The Dothraki are often said to be Mongol hordes but fantasy-coded. No it’s not historically accurate: that’s the point. They have design elements that are redolent of something real, while deviating as much as the author likes.
Many such cases! High fantasy is redolent of mediæval Europe. Na’vi are redolent of Native Americans
So what would a fantasy realm look like if it’s [definitely-not-the-USA-but-also-clearly-the-USA]?
I’m having a harder time than expected doing this.
By ‘fantasy’ I mean specifically the sort that seems mediæval – no electricity, no steam-engine. But if you want to go off in the comments imagining sci-fi or another genre I can’t stop you.
- Overconfident vulgarity. Talk too loud.
- individualist rhetoric
- they deeply believe they are free, but have a particular meaning of ‘freedom’ that excludes financial stability and emphasises individualism. They blame the poor for their own poverty.
- evangelical monotheistic religion
- take big lacquered wagons everywhere when other nations walk
- obsessed with big crossbows
- generally, everything is oversized
- core myth “we are a union of free states, who defend liberty and our way of life, and spread freedom to others”
- invaded their land 200 years ago and wiped out the indigenous
- other countries talk about how bad their food is
- obesity
- large wealth inequality and it is racialised. Hospitals, schools are privately owned at extortionate prices (contrasting with other realms in the world)
- roads have tolls (not particularly the case in the modern USA, but it hammers home the private-ownership point)
- They view other prosperous nations as weak if they help the poor, or as barbarian if they’re poor
- their gladiatorial games are scripted and tacky
- Militarily, they favour artillery bombardment and aerial bombardment from eagles or rocs or whatever the world has. Bombardment of civilian areas. The war crime of using Agent Orange war is one note that is easy to directly transfer
That seems like a long list but I don’t find it very satisfying. I wish I could think of a handful of elements that could signify the USA. The use of red+white+blue and the big wagons are the closest I have so far.
Interested in hearing suggestions for the ruler’s name and the country’s name too.
In Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, the elves who rule Faerie are always at risk of sublimating away; they must inflict as much pathos and involve themselves in as much drama and vice as they can to tether themselves to the mortal world.
The titular Iron Dragons are the equivalent of bombers, powered by viciously intelligent spirits from the elemental plane of fire, who have voluntarily enslaved themselves to the elvish MIC in order to have a chance to consume something (there is nothing left to burn on their home plane).
Since cold iron is lethally toxic to elves, human children are abducted from Earth and changelings are left in their place. The human children grow up working in factories that handle iron, including the ones which build the dragon airframes, and then are used to breed half-elves, who are raised in officer school to pilot the dragons.
All the content warnings for anyone considering reading it.
How do you take out an iron dragon? Ballista maybe?
Within the setting, machines require a captive spirit to run, and the more complex or fine the machine, the more intelligent the spirit you need. The iron dragons’ bodies are jet aircraft with a sophisticated sensor suite as well as magical fire, telepathy, and illusions, so presumably you’d need radar and AD batteries with spirits capable of contending with that. Or your own iron dragons.
thanks, will try this later