Ambergris

Fig
Fig is to Ambergris as Ygg is to Amber. Both are trees grown from branches of the Great Tree of Life,
Yggdrasil. (SEE the Amber series by Robert Zelazny, Amber Diceless Roleplaying by Erick Wujcik,
Robert Zelazny, et all, my Amber writings, and those of others.)
Fig is not a simple tree, but a vast banyon-style plant of multiple trunks woven by limbs which criss-
cross and fuses together as often as the branch apart.
Each of Fig's leaves is a realm of Megrim; the life of Megrim is Fig's florescence.

Amergris
(SEE the Amber series by Robert Zelazny, Amber Diceless Roleplaying by Erick Wujcik, Robert
Zelazney, et all, my own Amber writings, and those of others.)
Ambergris is a variation of Amber. Ambergris is to Megrim as the Emerald City is to Oz, but Ambergris
has a stronger flavor of true Faerie.

Ambergris, the Living Palace-Garden Island

Ambergris the island is a living, sentient being. The intermingled palace and garden she grows upon the
surface of her mini-mountain self is a florescence of the Earth Herself. While her inhabitants may build
halls and towers as dwellings and workshops and artfully craft artificial plants for their gardens, these
fabrications are artifice only temporarily. Ambergris the living palace-garden soon grows to infuse and
incorporate such new structures into her living self. Trowel-laid mortar becomes her new flesh, quarry-
hewn stone her new bones.
The great bulk of Ambergris is the unalloyed product of her own spontaneous growth. Her halls and
towers may seem superficially similar to those build elsewhere by mortal hands, but a certain organic
voluptuousness hints at their organic origen. Towers branch into turrets and halls bud garrets. The
whole is interwoven, bound and sustained, by what might be either vines or veins, also of stone. There
is no differentiation of cliff and wall, room and cavern.
The main types of stone are the variously tinted purple granites, shot through with veinds of violet
stone, from the Purple Mountians beyond the Penisola Prugna and the glittering white fossil-studded
limestone and harder ossified coral of Blyscan Brython, detailed with malachite and azurite, copper and
other precious metals from the Dwarvyn mines under the Malachite Mountains beyond the Penisola
Muschio.
Ambergris is characterized by a richness of detail. She does not long leave a wall flat or a surface
unornamented. Niches and pilasters, moldings and medallions are just the beginning. She sprouts
statuary and unfurls draperies, stains her windows and engenders furniture with equal enthusiasm.
Mottos write themselves upon her mantles and titled portrait busts grow above her lintels; it would be
nice if more of the writings were in languages some scholar could decifer.
Ambergris is equally likely to use more naturalistic forms of ornimentation. Stalactites and stalagmites,
faerie pools and mushroom rings are as frequent as any other furnature or orinmentation. While she
grows many-branched candelabras and torch-blazing chandeliers, gas-lit wall sconces and oil lamps
chain-hung or sprouting atop pilasters in abundance, mosaics of luminescent lichens and roosts for
clusters of glow-moths, vari-coloured fire-fungi and crystal containers of brillient-blazing metalic fish
are just as common. She is, after all, a faerieland.
Here, the walls truely do have ears - and eyes. Ambergris thus has access to all that is said within her
walls, and has seen pictures and models from far-off lands.
One result is that her architectural flights of fancy are a complete mix of every style known to the far-
flung realms of Megrim - and from other worlds beyond.
Another result is that Ambergris has a consumate knowledge of the intrigues that take place within her
walls and grounds. Thankfully, she is no gossip. Indeed, she is so subtle in her communications that
most forget, if they ever realized at all, that she is indeed a being quite sapient, even if her disputable
sentient is of a cast beyond mortal comprehension.
Architectural and landscaping revision is a constant process. This regularly causes confusion among
her inhabitants. Whole rooms appear and disappear. Items fossilize into concretions of the surfaces they
are set down upon while other items that started off as bas-relief sketches become real.
This is especially relevant in the apartments and workshops, as areas steadily inhabited by individuals
of strong character take on their inhabitants' characteristics. Wardrobes and cabinets, tool chests and
cupboards are as susceptible to the affect as are architectural elements. A benefit is that items in
Ambergris are self-repairing. A drawback is that without proper insulation, one cannot count on one's
possessions always being available.
It has been suggested that the inhabitants of Ambergris are her servants, and not the other way around.
It is even rumored that Queen Titania was created by Ambergris as her interface with the rest of the
world. (SEE Queen Titania, under The Ambergritae, below.)
That her inhabitant bring her trinkets, such as carved models of far-off architecture or bouquets of
flowers seems a casual form of animistic worship or propitiation rather than overt communication.

