkin draws from a sea of night. Amber's first king is hard, uncanny, dauntless, demanding, magnificent and shrewd. He makes a kingdom of contests, secrets, glorious strengths, and intense hubris.

And Rebma is the mirror with a Pattern scribed in reverse, a woman of mercy on the throne, and vision perceptive enough to see into the secrets of Amber—while being a mystery to Amber.

There is deep magic in Rebma. The water caresses and does not crush. The flames give light and do not quench. Fish wander past the pedestrians. A Rebman warrior can meet the gaze of a Prince of Amber and not look away.

Rebma is not immune to tragedy, but its tragedy is in association with Amber. There is certainly a subtle and long-felt bond in place. One might guess that Rebma is a blessed and protected place—even as Amber does not expect to be troubled by things out of shadow.

So is Rebma sweetness and fey greens to Amber's brutally golden light? No. They have weapons, troops, justice for broken hearts, and women who can speak of love in front of men none the wiser.

Oberon was a man of Chaos. He forced the realm to his vision.
What we know of the royal line of Rebma is not as much.
It is a strong line. It has equality to Amber—and respect for it.
It is a mystery of beauty and eternal strength that is somehow as long-lived as Amber.

IMC, the city is founded by the first allies of Oberon, the Athanor. Before Oberon had a castle or scions or a pot to piss in he had the friendship of Lir and the uneasy hopes of the Lost Sea Tribes of the Athanor.

The Athanor were immortals, but not the fortified and uncanny immortals of Chaos. The Athanor were not even thought to be a true race, since they often sprang from mortal blood. They were homeless and feared gypsy immortals somehow anchored to the roots of shadow—and sometimes born of adversity. They had the lives of hermits, monsters, and pariahs.

Which fit so well with Oberon's own situation—thanks to Dworkin.

Lir was a clan chief and a speaker on the council of tribes. When the hard days of making Amber work were finally well-started and Oberon had sons and daughters to build his line—Lir was acclaimed the first King of Rebma while Oberon was taking the crown of Amber. By then the two men had already turned back the First Chaosian Incursion: an army large enough to completely surround and seige Amber. Rebma has more than once been the difference between Amber surviving or being razed.

The rest is bright and terrible legend.

*the Athanor in my campaign owe complete inspiration to Jane Lindskold and her stories about the odd immortal flukes of earth's history.