"I don't believe in it anyway."
"What?"
"England."
"Just a conspiracy of cartographers, you mean?"
Amber
Amber is an absolute monarchy. All legal authority is derived directly from the King. Citizens have no rights other than what the monarch grants them, and the King's power is restricted only by what he can do without provoking rebellion and by the intangible bounds of tradition.
There are nobles in Amber, most prominantly the Royal family, but also non-Royals, but their power derives from the King's; they are, in essence, chosen subordinates, not independent semi-autonomous figures. Naturally, some of the Royal family may not agree with this assessment, but that's the way the legal system, such as it is, is set up. Amber has no founding charter of any kind – no constitution, not even a creation myth that suggests the limits of the King.
Amber is a trading nation. It's barely self-sufficient in terms of its necessities, and imports nearly all of its luxuries. There are several large merchant companies based in Amber, and innumerable smaller partnerships.
The secret of Amber's success in trading is a knowledge of the Shadowpaths to the Golden Circle. While some few of these are public knowledge and relatively safe for anyone to travel, they are the longer, less profitable routes. Amber's captains know faster and quicker ways from every Golden Circle nation to every Golden Circle nation, and that makes Amber rich. The means of navigating these routes is considered a state secret – teaching a non-citizen of Amber the Shadowpaths is punishable by death.
Which isn't to say that the secret hasn't leaked out at times. When it happened, the King of Amber has traditionally blocked the old Shadowpath and made or found a new one. Amber protects her monopoly on trade fiercely.
Because of the prosperity of the nation, the standard of living in Amber is relatively high. A citizen who doesn't get into trouble can expext to lead a prosperous, long life.
Dates and Times
Amber has a standard 24 hour day, and a 360 day year. The year begins on the Winter Solstice. While Amberites use seven day weeks, and also speak of fortnights (14 days/2 weeks), they do not use months. Years are divided up into quarters, with each quarter starting with, respectively, Midwinter, Spring Equinox, Midsummer, and Autumn Equinox. The day of the year is enumerated by a number of days since the most recent quarter; for example, 18 days after Spring Equinox.
The calendar is counted in years of the reign of the king. There have been only two kings of Amber thus far, Oberon and Brand, so it's pretty easy. So, for example, a year might be 1,473 Oberon. The actual name is usually left off the qualifier to the year, and figured out from context, unless there is ambiguity (as we usually leave the AD and BC off our dates).
Population and How to Kill Them
Amber is not terribly populous, having a mere three million citizens. It has two major cities: Amber City and Ejienne, and several smaller towns in the farmlands which spread out around Amber City. Amber City itself has nearly three quarters of a million souls, and Ejienne comprises another quarter million or so. Of the rest, nearly half live in the fertile Dehm Valley, and the rest are scattered down to the south and west of Amber City, to the limits of Arden. Very few individuals live in the heavy forests of Arden or Garnath.
Amber maintains a standing military of 200,000 these days, which is rather higher than it was before the Ancient Grudge. That's about 6% of the population, which is pretty impressive, especially for a pre-industrial society, but Amber is a very, very rich country and can afford it. In times of war, Amber conscripts heavily, particularly from the merchant marine.
The people of Amber (besides the Royal Family) are pretty much as you'd expect from our Earth in terms of strength and speed and such. They're a bit hardier — disease is rare in Amber — and a bit more longer lived — 80 to 100 years is not at all uncommon. Ones that hang around Royals tend to age more slowly, often living 300 to 500 years.
Technology
Amber has slightly pre-industrial technology with no gunpowder, though a substance roughly analogous to greek fire is available. Its technological limitations are absolute — nobody has found a way to make a steam engine work in Amber, nobody has found anything which combusts like gunpowder, etc. Hence, Amber has been on a technological plateau for at least 1,000 years. Within the confines of what works in Amber, the Amberites have a great deal of sophistication.
Medicine in Amber is advanced in the surgical arts, but weak in dealing with disease, principally because the inhabitants of Amber are generally hardy enough not to get diseases. Basic cleanliness is understood to be good hygiene and healthy.
Farms in Amber are very productive, with a combination of fertile soil (soil in Amber does not seem to become exhausted of nutrients as easily as soil in Shadow Earth), a mild climate, and sophisticated agricultural techniques combining to give nearly modern levels of per-acre yield.
