Current developments in Quantum Theory in the real world holds that, out of nothing, things can spontaneously arise out of that nothing, along with their antiparticle (thus conservations of mass and energy hold).
This is prone to happen in our universe near Black Holes, where, instead of the particles canceling each other out, one can fall into the hole, and the other survives in the real universe.
Thus, in this Nothing, SOMETHING arose. It is not clear what, or why, it was. Call it a seed. Just its existence was enough to change everything. Everything.
This seed, somehow, was able to cause more material to form around it, and near it. Eventually (and after all, what is time in a void?) things that we would recognize as realities began to form around them.
A multiverse is what I call a collection or constellation of universes. All the shadows from Amber to Chaos thus form the Amber Multiverse and regardless of time period, I shall continue to refer to the Amber Multiverse as such.
Many Amber campaigns I have seen never go beyond the Multiverse, but in Strange Bedfellows I have. The Technical term for a collection of Multiverses, and thus the highest group and a singular one, is the Cosmos. These Multiverses are related to each other by existing in a matrix of some kind which the knowledgable call the Void.
Sometimes sources of Power arose in these Shadows. Some of them were so potent, they sustained their entire world. And some were even more powerful and potent, so that their effects extended beyond that Shadow, causing other shadows to aggregate around them.
In some of these more powerful Shadows, beings began to explore and try and link the Shadows together. They were long lived, almost immortal, and of many varieties and kinds.
Some of their names still resonate today. Faerie. Dragons. Sidhe.
In more than one reality, a being, or maybe a Power perhaps anthropomorphized and personified, arose that was a quantum level even more powerful than the Faerie and their like. Powerful enough that the very nature of shadows around it's shadow was changed to be reflections or images of the main shadow. They, too, have names that still evoke memories today. Zeus. Athena. Apollo. Ra. Quetzlcoatl. Collectively, they were Gods. And the Gods formed the basis of the very first Multiverses, including what would be our own.
One branch of the Sidhe in the Amber Multiverse, in the meantime, had broken from their kin. Embracing the art of changing form to a degree rarely seen, they decided to settle in the most dangerous place imaginable. Like a hole punched into the shadows lay a crack in the very nature of space...a gap to the Void between Multiverses.
This group of Sidhe that broke away from their kin decided to make the area around this gap to the void their home. Were they fleeing from their kin for some reason? Perhaps their experimentation with Shapeshifting cast them out, and so they decided to go to the one place where it was necessary, rather than an abomination. Or, perhaps, they were lured there, somehow, to settle and create what would later become the Courts. In any event, the name of these Sidhe who left their kind to settle in this most inhospitable land has a name familiar to some.
They were known as the Thari.
The Thari is where we focus our story for a while, because of their prime real estate. Oh, sure, the shadows and partial shadows around the void were always in flux, and very dangerous, oh yes. But, the very nature of the void meant that debris and materials and magical energies of various kinds always were to be found there. It was like a permanent mine of treasures from places never glimpsed by Thari eyes, or anyone else in the universe for that matter. It was a resource that the Thari exploited to their great power and advantage. Even the Gods treated the Thari with some respect as a result.
The true advantage to living near the void, though, came when, one day, something rather different than a trinket came out of the void and presented itself to the Thari.
A super being, greater than the Gods, came out into their realm from the Void. A Being which, once it learned to communicate with the Thari, decided to settle there, at the edge of the Abyss. It cut a deal to provide a sigil of Power for its Thari adherents in exchange for....a permanent home.
We call this being the Serpent. The sigil of Power that it created, as you might expect, became the Logrus. The Courts of Chaos, effectively, had been given the ultimate power in the Amber Multiverse.
While some Multiverses had a top-down approach to organization, in the personage of a Great Being like the Serpent, in other cosmoses, a bottom-up organization occurred. This occurred by means of a single or group of powers growing powerful enough to warp and define reality. This could either be beings like the Gods, or simply a power source, which, while never becoming sentient, became powerful enough anyway to define reality around itself.
As a result, however, throughout the void, the shadows aggregated around these sources of power, be they from a being like the Serpent, or self-created. Think of them like chunks of clams in a nice chowder. Scattered randomly throughout the void, some large, and some small. Multiverses in a vast sea of void. Organization to the Cosmos had, for the most part, taken place.
This proved to be a mixed blessing, since while travel within an aggregate, or multiverse, was easier with the Logrus than before, these powers tended to stabilize their multiverses to the point that entry into them from without became much more difficult.
In the multiverse where the Courts were created, the Abyss soon became the only good and permanent connection to the void in which all the multiverses were floating in. (A situation which would become even more defined after the rise of the Pattern even more sealed off, so to speak, the Amber Multiverse) Even though travel through the void had been low to begin with, except for journeys to multiverses very close by, or small sub-plames, travel from multiverse to multiverse was greatly reduced, and after the rise of the Pattern, asymptotically approach zero.
A metaphor might be a change in a landscape from small open villages scattered throughout the land to fewer, walled cities...much harder to vist due to the distances and the difficulties of getting into them.
