Canonfire! - Lore of the Amedio IV: The Fellowship of Amber

Even at the height of colonial fervor, there are those who balk at expansion and shed tears for the innocence lost by those who inhabit the realms being explored and exploited by the visionaries of the Flanaess. The Fellowship of Amber is one such group, and they're well prepared to make life hell for any who intend to explore the Amedio

Author: chatdemon

Lore of the Amedio IV: The Fellowship of Amber
By chatdemon (chatdemon@hotmail.com)
(Used with permission, do not repost or redistribute without the express permission of the author)

The Fellowship of Amber

In the years leading up to the wars, a handful of the nations of the
Flanaess had delved wholeheartedly into the Amedio jungle, each with their
own agenda, but with a common to desire to explore the region and exploit
its resources.

Travellers from that time often speak of the atrocities committed by these
travellers, villages looted, whole tribes of people enslaved and taken from
their homes, religious sites ransacked and other such disgraces. To most
residents of the countries responsible, this mattered little, after all, the
Olman and Amedi, and the lesser races of the area were almost subhuman
savages. Their cultures and even their very lives were seen as meaningless
in what was seen as an era of endless prosperity. With each shipload of
slaves or bards of gold brought back into the ports of the Flanaess, it
seemed less and less likely that anyone would speak up for the hapless
natives being exploited.

Things changed in the summer of 578 however, when a huge riot ensued in the
streets of Gradsul's port, with hundreds of outraged protestors, mostly
Keoish, but accompanied by some foreign compatriots as well, gathered to
demand a stop to this wholesale razing of the cultures of the jungle, and in
some cases of the jungle itself. The city watch and the local wizards guild
put down the riot relatively peacefully, but the gears were in motion, and
for a handful of the protestors, the dream didn't end there on the wharves
of Gradsul.

Sometime in the fall of 578 or spring of 579, a group of radicals backed by
the coffers of some rebellios minor nobles formed what is known as the
Fellowship of Amber, promoting the goal of removing all Flanaess influence
from the Amedio subcontinent. The desire nothing less than the absence of
any foreign influence on the natives of the region until the day comes that
those people can meet their northern neighbors as equals. They took amber as
their symbol when specimens of that mineral were acquired that contained
fossilized insects. Besides being incredibly valuable as religious trinkets
for the clergy of Bralm, these stones are said to symbolize the desire of
the gods for the amedio to remain eternally unchanged, an example of the
primitive paradise Oerth was intended to be. Some support for this idea
comes from the Old Faith, whose rangers and druids relate wholeheartedly to
the idea of preserving the natural order of things, but large scale
acceptance of their agenda ends there. Most view the Fellowship as fools and
blowhards, and in port cities where Amedio plunder has fattened the coffers
of the local nobility, professing the goals of the Fellowship can even
result in spending a few nights in the city jail.

Not surprisingly, before the wars cut that city off from the Flanaess
proper, Luscanport found itself housing a small group of Amber Fellows. They
took residence in a ramshackle warehouse once used as a holding pen for
captured slaves when the Sea Princes ruled the town, and had grand schemes
of seizing control of the town and using it as their headquarters in the
area, a staging point for their campaign of cleansing in which they would
purge the jungle of all foreign influences. Their plan was derailed in 586
however, when they ran afoul of a seacaptain by the name of Garlus Lacelle.
Captain Garlus, a native of Irongate, and one of the only known captains
brave or foolhardy enough to risk his ship making the Luscanport-Irongate
run in the late 580s. After a failed attempt by the Fellowship to sink
Lacelle's vessel, the Springheel, a ship famous around Irongate for
delivering large shipments of Amedio gold that is used to fund the beleagued
resistance in Onnwal, Lacelles and his crew sacked the Fellowship safehouse.
The damage and vandalsim was extensive, and Lacelles himself, aided by his
ships' mage, Darus Lanchton, was responsible for the deaths of at least a
dozen of the Fellows that evening. Lacelles made a convenient donation to
the coffers of Governor Aschan's (A nephew of Duke Luschan of Gradsul, the
appointed ruler of Luscanport town and the Keoish holdings in the jungle)
coffers and was spared of any punishments for his actions, though the bribe
was hardly necessary since it is a well known fact that Aschan wanted the
Fellows gone anyway.

For the next few years, the group's presence in Luscanport was a shambles,
with no real power or organization to speak of. Recently however, a wealthy
group of Ahlissan merchants, acting under the banner of the Havisha family
of Prymp, has expressed an interest in supporting the Amber Fellowship, and
is offering use of its ships to transport foreigners and their imported
belongings back to the mainland. Rumors are flying around town concerning
the true motivations of the Havisha merchants, but the Fellowship itself was
so desperate for money and leadership that they eagerly accepted the new
members, and balked little when the Havisha merchants took control of the
group.

Whatever rumors one hears of the supposed sinister plans of the Havisha
family, the core beliefs of the Fellowship remain true, and the group's
ideals are strong in the jungle's communities. They are certain to cause a
few headaches for anyone trying to set up operations in the area or ship
Amedio plunder back to the mainland. This is usually accomplished by
protests around the docks of the offending ships, or frightening but mostly
harmless pranks played on camping explorers, but speaking with those in the
know around Luscanport, such as the barmaid Lissa at the Dripping Frond
tavern, reveals hints of much darker hearted Fellowship agents, those who
will stop at nothing to enforce their policies. If one would believe the
words of a simple barmaid, some of those corpses that float ashore out on
the break (the name for the strip of beach that juts into the jeklea bay at
a sharp angle, creating the safe natural harbor that Luscanport thrives on)
are those who grew too bold and attracted the attention of those who fear
change.