Ambergris' Stable Features

Ambergris an island in the form of a miniature mountain, with luxurous gardens and architecture
sprawling accross her surface and extending deep below. While she is notoriously fickle, with features
constantly appearing and dissapearing, or at least transforming, she is considerate enough to keep
certain features stable in their outlines, if not their details.
The composition of garden and architecture show careful consideration for defence as well as romance
in their design and detail. History has shown Ambergris well able to defend herself.

The Cliff
Ambergris is cliff-girded, as much for aesthetic reasons as for defence. Steep stairs lead down to
isolated beaches fo sand or pebble, but such paths pass through strong-gated tunnels are are narrow
enough for easy defence. Many include break-away or withdrawable segments. Others are subject to
rockslides or have been known to simply disappear.
The Sea Caves
These are her real ports, large enough for boats. Ships must make port at the towns across the water.
The sea caves have great gates. The sea caves communicate with her canal system. Curiously, the tides
do not seem to influence the water level inside.

The Canals
Ambergris is threaded though by a canal system, which communicates with her sea caves. The canal
system may be accessed at several levels of Ambergris, but there is no strong current or apparent
change of height in the canals.
The gondolas used on the canals are as short and stubby as coracles, for greater maneuverability. The
gondoliers are Goblyn from the Purple Mountains some fourty miles to the north.

The Subway
Ambergris has a subway system. It is based on Dwarvn mine technology. There are, in fact, crews of
Dwarvyn to man the wooden pony carts. Even they don't really know the full extent of the system. It
does extend out under the sea to the three headland towns around Ambergris.

The Gardens
As befits a faerie realm, the island Ambergris is as much garden as it is palace. One feature of the
gardens is that there are huge workshops devoted to the artificial crafting of flowers and other plants
from metal and precious stone, wood whittled and inlaid, and paper cut and curled, folded and painted.
When these artificial plants are set into the ground or affixed to walls, tree trunks, or other structures,
they graft themselves into place and proceed to grow.
"Natural" plants imported from elsewhere will also grow, but are soon transformed. Leaves turn to
carved malachite, be-spangled with dewy diamond droplets. Blossoms become everlasting by virtue of
mineral substance.
Note that if harvested, the plants, with their fruits and flowers, soon revert as if by a ripening process to
ephemeral organic quality if not properly preserved or enchanted. Thus, the vegetable products are
edible, and while the dewdrops may be collected, without enchantment they will melt away before they
could be, for example, exported for profit, should any be so coarse of motive.
Products of these fabulous gardens included petals delicate in texture yet robust as fabric when sewn.

Guest Quarters
The most honored of guests are given quarters in Ambergris herself. Most, however, must stay at inns
on the mainland. Special freinds of members of the Family may have their oun suites researved for
their exclusive use, even if it is years between visits.

Family Quarters
Queen Titania's numerous decendants and their families all have suits. Many branches of the family
have their own wings and courts.
Royal Suite
Here the Divine Ancestress herself and her personal bodyservants have their privacy. Even her own
childred come here only by invitation. The Royal Suite includes its own kitchen and a luxurious
bathing cavern with miniature lake.

The Aerie-Stable
Flying mounts are kept here. (Land-going mounts are stables on the mainland.) These include winged
horses and giant swans to draw the Queen's own chariot.

