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Author Topic: A New Kislev  (Read 16811 times)

Offline GCMan123

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A New Kislev
« on: July 23, 2011, 09:34:32 PM »
While this is not strictly Empire, Kislev is one of the Empire's closest allies, and indeed there are few who ever use Kislevite forces without the Empire as their main force. I myself have been putting together a Kislevite army, however, it is still under the command of a pseudo-Imperial (Marienburger) at least in name, and has a few other DOW forces as well.

However, all that aside I was working on the fluff for my army one day, and realized, even with the generous lending of Realm of the Ice Queen by a friend and reading a few online sources, I felt that my army's ethnic, cultural, and historical background felt a bit hollow. In the Empire there is a diverse range of ethnicities and cultures, every province is at least somewhat different from the others, and within each province you find sub-cultures and a range of vibrant communities, and that's just within pure GW canon, with webzines, communities like this one, sub-canon literature (non Black Idustries or Green Ronin or Hogshead), and even just the little projects people put together online, like Bergsburg, you find such a depth of character to the landscape. 

In fact I'm sure somewhere out on the web you can find an enormous pile of raw data someone put together on Kislev, and I just couldn't find it, and that's the problem, Kislev just feels empty on first glance, and when you look beneath the surface, there's nothing there to greet you. So that's why I decided to put together something that was at least a little more colorful and fleshed out than the current model. The only homage I'll be paying to the standard mold for Kislev is the Andreas Blicher map, as his maps are the standard for all warhammer. After all, we use them on this site.

To begin with I'll make a general Gazetteer of the Tsardom of Imperial Kislev, the Great Provinces, and Grand Principalities with all the cities, no tiny villages, I get to that when I go deeper and make gazetteers of each city.

Now I'll be doing this in alphabetical order by province, and I have a list of the provinces worked out.
The Dobryrion*
Farside Gulags*
Greater Lesia
Imperial Kislev
Imperial North
Lesser Lesia
North March
The Ropsmannia
The Rubitia
Western Marches
*=Not really a province, but a region with a citizenry

After that I'll take each province again, go through alphabetically and make a gazetteer of each town, with mines, forts, villages, any populated zone marked out. Those I'll pretty much have to make up myself. If I ever get good at drawing maybe I'll do maps too.

Then once all the gazetteers are complete, I'll go through all the places that I have, and flesh each out a little with a short blurb, maybe a paragraph long, like you'd see in Sigmar's Heirs for a particular place.

After that, it's on to organizations. I'll flesh out the religions of Kislev, critters like Dazhd, Perun, Ursun, I'll try to make them as vibrant as Sigmar and Shallya. I know it will never be enough, but the more flesh I put on the bare bones of Kislev, the more others will see it and expand on it.

Finally I'll work on diplomacy, dissidents, threats, the military, taxes, economic structure and on to culture, which I think will probably be my biggest segment (art, music, philosophy, rising bourgeoisie, tired serfs, the like)

Just as a disclaimer, I'm probably not going to mention every piece of fluff I glean from other sources, so do not assume every scrap is pure me, it's just not going to be true. Also, I don't intend for this to be something everybody, or indeed anybody uses, I just want to put out there all the ideas that have been scrabblin' around back there since I started digging for fluff for my army a few months ago.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2011, 01:59:43 AM by GCMan123 »

Offline fauthsie

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2011, 01:52:03 PM »
Good luck mate, that's quite the task.
A new Campaigning home....

http://animositycampaigns.com/joomla

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Offline patsy02

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2011, 05:01:57 PM »
Quote
Farside Gulags*
Sounds like a pretty bad place, even by Warhammer standards.
I agree with the inhumane treatment of animals.

Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2011, 06:23:42 PM »
Quote
Farside Gulags*
Sounds like a pretty bad place, even by Warhammer standards.
It's a series of stone ruins that were once Kislevite colonies beyond the World's Edge Mountains, and are now guardless, barless prisons where the Tsar sends those deemed too dangerous to be left in Kislev. Unsuprisingly they largely band together in groups inside the ruined colonies, as Hobgoblins, chaos things, and Hung tribesmen would track them down otherwise.

Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2011, 07:42:34 AM »
Just so everyone knows, I'm still working on the first part, the general gazetteer, but should be done before week's end. I only have four province's left, and with one exception, they're small.

Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2011, 03:36:57 AM »
Prepare thineself, foolish Interslaves! Prepare for the power, the glory, the Light Fantastic that is the....

GAZETTEER OF THE TSARDOM OF IMPERIAL KISLEV, THE GRAND PROVINCES, AND THE HOLY UNION OF THE ROPSMANNIA


The Dobryrion________________________________________________
   The Dobryrion is a vast steppe in the center of Kislev, and on the outside it appears largely uninhabited, perhaps the odd shepherd’s commune, ranch, or even a mining camp. However, this is as populous and vibrant a province as any other. Its population is thousands of Ungol nomads, a people who once ruled Kislev from their shining cities, but have degraded back into the yak-hide huts from whence they came, the grass-covered yurts of their camps invisible against the golden steppe. No agent of the Tsar has ever attempted to count their number and return, nor is the number of their camps known, for they constantly roll across the steppes, moving from yak herds in winter to horses for breaking in the summer.
   
   Even their leaders are largely unknown, a few particularly civilized ones making the effort to pay homage to Tsar’s at their coronation. Only one Ungol leader is truly known to the public at large, and that is Ambassador Batu Beg, a scheming, crafty man who is thought to be at least half hobgoblin, for the sheer number of assassinations, back-stabbings, and betrayals attributed to this man would make him Hobgobbla Khan in the Khanate. This has unfortunately led to the mistaken impression on most Kislevites that all Ungols are dirty traitors and schemers.
   
