There's a lot of terminology in MUSHing and in Amber that can get thrown around without realizing that not everyone is equally up on the slang. To attempt to prevent confusion, we've gathered up a few terms here.

Altchars (or Alts)

Short for alternate characters, this is a term for referencing the fact that some players play more than one character. It's used in two ways.

1. The characters played by a character. Bob is playing Athos, Porthos and Aramis, those are Bob's Alts.

2. A player's characters other than the one currently bening played. Bob is playing Athos at the moment, Porthos and Aramis might be referred to as Athos's alts.

  • A player's alts are usually considered private information, and a player is never obliged to share his or her alts on Road to Amber.
  • It is both confusing and problematic to have two or more of your own alts in the same scene, so avoid this whenever possible.
  • It is considered bad form (at best) or cheating (at worst) to have your alts collude. Bad practices include:
    • Sharing information between your alts
    • Having your alts help each other out in fights
    • Hearing about something with one alt and showing up in response to it with another alt

Elder Amberite

One of the children of Oberon, i.e., Corwin, Eric, Benedict, etc.

IC and OOC

Short for "In Character" and "Out of Character". IC refers to actions taken by and knowledge held by a character, as opposed to OOC, which is the knowledge and actions of a player. Keeping these two things separate is a constant challenge. As an example:

  • When you encounter a characters whose player you dislike, picking a fight with that character would be acting OOC. You are basing your IC action (picking a fight) on your OOC opinion ("I don't like this player") and that's bad form.
  • Suppose you know the secret identity of a villain OOC, but your character does not know IC. Accusing the villain would be using your OOC knowledge inappropriately.
  • You have an Alt who knows some type of magic. Having your other characters act IC as if they have knowledge of this magic is inappropriate use of OOC information.


Usually used to refer to the son or daughter of one of the children of Oberon, but may also be used to refer to the child of any PC or significant bloodline. For instance, a "Chantris kidbit" refers to someone who is of the blood of Chantris and part of that noble house.
