Countermay: The Tapestry of Worlds, the crossroads of civilizations beyond imagining. After a thousand years of war, Countermay is dying. Battles, curses, extraterrestrial parasites, demonic influence, and other hazards have ruined much of the planet. The food is running out, and the threat of starvation looms. The only way to save Countermay is to seize undisputed control. Until then, armies march, fed with the ever-dwindling food as they churn farmland into mud with their boots. Can you save Countermay from its invitable doom?
Romance of the Nine Empiresis a fictitious interactive collectible card game (CCG) set in the fantasy world of Countermay. In the game, players assume command of one of nine vastly different warring factions including steampunk aliens, a dark god-king's crusade of conversion, displaced WWII-era American GIs, and a risen empire of the undead to expand, glorify, or defend their empires. Through its fictitious fifteen-year history, players have shaped the world of Countermay through their individual and collective achievements, and the results are reflected in the story and the current state of the empires. That concept was inspired by theLegend of the Burning SandsCCG, which in turn is based on theLegend of the Five RingsCCG: in those real-life games, tournament results affect the actual story in future expansions.
The plot of the 2013 movieThe Gamers: Hands of Faterevolves around the fictitious game. Within the movie itself, AEG was the publisher of the game, but as a result of Kickstarter funding forThe Gamers: Hands of Fate, it decided to create a real-life version ofR9E. The real-life release is not a collectable game, but a boxed set with a set distribution of cards. This boxed set represents the fictitious 15th Anniversary World Championship Edition ofRomance of the Nine Empires, and (to slip into the movie storyline for a second) it holds the decks used by the top-placing characters for each faction that made it to the quarterfinals at the 2012 World Championships at Gen Con Indy.