   Only twice a year is there something you could call a city for the Ungols, for as a matter of security, since the end of their overlordship of Kislev they have been forbidden from forming cities of their own. This place is called Xural, or the Meeting, and it has been called glorious by observers. Over 8000 Ungol warriors, women, children, elders, craftsmen, artists, and of course, the leaders crammed in less than half a square mile of blasted dirt in the far north of the Dobryrion. They will stay there for three weeks at time, returning every six months.
   
   It is thought that most of the major decision making of a people that once ruled an empire than spanned across the World’s Edge Mountains and almost to Ind are made here, and that efficiency with which they ruled their vast empire, now turned on a vast steppe with no cities barely a hundredth of the size is easily up to the task of keeping this mock-city organized for three weeks. In fact, while active Xural has the lowest crime rate of any city known, 0%.

Farside Gulags________________________________________________
   The Farside is a strip of land just beyond the World’s Edge Mountains, a bleak land of grey soil, near-poisonous streams (1), and the threat of endless snows, it was a wonder that any man who ever saw it thought, ‘This is land ripe for the taking’. Still, during the reign of Ortay of Dorogo, an Ungol prince, 6 colonies were founded there, 4 in the so-called Wheatlands, and two in the Blacklands, a series of coal-fields found there. The names of these colonies are lost to time, but there ruined hulks remained long after there abandonment.
   
   It was during the reign of Tsar Alexander I Njevksi that the colonies were declared void, the Blacklands colonies having been left years before, and only one of the Wheatland colonies holding on to survival. It was Mikhail’s predecessor, the Tsarina Tamara, niece to Tsar Alexander II Gorbassa (who himself was but the adopted heir of Tsar Alexander, the Tsarevich having tragically fallen in battle) who proclaimed the formation of the gulags.
   
   She was never as popular as even Alexander had been, and he was nothing like the great Njevski before him, and there were many political dissidents, anarchists, and even cultist influences affecting her realm. She feared that even conventional prisons would be little use in stopping the tide, and executions seemed to simply anger the people, so they were exiled to the conveniently located former colonies.
   
   That of course was years ago, and now those dissidents and anarchists have mostly died off, replaced by an ever increasing number of lesser criminals, as it was seen how effective the gulags were at keeping criminals far away from society and keeping them from infecting the land with their ignobility of spirit.
   
   Of course, leaving that many people unsupervised in this waste quickly led to a sort banding together of the disparate groups, a culture of cutthroat but fair practice was created, and soon primitive governments formed to organize these criminal cities. Since their establishment, every single one of the former Farside colonies is inhabited by a separate government of some form or another.
   
   The criminals jokingly refer to the formerly agricultural north as the Grand Province of Dustland, and the coal coated south as Imperial Ossia, named for the great bones scattered throughout the region, especially in the coal fields, which themselves appear to be in some sort of mummified swamp.

   The gulags are a treacherous place, full of thieves and rebels, just trying to survive the land and each other a little longer. They say that any who escape through the High Pass and back to Kislev will receive a full pardon and an officer’s commission in the Imperial army. It’s never happened though, and it probably never will, but that one piece of hope is all most of the “citizens” have to hold on to.


1. The streams from the iron grey Lake Pustaya (Lake Empty) are indeed near-poisonous, and it takes months, if not years to fully acclimate to its acidic taste. Even then, only the “wealthiest” are free from the “runs”, having the water boiled and strained through coal from the fields first. Hence the local brew’s unique flavor of pickled goblin urine.

2. This is a joke too, just get over it, they’re all jokes. Hahaha, they’re all prostitutes but the name makes them sound religious.

3. The title carried by the ruler of Tamarkrupa, a name which itself means Tamara’s Backside, is one of many jokes that come from this bitter land. A gentrified name for what boils down to Tamara’s lover, as anachronistic as it is, there is still a lot more animosity for Tamara than there is for Mikhail, who did at least start sending a few women.

4. The numbers are very exact because the Imperial government makes a point of knowing who’s out there and where.

5. Various items are made from bone hear, it’s the best form of cutlery most can afford, many outlying huts and even larger non sod-based structures (big tents) often use specially fashioned ribs, and great leg bones are often used for structural support in sod houses.

6. There all a bunch of criminals, and there’s no room or place for those who can’t fight, only the women of Igragrad aren’t standing army, and they’ll fight if they have too, and have in the past.

7. That one’s Sven, he’s big, that’s why he’s Premier.

8. You see the double A there? That’s not a typo, Ko and the other 15 are Ronin mercenaries caught raiding their own army’s supply wagons, dressed as bandits. They’re so good that no one’s gotten the nerve to stop their raiding, yet.

League of Greater Lesia________________________________________
   This part cultural, part geographical, and part administrative region is situated in the southeast of Kislev, on the border with the empire. This is a largely forested region, reflected in its name, coming from the Kislevan word les meaning wood, whose inhabitants are similar, a wide, stern-faced people, they represent stereotypical rural Kislevites to men of the Empire. While their cities are numerous, most are largely great markets built inside fortifications, while the majority of the Blosh (as the people of Greater Lesia are collectively known) live in various isolated stockades clustered around the well-tended but rough roads of their land, most are guarded lumber camps in essentia, with local nobles called Tartoveny (a title with an equivalent meaning of “law holder”), who are lesser courtiers appointed to a settlement by the Zupan of the Judet.
   
