The Vespermark

Art by Mike Royal

The Vespermark is an area of Krevborna not detailed in the first-edition book, but it will be featured in the revised version of the setting. I realized I wanted in an area of frontier wildlands, one influenced by the Westerns I grew up on.

The Vespermark

A Nightmarish and Lawless Frontier

The sparsely populated hills and plains west of Krevborna’s nominal bastions of civilization are collectively known as the Vespermark. Small towns, villages, and farmsteads dot the borderlands between the settled areas of Krevborna and the rest of the world. In between these outposts are swaths of badlands and steppes littered with supposedly abandoned keeps, castles, and monasteries.

An atmosphere of vigilante justice prevails in the often lawless Vespermark; its settlements are imperiled by unholy beasts and predatory outlaws, and it lies beyond the protective reach of the Church of Holy Blood. The lonely homesteads and towns of the Vespermark are encircled by perimeter walls meant to keep out monsters and bandits. 

Most settlements in the Vespermark practice their own forms of self-governance, but some are oppressed by local tyrants, hereditary boyars, mercenary bands, or cult leaders. For example, the wilds of the Vespermark are a safe haven for the Yezhuli—a forbidden sect of the Church of Holy Blood that practices polygamy.

People who live in the Vespermark are protective of the lives they carve out of the desolate landscape. They are often regarded as standoffish, justifiably so, as they often have good reason to be distrustful of strangers.

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define the Vespermark:

    • The Vespermark is the sparsely populated borderland between Krevborna’s “civilized” areas and the neighboring countries.

    • The settlements of the Vespermark are self-governed, when they aren’t oppressed by local strong-arm rulers.

    • Strange cults that would otherwise be stamped out by the Church often take root in the Vespermark.

    • Brigands, highwaymen, and monsters prowl the badlands and prey upon the Vespermark’s farmsteads and towns.

    • Unusual flowers, their scent both sickly sweet and redolent of rotten meat, grow in the wilds of the Vespermark.