In the beginning there was the the Abyss and Primal Shadow. The Shadow surrounding the Abyss is known as Chaos. Beyond Chaos things started to fall apart this was known as the Murk. Shadows would often float in the Murk for sometime before they fell apart.

Naturally shapeshifting life developed in Chaos. The Chaosites developed sentience and magic. They soon learned to manipulate the Primal Shadows and to control thier travel with great difficulty. They were able to destroy the Shadows, seek out thing already existing in them, and perform some minor creation. These shadow creations, and in fact the shadows themselves weakened over time and dissipated forcing the magician to start over.

After many years the greatest, and perhaps the most insane Dworkin creates/discovers a magic Jewel, known as the Jewel of Judgment which he found could strengthen a Shadow making it last as long as the Jewel remained in it. He found that he had much more control over the shadows, allowing him to create and change whole worlds within them.

After more research Dworkin discovered a method of imprinting a part of the Pattern in the Jewel permanently into a shadow. He projected himself through the jewel and inscribed the Pattern (known as the Kolvir Pattern for its location on Mt. Kolvir), and changed the universe.

This inscription rather than just ordering one shadow as Dworkin expected, pulled all the Primal Shadows towards itself, bringing Chaos closer to the surrounding Void. Many of the Primal Shadows became tainted by the Pattern and inimical to life from Chaos. The closer to the Pattern the more hostile and the less able to be manipulated by the magics of Chaos the shadow became. The Pattern also created infinite reflections of itself, shadows much more stable than the previous Primal Shadows and all influenced by the Pattern.

All of this had a horrendous effect on the existing Primal Shadows, including Chaos. Great storms swept across them destroying and reordering everything. Civilization in Chaos was virtually destroyed and Dworkin became the representation of evil to those who were left alive.

In this order Dworkin's son Oberon via the Jewel of Judgement created a reflection of the Pattern. This is Amber. This creation caused 2 reflections of Amber: Rebma and Tir -'Nog'th. Oberon also did much exploring of the new ordered shadows. Eventually he found a single shadow that seemed to be the border between the Ordered shadows and the old Murk/Shadow mix. This shadow itself is quite small containing only a tree called Ygg which Oberon planetd and some surrounding terrain. Ygg became a fence to keep Oberon's children in a safe playground where their Pattern based powers work.

Dworkin and Oberon soon discovered new powers by walking their Patterns, further imprinting the Pattern upon themselves. The had almost complete control of the Shadows created by their Patterns, and much more control of the Primal Shadow that had been influenced by the Pattern than with previous magic.

After millennia of recovery the Chaosites began a war against the Pattern, read the books for a description of this war. Near the end of the war Corwin driven by the storms caused by the reinscription of the Kolvir Pattern and carrying the Jewel crossed the Ygg boundary and incribed his own Pattern. Chaos had a better time of it this time because of the presence of the Jewel but much of the rest of Shadow including that influenced by the Kolvir Pattern was devastated and much is still in flux today with massive storms raging across them. The amount of shadow available to those from Chaos without problems has shrunk even further. Ygg was lost. This is how the universe now stands.

There is some speculation as to what will now happen. Some believe that the storms will continue unabated, and possibly get worse wrecking all of Shadow and eventually the Patterns themselves. The only cure can be the destruction of one of the Patterns so that the old stability will be restored. Of course many in Chaos would like to see both Patterns destroyed (particularly Corwin's since it is the closest) and the original Primal Shadows reopened to them.

A small minority believes that after a period of unrest everything will settle down in some sort of stable arrangement. These optimists have no explanation for how this might occur and seem to be losing credibility as the storms get worse.