One thing, however, did link the multiverses together, however tenuously, besides the void itself. Other levels of reality also imprinted themselves on this skeleton of a framework for the universes.
The one that became of the most interest was, paradoxically, one which depended on the existance of consciousness to form before it did. This level of reality could not, and would not exist where there were no creatures that wondered. That wished. That DREAMED. Still reaching the realm of Dreams, also known as the Dreamplane was difficult and rare. And still is. Those who can travel the Dreamplane are rare and scattered, although it is rumored certain demons have an inborn ability to project themselves into it.
Meantime, back in the Amber Multiverse, in response to the Courts and its denizens attempts to conquer all of the shadows, certain elements of the power of the shadows coalesced together. Not to serve as an army, or even as a point source like the Logrus, since either could be easily destroyed or captured. Rather, the power was concentrated into objects...artifacts, which could be wielded by mighty sorcerers and fighters, to keep the armies of the Courts from overrunning all without opposition.
We call these artifacts of power today the Spikards. Their number, both past and current, is a mystery, with various reports ranging from nine to thirteen. Usually, they take the form of rings, but other objects, such as swords, are also reported.
This Era of the Chaosian Hegemony, but not complete rule by the Chaosians, continued for millenia uncounted in the Amber Universe. Chaos ruled its shadows relatively untroubled by any power equal to them. The spikards, by and large, could not stand up to the reality defining power of the Logrus enough to do damage to their opponent.
They merely ensured a precarious balance of power, and thus, in practice, The Courts directly controlled only the shadows nearest to them, and only those. We call this realm today the Black Zone.
It seemed, between the Spikards and the Logrus, that the Universe had reached a permanent dymanic equilibrium. Fluctuations by the way of mighty personages might prevail enough for the Courts to gain a temporary advantage and extend its dominion under the reign of a particularly ambitious Emperor or Empress, and of course, in times of a weak Ruler, the domains of the Courts might be temporary reduced. Still, things seemed that they never would or could fundamentally change.
Until one day, a being came out of the Abyss that would change the Amber Universe in a radical away again like its predecessor. We call this being the Unicorn.
Perhaps he convinced the powers of the Spikards to help him. Or, he truly showed his guile and wizardry and stole their power. Or even possibly the Unicorn aided him in their acquisition. In any event, thus armed, and empowered, and he might have extended the reach of Chaos to unheard strengths, with him at the fore, the Barimen, instead, did the unthinkable. He confronted the Great Being, ripped the left eye out of the Serpent, and bore it away, with the Unicorn.
Fleeing to a sudden small primal plane far from the Courts, the Unicorn showed Dworkin how the Pattern might be constructed. Actually, Dworkin HAD had ideas before he met the Unicorn of such a thing. Serendipity.
What happened in the creation, and in what sequence is one of the great mysteries...and probably only Dworkin truly knows. Did he create the Jewels and the Patterns simultaneously? Did the Amber Pattern spring out of the Primal unexpectedly, and then Dworkin decided to create two more via the Spikards? Did the Jewels split unexpectedly and then he decided to create the other Patterns?
What is known to the most dedicated scholars and theorists is that the Three Spikards used by Dworkin were strongly involved in the creation of the milieu. What happened to those particular Spikards afterwards is an open question too...
Still, somehow were created were the Jewel of Judgement, which retained the Ruby appearance of the Eye of the Serpent, and indeed, seems to be to all intents and purposes to be the same, the Sapphire of Justice, and finally the Diamond of Dream. Each of these Jewels were less potent than the Eye, but all were potent artifacts and equal to each other.
Also the result were Three reflections of the Primal Pattern---the Amber Pattern, the Pattern of Rebma, and the strange and unusual special Pattern in the shadow known as Tir Na Nogth.
Three Jewels and Three Patterns.
With these Patterns and Jewels now in place, Dworkin and the Unicorn then proceeded to fortify Amber, by first making love, not war. Still, it is a rough universe out there, and Amber needed defenders...people who could walk the Patterns which Dworkin drew, and use their power to defend them.
Thus were born two children of the union, Oberon and Titania.
With the power of the Pattern, these two, after growing up, began Amber's ascension. While Chaos debated if even Dworkin had lived, and the nearby shadows threatened Amber's nascent beginnings, Oberon and Titania created the first Castle Amber, and Amber City. Dworkin, in the meantime, used the three Jewels to further manipulate the reality of Amber's Shadow, creating the Great Forest Arden and the Kolvir Mountain Range as natural barriers to slow or stop invaders. Thus, Amber was more easily defensible against the eventual armies imported by the Courts.
An interesting, and not very well known fact is that one group of the shadow army from Chaos rebelled against their masters, and sought sanctuary, after helping to stem the tide of battle against Chaos. The reasons why they did so are even more unclear. Perhaps it was some intra-House dispute. Maybe the group were Janissaries, slave soldiers, who saw the chance for freedom in breaking free and siding with the enemy.