   Each city is home to a small class of warrior elite (often Gospodar in origin) in the castle, along with the Zupan, as well as an enormous market for the lumber which constantly comes in and out of the city on the well-tended pride of Greater Lesia, their roads. The cities are also home to enamellers and carvers to service the great demand of Kislevite carven arts throughout the Old World, as well as other higher artisans, essentially providing all services not available in the logging communities.


*=High end of 3, almost 4
1. The warrior elite of most cities is in fact their mandatory contingent of Winged Hussars, and while most keep an appropriate number for their size, the Videk Seats require a larger contingent 

2. A Videk is an administrative region encompassing several Judets, the Zoldeski Videk, meaning the Green North Videk, encompasses Blotno, Lisow, Wizna, and Zabow.

3. The Tsar’s Peace is one part judge, one part bodyguard, and one part executioner. One is placed in every Province, somewhere centrally located, and listens to cases of importance only. His ruling is always taken as fact, and his punishment is always death, though to which party it is applied is what the trial is for. The town that contains the Tsar’s Peace has no call to form an Imperial contingent.

4. The Jegfal Miracle was an event over a hundred years ago during a small war between
Kislev and the Imperial county of the Ostermark. During this time a large force attempted to assail a fort which stood there. A Priestess of Dazhd was present, and his prayers helped keep up the men’s spirits. However, in the night the enemy sent their full number in a silent attack, only to find that an enormous wall of ice blocked their path to the fort. This miracle was attributed to the shaman’s prayer, and the men were driven to victory.

5. The Hanis Family are the wealthiest and most influential single clan in Greater Lesia, with sons wearing the plumed headgear of a Zupan in two towns and with others in administrative office across the land. Their very presence creates a powerful political faction in the town. These organizations are called Hanite Parties.

6. Zwolen is probably the most Imperial city in Kislev, great trade goes through there, and many of it’s inhabitant choose to take Imperial names, for instance the Zupan even prefers to be called Graf, and changed his name from Georgy Estok, to Jorg von Zwolen, Estok not translating directly into Reikspiel.

7. Zoldhatar Videk, meaning Green Border Videk, includes Kukonis, Osel, Ryazan, and Slavyanaskaya. It once contained Rhieden as well, but when the Tsar allowed Hetman Oleg Dory of the province’s army to take over the running of his then-tiny hometown as Autocrat, it was given a semi-charter.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2011, 05:54:03 AM by GCMan123 »

Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2011, 03:37:45 AM »
Tsardom of Imperial Kislev_____________________________________
   The political and cultural center of Kislev is and always has been the Tsar’s own province, with its wide steppes, freezing rivers, grey forests, and yellow hills, this land is the picture that most envision when they think of a Kislev not coated in fresh snow. It is picturesque, it is cultivated, it is cultured, and by far it’s best quality is something that none of the northern provinces can match, the terrors of Chaos have never touched its unspoiled land.
   
   The province’s nobles, Gospodar Boyars the lot of them, are the half-Norse sort that have ruled Kislev since Igor the Terrible’s reign and the fall of the Ungol princes, and their height and strength make them great warriors on the battlefield, and their warm, yet calculating ways make them ideal statesmen. They also swear fealty, not only to the Tsar, but the Kniaz who oversee them.
   
   Another factor in this land is the ancient Myrmic connection, forged when Tsar Igor I (the Terrible) married Hestia Papadakis, daughter of the then all-powerful Senator Leto Papadakis of Myrmidens, in order to seal Kislevite trade from their Farside colonies to the Black Gulf. This marriage formed a bond that is still evident in the names and some customs of Kislev. The steppes are often used for horses, or some small farming, but the great farms are largely in the south of Kislev. Unlike many of the provinces, there is no central theme to this region, not the forests of the Lesias, nor the tundra of the Marches, West and North, Imperial Kislev is a mix of them all.
   

1. Several years ago, Urus Tai was a poor dock worker in Polotsk when he realized the amount of human traffic going through the city. Over the years the government of Rahkov had imposed harsher and harsher fines on both immigrants and emigrants in their city, and this had steadily driven away much of the traffic from Rahkov, and with it being so nearby, Polotsk had become the new Rahkov in that sense. Urus then used what money he had, and got more on loan, and opened a series of kiosks throughout the docks designed to help and prey upon e/immigrants in equal quantities. The kiosks were a smash, and he quickly rose in wealth, forming any number of houses devoted to leaving or coming. In time his wealth and power led to his inclusion, and later his domination of the Oligarchy. However, his receiving of an Imperial Charter, proclaiming the city of Polotsk as the only legal point of entry or exit, made it an unstoppable money-making machine.

2. The Democracy of Rahkov is an extremely labyrinthine and complicated affair, to the point where only the most educated or wealthy can even attempt to vote. However, while the Executive Cabinet is decided in this convoluted way, the Grand Plenum, the legislative body of the government, is elected in true Democratic form, simply tell the Ballator your vote, he will mark it, and that’s that. Of course the Executive Cabinet controls nearly all the functions of state in the city, and the Grand Plenum’s only decisions are about what it will have brought to it for lunch.

3. Selkov and Beloozero have been fighting as long as there’s been a Selkov and a Beloozero. They fight for the same trade, they fight for the same farmland, they fight for the same river rights. You would be hard pressed to find a matter of state that they do not fight over.

4. This Bastion is where high-ranking members of the Imperial army that are not nobles, or simply highly decorated soldiers, go to die. Most have no wives or children, not ones they know or remember at any rate, and few have any wealth at all, surviving on the pensions the Tsar offers to his best soldiers. What women and children there are in the Bastion are the families of the actual garrison there, a garrison that, if it were ever pressed, could call on some 200 of the Tsar’s oldest but goldest. 

