The Barony of Volkavia

The Barony of Volkavia is a small country that exemplifies the chaotic turmoil in Eastern Europe during much of its history. It has been a playground of various empires, but it has recently emerged from that history as a fully independent state.
The first mentions of this territory as an independent region come from manuscripts of Orthodox monks, mentioning “Volkhvia, land of witches, where pagans dwell among the pious.” A couple of centuries later, invaded by the infamous Vlad Tepes, it became a part of Transylvania, and later, Hungary. At that time, it was famously called “the most cursed domain in a cursed kingdom,” but this didn’t stop the Ottoman empire from absorbing it. Eventually Volkavia came under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian crown as a semi-independent barony. The new baron was Paul Sternberg, a powerful warlock who wanted even more power. He wanted to build a lasting legacy, so he gathered a host of wizards, witches, and other sorcerers, to serve as protectors and advisors for his daughter. He never mastered enough of the magical arts to grant himself immortality, but he wanted to ensure a bright future for his only child, Natasha Sternberg von Volkavia.
Natasha was smart, beautiful, and ambitious. When her father died, she took her rightful place as leader of Volkavia. As the empires crumbled, she installed herself as the monarch of a newlyemerged, independent Volkavia. After a couple of years, she stepped down, and allowed the fascist National Movement to run the government—though in reality she ran the country from behind the scenes, preferring to transfer all the blame and responsibility to pro-Nazi puppets. Eventually, Volkavia joined World War II as an Axis state. This made the small nation an enemy of the Allies, particularly the Russian army.
After the war, the state was in ruins—the previous leaders were dead or escaped in the chase, the economy was in shambles, and various ethnic groups were at each other’s throats. One of Russia’s frontline heroes, Bogatyr, worked relentlessly to maintain a semblance of peace, dispatching horrors created by the Academy of Set’s students. In the end he and the baroness made a pact: Baroness von Volkavia was allowed to remain the power behind the public leaders, provided that the country joined the Soviet bloc as a puppet republic. The Soviets ignored the Academy of Set—in their Communist, rational utopia, magic was meaningless.
After the Autumn of Nations in 1989, when the rest of Eastern Europe overthrew the Soviet system, sometimes violently, sometimes peacefully, Volkavia remained Communist. The Volkavian Communist Party remained in power, governed by yet another of the baroness’s puppets, until the late 1990s. The baroness, her life magically extended, eventually claimed leadership of the country publicly, posing as her own granddaughter, miraculously returning to her motherland after years hidden in exile. She formed a new government and Volkavia took a firmly pro-Western course.
Most of the nation’s governmental responsibilities are handled by Prime Minister Alexandru Kreplach. He appeared from nowhere in 2003 and created the Patriotic Volkavian party. Since then, he’s been re-elected twice with an astounding 95% of the vote. Kreplach is a figurehead, handling the day-to-day running of Volkavia, but ultimately answering to Baroness Natasha, who he claims to be independent from, but slavishly worships in private.
THE ACADEMY OF SET The dark magicians have to come from somewhere. Some dark wizards and insane warlocks are self-taught, but the Academy of Set has a long legacy of bringing forth talented mages. Founded by a former baron of Volkavia, it has little connection to ancient Egypt—Napoleon’s adventures in the land of pharaohs had excited the imagination of the aristocracy throughout Europe. The Academy’s intent was to divulge the arts considered “forbidden” by Earth-Prime’s Master Mage, and aid the bloodline of the baron in cementing his power over the region. The adepts are now recruited from the ranks of rich European occultists. In general, they’re taught loyalty to the baroness, but as long as they oppose the current Master Mage and any heroes allied with him, they’re given mostly free rein—though some organizations and masterminds can always use the Academy as a source of magical backup-for-hire. Such mercenary work is actually a major export of Volkavia, cleverly hidden by the baroness.
Initially it was placed in the ruins of an orthodox monastery destroyed by Turks; subsequently, it was moved to an abandoned palace, and most recently into an abandoned post-Soviet factory complex. Deep past the layers of peeling of paint, and dusty and dirty corridors, you can reach clean and quite well-maintained rooms and classrooms adorned with cryptic occult symbols.