Alternate Universe for Spycraft

[jephkay]

Hi! I'm Jeff. I have an idea.

In fantasy games, more often than not, the world is a cultural mish-mash of our own history.  Desert areas are like the Arabian Nights stories, the main good-guy nations look like mideval England, France or Germany and the Far East has ninjas. Always with the ninjas.

Why isn't this done with Modern games? Maybe one nation is named Durkadurkastan to avoid annoying people or some odd, tiny European country is invented "Latveria?" but never a whole planet.

I'm thinking about writing a CIA Fact-book style thingie that uses familiar material with an unfamiliar map.  A reduced number of nations, modeled on the real world, but using fake names, places and a detailed plotline.  No odd races or magic. Just different. 

Any ideas could be posted here. I'll incorporate any donations.

[Desertpuma]

You should watch the original Mission: Impossible TV series to see how they did this and it was done all the time.

[jephkay]

I remember that! It may be where the idea came from. I've had the thought for a while, but never on this scale.  I think I'll do a small sample country and post it for grins.

Thanks for the reminder!

[Desertpuma]

Check out a bit of it here with the very 1st episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhPwhv2aRZc

[MugMug]

Welcome to the boards, jephkay!

I tend more toward the fantasy rather than modern genres, but I'd be interested to see what you do.

Walter

[Agent 333]

I've thought of this before, and the answer I got as to why not was the quick cultural shorthand that's available for having a real world basis. Though in my games nearly EVERY country except the US is made up, so it might as well not be Earth anymore...

[jephkay]

I looked up a bunch of Mission:Impossible episodes on a guide hereabouts. The guide I found has the fake country names!  Yay!

"Svardia" was probably my favorite.  I'll be using those, without telling my players, just to see if they figure out where they came from. In fact, I might just assume that the events of those episodes actually occured. 

I'm glad we had this thread! I'll post some work ups of the M:I countries when I have the full list finished.

[Agent 333]

An incomplete list of fake countries in the Marvel Universe

Latveria, Slorenia, Transia, Carnellia, Alberia
Wakanda, Madripor

All except Wakanda and Madripor are in Europe. Wakanda is in Africa and Madripor is in southeast Asia (though everyone there seems European...)

Marvel actually released an atlas not too long back that included most of the fake countries in the maps, as well as brief in-universe histories for all locations relevant to the MU. Not sure if Carnellia or Alberia were in it, both are fairly obscure places that only showed up in a handful of stories from decades ago (though both were featured in stories important to Iron Man's history...)

[Desertpuma]

Cool, jephkay

[glimmerrat]

Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_countries

My personal favourite is Val Verde.

An incomplete list of fake countries in the Marvel Universe

Also Atlantis, Genosha, Lemuria, Providence, Symkaria... the list goes on. Here, try this:

http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Countries

[Mister Andersen]

An incomplete list of fake countries in the Marvel Universe

There's also the currently largely steralised island nation of Genosha which is just north west of the Seychelles

Madripor is in southeast Asia (though everyone there seems European...)[/quote]

I think Madripoor is in many ways a call out to early 20th century (ie, pulp-era) dens of Western iniquity such as Hong Kong and Singapore.