5. Voltsara has been a woodland retreat for Kislev’s wealthy ever since the Empire fell out of fashion, and since the death of Tsarina Tamara, and since the rise of her successor Kniaz Mikhail and his young wife Pelagia Simulmakh it has become even more decadent and splendid. So, when now-Tsarina Pelagia asked her husband for a little fief of her own, he couldn’t think of anything nicer than the nearby and yet still isolated wonderland of Voltsara, where every citizen is not only expected to serve her on her rank alone, but in fact is paid to do so. She rules the city like a little girl rules her dolls, normally she loves them and rules with a kind and gentle hand, but occasionally gets mad and dashes one against the wall. Her personal court there parties, gambles, feasts, and gossips like only Slaanesh knows, and indeed, some worrying reports have placed cultists of the Amaranthine Order in the town.

Korunate of Praag, and the Imperial North________________________
   The Imperial North, as it’s called by inhabitants and statesmen alike, is essentially the realm that was once called the Kingdom of Praag, along with a few subsidiary principalities, before it was conquered by Igor the Terrible(who as you may be realizing was the great empire-builder of Kislev). It is called the Imperial North, because over the course of hundreds of years of Chaos aggression, from small warbands to the occasional great army under some warlord, and the attacks of Dolgan tribesmen, Trolls from the Oblast of the same name, and Hobgoblins streaming through the High Pass the land has been whittled down into something blasted and less than vital.
   
   Praag is called the Iron City for good reason, and it has held strong against innumerable advances by enemies great and small, from Zhuzen’s Rot and the Contract Riots to intricate cultist networks, internal corruption, and even traitors. Still it has made the city hard, and as the defenses become ever more impregnable so to does the psyche of the people grow fast together in an unbreakable knot of clenched opposition. In fact, over the years the once vibrant people of Praag have withered away, and the culture that once simply ruled by Gospodar lords is now but a memory, its people driven away or killed, and replaced by ever greater numbers of Gospodar peasants from the south who travel north to take great farms and huge ranches that once supported entire villages and now afford their new owners a more affluent lifestyle.

    Besides the Gospodar invaders, even more foreign inhabitants live their entire lives here, the descendants of mercenaries and arms dealers who came to Praag for the wars, and stayed when the money ran dry. Taking ‘local’ wives (Gospodars mostly) the foreigners are more and more making up for the Lidé’s absence (the former inhabitants of the region) with this new cosmopolitan society. Fettuccini is just as common as borsch, as many drink wine as vodka, Imperial sausage is often served inside blini, and all around the land the sweet plink of the gusli is mixed with the raunchy twang of Estalian guitars.


1. Boyar Vasily has been missing since a deadly Chaos attack several months ago, as was his personal guard and most of the Hussars. The town was largely destroyed in the attack, but it has rebuilt. Scattered sightings of the Boyar have been recorded across the Old World from nearby the town to Bretonnia and beyond.

2. Korun is an ancient title for the ruler of Praag, an ancient city itself. Indeed most every noble in the city has some archaic title like it. It essentially means, “The Crown” or “One who wears a Crown” and has been the title of Praag’s rulers for nearly a millennia.

3. Anyone that knows of Mooste is suspicious of the whole affair. It had been a tiny logging community for hundreds of years, then the strange mercenary from the Border Princes, Orlan Dostop, was granted it as his fief for services rendered. A few years later it had blossomed into a still-tiny yet incredibly wealthy (for its size) village. This is largely due to the fine goods they started selling soon after his arrival. The suspicion is compounded by the inhabitants unwillingness to show where the goods are made, or indeed to even talk about them.

4. The town has a more-than-thriving scribe district, and their calligraphy, book illumination, combined with the fine paper mills around the town creates a strong scholastic environment.

5. The garrisons and militia’s of the area are much larger than average due to the larger than average number of attacks.

6. The town has been destroyed so many times, stone is impractical, and enough of those destructions were fire-based as to impart a dislike of wooden structure, so sod was the only other option.

7. The Curse of Stettin, set upon them by the Dolgan Hag (a colloquial name for Sakha Sil, a sorceress and shamaness who led Dolgan tribesmen for many years) for her destruction there, her slayer being Radek the Forger no less, the town’s founder, and a hero of folk lore, decreed that no man could sit upon the Alder Throne of Radek as Krojku for as long as the city might live. So it was that from that day on, it was the eldest daughter who became ruler, or as the Stetti call her, the Krojka (meaning ring-bearer in reference to the only symbol of state, an ancient golden ring).

High Principality of Lesser Lesia_________________________________
   Lesser Lesia, even the name suggests some stain on its people from some unknown fault. Not quite as good as Greater Lesia, not nearly as many trees, the people aren’t so broad and strong, not cultural enough, too much interbreeding and acceptance of Gospodar ways, too little identity. That’s not some racist caricature either; you’d get that straight from a local’s mouth, and virtually no one else. There seems to be a strange guilt hanging around Lesser Lesia, and a perfectly understandable guilt from all those around them, because you just can’t quite help feeling bad for treating them like scum even when you’ve done no such thing.
   
   This sense of self-recrimination permeates every part of society, from their elected Princes who have to remove themselves from office(1), their apathetic attitude about the most horrendous of crimes, as if it could never be as bad as what they’ve done, and even their traders’ practice of selling for less and buying for more than most other traders. Even their children are sullen and sad in a dog-with-a-stolen-bone way.
   
