Welcome to Kragov

A ready-made "dark Slavic" setting for OSR

Whew…this is a long one.

I wanted to include a good amount of opening resources on this first “Kragov” piece. I’ve been working on and running games in this dark Slavic-themed setting for well over a year now, and decided to share it with you fine folks.

This article includes an introductory couple of paragraphs and then dives right in with a hex map and key for the region.

I will be going through all my campaign notebooks and compiling much more, including lots of hand drawn art and maps and the like for you to use.

Enjoy - and keep your blades sharp.

-Castle Grief

WELCOME TO KRAGOV

To the South rise the mighty, fog covered peaks of the Kathaarian Mountains that divide the war-torn yet haughty countries of Walakia and Morov…

In the shadow of these dark forbidding peaks lies the free territory of Kragov - as part of the peace treaty between north and south, this acts as a buffer zone between the savage Walaks and the bloodthirsty Morovans, and a new aristocracy has arisen here in the last 82 years of the Daneshti Pact. 

Kragov is divided roughly into contested districts - the new nobility crowded into the walled city of Targa is as tyrannical and greedy as the old, and conspiracy and knives in the dark are as rampant as ever. 

Travelers come here to marvel and attempt to decipher ancient glyphs on standing stone and strange obelisk, or to attend the festivals surrounding them. The wandering peoples called the Strigoi might have once known the source of these, but much of their knowledge, too, has been lost to the darkness of the centuries. 

The Churches and shrines of the One God are much overgrown with tree and root - yet the brothers of of the Black Basilica of St Vladim and the monastery of Blessed Grigori still map the land, learn the secrets of mineral and plant, and carry the sacred Word in their hearts, and behind their black veils. 

Hard-bitten mercenaries and rogues of all sort hire out to nobles and merchants alike, or explore dark and blood drenched forests and ruins to avoid grinding out a meager existence in the fields or iron mines - or worse, to end their days in the gulag tunnels of Clifftop Prison. 

The call of silver and adventure remains, and there are moves to map and explore the frontier east, with its rumors of lost cities and ore rich bogs and cliffs…and to the southwest, in Moldov Pass, the black seeds of war are being sown again by those whose thirst has remained unquenched by the centuries of conflict.

Welcome to Kragov. 

Who will you be? 

How will you die?

CONCEPTS/HOW TO USE

At my table, the Kragov Territory is one strip of land in a much larger world - a border between warring kingdoms. As such, there is reference made here to that, but effort has been made for you to pick this up and immediately use it either by cannibalizing ideas and hooks, or running an adventure in the area “as is.”

I’ve attempted to avoid needlessly saturating lore through this small work because I want it to be usable. The lack of detail or vagueness in some areas is deliberate, and is not the product of laziness (my own Kragov sourcebook spans multiple notebooks and goes into absurd detail on some aspects), but the desire to be useful rather than boring.

I suggest you take what you like and mercilessly plunder it, or give things a read through, change whatever you don’t like and add what you do - as I’m sure all of you who run your own games do with materials like this anyhow!

One note: my game is run with a “humans only” house rule - as such, other humanoid races are (so far) non-existent in my campaign, but easily added. Beastmen, orcs, or whatever you like can be simply flavored to “fit” and thrown into the Kathaarians to wreak havoc on your game.

My games are largely run as point crawl or hex crawl - open table, with characters coming and going from the core mercenary group who operates out of the Grand River Inn at present. Much of the feel of my campaign is characters who are coming up from nothing…out of the streets of Targa City, wanderers or refugees from other lands, poor scholars hell-bent on unlocking the powerful secrets of the area, and so on.

I have used both a heavily house-ruled version of White Box: FMAG, as well as a less hacked Mörk Borg, and currently one table using Shadowdark, as myself and players have a sadistic/masochistic streak and prefer games that are wildly deadly, gritty in the extreme, and almost ridiculously difficult to obtain permanent lodging/powerful equipment/large quantities of money.

Your style may vary, but I’ll include a list of some of our favorite house rules in their own article, in case you want to experience our flavor - named after the character’s mercenary group, we call this ruleset “Black Steel Bastards.”

Those of you familiar with old-school black metal will likely recognize place names, ideas, and the like, lifted wholesale from lyrics, album titles and more. Competing adventuring groups/mercenary parties/criminal enterprises are often named after my favorite bands, ditto for spells, books, and other in-game lore.

I hope you have as much fun in Kragov as we have. 

1. WAILING CANYON/RAVENGATE

The road from the Black Basilica (2) runs North through the ebony, sharp stones that the canyon is made from.

Thousands of dark, red wine-colored corvids nest in the hollows of the rock, and the Raven Crones come to hear their ragged cries and make prophecies from the din they make.

Sometimes late at night, when the moon has waned to a sliver, a woman’s voice can be heard weeping at the Canyon’s edge for her lost children.

