Al Amarja is a small island in the Mediterranean south and a little east of Italy. It is roughly oval, about 80 km long and almost 60 km wide. Of volcanic origin, the island has a single, low mountain at the centre. The landscape is rough and convoluted, featuring dry, slow-growing forests and fields of scrub, small coves, cliffs, twisting streams, and sandy beaches.
The climate is typically dry and sunny in the summer, cooler and sometimes rainy in the winter. Temperatures are always moderate, and the sun shines clearly most every day.
On the western tip of the island lies the urban centre where most island inhabitants live. Circling a bay is the ancient port Skylla. Just to the south is a city called the Edge; it is actually poised on the edge of cliffs that overlook the sea. Monique D'Aubainne built this city up when she liberated the island, and it is the heart of Al Amarjan culture. Just south of the Edge lies Traboc, a city that expanded greatly during the prosperity of the Sixties.
Along the coast of the island stand private mansions of the very wealthy, along with the occasional resort, catering to the wealthy and decadent tourists. The centre of the island is wooded and primarily undeveloped. Private mansions, sometimes virtual fortresses, also dot the hillsides that slope up to the central volcanic basin.
On the far eastern end of the island is Freedom City, the capital of the island. Here Monique D'Aubainne and the various legislators, bureaucrats, functionaries, and lobbyists live in wealth and luxury. Freedom City is heavily guarded.
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Her Exaltedness Monique D'Aubainne established the island as an independent nation, a self-described democracy. (D'Aubainne's official title is "President.") Actually, it is an anarchic monarchy, or perhaps a monarchic anarchy. The elections, which D'Aubainne always wins, aren't fooling anyone.
D'Aubainne has eschewed any connection with the United Nations, declaring it a fascist, pro-Communist, anti-freedom organization designed to put the powerful and far-seeing minority under control of the small-minded majority. Individual relations between Al Amarja and other countries are scnat at best, at least officially. D'Aubainne must be exerting some kind of covert pressure on the politicians of other nations to allow her to continue her libertarian policies. Indeed, she prefers that few people even know about Al Amarja, and she's succeeded in dampening any significant media coverage of the place.
There are no embassies on the island, and no Al Amarjan embassies in other countries. Whether there are clandestine negotiations between the Al Amarjan government and other governments is a matter of rumor and speculation.
On the island, D'Aubainne's word is law. Primarily, however, she lets people do as they please. The result is an ever-changing political scene in which money, information, and power rule. The government only interferes in personal life when the government has something to gain thereby. On Al Amarja, the government is something to be universally avoided. In this way, it is essentially like the United States, although without the elaborate façade of participatory democracy.
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The Hellenic Greeks colonized Al Amarja long ago, subjugating the native population. Their colony, however, was soon abandoned, and Al AMrja was free until Rome colonized it. Remnants of Rome survived the fall of the Empire, but eventually lost control of the island to North Africans who were spreading Islam and literate culture as far as benighted Spain. The Muslims gave the island the name "Amerjá" or "Al Amerjá." When Barcelona became a major sea power and Catalonia conquered much of the Mediterranean, they threw out the Muslims and corrupted the name to "Al Amarjá." When the Castilians came to dominate the Iberian peninsula, they retained the island's name, but but came to pronounce the "j" like an English "h," whereas it was originally pronounced "zh" by the Catalans and "j" by the Muslims. The island changed hands a few more times as a result of European squabbles, and finally ended up under Italian control in the 20th century.
Then came World War II and Monique D'Aubainne. In 1940 she liberated the island and installed herself as President. In hopes of creating a glorious nation, she modelled it after the nation she considered to be the best and most powerful in the world, the United States of America. She imposed English as the national language and adopted the U.S. dollar as the official currency.
She has indeed brought prosperity to the island, though not to the majority of its inhabitants.
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The laws of Al AMarja are designed to protect Her Exaltedness and her kin. A few specific examples should suffice.
Guns and explosives are strictly forbidden, and laws against them are tightly enforced. D'Aubainne reasons that if no one has easy access to firearms, it should be hard for some nut or fascist to assassinate her.
Psychics are also outlawed, to protect her secrets from exposure and her life from paranormal threats. Psychics are allowed to operate on the island if they register with the government and cooperate when the government needs information.
Drugs outlawed in the U.S. are outlawed here as well. This law is rarely enforced, and drug use is nearly universal in the population. The preoponderance of illegal drugs makes it easy for D'Aubainne's Peace Force to arrest just about anyone they want to on legitimate charges. The official charge is possession of drugs, but the actual offence is usually personal or political.
Citizens have practically no rights against harrassment, spontaneous searches, invasions of privacy, or any of the other techniques so popular with police forces everywhere. Rights of free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, and so forth are part of the Constitution, but anyone who ticks off the government probably won't last too long.
The laws, however, are not all strict. Prostitution and gambling are both legal, and fire codes and such regulations are minimal.
The laws of Al Amarja are served by the ever-competent Peace Force. The Peace Force has about the same relation to peace as the fire department does to fire. Peace officers in riot helmets, wearing dark blue suits (armoured), and carrying sub-machine guns are a common sight on Al Amarja, but it is the intelligence branch of the Peace Force that you've really got to be worried about.
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The island relies on international trade for its prosperity. The wealthy bring in money from their various investments and spend it here. Skylla serves as a stopping place in shipping lanes, though the more professional shipping lines avoid it entirely. The Edge provides financial services for the island's inhabitants and for foreigners who want their finances to be inaccessible to authorities. It also recives large infusions of hard currency from wealthy, decadent tourists who cannot find anywhere else in the world to amuse them in quite the same way. Traboc has a substantial industry, specializing in cheap imitations of expensive brand-name goods. And overall, the drug trade brings in plenty of wealth, thanks to countries that enforce their drug laws and keep prices high.