The Ambergritae
The Ambergritae are clearly a Faerie folk. Their large, liquid eyes of almond form and spider-silk hair
of ever-perfect coifure, all of hues no mortal flesh ever knew, ivory complexions flushed and shadowed
green and blue, and ears so tall and curved, pointed and fluted of edge as to be almost wing-like, mark
them so. They vary considerably, as none but Queen Titania Herself is pure Ambergris; all are Her
descendants, the products of mixed bloods. How many generations a Prince or Princess is from their
Divine Ancestress is reflected in how much Ambergris flows through their veins. Their looks reflect
their diversity.
The Ambergritae are now of four generations decent. The terms half-blood and quadroon, octoroon and
hexadecane are used as honorable title-substitutes.
Ambergris: the Blood-Sap
Ambergris flows as blood and sap in the veins of the House of Ambergris. Its purity is a matter of both
decent and exercise. Spouses and adopted children can, by transfusion and majical rites, develop
Ambergris in themselves.
Ambergris is best known for promoting majical abilities; the blood-sap of Ambergritae is well-known
as a universal physic to the more sorcerous applications of alchemy. Having Ambergris flowing in their
veins gives the Ambergritae a great natural propensity for majic.
The best-known exercise of Ambergritae majic is Shifting. The uninitiated may think of Shifting as the
Ambergritae ability to Shift from one location to another by simply walking. From the Ambergritae
point of view, it is not they who Shift but the surroundings. This is basically identical to Shadow
walking in a "regular" Amber universe, the only significant difference being that instead of moving to
distinct separate worlds, Shifting leads to (or leads to the creation of) the various realms of Megrim.
Ambergris is likewise used for the creation of Tarot, those enchanted cards used by the Ambergritae
and their favorites for Readings (fortunetelling,) far-casting (scrying,) far-telling (communications,)
and, given sufficient power, travel (nearly risk-free Shifting.)
Queen Titania
Divine Ancestress of the Ambergritae, Queen Titania rules over a court boisterous and colourful. She is
modeled on the classical image of the "Faerie Queen," but is coloured, as are her Court and realm, by
Gloriana, the Unfulfilled Queen, (Michael Moorcock.)
It has been suggested that Queen Titania was created by Ambergris as an interface between the living
palace-land and the rest of Megrim, that Titania is a mouthpiece of the land, or was at least created so.
Tatiana is immortal and ageless, and what stories there are of her youth could well be myth. The facts
of the matter are probably irrelevant. What matters is that she is now, and for time beyond memory has
always been, Queen of the Faerie.
The Court of Ambergris is more than just a fairyland. Here are ambassadors from realms far and wide.
This is the center of Megrim politics - and romance. All roads lead to Ambergris; her merchant-princes
trade far across the roads of sea and land. Maintaining these routs is a duty of the Princes and
Princesses of Ambergris. To this end their travels are made of equal parts social politics to keep good
relations with those lesser realms of Megrim in the orbit of Ambergris and such adventures are may be
needed to keep the routs of communication open. Here there be dragons.

Other Areas of Ambergris

Ambergris the realm is ideal in its geography; she designed herself to be so. Naturally, the climate is
equally perfect.
While the lands immediately around Ambergris are settled and safe, one need not journy far to meet
wilderness and adventure. There are port villages and latifundia (private country retreat estates and
plantations) all along the neighboring coasts of the Blood, Azure, and Golden Seas. The villages and
esates are walled for both privacy and defence; while it has been centuries since any scion of of Queen
Titania brewed up sufficient power to dare bring an army towards Ambergris, and millenia since and
foreign power was so audacious as to attack openly, there are always beasties and wild humanoids
trickling down from the mountains beyond. These provide a fine challenge to the knights of Ambergris,
both mortal and Faerie.
The island of Ambergris is a miniature mountain at the confluence of streights connecting three seas,
the Blood, Azure, and Golden (clockwise from the north.) This makes for an exceedingly picturesque
rainbow in the waters about Ambergris.

