A timeless Cold War world where decades blur and technology evolves unevenly. Fax machines hum beside early smartphones, car phones are status symbols, and typewriter pools pound out reports as satellites whisper overhead. Paranoia rules every channel of communication; information moves as slowly and dangerously as the men and women who trade it. Three great powers dominate the game: The United States embodies capitalism, freedom, and decadence—its intelligence web driven by innovation, greed, and ego. The CIA, National Security Bureau, and private contractors wage overlapping wars for profit and pride, arming their charming agents with gadgets, money, and charisma. Freedom is both a rallying cry and an excuse. The Soviet Union rules through communism, control, and corruption. Behind iron discipline lies bureaucratic decay, where loyalty is enforced by fear. The State Security Directorate and People’s Internal Service listen to everything and trust no one. Equality is preached, but power belongs to the few. The People’s Republic of China represents statism, unity, and dehumanization. The Ministry of State Protection and Unity Bureau see espionage as harmony through dominance. Individuality dissolves into obedience; agents are instruments of a collective machine. Smaller powers carve their own shadows. Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea blend Eastern efficiency with capitalist ambition, their corporate spies battling in boardrooms. The Middle East is ruled by monarchies and warlords who wield oil wealth and tribal loyalties as weapons. South America hosts revolutionary juntas and criminal governments where ideology and greed mix freely. Across all continents, Cartel Syndicates thrive—multinational networks of drug lords and mercenaries funding private armies and buying secrets like stock options. Between them operate the Freelance Operatives—traitors, mercenaries, and ghosts who serve whoever pays most. Their allegiances shift like smoke; some work for ideals, others for survival. None can be trusted. This is a world of contradictions—elegant yet brutal, seductive yet cruel. Agents drive black sedans filled with smoke and secrets, record whispers on reel-to-reel machines, and pocket prototypes of devices no one else believes exist. Money is heavy, loyalty heavier, beauty the deadliest weapon of all. Among these shadows exist the few who transcend even legend. They aren’t called super spies—no one with sense would use the word—but every agent knows they’re out there. They are the ghosts who topple governments unseen, who seduce royalty for secrets, who kill with a smile and disappear into champagne-scented night. Masters of language, deception, and precision, they can turn a paperclip and half a glass of tequila into victory. Their employers deny their existence, but their legend endures: assassins who make death look natural, lovers who leave nations trembling, and thieves who vanish into myth. To meet one is to brush against death itself.