Al Amarja is home to some some of the world's richest and some of the world's poorest people. The wealthy approve of this contrast, as the desperately poor provide cheap labour. The Peace Force, as well as private security forces, keep the disparity from threatening the lives and sensibilities of the wealthy.
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Al Amarjan are a mix of cultures, mostly from the Mediterranean. Greeks, Libyans, Moroccans, Spaniards, Italians, Egyptians, Algerians, and others from the Mediterranean coasts compose the bulk of the population, but ever since Her Exaltedness Monique D'Aubainne liberated the island, more and more people from Europe, the United States, and Canada have been coming here to live or to play.
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The primary virtue in Al Amarjans' minds is personal loyalty - loyalty to those individuals who have helped you and worked with you. Loyalty to abstractions, such as ideologies, deities, nations, ethnic groups, and so forth, is regarded as immature.
Al Amarjans are markedly tolerant of differences between people, probably because they are accepting of their own internal contradictions. Rather than cleaving to a specific self-image, and then judging people who are different from that self-image, Al Amarjans see themselves as theoretically capable of all manner of human behaviour. Lifestyle is a question of taste on Al Amarja and inhabitants are likely to view an argument between people of different religions in the same way they'd view an argument between devotees of defferent styles of music.
Like all people in unpredictable circumstances, Al Amarjans are partial to superstition, and followers of many different superstitions are found here. The following are teken seriously by at lesat part of the populace: lucky numbers, talismans, voodoo, animal sacrifice (especially for computers to work smoothly), pyramid power, palm-reading, human sacrifice (especially for christening a ship or improving the chances for a big business deal to go through), Eckankar, Christian Science, Reichian biology, Scientology, Catholic rituals, decadent taoism, and psychoanalysis.
It is impolite to serve drinks that have been opened. Hosts always provide soft drinks, juices, and alcoholic beverages in their sealed bottles or cans. Furthermore, Al Amarjans typically hold their thumbs over the mouths of their bottles when not drinking. While these customs arose from the suspicion that someone might have put something poisonous or psychoactive in the drink, they are now taken as a matter of course, and it is not considered rude to act as if you suspect your host might be trying to poison you. Al Amarjans also generally serve snacks in closed packages for guests to open themselves.
Free self-expression, to the point of self-indulgence, is what life is all about to these people. Fashions, styles, opnions, and habits, therefore, vary widely from individual to individual. Except for those few who hold positions of power through their jobs, Al Amarjans see work as a necessary evil and look elsewhere for meaning in their lives. They join gangs, groups, cults, and clubs or pursue esoteric art forms, all in the name of self-expression.
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One common feature of Al Amarjan style is the noose, worn in place of a necktie. Some wear their nooses tight around the neck, and others wear them loose. Some nooses are functional, others purely for show. Like neckties in saner cultures, the Al Amarjan noose comes in any variety of colours, materials, and designs.
The knife is nearly a universal component of Al Amarjan dress. Beyond its obvious use for self-defence, Al Amarjans use their knives for games, for status symbols, for opening stubborn bags of potato chips, and so on.
Heavy, steel-reinforced boots are also common, for stomping on people and for keeping one's feet from being broken when they are stomped on.
All manner of body modification is popular here (self-expression, once again). Body-building, severe fasting, taning, hair styling, piercings, scarification, and tattos are all popular. Those who can afford it even undergo plastic surgery to enhance or alter their physical form. Whlie plastic surgery has traditionally allowed people to conform to a societal ideal of beauty, plastic surgery on Al Amarja often conforms only to the unique self-image of the individual, and common conceptions of beauty be damned.
To further express themselves, many Al Amarjans change their names. English names are common, since President D'Aubainne maintains English as the official language, and many of these names are actually normal words, such as "Stump," "Trace," "Sly," or even "Spike."
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Violence is, to the Al Amarjan, a valid form of self-expression and entertainment. Most toughs out looking for a fight prefer to select other toughs who are also eager to chafe knuckles. When fight-hungry youths enter bars, they scout out possible opponents, make a few rude comments to people who look promising, and eventually find someone else who wants to brawl. This process is much like that used by people at singles' bars looking for bed partners. Since the combattants are usually out looking for a good, rough time, they do not use weapons. These fights rarely lead to long-lasting feuds, and sometimes are the beginning of fast friendships.
The more disturbed along Al Amarja's population, however, enjoy causing fear and humiliation more than the thrill of a good fight, so they target more peaceful victims. These acts of violence, however, can bring repercussions if the victim has friends or connections.
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English is the official language of the island (with U.S. spellings and pronunciations standard.) The common patois, however, includes elements from several different languages. An English speaker can generally pick up the gist of this argot, and after a few days on the island one usually picks up the particular slangs.
When Monique D'Aubainne liberated the island in 1940, she imposed U.S. English as the official language. Apparently there was a very old language occasionally in use among certain inhabitants of the island, but it is illegal to speak this language in public, and fifty years later few people can tell you anything about this language.
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More Info About Al Amarja - from another game we ran as a PbEM
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Copyright Information: Over The Edge role-playing game created by Jonathan Tweet, © John Nephew, 1992, 1997. On The Edge card game © Trident, Inc., 1994. This Web site, the LARP game system, and all original material © Sophie Lagacé, Edmund Metheny, and Jenifer Ramsey, 2003.
This section is entirely transcribed from Over The Edge and is © John Nephew, 1992, 1997.