Penisola Prugna
Porto Arcobaleno
The streights are divided by three headlands. Facing Ambergris from between the Blood and Azure
Seas' streights is the great glittering commercial city of Porto Arcobaleno (Port of Rainbows), so named
because the constant sea-spray and dewy fogs create rainbows all about the town, girded about with
staunch walls and elegant towers, all of purple and violet, with detailing in bues and reds to
compliment the crimson and cobalt seas. Aside from the spur of rough cliffs of variously tinted purple
granite shot with veins of violet quarts defining its headland, this widest of the three peninsulas is fairly
flat and wet, even swampy in places. It is, in fact, rich delta soil deposited by the Fiume Prugna, or
Plum River, the last branches of which bring barge traffic right to the city gates.
The crown of Porto Arcobaleno is a cluster of palaces, josteling upon the spur of cliffs for views of
Ambergris. Some belong to the famous Merchant-Princes of Ambergris, several of whom are actual
Ambergrisae, lesser members of the Royal Family. Others are embassies hosting entourages from
exotic, far-off lands as well as neighboring realms. Still others are residential hotels. A few are home to
royal families living in exile; Porto Arbaleno makes a good haven, as the Ambergrisae find such exiles
a useful political tool. The fortified Citadel oversees the whole city from the peak.
The subway leading under the sea from Ambergris is accessed under the citadel. It is not for public use.
The Queen's Cut is a steep-sided moat dividing the granite headland from the rest of the city, which is
built on softer ground. Three bridges run steeply down from their tunnels through the Citadel cliffface
wall across the moat-canal to the lower ground on the imainland side. The bridges are made of giant
sliding slices of horn; at dusk the Azure-side bridge is withdrawn and its portal sealed shut. The Blood
Sea side bridge remains extended for three hours past dusk, so the Merchant Princes can work past
dusk at tehir counting houses before heading back to their palaces. The central brige and portal is open
until half past midnight, to serve revelers in the Pleasure District; on Festival Nights, it may remain
open all night long., and can be withdrawn and their tunnels sealed shut. Below the bridges in the
bottom of Queen's Cut ravine, is a canal-cut pleasure garden flanked at either end by lagoons ringed
with elegant boathouses for pleasure craft and beautiful gondolas to ferry passangers to lesser ports
along the neighboring coasts.
Further back from the rough outcropping of purple cliffs which form the headland, washed by the
crimson waters of the Blood Sea, are the commercial warves busy with merchantmen, overseen by the
sturdy watchtowers of the merchant princes' countinghouses - and the assayers' office -raise their
elegant necks high for first view of rich-cargoed vessels. Across the neck from the import harbor are
the rather ricketier - and far smellier - warves of the fishing fleets and great harpoon-slinging hunting
ships, seaweek hookers' skiffs and waterbuses serving passengers to Kaulk Kliffan across the Blood
Sea streight and other ports up and down the neighboring coasts.
Backing the merchants' harbor are an incredible diversity of shops whre goods from a thousand distant
lands are bartered. Backing the fishing harbor are most of the smythies (located in the undesireable,
smelly area due to their niose and smoke), the fishmarket (naturally), and ajoining produce market
(towards the city wall), and the workshops of craftsment of diverse skills. These two areas are laced by
canals.
Most of the gondoliers are Goblyn from under the Purple Mountains some fourty miles to the north, or
just over a hundred miles by barge up the Fiume Prugna.
Along the higher ground in between these two quarters, centered on the Grand Plaza's Guild Hall-lined
parade grounds, is the most famous Pleasure Quarter in the world, featuring baths and theatres, parks
and cafes. There are enough lights here to brighten even the foggiest of Porto Arbolano's nights. Even
this somewhat higher ground is cut by canals. At the foot of the Pleasure Quarter, near the city wall, is
the Circus (amphitheatre) and ajoining Beast market.
There is no distinct Temple District. Shrines are found in almost every home and garden, and every
street and ally has its neighborhood niche for offerings. Temples are scattered throughout the city with
thelarger tending to be in the poorer areas, where large enough spaces could be obtained, or built on the
sites of former palaces where the owners donated the land.
The great Old Wall bounds and defends Arcobaleno on her mainland side. The Old Wall is thickened
and strengthened by the grainery towers built into it. A Canal Gate peirces the the base of the jetty at
either end where the Old Wall continues out to its terminal lighthouse towers. Along the foot of the Old
Wall runs a moating canal.
Beyond the Old Wall canal, between the lagoons, is the broad Greensward, at once a defence and a
picnic grounds. The races held here, from one shore to the other along the greensward below the wall,
are famous for the drama of the running beasts and for high-stakes gambling.
Beyond the Greensward is the Flesh District, with its cattleyards and aution block, abattoirs and
feedsheds, leather workshops and, exiled from the city proper due to their smell, the dyers' vats.
Servicing these and the fields beyond are the poor living in their tight-packed quarters. The canals here
are rather scum-choaked.
Encirling the outter city is the New Wall. Like the Old Wall, it is peirced by a canal gate at either end;
lagoons ringed with boathouses mark either end of the New Wall Moat. These lagoons serve boats and
barges for pleasure, passage, and cargo trqaveling through the maze of the Fiume Prugna (Plum River)
delta.