The small, ramshackle village of Ravengate huddles together here at the mouth of the Wailing Canyon. Denizens make their living quarrying the dense stone of the Canyon and surrounding area, as well as charging travelers and merchants a toll for passage through this end of the Canyon mouth (5s per traveler, and another 10 per wagon).

The town is known for its quiet, somber populace, largely made up of Strigoi who settled here long ago. The village matriarch is Madam Zorya, a blind old woman attended by her two sons Grevor and Annti and their families. She has a sense of humor as dry as the tongues of the birds she keeps, and though blind, she sees more than she lets on. She spends most of her time in a chair by the fire in her sons’ nameless store, which provides tools, woven goods and clothing, and a smattering of whatever the last trader coming through bartered here. 

Madam Zorya’s third and eldest son is the famous criminal Alexei the Heartless. His gang have often sheltered in the basements of Ravengate, and the locals here would never give up one of their own.

Zorya herself does a brisk underworld trade with the town of Viresco to the northeast, and with some of the criminal element of Targa City - her business is of late being disrupted by the newly established and very aggressive Iron Ring.


2. THE BLACK BASILICA

The Brothers of the Order of St. Vladim jealously guard the library within, one of the largest known in any land.

Established long before the wars between Walakia and Morov ceased, The Basilica was considered to be neutral ground, due to Church involvement.

These days, it is understaffed and poorly maintained with only a handful of brothers to upkeep its cavernous rooms of tomes and scrolls. Spiraling staircases, narrow hallways and hidden doors and chambers, some of which have been long forgotten honeycomb the interior of the Basilica.

No one knows just how many thousands of books reside here, slowly rotting and disintegrating to the onslaught of the centuries.

Somewhere within the walls lies a book whispered to hold the secrets of the Basilica itself - a map of its interior, complete with hidden chambers. 


3. THE HANGING VINEYARDS

The grapes from the Brother’s vineyard ripen near the hanging scaffolds that give them their nickname, and that of the wine, called “Cold Mouth Prayer.” It was on these gibbets that the famous outlaw Alexei the Heartless earned his next name, “The Deathless.” A corpse that hangs in these cages through the fullmoon will sometimes offer up an answer to a passerby’s unasked question. 

4. LUPESCI MILL

Marko and his brother Lazslo worked together here at the old family business, but something came between them, and his brother left to build The Grand River Inn (9). Lumber from the Kragov region is prized in the big cities for its beautiful grain and resistance to rot, both for building, furniture, and the making of stout bows. Marko’s wife, Aleyna, left him after their children disappeared some twenty years ago - some say she went to live in Wailing Canyon (1), others that she threw herself into it and died.


5. THE RUINS OF BRAGO KEEP

Once a picturesque castle on Lake Viresco, and the seat of the kings of the old days in Kragov. Great wings are said to still beat over ruined towers and black out the stars, and fell things are rumored to crawl among the shattered walls and halls. Who knows what treasures from those brighter years lie unclaimed here?


6. IRONRUST FIELDS

During the wars between Morov and Walakia, much of this region was a battlefield. Thousands fell here in battle, and it is said that the dirt here is red because of how many suits of armor and weapons went to rust. Mail still jingles on cold bones, and the dead here still call for vengeance. A secret way into Brago Keep (5) is rumored to be here somewhere.


7. THE SCAR

The Scarspawn have mostly disappeared, but none venture too near this unnatural place, save the Raven Crones who make their homes here and hold strange Sabbath in the whispering pines.


8. THE STONES

Covered with ancient glyphs that only shine beneath the blood moon once a year, these stones were old when the Dawn Kings of Kragov were young. The Brothers of the Order of St. Vladim and the Crown Hermits both study them, and many other scholars travel from far off to see them and puzzle over their meanings. The Bloodmoon Festival is held once a year here, and the Grand River Inn (9) fills to bursting; and the hills are alive with music and dancing and song - and many others arrive to prey upon the foolish or careless.


9. THE GRAND RIVER INN

The proprietor Lazslo Lupesci is a man with many secrets, they say - for where did all the money come from to build the Inn some 20 years ago? Who are the strange men who come to the Inn several times a year, cowled and silent and unfriendly? Why are none allowed into the lower level of the Inn, beyond the locked stairwell? 

10. KORYA VILLAGE

A fishing village in the shadow of the Horns, the Kragov peaks of the Kathaarian Mountains, Korya is stepped in the old ways - totems of bone and horn adorn doorways and riverside huts, and salt is spread round every house. The townsfolk exist in numb dread of what they call the Wurdulok who comes down from the mountains for his dreadful due. In this bend of the Koryaves River swims a pike the size of a great tree, who has never been caught.. 

11. SILVER MINE

The main commerce that keeps the merchant houses of Targa (19) wealthy, and paying their tax to remain free from the soldier levies demanded by the country. Last week, a body was found in one of the abandoned tunnels, and then another, and another…they don’t belong to any of the miners, and no one locally recognizes them either so far. Heavily armed men from Targa accompany all silver shipments from here back to the fortress- the bandit king Alexei the Heartless is the only one to ever rob one, and they hung him for it. 

