[quote=@Queen Raidne] [Work in Progress] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So I've two things in mind. One is familiar to some of you, though it is different. It's fairies [i]In Space![/i] along a semi-sentient magical hyperspace path that lets anyone walk from world to world (at the Path's pseudo-random whims), if you can find it in the first place. The other is a B-Movie tech "United States", with Flying Saucers, ray guns, glowing green goo, and the word "Atomic" slapped onto everything. Oh, and werewolves, swamp-things, blobs, and witches (some of which serve in the military). That one still needs the most work, especially to tone it away from pure comedy into something slightly more reasonable. [hider=Option One] Working on: Name, Species, Government, Tech, Magic, Culture, Other [u]Name of nation:[/u] The Faerie Inns [u]Summary in a Sentence:[/u] Fairies living in hyperspace that can literally walk between worlds (and so can everyone else, mostly). [u]Species:[/u] Fay or Fairy [u]Description of government:[/u] Federation of four independent city-states, all existing on locally-stabilized hyperspace nodes along the Fairy Path. [i]Finn's[/i] - A recently rebuilt bar at which nobody speaks of the former establishment, lest they be banned, but otherwise resembles a merry pub (with rooms for rent up top!) in the middle of a large blast crater. The establishment is rather dwarfed by the trading boomtown which surrounds it, all owned and leased out by [i]Finn's[/i]. [i]The Tawdry Oyster[/i] - A tropical resort boasting live mermaids (stay there too long and risk becoming one!). Like [i]Finn's[/i], The Oyster rents out land to other guests. Stringent guidelines (and pricing) make the Oyster the locale for only the richest, beautiful, and most famous of species' celebrities. [i]Marblehead Inn and Suites[/i] - A towering modern edifice that adds more floors as people climb the stairs, despite the owner's best efforts to get the building to [b]stop[/b] already. If you don't want to be found, you have a chance of ending up here for a while. Ironically, it's a good place to "lay low", despite its skyscraper nature. [i]The House at the End of the Road[/i] - Which has various names, (The House, House on the Hill, Quiet Hill Inn, 1408 Elm Street, etc.) but invariably appears to travelers with no other choice in lodgings and a desperate need for them. Rather spooky, but only at night. [u]Description of military:[/u] Each Inn-Between-Worlds is responsible for its own defense, and each has wildly different strategies to that effect. For instance, The House relies on hexes and terrifying glamours, which ultimately costs its residents dearly each time it has to defend itself. Happily for the House, it's usually terrifying enough to make most would-be invaders not bother after the first few nights. Finn's takes rather the opposite approach, preferring to be such a valuable trading hub for everyone that nobody would want to invade and everyone wants to defend it. The Tawdry Oyster has the most familiar military, consisting of a small number of legions fit for policework and defense, and all with a maritime theme. Meanwhile, the Marblehead Inn and Suites has no military. The ever-growing staff can barely keep up with the building as it is; a large number of bellhops and concierges are their best option. However, the Marblehead usually opts for retreating up a few floors. Once they even tricked an invasion force into taking a recently-installed elevator to the top floor. It's said that, late at night, you can still hear distant dings and screaming. [u]Technological Overview:[/u] The technology level varies massively from one individual to the next. The Fay themselves generally invent nothing, preferring to steal from other races (and even steal the scientists of the other races) when they feel so inclined. Yet, they have two great claims to fame: the Fairy Path, created by the outcast fairy Euryale. A living entity comprised of beautifully subtle aetherfied hyperspace tunnels, the Path is a series of trails threading through most known worlds. Literally - the Fay can walk from world to world. Of course, so can anyone else who stumbles upon them. Not that they'd notice - one of the Path's many Glamours make each transition from world to world seamless. You only realize you're no longer in Kansas when it's far too late. And walking the Path is dangerous - some trails lead to airless moons, glassed planets, and frigid ice worlds. The routes change according to the Path's inscrutable whim, influenceable only by Queen Titania herself (recently missing). The Fay themselves, of course, know how to navigate the Path; it's part of the Glamours lacing the thing. Like all Fairy magic, however, it's