Mashup 3: Narnia

Population: One: Monday Mashup #3: Narnia
First off, I have to say that I LOVED the meme-author’s take on this idea, combining it with Unknown Armies to create something that feels like Being John Malkovich meets Coraline meets Gormenghast. Really really neat idea. Follow the link and read the write-up.
I don’t know if I can do justice to this mashup, having to follow something like that, but here goes:

The first thing that occured to me was running this with one of the ‘classic Ambercon tropes’ — Kids in Amber: everyone’s playing children too young to have taken the Pattern or, really, to be useful.
In this spin, the kids are bored and staying the hell away from a loud and grumpy king up in the dusty, unused rooms near the top of the castle where no one really goes when they find a wardrobe that leads into a magical winter wonderland, etc. etc. Here, they are either older, more competent, or simply prophesized to save this alternate world.
The kids jump at the chance, leaving most of the mundanities of Amber behind for what is, to them, a much more interesting place.
Ultimately, this wardrobe world could turn out to be:
(a) a trap for the Amber youth.
(b) the next order of True World beyond Amber.
(c) a parallel reality
(d) something else
The character’s could end up doing all sorts of things, but the real idea here (the one that appeals to me, anyway) is that Amber Isn’t Important — it’s the Boring, Mundane place.
For a con game, I’d twist it around a bit: after the first trip into the Winter World, the kids return to discover Amber locked in a nasty, unseasonal winter weather pattern of it’s own that the Jewel can’t seem to affect. They realize it’s somehow tied to the Wardrobe World and that they have to do something about it… over there. What follows is a Zeppo-like experience where the adults in Amber fight with encroaching forces taking advantage of Amber’s frozen state, while unknownst to them, the kid’s are saving the day behind the scenes.
Even better would be if the kids were all pages within the Castle… not even Amberites at all. In that example, you could even put in a hint that the whole thing might not have even been real — maybe the kids were just sitting around making it up Munchausen-style to keep from getting to scared during the invasion, while the Royal Family saved the day in the real world.
Or maybe not… 🙂