    Still, despite their behavior, the Vehnk(the collective name for Lesser Lesians) are a warm and accepting people, with a rich heritage and a very rich land. Unlike it’s sister realm of Greater Lesia, Lesser Lesia has a capitol, and under her High Prince, the land is among the most autonomous from Imperial power, despite the prevalence of Gospodar both in the blood and in the land itself it has remained surprisingly true to its roots, if you consider the amount of cultural diffusion between the two groups.
 

1. Lesser Lesia has an electoral monarchy, as does the Ropsmannia, but the difference is that while in the Ropsmannia it is a life-held position unless he is voted out, High Princes of Lesser Lesia are expected to step down when they feel they are no longer ruling satisfactorily. Amazingly, no High Prince has served a life term without having died in battle, assassination, or the like. Even the best of that number have stepped down upon reaching too venerable an age to think clearly.

2. The Princes of Mehikoorma have taken the names Suurmehi, or Great Man in the Vara tongue, since time immemorial. There have been seventy-four princes of the town, and so there have been seventy-four Suurmehis.

3. The Duke Sergei is the Tsar’s ancient uncle, who left his own realm of Voltsara in the capable hands of the Tsarina on his nephew’s advice to seek a quieter life away from the rampant pleasures and non-stop fun of his resort town. The former Prince of Muron was given a manor and a farm in his own land’s countryside as well as a small stipend for some years afterward.

4. Those other 416 souls are the prisoners at the Vetervorota Prison, and those fine warriors you see are the guards at the prison, and of course the Tsar’s Peace as well, though his capacity is limited in a town full of judges, courts, and lawyers.

5. The city of Sovereign Pinsk not only is a great city in its own right, but it has the Tribute from the nearby Ungol Tribes that it once subjugated.

6. The Grand Duke Petrus is the Tsar’s younger brother, who had been asking for a realm of his own for years until the fortuitous rebellion of the former Prince of Tartu, who was attempting to reform the land of Varamaa. When the rebellion was crushed, there was no one to rule Tartu, and so his irritating hunchback of a brother was given that dubious honor of ruling the war-torn wreckage of a city that once boasted over two thousand inhabitants. Now he has a court of his own, as many people seek to gain the Tsar’s attention by embedding themselves in his weak-willed and squishy sibling.

7. The largest cattle fair in Kislev, there are no larger piles of beef north of Averland.

8. The Vara are a people apart from the normal tribes of the region they inhabit. There was a time when they ruled parts of Lesser Lesia, the Dobryrion, and the Rubitia, however they were largely crushed during the great Ungol Conquest. After Vermund of Erengrad successfully fought them off, and later his successor by nearly three hundred years crushed the Ungols, the Vara slowly reestablished themselves as a power in the region, subjugating the now occupied Dobryrion and its Ungol immigrants, often making slaves of them.
   
   They originally were left alone in their realm, but over time increased hatred of their grasping ways built in the region, particularly from the Vehnk, and soon even their dominated Ungols were restless. It was then that Tsar Alexander II, Mikhail’s grandfather, finally brought the fist of Imperial might on the Varamaa, or Land of the Vara, partitioning their realm between the Vehnk and the Kossars, leaving an indelible and undying hatred of the Tsar in the people, as well as a dream of independence that has never died.
   
   An overlording people often thought of as cruel by others, they consider themselves as a kind of crucible, weeding out the weak of their domain and enslaving the rest in the service of the strong. They now burn for independence and the blood of their hated overlords, the Vehnk, for even though the Kossars rule a portion of their lands, the Vehnk hold Tartu, their ancestral capitol, and have always kept its Prince firmly in their hand. Except of course during the Ärkamine Revolution, only two years ago, when Prince Nigul announced the reformation of the Varamaa and seceded from Kislev entirely; his hope was that the Tsar would be unwilling to commit troops during Ursun’s holy month of the Awakening, and that he’d be forced to cede to the Prince’s demands of a separate province and their old territories in exchange for reentry. He was wrong.

9. The Academy of Domesticery is the newest incarnation of a practice that has been going on in Mehikoorma for hundreds of years. The town used to be the slaving capitol of Kislev, the name Mehikoorma literally means, ‘A load of men’. When slavery fell out of favor in the land, they began teaching slavers their trade. Enough flak came their way to eventually close that school, and so they did something else with their wealth of experience in slavery and slaves. They re-opened the school as a place where serfs could better themselves, as servants. The education in the correct manner to serve a lord and the various duties entailing has been a boon to the domestic community, increasing the ability of servants across the land and in doing so has raised both competition levels and pay. The only price for education? 10 kopeks of your pay in whatever job you find yourself for the rest of your life. Or they will find you.

10. A great cave once thought by locals to be Ursun’s actual hibernation cave, still considered a holy place by the modern Church
« Last Edit: July 30, 2011, 03:49:53 AM by GCMan123 »

Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2011, 03:38:28 AM »
North March______________________________________________
   The North March, the Dark Frontier, the End of Man, the Last Hold; this province has many names and many faces. Some might say it lacks that certain spark or fire that fills the other provinces. Some would say it’s missing that intrigue of court life, given that only one noble of any standing reigns there. Still, the great March Boyar Stefan Dostoy is considered one of the great warriors, and rulers, of Kislev.
   
   His realm is harsh though, only in the Farside can you find such a desolate stretch of paltry farmland, near barren steppes, and such biting cold almost the whole year ‘round, but the Boyar and his people remain strong, and make up for their lack of wealth, power, or resources with sheer personality. They are considered an amazingly happy and colorful people by all, especially considering their less than pleasant circumstances.

