The Border Princes

Unlike the Empire, Bretonnia, or even the Wasteland, the Border Princes do not form a nation or state but is rather a loose confederacy of various petty Princedoms.
Most Old Worlders think of and refer to the Border Princes in much the same way as they would the Badlands - an amorphous and largely lawless area, cut off from civilisation by the Black-Vaults-Apuccini mountain chain. The fight that certain eastern Princes are waging against the Goblin hordes who pour across the Blood River and out from Mad Dog Pass goes virtually unnoticed.
The Vaults, the high mountains where the Black, Grey, and Apuccini Mountain ranges all meet, is the focus of this fragmented land.
Each time the Incursions of Chaos have overrun the area, the surviving Princes and their armies have gathered in the shadows of the mountain to draw strength and launch their counter-attack.
Each time they have succeeded, despite the complete lack of assistance from their neighbours. The Vaults' verdant hanging valleys provide excellent pasture for cattle and nutritious if modest, harvests. The rugged terrain is also ideal guerilla country and all kinds of brigands and rogue adventurers have bases here.
Which is not to say that the Princes are not brigands and rogue adventurers themselves. Lying south of the Black Mountains and between the Apuccinis and the Black Gulf, the region is a sparsely populated, rather bleak area with large tracts of untamed wilderness which are frequently roamed by goblinoids from the Badlands.

Politics

People settle in these two areas for a variety of reasons.
Many are exiled nobles from the civilised lands to the north and west, others are adventurers; tired of authority; there are religious recluses, and there are madmen. Law and central authority are both lacking, with towns and villages alike fiercely jealous of their independence, and this attracts those who cannot live in more rigid societies.

Government

The regional rulers who have staked a claim within these lands are known collectively as Border Princes, hence where the land gets its name. Each prince rules a small realm, which may have the prestigious and over exaggerated title of Principality, yet it is usually a realm that would barely qualify as a Knight's fief in more civilised lands.
Most princes have a court, a group of hangers-on who help the prince to run his principality in return for rewards or until they have enough clout to murder him and take over. The size of the court does increase with the size of the principality, but the relationship is quite weak; it is much more dependent on the personality of the prince. A large court tends to indicate a weak prince who feels the need for support. A very small or non-existent court also tends to indicate weakness in that the prince feels he cannot allow anyone else to have real power. Large and small courts are very common in the Border Princes.

The People

Some areas were first settled during Humanity's earliest northward migration (some 3,000 years ago), while other parts have been developed only recently.
The region's name originated just over 1,500 years ago when a number of adventurers (including many who were disenchanted with the fast-disintegrating Empire) struck out with many of their followers to colonise the mountains and drive out the Goblins. The leaders dubbed themselves Princes, although most had been stripped of all titles and many had never been more than simple adventures.
People from all countries could be found fighting side-by-side in those days and the more successful soon carved out a number of petty princedoms for themselves, exercising what authority each could by sheer force of arms. The situation remains pretty much the same up to the present.

Language

People in the Border Princes tend to speak an old form of the Reikspiel dialect of Old Worlder, but there will always be a number of individuals familiar with other dialects, as well as the occasional native speaker of foreign tongues such as those of Araby and Cathay.

Cities

There are no settlements of city size either in the Vaults or the Border Princes and all towns are much further apart than elsewhere in the Old World.

It was perhaps typical of my companion that with no more than this slim provocation, he was willing to risk life and limb in the wildest and most barren places imaginable. Or perhaps it was typical of the effect of "gold fever" on all his people. As I was later to see, the lure of that glittering metal had a terrifying and potent power over the minds of all of that ancient race. In any event, the decision to travel beyond the Empire's most southernmost borders was a fateful one, and it led to meetings with adventures the dreadful consequences of which haunt me still....

—"My Travels with Gotrek", Vol.II, by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)

"Aye, we’ve a prince. Why, we’ve had a dozen in just the last year! They’re pop’lar in these here lands."

—Sap Reinhorf, Dirt Farmer

"Ha! You call this starving lot of dogs peasants? Why the wretches in Couronne were better fed than this lot. Useless, every last one of them."

—The Last Words of Sir Jacques Duflot