Fiefdoms

With thanks to Skerples' feudalism writings, Crusader Kings II and Game of Thrones, for getting my head back into the game. Behold the outline of a British mythology-inspired medieval setting. Bold places are on the map, you'll have to guess where.

Jose Daniel Cabrera Peña

The Bastard's Conquest is some 250 years past. The land is at a rare moment of peace, but a precarious peace it is.

To the north, the Seelie King of Alba rules beyond the ruins of the Rûmish wards of the Vallum Hadriani. Few Anglians have encountered the sidhe that whisper in his ear, fewer still have lived to tell the tale. Raiders sally from both sides of the border but sometimes, when the winter night is still and the moon is full, the mournful horn of the Wild Hunt heralds an altogether different threat.

To the west, the last Prince of Mount and Vale has been slain and Cambria has been subdued with an iron fist. However, the Prince's son was smuggled to Breizh, far to the south, and seeks supporters to avenge his father and claim his birthright. The populace glower under the rule of the Marcher lords and the high mountain valleys still hold hidden bastions of the Old Gods.

Hex Kit is great for mapping out your totally original ideas.

Past Cambria over the sea, the Crown has carved out a tenuous foothold in Hibernica. What started as an easy conquest became a brutal stalemate as armoured knights were ambushed by saffron-cloaked javelineers and brutal mailed axemen. Tales returned of great shaggy beasts battering down palisades and keeps. The war is not over, but each side licks their wounds as they wait for the conflict to flare again.

To the south across the Mare Francorum, the King of the Franks looks enviously upon the King's continental holdings, and conspires to claim them for himself. The jarls of the King of the Northmen have largely given up the practice of raiding from their Island Holdfasts, but hard men live hard lives and piracy and mercenary pay are now often as lucrative.

In Anglia itself, noble squabbles are a constant threat. The barons look to safeguard their privileges and expand their influence by any means necessary, and the great counts and dukes even more so. The Church is divided between its loyalty to the High Priest and its duty to the King. Rûmish artefacts and dungeons are scattered throughout the land, calling the foolhardy like moths to a flame. Magic is outlawed by divine decree across the Church's reach, but there are always those willing to grasp at otherworldy power at the risk of their sanity, lives, and immortal souls.