Amber does not do much in the way of manufacturing. There are a few ore mines in the mountains to the west of Amber city, but they're small operations. In general, Amber trades for sophisticated manufactured goods, though it has a reasonable textile industry.
Standard armament in the armies of Amber are spears and swords, with companies of longbowmen for ranged support and cavalry for all the various things that cavalry is usually good at. The day of heavy horse has passed in Amber, as pikes square tactics have made them somewhat obsolete. Amber generals understand seige weapons, but do not often bother with them, as there's generally not much need to take out somebody's castle on a landmass in which you're the only nation. Amber's ships are generally of the same archetype as the caravel and other 15th and 16th century European ships, with small catapults for launching the greek fire analog. Boarding actions are also common, but ramming is not used in Amber, as the ships are constructed sturdily enough that rams have a difficult time penetrating.
Heraldry
The Royal Family of Amber uses heraldric symbols pretty much at their whim. They're useful on the battlefield, to identify troops, and they make for nice decoration. The heraldry of Amber is simpler than that of the real world, as there are, first, many fewer devices than were required in the real world, and, second, there's no Heraldric College to impose standards.
It's common for the closer relatives of the Family to choose similar devices, most frequently having the same or similar colors and different figures (for example: Corwin's silver rose on a black field, Deirdre's silver moon on a black field, Eric's silver star on a black field). Amberites frequently modify their sigils slightly as the whim takes them.
Traditionally, the King of Amber and the Queen of Rebma, after coronation, surmount their devices with a golden crown.
Some, but not all, of the non-Royal nobles in Amber use sigils of their own. Again, there are no strong guidelines as to what, exactly, is appropriate, though lesser nobles are very careful not to impinge on an Royal's device.
Several of the Golden Circle nations have much more developed heraldric systems.
The Land
The map at the bottom of this page shows the traditional holdings of Amber, and some of the more notable features of that land. As is, I hope, obvious, the pointy things represent mountains, the rounded ones hills. When I use the hill icons, I mean seriously hilly terrain of the sort that's difficult to travel through, not rolling, gentle hills.
The light green streaks in the Dehm Valley and between Amber City and Arden indicate farmland. The darker green streaks of Arden and Garnath indicate heavy forest.
Amber City itself is built into a very nice natural harbor, and up the slope of Kolvir. Castle Amber is at the summit of Kolvir. Amber City is the heart and soul of the realm, its largest population center, and generally important as all get-out.
Ejienne is the second largest city in Amber. It was founded relatively recently, and ambitious project by Brand, who used a massive number of men and materials to carve a safe harbor out of the rugged coastline of the valley of Garnath. Since its founding, Ejienne has flourished, mostly supported by logging Garnath and sending the results to Amber City's shipbuilding industry. Previous to Ejienne's founding, the major logging was done in Arden, both at Aulory and on the northern edge of the forest.
Aulory is a small border town which grew up around the southernmost Amber army outpost. Though land trade into Amber is minimal, what little there is comes through Aulory, and can support the town, along with the military personell there.
Doshire and Inraille grew to prominance as the Great Aquaduct made their fields fertile and ripe. They're agricultural communities, but much larger ones than the many villages which dot the farmlands south of Amber and in the Dehm Valley.
Rallan is the largest town in the Dehm Valley, and also serves as a jumping off point for anyone who wants to go through Ghenesh pass, as well as some small mining operations in the hills north of Dehm. It's the most northerly of the cities in Amber.
Cabra is an island and a lighthouse, no town or anything involved. It's resupplied regularly by governmental ships based out of Amber City.
The Alenos Islands are very lightly populated, but used as a staging area for the Amber Navy and merchant marine. The local industry is primarily confined to fishing.
The Golden Circle
The Golden Circle is a series of nations with a number of shared trade benefits with Amber. It's not quite most-favoured-nation trade status, as Amber does maintain some nation-specific deals, but generally they all have certain minimums to their trading.
There are Shadows to which stable Shadow-paths exist that are not part of the Golden Circle. Further, not all nations in the Golden Circle are in their own Shadows — for example, Kashfa, Begma, and Eregnor are all in a single Shadow.
A complete list of Golden Circle nations:
