☙ A Gazetteer Introduction to the Arch-Principality ❧
“There lies a land between the marches and the mist—a last redoubt where the world holds fast against all that would swallow it.”
The Arch-Principality of Vulgaria—styled Vulgarien in the ancient tongue—is not so much a country as a covenant: a pact of stone and blood, hammered together by centuries of siege, superstition, and unquiet valor.
Clutched in the crook of the Carpathians and ringed by the spectral woods of Buchenhain, Vulgaria endures where others crumbled. It has no empire, though it once taught emperors fear. It holds no great cities of the world, though within its borders are whispered names that stir the old maps into trembling—Lembergrau, Schattenburg, Dreibach.
In official measure, Vulgaria claims seven Provinces (called Marken), each governed by a Margrave. These are divided into twenty-two Counties, or Grafschaften, watched over by Counts both elected and hereditary. Yet the true rulers of Vulgaria are older still—its mountains, its mists, and its memories.
A knight’s map of Vulgaria is not only one of roads and rivers. It is a warding charm. For here lie paths where once marched Roman legions and demon-hunters both. Here, monsters have names, coats of arms, and standing grievances. Here, faiths overlap, break, and braid into peculiar tapestries: a land where the shrine of a saint may stand atop a crypt of much blacker rites.
The people of Vulgaria—Vulgarians, in common parlance—are a mongrel tribe of gallant stock: German-speakers with Slavic surnames, Ashkenazi eyes, Ruthenian spells, and Roma drums. They do not agree on much, save that the night is long, and that no one survives it alone.
To the outsider, Vulgaria appears backwards, even benighted—a holdfast of outmoded banners, outlandish fears, and anachronistic etiquette. Yet to those with eyes to see, it is the last sane place in a world increasingly ruled by madness masquerading as progress.
Within its borders, one may still find:
- Ruined castles whose stones bleed when struck too hard.
- Monastic libraries forbidden even to monks.
- Wolves that walk upright on full-moon eves.
- And a people who keep candles lit, not for comfort—but warning.
If the world be a tapestry, then Vulgaria is its knotted corner. A place where the threads are tightest—and where pulling too hard may reveal what lies beneath.
And so, the Order of Vulgarian Knights makes its home here—not for romance, nor nostalgia, but because some battles cannot be fled, only faced. And if there is any hope that monsters may yet be met with reason, restraint, and resolve—then let that hope be sharpened here, on the frost-rimed border between nightmares and necessity.