Beyond Porto Arbolano

The Fiume Prugna's loops, lazy and broad, meander about the delta peninsula which it has built up with
rich silt-earth. Crews keep barge canals open from the Plum's main streams right to the city gates. The
paths of the barge-pulling draftbeasts are the only roads in the area. These paths arch high on wooded
bridged where meanders of the Fiume Prugna and associated canals intersect.
Much of the bottomlands is thicket-choked bog and swamp, a dripping purple wilderness. Fields are
ringed by wicker walls to hold in soil, or are actually foating gardens built on bouyant floating peat
islands or log rafts. The roads for the barge-pulling draftbeasts are of floating corduroy, logs lashed
together side by side. The thickets of willowy, picturesquely twisted plum trees of two dozen varieties,
as well as cherry and other half-wild stonefruit trees, dotting the bottomlands are well adapted to soil
half mud.
Ten miles along, higher, drier land begins to rise from the rich but wet bottomland soil on either side of
the Peninsola Prungna. The bottomland, laced by sloughs and creeks, the oxbows and meanders of the
Fiume Prugna, continues up the middle of the peninsula for another twenty miles. Here begin the
scattering of picuresque villages shimmering with gnarled silvery olive trees and latafundia (country
estates) scented by citrus groves. Hedgrows of oregano and lavender are a-buzz with honey-hiving
bees.
There are throughout the delta outcroppings of variously tineted purple granite shot with violet quart,
rather like the headlands. These are foothills fo the Purple Mountains which pile upwards some fourty
miles away from from Ambergris. The Purple Mountains tower high, clad in a heavy cloak of deep
purple conifers. The mines here would be more productive if the native flora, fauna, and folk were not
so tricksie.
The Fiume Prugna is navagable not mearly up to but right on into the Purple Mountains and the Goblyn
kingdom below. Due to its lazy curves, the Fiume Prugna takes over a hundred miles to travel the
fourty miles from the mountains to Porto Arcobaleno.
The King-Under-The-Mountains is on good terms with Ambergris, who are officially his overlords. He
is king becuase his predecessor wasn't and so got himself deposed. The Goblyn may not like
Ambergris, but they do appreciate the commerce.

