Ussura's Story

A land of chilly forests and frozen taiga, with the monotony unbroken except by sparse hills. The summer is short, with the temperature rarely exceeding 70 degrees, while winters are long and severe, in some places reaching temperatures as low as 90 degrees below zero.

The common folk of Théah look out across Ussura with pity and contempt. Her people are uneducated, their ruler a peasant, and their religion is backwards. The state religion, the Ussuran Orthodox Church, only follows the teachings of the First Prophet and combines it with the native Ussuran worship of Matushka. Matushka is said to appear as an ancient, matronly woman with iron teeth and nails. Children must be polite if they should encounter her, for she devours rude little boys and girls.

The country is ruled by the Gaius, Keeper of the Knias Council. It is believed that Matushka will not allow a Gaius to remain in power unless she approves of his actions. When the Gaius dies, Matushka selects the new ruler from among the muzhik (the peasants, the landowners are boyars), identifying her choice by turning the new Gaius' hair pale white. The Knias Douma is a council of advisors (comprised of five representatives from boyar families) to the Gaius who usually hold the real power, since the Gaius almost always has no prior political experience.

Notable People

Ilya "Grozny" Sladivgorod Nikolovich: Ilya became the Gaius when he was nine years old. The boyars took him away from his family and began to run the country in his name. In the meantime, they locked him away and treated him cruelly in an attempt to break his will and control him before his sixteenth birthday, when he would gain legal control of the country. On his sixteenth birthday, he had the primary boyar behind the plot brought before him and fed to his own dogs while his family was forced to watch. This earned him his nickname Grozny, or "the Terrible." He is quite popular with the people, keeping the boyars on a short leash.

Koshchei Molhynia Pietrov: He has a seat on the Knias Douma, and reportedly has held the seat since the Council's inception several hundred years ago. Mostly he keeps to himself, living among his family in northeastern Ussura.

Ketheryna Fischler ????: The sister of one of the Eisenfürst, she has been married off to the Gaius.