   The people of the North, called the Tanssijat, a word in their lilting and flowing language meaning The Dancers, consider themselves lucky for the chance to live among such people as they do, and in a land as fine as what they have. Their philosophy is simple, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. It is known they hold festivals and holidays every week, and it is said they practice a good many more in the dark places of the night. It is also said that nowhere else have people so readily fought back the tide of Chaos, though it is so near, and so readily accepted it as part of their world. They’re matter-of-fact about Chaos, it is there, it is powerful, it has its draws, but they’re not interested.

   Nowadays, the Tanssijat are more to spend a day singing and drinking than fighting and dying, but they’re always ready for the latter. Perhaps the most telling sign of this is their nightly ritual. As the children huddle in their hammocks against the chimney and near the warm embers of the fire, and the elderly sleep below them on low beds, and the unmarried daughters and other women scramble into their lofts, the father sings a short lullaby. It goes like this,
   “Hyvästi, hyvästi, rakkaani ja minun rakastaa,
    Anna Ursun pitää sinut hyvin,
    mutta jos emme tapaamme jälleen, että minä rakastan sinua silti”

   “Goodbye, goodbye, my love and my loves,
     Let Ursun keep you well,
     But if we do not meet again, know that I love you still”


1. Osasto, it is an old word, from an old people, in an old place. The Tanssijat were originally from Norsca, like the Gospodar, and the Ropsmenn, but while those tribes had contact not only with each other, but the fledgling Empire, through trade, and even distant Bretonnia and Tilea.
   
   The Tanssijat are different, they come from a place often called the Beast’s Land, named for the Beast of Dazhd, a monster that frightens the goddess and her light away. It is night most of the year, what food they had was not grain or even fish, but the meat of great reindeer and even strange things touched ever so slightly with the Chaos taint. They were herders and nomads then, but then came Barag the Immolator, a Daemon Prince who butchered thousands to reach the holds of Kraka Drak and the rest of the Dawi Norsk.
   
   They left, and never returned, finding a place to their liking just below the line of Chaos power in Kislev, just below oblivion. In time, they learned farming and the other marks of civilization, but they never forgot their realm of Night. One of the last vestiges of this ancient society in the state is its name. Osasto, a place of guard, a warded realm, or simply a ward.

2. One may see the names of the land’s other inhabitants, and think, this man is not a local, or at least does not want to seem one. The first would be correct, he is a foreigner, as have almost all March Boyars, because the town holds so much strategic value that they inevitably place a great general as March Boyar.

3. This is not to say the running of the North March, though that is not nothing, but the stipends and other money funneled into the town to keep it strong through any attack, as it acts like a stumbling block for the foe.

4. It is the last piece of civilization you will find if you continue north, that is unless you plan a visit to the Gulags and happen by Igragrad.

Union of The Ropsmannia_______________________________________
   Ah the Ropsmannia, where it all began, where a few brave souls travelled from Norsca’s southeast coast, across the treacherous Sea of Claws, to land with firm tread on a different shore. That it is of course, the romantic ideal of the colonization of this broad triangular region, a place where men have helped shape the Old World, the base of Kislev herself! You can see the daring bronze statuary, mail garbed explorers, their first foot boldly thrust into this new frontier, cloaks elegantly clasped flow in the strong sea breeze of their new home…..oh, if only, eh?

   When the first Ropsmenn stood on the shores of what is now Kislev, they were not thinking of the great stride they were making for a realm-to-be, or this rugged land they would tame. They were thinking of Survival. For the last few decades the Ropsmenn Princes had bowed to the King of Skorlm, a trading town that was increasingly friendly with the Empire to the south, and while this brought Skorlm great prosperity, the Ropsmenn could never forgive Sigmar’s Heirs for the wrong done them at His hand all those years ago. Those massacres are as much a part of Ropsmann lore as Sigmarite.

   Their pestering finally grated on the King enough to declare the Ropsmenn as new chief intermediary between Skorlm and the Empire, knowing they could never accept. The attacks began soon after, and Prince Kir the Claw-Rider was soon racing his people to their ships and escaping to the as yet unclaimed lands to the East. Of course there’s no such thing as unclaimed land, but no one today remembers that people’s name or their story. Of greater interest are the fates of the people of Eisigbucht. Eisigbucht was the greatest of all the Talabeclander colonies in modern day Kislev, a small sea port, but a port all the same, and the only one they had. Yet, to the present time, one day it was Eisigbucht, the next it was Erengrad, no explanation.

   After these rocky beginnings I do try to play down their importance to Kislevite history, after all, Vermund the Fox, Ingjald the Red, and Igor the Terrible all dwelt inside the Ropsmannia’s bounds, and for all but Igor, would live their entire lives there.

   By this time you are certainly aware I have been focusing on history, instead of culture, government, politics, and geography. This is because, among the deep complexities of this realm, even above the others, it is best told from the beginning, as I have done.


1. Despite holding the title of Voivode, most of the Voivodes hold office in the Sejm, which they often use as their chief title.

2. There are two kinds of Castellan, Minor and Greater, Greater Castellans not only rule larger communities, usually, but also may sit in the Upper Chamber of the Sejm, known as the Senat.

3. The name taken by Grand Duke Jerek for his position as Magnate of the Selmat Confederacy.

4. The Wolnystan, or Free State, has its own Sejm, the Mollsejm, or Little Sejm, whose seats are made up with duly elective representatives of various parties, guilds, and districts in the city-state, making it the most democratic city in all of Kislev, despite not holding that designation to itself.

5. In Petragrad it is easily determined why it is often referred to, in conflict with the Free Town of Opolensk who also holds this title, as the “Nuln of the North”.