Penisola Muschio
Palazzo Avorio
The rich green of Penisola Muschio (Mossy Peninsula), a Crown property, divides the Azure and
Golden Seas. It is named for its royal forest of giant mosses, some stands of which exceed a hundred
foot in height. Below, a thick carpet of lesser mosses makes for fine grazing to fatten the royal herds.
Riders here may have difficulty differentiating between the orchids and the butterflies.
The Ambergris Royal Navy is tended in a sheltered harbor to one side of the peninsula. Strangers are
not welcome here.
The Presidio guards access to the Ambergris subway below, as well as access to the harbor.
Palazzo Avorio (Ivory Palace) is sited upon the top of the first foot hill of the Montania Muschio. From
here, there are fine views along the peninsula and out to Ambergris and up along both flanks of the
mountains which rise far and high into the mainland. The bulk of Ambergris' riding beasts are tended
and trained here.
While Palazzo Avorio is a favored hunting loge, many nobles prefer to base their hunts at more isolated
locations. Such lodges, often built upon spurs of the forested mountains, may also function as quarters
for gamekeepers and foresters and as watchtowers.

Beyond Palazzo Avoirio

Five miles up either coast the Crown Lands pull back from the rugged coasts to make room for small
villages and latifunia serviced by water; there are no roads for another fifteen miles.
Twenty five miles further back the Malachite Mountains rise up in bald, stony peaks. There are rich
mines yeilding malachite and azurite, copper and other precious metals, but there are also malicious
monsters to challenge the brave. Ambergris leaves the mining to the Dwarvyn King-Under-the-
Mountain.

Blyscan Brython
Kaulk Kliffan
Between the Golden and Blood Sea Kaulk Kliffan (Chalk Cliff),a town far more modest than her
overwhelming sister, Porto Arcobaleno, shelters a sleepy community of farmers and petty crafters.
Kaulk Kliffan is built of the native white stone. Most of the houses are rooved in living orange sod.
Many of the simpler, hive-built huts are completely covered in sod. Out on the Misty Moors, such a sod
covering provides good camouflage as well as insulation form the weather.
Stairs have been cut into the alba-white cliffs of the sea-lock below Kaulk Kliffan. Boats carring
passangers and farm products, livestock and bundles of straw and hay, stone and peat, often all mixed
together, may tie up at the rough landings cut into the stone, or draw up on the skree-stone cobble
beach at the head of the lock. The loch is also used by the coracles of pearl divers and seaweed
gatherers, fisherfolk and their trained cormerants.
There is a small fortress here, kept as much to guard the entrnce to the subway to Ambergris as to
watch over quiet Kaulk Kliffan.

Beyond Kaulk Kliffan

Blyscan Brython (Ruddy Briton) is a land of great, rough blocks of stone, layers of limestone studded
with fossilized shells alternating with layers of hard ossified ancient corals. As a thatch upon the bluff
cliffs, a tangle about their feet, and sprigs cleving to every crannies are tussocks of ruddy orange
grasses and heath and yellow-orange gorse; when backlit, the land looks to be a-fire.
These Mist-Moors are lush from sea-fog. The sheep and geese grow fat on the rich grazing if they can
avoid the mires of march cupped upon the level bluff tops and the and sudden, steep-sided, dark-
watered terns in those crevasses not choked with scree gravel.
The white stone of country palaces and small villages gleams ghost-like through the fog or glitters like
sugar crystal when the rare but bright sun glistens upon the dew-damp walls. Set high upon cliff-girded
hillocks, they gaze across landscapes of barren moorland cut by forest-sheltering gashes. This is good
country for gamebirds, but the footing is in many places too treaturous for a hunt.
Here and there, the crevasses are wide enough to hold lochs, lakes deep and narrow. The sea-lochs are
like fjords lwalled by squarish, blocky stone.
While no organized foe of Ambergris has come this way since the Joten were last subdued over a
millenium ago, stray beasties and and crude wild humanoids from the mountains beyond make staying
behind strong walls at night a wise policy.
The land mounts higher in fits and starts for some twenty miles, to the Jotuns' Biers mountains.
These are wild lands, even before the row of watchtowers which gaze out across to the Jotuns' Biers.
Beyond the Towers are fell beasties, more the quarry of a brave knight errant, mortal or Faerie, riding
out upon a quest for glory than of a mere sporting huntsman.