Kylar, son of Lady Natalya

Everybody knows that Lady Natalya of the Courts of Chaos gave birth to no issue who broke before the Pattern.

Most believe this is because her blood was more primal and closer to the demonic essence that forms the base of reality.

In fact, it was because her love was pure and true.

And true love cheats.


You had a normal enough childhood, for a prince of Amber. You were a little scamp whose smile brought a gleam to her father's eye, and whose pranks caught a slight raise of the eyebrow from her mother. You loved the stories of the other worlds, and could never get enough of visiting them with your father or your older brother Ivalyan.

You were as ready to walk the Pattern as any of the bloodline of Amber had ever been. But no one is ever prepared enough.

You had trouble from the First Veil. So many potential futures, how could you choose? (Choosing was never your strong point.) Your pace got slower and slower and you couldn't focus and in your head was a constant drumming. The shadows were all so beautiful how could anyone give up on any of them. Red seas and pink skies and octarine stars swirled in your vision. By the Second Veil you were lost. You saw the different ways you could fit into each world and it was just too much for you. The people of a thousand planets cried for you and sometimes they called you master and sometimes they called you doctor and you could not tell which was which. You knew that these would be your last moments, that you would be killed and forgotten as soon as you left the Pattern, so you gave in fully to the madness. A hundred personalities were born and died as you glimpsed through every dimension, and you played pipes at the center of it all. You didn't break entirely, you didn't die, but you were gloriously reborn as something truly beautiful like nothing else had been before.

You passed the Final Veil with a laugh, and exited the Pattern, collapsing in crazed exhaustion before a room full of people who had two hours ago sworn to murder you in this circumstance. Let them try!

But they were all still. And your mother, who had been allowed out of her tower for this one occasion, got up from her seat and strode to your side.

"No child of mine is being sacrificed to arrogant bureaucrats."

This high noble of Chaos had placed several tricks around the city of Amber during her imprisonment that would allow her to sneak by or wield unstable powers. Here, she could stop time, if only briefly. She offered you no further help, just time to collect yourself and cast a few glamours around your bleeding cuts and singed hair. Oh, and to reforge your newly shattered personality. By the time your mother had taken her seat again, you looked composed and triumphant.

Time restarted. You grinned like a cat and strode into into the arms of your family like a lord of all creation.

You wanted some distance from your family after that, understandably. You didn't want to give yourself away. And, as much as you loved them, you cringed at feeling like an impostor they would kill in a second. You needed some time to figure out who you were now, and to perfect your masks before facing their constant inspection.

Fortunately, everyone knew "As soon as Kylar can walk the shadows, there's going to be no stopping him." You visited every kingdom, plane, ethereal paradise, and bubbles of private reality. And along the way, you found yourself.

The multitude of voices in your head eventually coalesced into two relatively strong ones. Both of them are reckless and cunning, both are passionate and noble. One is full of ambition and wants to see all bow before her. The other is independent and ever flees the results of his meddling. They talk to each other, or take over in waves, or do all sorts of things. Neither personality is stupid and they don't give themselves away by blurting out foolish things, and really it's a pretty happy existence inside your head.

You came back to Amber eventually, and took up the ancient family role of troublemaker. You played your tricks, and shrugged responsibility, and were overall mildly rebellious, and your father and siblings just threw up their hands at this black sheep. It was an extremely convincing mask.

With your mother it was different, obviously. You rarely had private conversations with her, but when you did, the ambitious side of your personality came out. She and the Courts of Chaos were still plotting something big, and she had half the security of Amber riddled like swiss cheese with her magical traps. She wanted a coup, one that would put you or your brother Ivalyan on the throne, and to end the eternal struggle between Chaos and Amber decidedly in her favor. You were uninterested, but you played along just so she would teach you all of her tricks and deceptions. And because letting this mask out was just too much fun.

