Amber and Deadlands

To anyone familiar with the setting of Deadlands, the year 1863 is instantly recognizable as the year that Raven and the Last Sons set the manitou free. Or was there more to it than that?

Consider that Raven was ageless and apparently immortal, and utterly consumed by his need for vengeance. Is it possible that Raven is one of the amnesiac Corwin’s by-blows? A bastard son of Amber, unaware of his true heritage but still deadly because of it?

Perhaps Raven’s spell would not have succeeded without the resonance it set up with his father’s actions. Specifically, I’m talking about the blood curse that Corwin pronounced when he was blinded in Nine Princes in Amber. The same curse that opened up Amber, and the multitude of Shadows between it and Chaos, to the depredations of the Black Road. We’ve already seen (in The Guns of Avalon) that the road does not always manifest the same way – and that it can be called to a shadow by the right sort of ritual.

The sort of ritual that was performed by Raven on July 3rd, 1863, say.

One of the best things about this particular crossover is its subtlety – no one need suspect that this is anything more than a standard game of Deadlands at first. But slowly, pieces of the puzzle emerge, until it becomes clear that the Deadlands are merely one theatre of a universal war, and that the stakes are unimaginably higher than anyone suspected. The Happy Hunting Grounds is revealed to be a neighbouring Shadow to Earth, albeit one that is closely linked to it.

One of the best ways to begin hinting towards this is through the character party’s Huckster. Assuming as we are a link between Amber and the Deadlands, it follows that the card-based magic of the Hucksters is in some way connected to the magical Trumps of Amber. Was Edmund Hoyle an Amberite in disguise, and if so, which one? The two possibilities that spring to mind are Brand, foremost Trump artist of his generation – and Random, the foremost gambler.

While at first glance Random might seem an unlikely choice, who else but he would think to hide sorcery in a manual for gambling? The Unicorn’s selection of him as the King of Amber suggests he has hidden depths – perhaps this is one of them. Besides, Brand would never have allowed his notes to fall into the hands of others – Random is far more trusting.

The easiest way to introduce this plot is to begin circulating rumours that Hoyle is still alive, and has been sighted nearby. If there’s a Huckster in the party, you’d have to hogtie him to keep him from searching for Hoyle. Even if not, Hoyle and his secrets would be worth a pretty penny to right buyer – not to mention posing a threat to the peace that any lawman might feel needed dealing with.