thwarted by radiation. The Fairy Path has learned to stay away from highly-populated technological areas, sticking to the deep woods where at all possible. Fewer people usually means less radioactivity. Their other claim to fame is the reasons that the locally-stabilized hyperspace nodes still exist, despite the planet Faerie (the heart of the Path) mysteriously disappearing. Each Inn-Between-Worlds has a stabilizer, powered by the blood sacrifice of a specific type of individual once each relative year. The type of individual varies for each inn; the Marblehead requires a cold, logical thinker; the Tawdry Oyster requires a beautiful seductress; Finn's needs someone with wealth that yearns for more; and the House at the End of the Road requires a brash adventurer. A minor achievement are Fairy Tokens, which allow other species to use the Path to walk to a specific node. Each token is keyed to a specific Inn (though they could be keyed anywhere, in theory; you'd just have to make them wherever you wanted to go). Far and away the most tokens are keyed to [i]Finn's[/i] [u]Magical Overview:[/u] Glamours are an innate ability shared by all Fay. A glamour is an illusion cast on either themselves or a small object altering its appearance. Many glamours are incredibly elaborate, as it's considered a marker of high status to have a detailed glamour. Queen Titania, the former head of state, could change what she appeared to be wearing based on how she was feeling at the moment. Fairy gold is another example of a glamour: exchanging a few leaves that look and feel like gold for favors is an old trick. The more tech-savvy Fay can fool e-banks into believing funds have been transferred - for a day or so, anyway. On top of glamours (or perhaps as a subset of glamours), Fay can cast simple prestidigitations - real-life magic tricks. Levitating small objects, turning paper roses into real ones with a flash of fire, making objects disappear, increasingly complicated card tricks, that sort of thing. Another aspect is curses and blessings. Fay magic affects processes. They can curse or bless items and organics, causing harvests to be particularly good or bad, or certain industrial processes to function foully or fairly. Tech-savvy Fay can even bless code to execute to the author's intentions, and not what they mistakenly typed. Finally, there are hexes. Developed by the House on the Hill after the planet Faerie mysteriously disappeared and the Path got "ornery", Hexes are a dark subset of Fae magic requiring sacrifice. The more powerful the effect, the greater the sacrifice. [u]Cultural Overview:[/u] Fairies are vain, fickle creatures that make ironclad bargains (which they take seriously, if only at face value) and believe wholly in the power of the individual. [u]History:[/u] Someone invaded their system, but then Eurayle came along and whisked their home planet into hyperspace, creating the path and four natural nodes of stability. Eventually enterprising Fay set up Inns on said nodes. These nodes became meeting spots for various cultures that stumbled upon the Path, whether Fay or otherwise. Then the home planet of Faerie mysteriously disappeared, and the Path began to unravel. Until, one night, the House on the Hill stabilized the Path with sacrifices out of nowhere. There's been a relatively easy peace since then. Finn's has continued on as the main meeting place and tradinghouse between worlds and cultures, the Marblehead continues to be an excellent place to disappear for a while (some whole kingdoms have been known to take up residence from time to time), and the Tawdry Oyster remains an excellent tourist attraction. However, the House just gets more and more creepy. [u]Other:[/u][/hider] [hider=Option Two] If the Path is a no-go: [u]Name of nation:[/u] Definitely Not the United States of Space America [u]Species:[/u] Conceivably not human [u]Description of government:[/u] A government which in no way resembles a federal republic [u]Description of military:[/u] Something which is not a powerful professional military relying on carriers and long range missile [s]sub[/s][i]space[/i]marines [u]Technological Overview:[/u] Not a relatively advanced technological power that has a suspicious resemblance to bad sci-fi movies [u]Cultural Overview:[/u] Not freedom-loving interventionists [u]History:[/u] Not born from a rebellion of some colonies of a very powerful-at-the-time empire [u]Other:[/u] THIS IS IN NO WAY A B-MOVIE-TECH UNITED STATES TRANSPORTED TO SPACE. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU THINK THAT.[/hider] [/quote] Since I'm currently listening to [i]The U.S. Field Artillery[/i], I can't help but tell you to do the latter. Then again, the Fae are always fun.