(She thinks you would be a good king, but that may be flattery as much as anything else. Besides royal responsibility does not sit well with your nature. If Chaos really wants one of their own on the throne, you think the likeliest possibility would be your mellow and weak-willed older brother, Ivalyan. He even has the best claim to the throne from certain legal perspectives, but mostly you think it would hilariously humble the more reactionary Amberites, to have almost destroyed Chaos and then bend the knee to the oldest child of the infamous Natalya.)

And then she left. And your father married a human woman. And there was Constance, who seemed wise for her age and never judged you. And there was young Sette who you ever felt protective of. And then there was the Attack, the one that took your father from you.

You don't know if that was your mother's plan or not, but you were fed up with the Courts of Chaos then. There were trillions of shadow worlds between themselves and Amber to conquer and make their plaything, but they had to fuck up your home. Fight across a thousand worlds yes, but leave this one alone!

Your joined your siblings in the march towards the Courts of Chaos, and surprised them with just how many armies were ready to answer to your banner. No one expected how quickly worlds would fall before the storm of your fury. Your path of destruction would show mother and her retinue what real power looked like.

It was good to let loose. Too good. You felt like you had been holding that in ever since you stumbled from the Pattern. You were just wondering if you had gone too far, when your brother Bastian wanted to annihilate all of Chaos forever. With the Jewel of Judgment and the Crown of Amber he could do it, too.

That was too far. Those people down there were your family, and one of them had saved your life. And an entire multiverse ruled by just Amber, would be just as dreadfully cruel as the Courts having total power. Locksley objected, Bastian ignored her, you were about to interfere dramatically if you had to, but sister Pearl - drippy, detached Pearl - took the Jewel of Judgment and walked off into Shadow, leaving your family agape.

You haven't gone home since then. You've met with Pearl and Locksley and plotted how to take power a few times. It's not that any of you like Chaos or hate Amber, but there have to be limits to Amber's retribution and Regent Bastian will hear none of it. So you've come up with some schemes, but they rarely bear fruit. Locksley is too direct, and Pearl is too unconcerned, for running in the same league as you. You work better without them.

You visited the defeated, reduced Courts of Chaos, and their servants hiding throughout the lands, to see what they had to offer. Honestly you're not too impressed by them. You like freedom and unpredictability and mischief and all the things chaos stands for. But most of the time they come off like just another bunch of aristocrats, feudal and obsessed with rank and power. To you, chaos is a mother's love cutting through cruel tradition. To them, chaos is explosions.

You found your mother. She's still alive, even after the war. She says the attack that almost collapsed Kolvir mountain wasn't her idea, and you don't know whether you believe her, but you also don't care. She was warm and she accepts you even if she wants you to be a soldier that you are not. And despite her calculating pose, she is lonely and desperate. She misses her children, but also worries that your two half-siblings are as likely to kill or or turn her into Bastian, as they are to greet her as a mother. You haven't spoken much to Ivalyan or Corruption since the war, but they've said nothing to you to make her fears sound unjustified.

It's all very terrible and you took out your angst on several planets. No not that you blew them up, but you distract yourself with solving their problems and the results are often, uh, interesting.

Some entire worlds worship you as the trickster-bear god. Others whisper your name as a savior who trips up the mighty. You bring inventions centuries ahead of their time and use them to amaze and astound the masses, with the same childish glee you grew up with.

You think you've done more good than harm. You think more people are alive because of your shenanigans than are dead because of your mistakes. You really think so.

Which brings you to now. Serenity contacted you via Trump to let you know about Constance's gathering. You almost didn't go, but maybe you can knock some sense into your siblings. Maybe when Constance exits the Pattern she'll join your little cabal and then you could really do some damage. Maybe she'll need everyone she can get to be there, hoping for her in solidarity, while she walks this cruel initiation ritual.

Maybe she deserves to have someone waiting for her when she comes out, if she comes out… wrong, like you did so long ago.

Trump of Lady Natalya:

You may give one of your siblings a trump card that allows them to visit Lady Natalya with or without her permission.