Everway for Amberites

Why Everway?

The short answer might be: "Caine." He's the fellow Corwin tells us he wouldn't fear unless it came to a knife fight. Unfortunately, there's no way to model this in the ADRPG system. In Everway, we can account for Caine's abilities using Elemental specialties or powers.

Another reason: There's a visual element implicit in Amber - the trumps and tarots - that meshes well with Everway, where cards (the Fortune deck) are used to resolve actions.

Elements and Attributes - a Rough Translation

Everway has four elements. The ADRPG has four attributes. But they don't match perfectly:

• Fire subsumes Strength and the physical aspects of Warfare.
• Water maps pretty well to Psyche, but
• Earth includes not only Amber Endurance but the "resistance" aspects of Psyche and Strength.
• Air covers the strategic aspects of Warfare, plus logocentric intelligence generally (logic and speech).

Elements are ranked on a scale from 1-10, with each point increase representing roughly a doubling in ability. In Amberway II, Amberites are on a separate scale from shadow-dwellers. The "Everway scale" average human score of 3 is a 1 on the Amber scale. This means the "Amber average" of 3 is about four times as powerful as the typical shadow earth mortal. This represents a conscious GM decision to make the Amber baseline closer to human norms than the ADRPG does. But note that if, say, Benedict's Fire score is 9, he is 2⁸ times the fighter the average human is.

Tarot, Trump and Fortune

Everway uses a qualitative randomizer, the Fortune Deck. It is a 36-card deck akin, but not identical to, the Major Tarots. In Everway, the GM may draw a fortune card to help resolve an action whenever he wishes.

In Corwin's saga, he describes the trump deck as like a conventional tarot deck with four suits and portraits of royal family members replacing the court cards. By convention, Amberway II changes the nature of the trump deck as follows - it comprises the 36 cards of the fortune deck plus the trump portraits.

Mechanics

We exaggerate. Like the ADRPG, Everway is substantially freeform, with all the same opportunities for contracting or expanding focus depending on the situation.