Amber: Obscure Adversaries
Zelazny's works are full of obscure references and hints to past events that are never explained. These make for great gaming fodder as there is very little canonical information and the GM can freely explore this creation with little fear of violating canon-assuming that is a concern.

Today's example is Weirmonken.

The following is EVERYTHING Zelazny has to say on the subject:

"...and when the wars beckoned, against the dark things out of Shadow called Weirmonken..." -Corwin, on the knighting of Lord Rein in NPiA.

In every game I've run except ILL MET in AMBER, the Weirmonken and the Weir are distinct and separate entities. In IMiA, Eric's Weir hail from a dark Shadow known as Weirmonken. Maybe we'll talk about them someday. Not today.

Today, I talk about what I've done with this tiny reference.

The Weirmonken are ANCIENT. They are the First Ones. The first great powers of the Abyss. They were unimaginably old long before those upstarts in the Courts of Chaos clawed their way into being.

They are vast and powerful. They are the darkness behind the stars.

They are connected to the spikards in some way. Some say they are the old gods that gave spikards their power. Some say they were the original masters of the spikards. Some claim the spikards were the great weapons used to seal the Weirmonken away. Ask Dworkin or Suhuy or Fiona if you dare. Each will give you a different answer. It is said, in whispers, and only in well-lit rooms, that Prince Brand knew the true origins and nature of the spikards and their connections to the Weirmonken.

Their true relationship with the Pattern and the Logrus are unknown. Legends says the Logrus and the Courts are the first line of defense against the Weirmonken. The Courts sit at the edge of the Abyss, a realm under constant siege. They must not ever fall or the Ancient Enemy will return. Some claim Dworkin's creation of the Pattern weakened Chaos enough for the Darkness to once again gain purchase in reality. They claim that is his true crime. Others say that Dworkin's Pattern was a weapon to be used against the Weirmonken. Few are so bold as to suggest that Prince Brand devised his plan because of what he knew about the Weirmonken. How Prince Corwin's Pattern effects the matter is one of the most pressing issues of scholars in the Courts.

Reality has been torn apart and rebuilt in recent times. The damage to the Primal Pattern of Amber, the blood curses of Prince Corwin and King Eric, the death of Oberon and the repair of the Primal Pattern of Amber, the great storm that swept across Shadow, and the creation of Prince Corwin's own Pattern on the Chaos side of Ygg have put great stress on the fragile tapestry of the universe. Some fear that the loss of Prince Brand and Princess Deirdre in the Abyss is more catastrophic than any in amber could know.

Whatever the cause, The Adversary is stirring. Scholars in the Courts have seen the signs. In Amber, Dworkin and Princess Fiona have felt the shifting in Shadow. The most terrible threat ever faced by The Courts and Amber is waking. If they return to power, all will be lost.

*****
Arref's recent mention of his Nameless Enemy got me thinking of my Weirmonken and I decided it was time to bring them into the light and show how i use obscure Zelazny references in games. Blame Arref.

The Weirmonken are my Lovecraftian threat. They are the ancient and powerful enemy of all that exists. They are the insane lords of madness and entropy. They do not want to rule or conquer. They want everything as it was. They do not want stable Shadows. They want an ever-changing maelstrom. They are the horror that frighten the greatest Lords of Chaos.

The Weirmonken have been a threat in many games whether the players knew it or not. Usually, they act subtly and through agents and long-term plans that take millennia to come to fruition. Only in games in which something has gone horribly wrong have the Weirmonken ever revealed themselves. Games in which players have destroyed Patterns or worse.

Depending on the game, they do appear in backstory. It was only the tiniest aspect of the Weirmonken that broke free and troubled Amber during the time that Corwin knighted Rein. Still, it was the greatest threat ever faced by Amber before the Patternfall War. In the history of most of my games, few of the Royals ever really knew what they were facing. They simply thought it was some particularly dangerous menace from Shadow. Dworkin and Oberon (and, in some games, Clarissa's brood) knew differently. Some Lords of the Courts were pleased by this. While not happy by the prospect of even the most limited action of Weirmonken, they reveled that it was Oberon's lot that had to face them. Better Amber bear their ravages than the Courts, they felt.

In some games, the Weirmonken are the masters of the UnderShadow. No one lightly treads there and those who do are forever changed. In one game, Oberon sacrificed Delwin and Sand to stop this incursion of Weirmonken. Like Roland holding the pass at Roncesvalles, they were left to guard the doors of the UnderShadow forever. Delwin accepted this duty, but it eventually drove Sand mad. In other games, this is reversed.

In one game, the number of Weirmonken is exactly equal to the number of spikards. In other games, the concept of numbers is meaningless in regards to Weirmonken. Weirmonken is the ultimate expression of shape-changing and Chaos. Weirmonken are one. Weirmonken are legion. Weirmonken are.

In one game, the spikards were the first tools used to stabilize Shadow and limit the power of the Weirmonken. The Logrus was a magical construct built to lock away the Weirmonken. The Courts are the guardians against their return, though most in the Courts are unaware of this and have lost their way. Depending on the game, the Pattern was Dworkin's improvement of the Logrus in the attempt to redefine reality and hold entropy back. In some, this was a success. in others, a mad failure. In some, Dworkin was a tool of the Weirmonken, whether he knew it or not, and his Pattern weakened Chaos and allowed the Weirmonken to slowly gather power again.

In many games, Brand has a connection with the Weirmonken. In some, he has seen the awful truth none yet realize: the system is an inefficient failure and the Weirmonken are returning. In some of these games, his attempt to destroy the Pattern and merge Amber and Chaos is an attempt to stop the Weirmonken once and for all. In some games, his mad actions were aiding the Weirmonken return.

That's everything I have to say about the Weirmonken today.
Some other time I'll discuss the Moonriders out of Ghenesh or the Shroudlings or the Day of The Broken Branches.