Romance of the Nine Empires

Logo of Romance of the Nine Empires

Romance of the Nine Empires is a fictional collectible card games in the world of The Gamers as well as an actual expandable card game published by Alderac Entertainment Group in association with Zombie Orpheus Entertainment.

History of the Game

The history of R9E, as it is commonly called, is as improbable as its ongoing storyline. R9E actually started in 1982 as a homebrew role-playing campaign held at various small conventions within driving distance of the designers’ home town of Toad Suck, Arkansas, in which the results of each adventure pointed the scenario designers to create a new adventure based on the old.

In 1989, when one of the designers moved to Charleston, West Virginia, and continued to use the scenarios in other conventions, they had to assimilate the results of the players’ accomplishments in both states, creating what became the first Evolving Storyline Convention Adventure. These ESCAs rapidly spread among small conventions across North America and even overseas to Norway.

Things “ESCA-lated” in 1996, when a wealthy raisin farmer from Fresno became enamored of the ESCA concept, and teamed up with the original designers to create an Evolving Storyline Cardgame Adventure based on the groundwork laid over the previous fourteen years. The first R9E World Championship tournament was held in 1998. Although R9E had started as a basic medieval fantasy, tournament players had an unprecedented amount of control over the story development, which included such salient events as the arrival of the extraplanar Ord, and the temporal displacement of an entire US military division from 1945 Los Alamos.

The game also survived some questionable decisions made when the entire staff but the accountant came down with the stomach flu at the World Championships. These include the notorious “partial keyword ruling,” which stated that anything that targeted an orc could also target a sorcerer card; and the “card ownership ruling,” which ended up banning borrowed cards and decks from tournaments until it was overturned in 2002.

Factions

The nine factions of Countermay, as of the US Nationals 2013:

• The Dread Army of Ixhasa
• The Tuatha
• The Magocracy of Arcanix
• The Merchants of Esh
• The Protectorate of Malchior
• The Ord
• The Cult of Shad-Hujem
• The Kingdom of Holden
• The Displaced

Products

• Romance of the Nine Empires: 15th Anniversary World Championship Edition
• Romance of the Nine Empires: Arcane Fire