When the Prophet Orion founded the Realm of the Twelve Tribes in Naissus, he divided the land among the tribes and set his stronghold at its heart… Orion’s Bastion. From this central seat, Orion ruled not through bloodline, but through divine mandate. Beneath him stood twelve dukes, each governing a tribe’s allotted domain in his name.
At Orion’s death, he left no heir. Since the crown had come “from above,” the young Church declared that no mortal but Orion could bear the title of King. With the throne left empty, there was no longer any higher authority to bind the dukes together. One by one, they became sovereign rulers in practice… still tied by faith, tradition, and uneasy diplomacy, but not by a crown. Collectively, their realms came to be known simply as the Duchies.
That balance shattered in 475 AR, when the southern dukes united under a new banner. Duke Fernando III von Draconia of Angar forged an alliance strong enough to bind three duchies… Angar, Baleria, and Kaloria… and crowned himself King of Angaria. From that moment, the lands south of the Summer Mountains ceased to be counted among the Duchies, claimed instead by the growing southern kingdom.
And so the name changed with the map. What remained came to be called formally as The Holy Northern Duchies… not because they began as northern, but because the south had become something else and left the church founded at the end of Orions life.
Today, the Northern Duchies consist of nine duchies. At their center stands Orion’s Bastion, no longer a royal fortress but a sacred seat administered by the Church. Within its consecrated walls, the faith’s highest authority resides: the Archbishop, who governs the Church’s temporal holdings and guards the legacy of the only king Naissus ever recognized.
Let it be written from within Orion’s Bastion, under the watch of sacred stone and living scripture: the Holy Northern Duchies are hallowed by the Lord’s will. Orion did not merely lead our forebears… he anointed them, set rightful hands upon rightful banners, and bound these lands to the True Faith with oath and consecration.
Here the flame has not dimmed. Here the altar has not been traded for a false throne. We remain the homeland of the unbroken creed, and we shall never acknowledge the heretical pretension of a “kingdom” in the south… born not of Heaven’s mandate, but of mortal hunger dressed in ceremony.
From Lublin’s forges, where iron is purified by fire, to Nieuwbrugg’s guildhalls, where honest craft still bows to holy law, to Jarosgrad’s twin cathedrals, standing like guardians over prayer and penance… so endures the realm Orion sanctified. And so it shall endure, until the Lord Himself declares otherwise.
Written in the year of our Lord, 500 years after the Peace of the River.
By Brother Władysław, Scribe of the Holy Chronicle
The Duchy Of Lublin
When the war against the Elven Imperium finally ended and peace was carved from the ruins, humanity did not simply inherit Naissus… it migrated into it. Orion, prophet and rallying flame of the uprising, gathered the scattered host and divided the newly-won lands among the Twelve Tribes.
Lublin was granted to one branch of the Lechian folk… one of three kindred tribes bound by language, custom, and old tribal-law. That tribe was led by the bloodline that would become known as House Lipski.
Its first lord was Waldemar Lipski of the Northern Hills, a devoted follower of Orion and a smith whose hands had already shaped the rebellion’s survival. During the uprising, Waldemar armed those who could not gain steel on their own. turning raw iron into spearheads, blades, nails for barricades, and the crude necessities of war. When peace came and the tribes were given their holdings, he did not choose a seat for beauty or tradition.
He chose it for ore.
Waldemar rode until the land itself began to promise iron. There he opened the first mine… deep, brutal, and rich enough to feed a hundred furnaces. From that first shaft came more shafts, then roads, then workshops and smelters… until a settlement rose that never truly slept. In time it became Lublin, and the duchy took the city’s name, as if the land had become an extension of the forge.
Today, Lublin is the largest city in all Naissus… a walled sprawl where hammer-strokes fall day and night like a second heartbeat. The air tastes of iron and coal, mixed with the stink of slaughter and refuse. It is a rich city, yes… but not a beautiful one. Silk and spices are sold beside bloody carcasses, church bells ring for piety, and yet coin changes hands faster than prayer. Here, power is not dreamed of… it is bought, sold, and defended.
The city lies between two hills. To the west, the harbor reeks of tar and saltwater; to the east, the mines yawn black and deep, and smoke from the smelters settles over the rooftops like a lid. Above the river rises Vanbork, seat of the Hussar Order… stone and discipline looming over the city like a threat and a promise at once.
