SanitationIndex | Time Under Chaos | Concerning Amber | Sanitation Sanitation in Amber Perhaps the most significant change in Amber City has been to its sanitation system. As mentioned above, Mandor's Edict brought about the construction of a complex series of aqueducts, inverted siphons, wells, and cisterns were constructed beneath and above the city streets throughout the twenty-three wards. The geography of the city also assures a constant supply of fresh rainwater that supplements the system. This has provided the city with a nearly unlimited supply of fresh water, usually through public fountains or the “modern” plumbing that is now quite common in most Wards. Drainage systems have been installed along most streets, dumping filth and trash into a vast sewer system beneath the city. Sewage is filtered down through this system via gravity and siphon pumps to the Eastern Escarpment, where it falls into the sea. Technological advances have been made in food storage and hygiene. Finally, the construction of a necropolis has allowed for the proper disposal of the dead. Combined, these improvements have vastly reduced the sanitation problems that would normally be prevalent in a medieval city. In many ways, most of Amber City now resembles a “modern” Renaissance fair than the stinking cesspit of a “normal” medieval city. (From The Hendrake Guide to Amber) Its funny... reading the Hendrake Guide, one would assume that Amber never had sanitation. Suggesting that the former, filthy, conquered Amberites lived in filth prior to their ‘liberation’ at the hands of the Chaosian occupation under Mandor is a trivial step in the propaganda war… but it does terrible damage to the self respect of the people Mandor would rule. He understands he cannot rule proud, free men so he invents fiction like the Sewer Story to cover for his crimes. Earthquakes produced by Chaosian sorcerers tore up the pipes, and the fools assumed that the looted, smoking, stinking mass which was left in their wake was how things had been for all time. To be sure, they made changes in the Eternal City… and once your city is perfect, any change is a detraction… a desecration. At best, the Chaosian sewers and waterworks are bigger, sturdier, and almost as good as that which they replaced. For much of the occupation, none of these facts has been true in the poorest parts of Amber. It remains to be seen how long their shoddy construction will hold, with as many citizens being trotted about with sacks on their heads down there at the behest of the secret police. Chaosian beautification also displays what the most generous of critics can only call… curious… aesthetic tastes. Murals of lakes of fire in the Scar may be all the rage with the occupying troops, but this has rather hellish connotations for those raised in the Church of the Unicorn. Men with such an alien sense of art, it should not be doubted, have no notion of what they are doing when they tear up ancient marble fountains and shatter priceless frescoes to install tacky mirrored bits of glass to give the impression of some bizarre alien sky out of a southerly shadow. As for needing crematoria to deal with all of the dead… if Chaosians hadn’t killed so many people, and undermined the medical? system so completely, perhaps they would not be nessisary. Amberites, of old, consigned their bodies to Amber Harbor or to graves in Arden. The most wealthy estates had private crypts for their honored dead, and that was good enough for the Eternal City before Chaos despoiled her. (From the writings of Johann Payne) |