In any event, these Chaosians, by their predominantly aquatic nature, seemed perfect to settle the strange region of the ocean around which one of the Patterns formed. They were the beginnings of the Rebman people. Titania took a liking to them, and started spending much of her time there.
Titania grew unhappy.
Her brother, Oberon, had gradually taken more and more of the temporal power of Amber. He married Cymnea, a former Lady of Chaos, and she bore him Osric and then Finndo. Titania's role in Amber seemed destined to dwindle to zero. Finally,Titania had decided that her place in Amber was just a sufferance on her brother's good humor.
Titania went to her father, Dworkin, and pleaded her case. The small, hunchbacked creator of Amber decided that his daughter should be entrusted with some of its power. The Jewel of Judgement, the red stone in the trio of Jewels, Dworkin had long since given to Titania's brother, on his own request, and under Oberon's mistaken impression that the Jewel of the Judgement WAS the Eye of the Serpent, and the only True Jewel that existed.
Dworkin decided to entrust Titania with the two other jewels, a Sapphire and a Diamond, and impressed upon her to give the Sapphire to someone who would also secondarily guard the Rebman Pattern. Thus, Titania went to Rebma, and, with her brother not quite aware of her plans, mated with a Rebman whose name has not been recorded. Thus was formed the Rebman Royal Family line, once her daughter Hydrana was born, and raised to become Queen of Rebma.
Note that, this was unknown to Oberon, and perhaps deliberately kept from him. Oberon, for his part, was more concerned with strengthening and forifying Amber, as well as his own lusty and tempestuous love life.
Certainly it was not known or publicized in Amber that the Royal family of Rebma was of, in fact, the Blood of Dworkin. In later years, Titania's role in the founding of the Rebman Royal Family would be wiped away, like letters in sand washed out by the tide. Then again, the entire role of Titania in the birth and rise of Amber itself was nearly completely blotted out from the records as well.
Winners write the history books, or so it is said.
Oberon had three children by Cymnea: Osric, Finndo and Benedict. All three, like their mother, and their father, were martially oriented. However, by this time, we reach a long period where the nature of the Universe remained the same. Millenia, in fact.
The next major change to the Amber Multiverse was not to come until a combination of one Prince's mad ambition, and another's mad anger at his rival brother. And thus, would be born the greatest threat to the existance of Amber yet. The Black Road.
The Redheads managed to end that. In the years following Oberon's disappearance, they decided it was high time that they take over Amber, and to do it, they would beseech members of the Courts of Chaos for help.
Thus the Black Road. The Black Road, however, due to its Chaos nature would never have able to run into the protected "first world" of Amber itself, without two things going for it.
First, Brand. Brand attempted to sacrifice Martin, and spill his blood on the Pattern. Fortunately, Martin survived, and the blood spilled was enough to cause trouble throughout the Amber side of the universe, but would not normally have been enough for the true intent of allowing the Black Road to reach Kolvir.
Corwin provided that. His blood curse, upon blinding by Eric, proved to be of enough additional force to the Pattern's damage that the Chaosians were able to run their Black Road right into Amber itself, turning the vale of Garnath to a cold and dangerous place filled with forest creatures exclusively malevolent and malignant.
Thus the scene in Guns of Avalon, when Corwin returns to Amber only to find a large Chaos army besieging it. A Chaos army which would have had a much more difficult time reaching its enemy had either Brand not stabbed Martin or Corwin issued his power forth in such a hating fashion.
Shadows from Amber to the dividing line of Ygg, too, were affected by the twin actions of the brothers. Many shadows began to show an element of evil hitherto never experienced. In some, it was merely the Road itself, running directly and unstoppably through their domains.
In others, the evil took on other forms...a Black Circle, as seen in Lorraine. An army of evil hellmaidens, as witnessed in the shadow of Avalon. And others, uncounted and undescribed.
While they could be individually vanquished, it would take the righting of the wrongs to end their festering presences everywhere and permanently. Thus, Oberon's walking of the Pattern with the Jewel of Judgement. Had Oberon not done so, the stains on those shadows would yet remain.
And then there was Corwin. Convinced that the Pattern of Amber had been destroyed, he managed to draw his own with the Jewel of Judgement.
Since he did not use his own blood, nor used Spikards, the Pattern is distinctly different than its Amberian counterpart. It only has one reflection beyond it's Primal Plane. That reflection is in the First Shadow of the set of shadows created by the Arcadian Pattern, in a world much like Corwin's vision of Paris, 1905. The Pattern is outdoors, in the Gardens of Versailles.
Reaching this outgrowth or tumor of shadows requires an Arcadian Pattern imprint. It is literally an appendage on the multiverse as a whole, providing a set of realities hitherto nonexistent. It is not known yet the extent of this sub-multiverse.
Thus, since Patternfall, a wave of shadow storms has plagued the multiverse. The reasons for this range from Fiona's thought that it is the fault of Corwin's Pattern, to Merlin's assertion that it is an aftereffect of the Wave of Chaos.
Perhaps another Power is to blame.