The Great Game
"The Great Game is played between the Bazaar's Masters, the surface cities, and other powers. Spies and assassins are their pawns."
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Choose a side.
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Choose a side.
The Great Game is the main network of spies everywhere, even on the Surface. It's often likened to a game of chess, especially because every spy literally makes moves.
Some major Neathy players in the Game are the Cheesemonger and the Clathermonts.
Spies tend to pray to St. Joshua, their patron saint; the most experienced have shrines to him that are wrapped in irrigo, so they forget their secret rites after learning and performing them every time.
We know from the spies which nations are still at least somewhat intact on the Surface: Germany (or at least Prussia), France, Italy, Russia, and perhaps a diminished remnant of the British Empire. Austria-Hungary also still participates in the Great Game, and much clandestine activity happens in the city of Vienna, on the Surface.
The Great Game in Fallen London universe is a reference to the real-life Great Game — a simmering diplomatic confrontation between European superpowers (especially British Empire and Russian Empire) that lasted for the most part of the 19th century, full of espionage, backdoor deals, small wars, propaganda, and political maneuvering. In that Great Game, two empires ostensibly vied for control of Afghanistan / Central Asia, an important "crossroads" point that was viewed as a key to Asia and Middle East.
Similarly, in the Fallen London universe, the Neath is a completely new region that offers potentially vast benefits (such as near-immortality, incredible technologies tantamount to magic, and unknown new resources), and also holds immense potential threats (both from unknown creatures and races and from the party that controls the only entry point to the Neath: London). It makes sense that surface superpowers would like to at least know everything there is about the Neath, if not project their own influence there. On top of that, Bazaar Masters play their own Game of secrets and influence using human factions as proxies.
