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Born to be Kings: The Setting
Kings is an Ancient Amber game, when Amber is young, the children of Oberon are not yet so numerous, and where Amber's grip on its future is tenuous at best.
Amber, called a kingdom by Oberon, was founded not more than a century ago, in a clash of steel, blood, and conquest. Oberon sits upon the throne, when he can make the time for it; he is in his prime, as much warrior as King, and ventures out from the halls of Fortress Kolvir with some frequency. At his side is Cymnea, his queen, herself the daugher of one of those lesser kings that fell before Oberon in the time before the founding. She is mother to his sons.
It is a dark time of peril, politics, and power. It is a bright time of legends yet to be made.
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The Founding
Oberon speaks little of the time before. Those who do know little more; he rode in with an army of men, not large, and yet, enough. He knew what he wanted in the land he renamed Amber: he wanted Kolvir, highest mountain in the region, overlooking all he would see fit to claim as his in the years to come.
And so, he took it. Those kings of the land -- if rulers of provinces can be called kings -- who opposed him, fell, or eventually joined him.
King Nod of Kolvirgaard was, naturally, the strongest in opposition to Oberon, and best positioned to give him trouble: he held the mountain and the lands immediately about it. The battle was joined in the Spring of that year, and ended in Winter as Nod died in his sleep. Claims of some dark sorcery were made, naturally, but the wedding of Nod's eldest daughter, Cymnea, and Oberon, did something to quiet the talk.
Those who joined Oberon rather than fight him are called lords today, no longer kings. It is an uncomfortable arrangement.
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The Family
Oberon is King. He is evenhanded but passionate, manipulative and distant and yet undeniably bound to his family. Whether or not he loves Cymnea is difficult to say; the complexities about him make it difficult truly to know his mind on anything, let aside his heart. His rule is entering its second century.
Cymnea is a tanned, russet-haired beauty with no small measure of her father's mountain-born savagery. It is known that Oberon's eye wanders, but with Cymnea at hand, those he lingers on overmuch seldom remain long after. The name of Nod retains some political power in the land of Amber, and her word is nigh as powerful as Oberon's when she chooses to make it known.
Finndo is the eldest child of Oberon and Cymnea, some ninety years in age. (He is available as a PC and thus few details are set)
Osric is Oberon and Cymnea's middle child, Finndo's junior by a decade. (He is available as a PC and thus few details are set)
Benedict is the youngest of Oberon and Cymnea, and is all of forty. (He is available as a PC and thus few details are set)
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The Land
The land is dominated by Kolvir, the largest mountain in the Aesen range, and also its end; to one side of Kolvir lies the sea, and its base forms part of the harbor around which the only nearby "city" has been founded.
The city is home to several thousand inhabitants and half again as many travelers, sailors, and other transient types. As such, it has the best and the worst that a trading town would be expected to offer.
Outside of this, much of the land around the range, save the valleys of the Aesens, is densely wooded forest Arden. Travelers do well to stay to its better-known paths; one can progress from one town to another in this fashion without ever running afoul of the perils of deeper Arden. Those who stray seldom stray back.
In Garnath and the other valleys, and up in the foothills of the lesser Aesens are the realms of the Near Lords of Amber. They enjoy the fruits of fertile farmlands and rich mines, and are the more affluent, and less troublesome, of the Lords who pay homage to the King.
Beyond and occasionally scattered within Arden are the lands of the Far Lords of Amber. Oberon does what he can to keep these fractious lords under control; they are his first guard against the Outer Kingdoms, and beyond that, they are the lords who proved too powerful, crafty, or crucial to be eliminated in the war. Luckily, they remain as much at odds with each other as they are with Oberon.
The Far Lords are primarily distinguished from the Outer Kingdoms by their pledge to the alliance that has formed Amber -- they gave their crowns to make that pledge, so one can be certain that the debts owed them by the remaining crown are not minor.
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The Fortress
Fortress Kolvir, once the seat of Kolvirsgaard and the last home of King Nod, sits some distance up the side of Kolvir, at perhaps the two-thirds point. It was much higher, once, but Oberon had it moved, stone by stone, to its new location. Little public explanation was given.
It is not quite a castle; the rooms are small, and the place is structured towards military rather than domestic notions, but it still has enough of a feel of the grand to pass for the place of a king in a young kingdom.
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Tir-na Nog'th
Tir-na Nog'th, the name the people of the land give to the land of the dead, appears on cloudless nights under the light of the moon in the sky far above Kolvir. No man has ever journeyed there and told the tale of it; nor do stairs to that place appear to give one the option.
There are, however, at the summit of Kolvir, three remaining steps from the old location of Fortress Kolvir, which were carved straight from the mountain itself, which were not moved when the rest of the Fortress was...
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Rebma
There is no place called Rebma, and no staircase into the sea. Sailors do speak of mermaids, though... but sailors are known to drink.
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The Pattern
The Pattern is known only to Oberon and his sons, and possibly to Cymnea, though Oberon forbids conversation about the Pattern in the presence of anyone who is not of his blood. It is found in a cavern some distance beneath the Fortress. Its location was, in fact, the reason the fortress was moved.
Oberon claims to have discovered it within the caverns of Kolvir some time before the war of the founding; gaining control of the lands where it was located was, in fact, the impetus.
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The Shadows
There are a number of outlying kingdoms, too far to be of consequence in the war, at the physical periphery of Amber. These are the Outer Kingdoms, and beyond.
Few know that there are lands beyond those geographically available. Though there is some philosophical validity to the idea that, if the Pattern can be used in a land, that land is Shadow, the more practical view held by Oberon is that if you can walk there without the family trick, it's not Shadow.
Shadow is largely unexplored, something of a mystery, and treated by Oberon as though it is something dangerous.
This does, in fact, mean that there is no in-game notion of Chaos as a place.