Thursday, April 17, 2014

Graustarkian Karameikos

The Grand Duchy of Karameikos is a small nation in the Balkans on the Adriatic Sea. It has a long history going back to ancient times when the Romans built a fort and founded a trading outpost at Specularum--now Karameikos's capital, Spekla. Since those days, Karameikos has been in the hands of a succession of empires: the Byzantine, the Serbian, the Ottoman, and briefly, the Austro-Hungarian.

The current ruler of Karameikos is Stefan III. He has retained the title of "Grand Duke" despite his nation's liberation from Austria-Hungary. Grand Duke Stefan and most of the nobility trace their families back to Byzantium, but rule over an ethnically mixed populace of Albanians and Serbs, as well as Greeks. The predominant religion is the Orthodox Church of Karameikos, though there are also Muslims and a small number of Roman Catholics.

Believed to be the only photo of the leader of the Black Eagle
One of the greatest threats to modern Karameikos is the terrorist group known as the Black Eagle. The group is vaguely related to Albanian nationalism, but its direct aims seem to be criminality and destabilization of the current government. It's leader is named either Ludwig or Henrich. As his name would suggest, he is said to be of Austrian descent. His primary advisor and bomb-maker is believed to be a former monk named Bargle.

The Mad Monk Bargle, while briefly in custody
This post relates to my previous Ruritanian ruminations--and of course to D&D's Known World.

6 comments:

Chris C. said...

I love the continuity of bringing Karameikos from a pseudo-medieval world up to a more modern era.

Trey said...

Glad you liked it, Chris.

John said...

Totally awesome. This made me laugh. Re-envisioning Mystara as an 19th century monarchy is fantastic. Glantri, with it's horse and carriages and magic-as-technology, would work as is.

Suddenly all those Mystara-at-War modules and campaign events become a lot more interesting if they're Napoleonic. No no no, must resist the gamer ADD.

Gus L said...

Some poor dupe is going to assassinate that Grand Duke the shot will echo all the way to Thar.

Trey said...

@John - Thanks! Blogs are a good thing for gamer ADD, i find. You get to do a post or two about it, and usually the urge passes.

I definitely think a Napoleonic era Mystara would be cool, though.

@Gus - The whole thing will get pegged on the Alphatians, I bet.

Tallgeese said...

I try to avoid saying "awesome" all the time, and leave it for things like this, which really are awesome. So, awesome!