6. The entire Voivodeship is split into folwarks, large agricultural estates, controlled and regulated by the town nobles.

7. In the Grand Duchy, rather than training a substandard guard and keeping strong walls in repair, they follow the philosophy that ‘it matters not the strength of the wall, but of the men who man it’.

8. The Confederacy follows the same system of garrisons as the rest of the realm.

9. Suzdek Tartovar, younger brother of recently deceased Erengrad magnate Markyn Tartovar, has designed and built many of Kislev’s great monuments, including the statue depicting Kir the Claw-Rider at his landfall near Wiezanorski, and the statue of Prince Vermund the Fox in Erengrad, and the Arch of Ursun in Kislev.

10. When Prince Kir of the first Ropsmann came to Kislev, one of his people’s chief fears was that their god, Perun, would abandon them, so it came as a delight and a surprise when while riding over his new domain, he spied a great tree in the distance, and thinking it a fine spot for a rest, travelled there. Upon nearing the tree, a bolt of lightning set it aflame, and to his amazement, it burned without blackening. For years afterward it burned on, as a symbol of Perun’s might, but still, nothing lasts forever, and finally the flaming tree fell. Still, its branches burned on, and a few of the largest were taken by Shamans of Perun who built a temple to house them. 

11. The Selmat are a Far Eastern tribe of great antiquity and advancement who supposedly migrated to Kislev to escape the Hung. The Selmat Confederacy claims descent from this noble tribe, despite their appearance as any other Kislevite, and so they dress in the manner of their ‘forebears’ and hold themselves with the dignity of the Imperial Household. In 1672, their land would change drastically, when the Union of Wojtaszyce, a town now abandoned to a great plague, was signed and the Grand Principality of Erengrad and the Selmat Confederacy became the Union of the Ropsmannia.

12. The Bliznieta, meaning the Twins, are a pair of fortalices on the Lynsk, they have largely absorbed the closest village, and these village-fortalice relationships are quite profitable for both sides.

13. The Grand Chancellor is the Grand Duke’s number 2, were the Grand Duke to die childless, the Grand Chancellor would step in. As such, he has a small court of his own.

14. Voivode Illarion Stazik was a paranoid, old lecher who died from some change of humors, probably on account of his drink. He left Plowce in the care of his young mistress Halina, but the Voivode’s cousin, Deputy Chancellor Oleski, also claims the throne.

15. The democracy of the Commonwealth of Pomezenia is conventional in neither the pure form of the Myrmic democracies nor the watered-down farce that towns like Rahkov espouse. The people elect bodies, like the Wheat Merchant’s Guild (a perennial giant in local politics) to appoint certain members of the State Council, including the Doza (rather like the Tobaran Doge), from among their members. The current State Council has wheat-merchants as Doza, Treasurer, and the Commisioner of Trade, with a local Molypan (means literally “small lord”, a petty lord of only local power) as Minister of Politics, a wheat-futures-merchant as Minister of Law, and an appointee from the Guard Company (the private contractor watchmen that patrol the city) as Hetman.

16. Boris Straghov has been Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Bear, a Templar order dedicated to Taal, for over twenty years, and is, for all extents and purposes, retired. Returning to the town of his youth, the town of his mother’s birth, he has settled comfortably in the role of an elder statesman, occasionally rising to speak, but normally knowing to hold his tongue while the younger Templars fight for the scraps of power he’s been shedding for years.

17. When Prince Kir landed, he landed near the location of modern Wiezanorski, or the ‘Norscan Tower’, named for its crude but massive carven stone lighthouse, engraved with the image of thousands of monsters, gods, and heroes of all description. This same lighthouse was built by Kir’s successor, Arvad Reaversbane (known for destroying the entire fleet, and the entire bloodline, of the Kings of Skorlm when they attacked the fledgling colony) in honor of the achievements of his father’s family, and as a light to guide future enemies, if any should seek his people’s death again, so that, in his words, “it can lead’em right to my axe!”

Hetmanate of the Rubitia_______________________________________
   Duparozhi! The classic battle-cry of the Kossars, a whooping, ululating yell that signals the doom of an enemy by saber and club. But what does it mean? It literally means, ‘For the Dupa!’, but it really means ‘I am a Dupa Kossar, member of the Hetmanate of the Dupa, and I have come to serve my Hetman’. This briefly sums up the great bond that is just in the living for Kossars. Just being a Kossar, it gives you this strange and unbreakable loyalty between you and your Hetman, and between your Hetman and his Otoman, the grand leader of the Host.

   The Rubitia was once just another part of Kislev, chiefly administered, through local frontmen, by the Vara Princes, and indeed was referred to by many as the Oriik (slave-state). But then the Compact of Pinsk was signed in secret by Tsar Alexander II, portioning the Varamaa into the neutral Dobryrion, the old Vehnk lands he declared as Lesser Lesia, and then there was Oriik. He had already decided the Vara were too dangerous to leave as the dominant power anywhere, but unlike the Ungols posed no immediate threat as a civilization, therefore he was obliged to simply give over the rulership of this land to another party, some party who would work for its reward. He found his party in the Dupa Host of the Kossars, who made an oath to serve his house and the empire for as long as the land was theirs.
   
   The word Rubitia means ‘land of the chop’ referring to the unerringly wooden manner of their architecture, often made with simple, unchanged logs, though cunningly fastened together with slots and splints. This also refers to what these log fortresses mean to the Dupa especially, for the other Kossar Hosts live in the Rubitia as well (Kuban, Zova, Uzba, Baik, Mirekrayu, and Suri), for it these fortresses in which the Kossars hold their Rada, or councils, and decide what weighty matters affect them.


