Lots of interesting things over at my fellow Bloggers, and yes, once again, I feel like I am in network mode here, telling you about them all.

Ginger throws a campaign seed out on Rebma. She also posted it to the AML. Arref also throws in his own thoughts on Rebma too, again, sort of crossposted to the AML. Meera has a brand spanking new graphic for her Amber bits Blog, and its absolutely gorgeous.

Fun.

Today is March 1st, and, although I haven't received mine yet, the list of games for Ambercon is due out today (although it might be a function of a name near the end of the alphabet more than anything ). We are creeping up, also, on the Ides of March, the official Anniversary Day for Strange Bedfellows. On March 15, 1996, after a lot of debate and thought on the matter, I decided that running a PBEM could be a good thing. So, I began to approach a few online friends if they might be interested in getting in on the ground floor. I still have most of those charter players.

The funny part is, it took six years of real time to get to a major milestone that I have been thinking about since the game started. In the Strange Bedfellows universe, the Calendar of Amber is far more regular than ours. It is comprised of twelve months of 30 days each, and to bring the total to an even 365, there are five intercalary days. Game time started on March 15...and the first Intercalary Day is the Spring Equinox. After 6 years, the events of the Festival (between the 19th and the 20th of March) have begun.

I have envisioned it as a day of a variety of events. I provide a graphical version of it here. The link opens up in a new window, so feel free to click and look at it now.

As you can see from looking at it, (Sure, I'm not Alisia, or Arref, but I can be proud of my own stuff), my vision was that members of the Royal Family of Amber would naturally gravitate toward creating or hosting or being patrons for various events. I imagine that other strata of Amber society also have their own events...and wouldn't that make an interesting con game? Just revolving around the entire day of the Festival. Hmmmm.

The highlight, the climax of the day is the Ball, hosted by none other than Florimel herself. It's THE event of the season.

The other four intercalary days are, by the way, Midsummer (again, lots of parties and a ball...but the symbolism of this Ball is that, often, the last person you dance with at THAT Ball, will be your significant other for the rest of the Summer), The Harvest, or Autumnal, Equinox,Midwinter, and New Year's Day. Unlike the Equinoxes and Solstices, New Year's Day is a very somber and quiet day...for Midwinter, only 9 days before, is usually a party whose hangover can last for quite a while.

Another minor, astronomical note to the Festival of the Unicorn, the Vernal Equinox, is that it is the first day of the year that the constellation of the Unicorn, with the brightest star in Amber's sky, is visible, and that's why Cas and Pol get more attendees than you might expect to their stargazing.

A full moon has not fallen on the Festival of the Unicorn in quite some time, and it does not this year, either (it fell on the day before). A Festival of the Unicorn with a full moon might make an interesting Tir visit, indeed.

Okay, I feel somewhat better now. Mostly, I am just smarting over the entire affair. I have better and more friends, though, than I realize sometimes, and am much more than just a bleating sheep of pain. Although I don't think that he was talking to me personally, Arref goes from that point, to talking about Amber, and the attitude of the Elders.

He makes a good comparison between immortal children...and Faerie (as in the real, 200-proof ones, not Tolkienized Elves). Children who lived forever, and had power to match, would be very much like them indeed. To go all scientific and biological, you might even say that Faerie are akin to empowered humans who show neotony not in physical appearance, but in their stage of social development.

Why are the Elders of Amber often depicted this way? Especially the first series...where stranding half brothers on islands, putting sharp objects in footwear, and shooting truck drivers are all considered appropriate behavior? Kids in a sandbox, to use Arref's turn of phrase.

The answer is deceptively simple. Amberites are Faerie.

I can hear the groans now from some readers (although I bet Meera and Arref just think I am stating the obvious). Jvstin, this buisness with the copyright violation has addled your brain. Corwin, Brand, and all the rest are Faerie?

They sure are. The thing is, since we mostly seem them from the inside, we don't really think of them as Faerie. Another good example is the novels of Steven Brust. Vlad is also in a Faerie realm, although in that case, things like the sky, and the implied border with a realm where things are different (Fenario) make it a little more clear. But Amber could be considered a Faerieland, and its inhabitants are Faerie.

You just have to get a little parallax from it. The head of the family is...Oberon. Sure, there is no Titania, but disregard that. High Magic, strange powers, time flows different than, say, Earth...an iconic realm...are these not all attributes of a Faerieland and its inhabitants? Add their child-like personalities, long life spans and cavalier attitudes toward shadows (mortals) and you are all set. Oberon's continual search for new wives is nothing new--the stories of mortals being lured as lovers "Under the Hill" are too numerous to count.

You can push the analogy too far...Chaos as the Unseelie Court, perhaps, is a stretch. And as Arref points out in his missive linked above, the Amberites do something that true Faerie are rarely seen to do--grow and change, and mature.

In fact, now that the thought strikes me, perhaps THAT is one of the reasons why the Merlin series is not as well liked...an underreported reason, anyway. Not that Merlin's story lacks a lot of the charge of Corwin's, or some of the ideas are not well thought out (sentient Pattern and Logrus).

It's that, with the Amberites far less the scheming and treacherous Faerie of the first series, some people who like their Amber to be filled with that sort of thing find it lacking in that area. The machinations in Chaos don't hold a candle, in that sense, to the cabals, intrigues and side-switching of the First Series. Jim Groves once coined the phrase "Vanilla Amber" to describe Amber royal families where everyone gets along, and there is no conflict whatsoever. Aside from the matter of Luke and Dalt,both outsiders, internal family conflict in the Second Series is lacking, and that turns off a lot of people who adore the first series. Just combine it with the decidedly different taste of Merlin as protagonist, and its easy to see why there is a dichotomy.

Hmm...now there would be an interesting point to correlate and if I had Moveable type here, I'd do it. Do Amber players who really like Throne Wars correlate to those who prefer First Series?