And still, for all its grime and prayer, Lublin’s reputation endures for one simple reason: it is the heart of the steel trade.
House Lipski carries that origin openly in its heraldry: a bison flanked by two green hills, a sign that their rule began when the city itself was raised from the ground… ore into blade, settlement into stronghold, hunger into power.
The Iron Coast
West of Lublin stretches the region known as the Iron Coast… the duchy’s breadbasket and backbone. Here the land opens into broad fields, clustered farmsteads, and the majority of Lublin’s towns and villages, where grain ripens under a wide sky and roads are lined with split-rail fences, shrines, and smoke from hearth-fires.
The Iron Coast is defined as much by its soil as by its lords. Its barons are spoken of collectively… half in admiration, half in wary respect… as the Barons of the Iron Coast. For generations they have been steadfast servants of House Lipski, bound by oath, blood-ties, and the old understanding that Lublin’s iron must be fed by Lublin’s harvest.
They are not gentle nobles. The Iron Coast breeds hard men: landowners who ride as readily as they reap, and warriors whose banners are raised without hesitation when the duchy calls. When the Bison of Lublin marches to war, the Iron Coast answers… swiftly, loudly, and in force… its levies pouring eastward like a tide of steel and dust.
The Bison Hills
East of Lublin rises a rolling upland known as the Bison Hills… a rugged quilt of high green ridges, wind-cut slopes, and narrow valleys where streams and small rivers coil through the land like silver thread. In the mornings, mist clings to the hollows; by evening, the hills darken beneath smoke drifting from charcoal pits and distant smelters.
Beneath that living green lies the duchy’s true wealth. The Bison Hills are rich in iron, coal, and other valuable minerals, and beyond the mines within Lublin itself, it is here that much of the duchy’s ore is torn from the earth. Wagon trains grind along steep tracks, their wheels groaning under weight, hauling raw stone and black coal east-to-west toward the furnaces of Lublin, where it becomes coin, weapons, and power.
The region takes its name from the bison herds that still roam these heights… broad-shouldered beasts moving like a dark tide across the ridge-lines. It was here, legend says, that the tribe first beheld them after the migration, and the first Lipski was so struck by the animal’s strength and stubborn majesty that he took it for his coat of arms… a sign of endurance, fury, and the will to hold ground no matter the cost.
Beyond the last hills, the land hardens into stone. To the east stretches the mountain chain known as the Eastern Cliffs, running from the northern coast down into the south… a long, jagged spine that marks the edge of the duchy’s reach and stands as both a barrier and a warning.
The Lipski Forest
South of the Iron Coast and the Bison Hills stretches the Lipski Forest… a vast, dark sea of pine and old hardwood, threaded with cold streams and timber roads worn deep by wagon wheels. Many think first of steel when they hear the name Lublin, and rightly so; the duchy’s forges are famous across Naissus. But after steel, timber is Lublin’s greatest export, and nearly all of it is taken from these woods.
Within the forest lie the towns of Wodcz and Chopisz, the beating heart of the duchy’s lumber trade. Here, trunks are felled and hauled out in long convoys, destined to become homes and ship-hulls, scaffolds and palisades, beams for bridges, and charcoal for the furnaces that keep Lublin burning. The forest gives more than wood alone… resins, pitch, and other hard-won resources are gathered here, traded, and guarded with the same seriousness as ore.
At the forest’s far eastern edge stands Skalov Monastery, an austere complex of stone and silence known for two things: its strong spirits and its scriptorium and printworks, where the Holy Scripture is copied and pressed in steady, disciplined labor. Churches in Lublin, Orion’s gate, and Westport receive their sanctioned editions from Skalov… clean pages stamped with authority, meant to outlast rumor and heresy.
Though Skalov lies within the borders of the Duchy of Lublin, its monks do not answer to the duke. They answer only to Orion’s Church, whose sacred seat remains in Orion’s Bastion… and that distinction is neither subtle nor meaningless.
The Duchy Of Eastgate
coming SOON!
The Duchy Of Westport
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The Duchy Of Night Harbor
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The Duchy Of Narva
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The Duchy Of Duskhaven
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The Duchy Of Moravia
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The Duchy Of Volchy Gorod
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The Duchy Of Orions Gate
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