1. Kobrin is the last part of the Rubitia controlled by the Vara still, and since the Surmavimm line took over, things have gotten that much more hellish for the Kossars in the city. Anti-Kossar propaganda is ordered in massive amounts from the printers of the town, sent all around the Rubitia and the rest of Kislev.

2. The two Hosts (Kosh) that coexist inside the city of two hosts (Dvakoshate), the Kuban and the Suri, may live together, but not in harmony. In fact there are parades in the town near every month, and each parade is really a chance for the two sides to outdo each other on some petty level, more garish colors, more flags, more ribbons, that sort of one-upmanship. Because of this, float-building is a lucrative field.

3. Because every Kossar boy of a certain age is eligible fighter material, technically the entire non-foreign, older male population of each town is its garrison.

Federated States of the Western Marches__________________________
   While the North March calls itself the Last Stop, the Western Marches are the true Frontier, beyond them lie Trolls, Dolgans, Baersonlings, Chaos Warriors, and all manner of beasts just waiting to tear the fragile realm apart. Here there is a sense of urgency in living, a sense that any day could be your last, and they do live, like the Tanssijat they dance and make merry, but unlike them, when the last drop of vodka is gone, and the lights are out, it is time for a different kind of living.

   The peoples of the Western Marches are different from most of Kislev only in the fanaticism with which they approach their faith. They have their own gods, though many still choose to worship the state deity of Ursun, figures like Baeg the Warden, Rajek Wrathhand, and Stolbog-of-the-Lights who they feel protect them from the horrors just outside their doors. They treat their gods very seriously, and instead of the matter-of-fact approach the Tanssijat take to Chaos as an entity, they treat Chaos like a stain on their very souls, something that must be either hidden away from the gods or expunged.

   This mentality is most unfortunate given the amount of Chaos they encounter, and it has led to Chaos cults going detected but unharmed for years at time while the finders seek to simply save their own immortal souls, as well as great bodies of the Marches’ youth going out on great expeditions to destroy the menace once and for all. So, while they are great warriors and a fine bulwark against the threat of Chaos, they have often failed in keeping hold on their sanity. It is said that more fall from the mind down that from the body up in the Marches. A chilling statistic indeed.


1. Meaning, Great Harbor in Kislevan
2. A title with an equivalent meaning to Warlord in Ropsmówić, the Hadur of Maja Uvemny is called such for the dictatorial powers given him by the townspeople.
3. Veltapastro-Sevalya-Kozdramask, new name came from travelers who, when asking for directions would simply say, “Vel…etc.etc…sk” so become Vel’sk.

Offline fauthsie

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2011, 02:51:57 AM »
Wow thats great!
A new Campaigning home....

http://animositycampaigns.com/joomla

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Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #9 on: August 02, 2011, 12:07:05 AM »
You should also check out the hammerwiki page on Calendars I updated with my new Kislevite Calendar, no one had done that before, so I feel okay in changing it

Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2011, 08:49:00 PM »
I know I haven't done as much since I started this, and this is a big undertaking, still, I did want to show that a few things have gotten done. I made two maps to give you a bit of visual understanding on where these provinces are, I know it can be hard to figure where one ends and another begins just off my descriptions, so here's the Provincial Map of Kislev


Then we have a map of the Farside Gulags to give some idea of where they are.


I also wanted to clarify some questions that were brought to my attention.

1. This piece is set in WE Campaign timeline, Tamara is the mother of Kniaz Makari, whom I don't remember being named, but if she was I apologize for the error. I never had the feeling Makari became Tsar, and so I made my own.

2. I've been told that it seems weird that no Tsar or Tsarina has had a son or daughter succeed to the throne, with Igor dying childless, Alexander's son dying in battle, and I didn't want to kill off or use Makari so I just moved him out of the way. It is kind of weird, but I wanted to give Kislev the same reason for nobles clawing for power that the Empire has. In the Empire, any noble "could" be made Count if he works hard enough and one dies childless. In Kislev it always felt like the nobles might as well twiddle their thumbs and hum, because their was no aristocratic mobility, the Tsars and Tsarinas were always going to come one after another. Here I've tried to make a place where some boyar or voivode could maneuver his way into a place of power, and when opportunity knocked, take the throne.

3. Finally, I've been asked by some, "Why?". While I had hoped that my original answer would be enough, I guess I do need a goal. So here it is. The best I could hope for this project is that C-Team use it for all their Kislevite needs. Obviously I don't know their overarching politics and power struggles they want to put in effect, such as if Kniaz Makari were to make another appearance, or if the Tsarina was to reappear, but that would be the absolute best I could hope for this.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2011, 09:05:37 PM by GCMan123 »

Offline fauthsie

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #11 on: August 15, 2011, 02:35:09 AM »
Some great stuff....

Also if your interested in Campaigning in and around Kislev you might want to stop over on Animosity Camapigns.... ;)  ::heretic::
A new Campaigning home....

http://animositycampaigns.com/joomla

FAUTHSIE CAMPAIGN CONSULTING INC.... I MAKE YOUR CAMPAIGN GO!!!

Offline GCMan123

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Re: A New Kislev
« Reply #12 on: August 15, 2011, 04:56:29 AM »
I am aware of Claws of the Sea, and I might get involved, though I don't know. My interest in Kislev is mainly for EOW, where I will have a Marienburger banker who calls in a debt in order to gain control over a mercenary Kislevite (specifically Ropsmann mostly) army.

Thanks for the support though.