Umbrey
Prior to the Claiming, Umbrey was a unified volozk made up of the lands of two smaller volozkya and a sizable portion of what had previously been western Llael. This tenuous arrangement was held in place largely by the combined Umbrean heritage of most of its citizens and the might of the royal consort, Great Prince Vladimir Tzepesci. With Tzepesci having fallen in battle against the infernals at Henge Hold and the child he sired with the empress expected to inherit the empire and still too young to command, the region found itself subject to new strains in the years after the Claiming, especially when new political lines were drawn as part of the treaties with Cygnar and Llael.
The former Llaelese city of Laedry is the new political center of the volozk, and the castle estate of the fallen great prince has remained empty to this day. For now, Karlof Omirov, a trusted adjutant to Tzepesci, manages the affairs of the volozk until an appropriate replacement can be found.
Situated deep in the Kovosk hills, the ancestral Castle Tzepesci was already a ruin in Vladimir’s time. A maze of broken buildings and cracked streets loomed over by the forbidding castle itself, the former territorial capital has now been entirely abandoned to swarms of bogrin, dregg, and other fell creatures. There are rumors that the ruined keep and the long-dry sewers and burial catacombs beneath it are still home to treasures of the ancient Tzepesci line, but few have dared venture inside to seek these riches for themselves.
Far to the south, along the edges of the Bloodsmeath Marches, sits the massive Khadoran fort of Ravensgard. Once a focal point on the front line of Khador’s push into northern Cygnar during the Thornwood Wars, it stood largely empty in the peaceful years after the Battle of Henge Hold, manned only by a skeleton crew of Winter Guard. In the last few months, however, reinforcements in the form of troops and warjacks have begun arriving from Korsk, and the soldiers in Cygnar’s nearby Deepwood Tower now look toward Ravensgard with concern.
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