12. THE SHRINE OF BLESSED ERZSEBET

The cold waters that flow from within the carven stone shrine within the convent are said to be a strong curative for those who drink them from the source - they are bottled and sold by the secretive Sisters of the Sacred Spring. Word from the greater cities further north, and to the south have rumored that the bottles are being found at the sites of several unexplained deaths. No men are allowed within the walls of the convent, and this rule has been followed even by the ruling class for long years.


13. THE OLD ROAD/KARACHER WOOD

Once a busy road from Targa (9) to Brago Keep (5), the old road fell out of use nearly a century ago after the Keep was ruined in a siege. Now it is merely an overgrown and tangled pathway into the perilous Karacher Wood; giant wolves of the infamous Kathaarian breed come down from the Horns to hunt here occasionally, and the blood of men is said to be sweet to them.

Even the mountain men who live far up, alone, in the Horns say that the Wood should be avoided, but they run their trap lines and hunt it all the same, both for the prized black fur of the Kathaarian Wolf, and the much more valuable skin of the elusive Ghost Fox.

Here also grow many plants of the region, included the rare Blackroot, an addictive stimulant chewed by many. (Int +1, Dex +1 for 3 hours while chewing. After prolonged use, roll save for addiction. Addicts who are not using the drug suffer -2 to all stats while the drug works its way out of the system for 1d6 days)

14. VELE’S CROWN

Named for the god of underworld and secrets, the Crown is a massive column of stone thrust up hundreds of feet into the sky from the foothills of the Horns. The Raven Crones say that if any man could climb it, they would find the secrets of the moon and stars carved around it in a crown of mystery and wonder. Here, the Crown Hermits live, hidden from mankind in the rocks, pondering the secrets of the heavens as they wheel overhead.

15. CHERNO’S THRONE

A giant menhir towering over twenty feet tall, Cherno’s Throne rests on a hill honeycombed with the barrows and tombs of the kings and heroes of forgotten times. Strange lines on it perhaps mark only the passage of years, or mayhap the celestial bodies - the Hermits say there is a powerful mystery that connects Throne and Crown (14). Weddings and oaths of the wealthy families of Targa (9) still take place here, and each year, a play is held honoring the old heroes.


16. STONE BLADE CAIRN

On one stone sword thrust into the earth is carved a balance scale, on the other a crescent moon. There is a large stone cairn here, great rocks piled somehow on still greater ones, and the folk tales say it holds the body of a beautiful woman and her two lovers that she could not choose between - they killed each other, and she died of heartache. Travelers make camp here often and merchants can frequently be seen selling their wares, or trading goods with the men of Targa or Korya villages. (18, 10)


17. THE SEEING POOL/FOREST OF STARS

Reflected in the waters here are another night sky, not the one that is seen when looking up from the pool. The Hermits hold that you are not looking down into water, but up from it into the sky of another world. Some say that men and women sometimes look back.


18. TARGA CITY

A fast growing city under the protection of mighty Targa Castle (19), it thrives both inside and outside the city walls, and rapidly sprawls toward the western fork of the Damovi River. Some of the denizens are not so prosperous, and the slums known as Stonebridge cling to the undersides of that great stone archway over the river like leeches. There is a killer loose in the slums who marks his victims with a number, and kills them in some way corresponding; three well known criminals have been hanged already or sent to Clifftop Prison (27) but the killings continue.


19. TARGA/TARGA CASTLE

The slouching haughty castle town of Targa, home to some several thousand souls if one includes the settlement without the walls. Within, the noble and wealthy families of old Kragov rule and conspire against each other on a council made up of the current strongest lineages. While the court here is a mere shadow of those in the sprawling cities of the north, they make up for it in avarice, cunning, and injustice.


20. ALBESCU FAMILY CEMETERY

The oldest of the great families, and former kings of the Kragov region in older times, this cemetery among the weeping pines is owned by them and holds the bones of those deceased after the barrows of Cherno’s Throne (15) ceased to be used for the purpose. Spies say there are lights seen here some nights through the fog and mist, and robed and hooded figures meet in disguise. Pagan sacrifices to the old gods used to be held here at the edge of the Basin (24),
the bodies flung over its edge to break on the rocks below.



21. HUT OF YURI THE MADMAN

No one knows how old Yuri is, or how long he has lived in this house up in the trees, only that he is older than any other living person in the area. Some say he was a mountain man who had enough of the harsh winters up in the Horns, others that he is a disgraced member of a noble family; still others that he is a magi whose long life goes all the way back to the Doom. Whatever the truth, he keeps to himself, and only speaks in strange riddles or stories when under the spell of the Dreamhoney that he now lives for.


22. WOODBRIDGE/RIMROCK ROAD

A favorite place of traveling merchants and robbers, under the watchful eye of the soldiers at Clifftop (27). The waterfall here, called the Tears of Mokesh, are breathtaking and attract many visitors, and fill the Basin (24) with mist and fog- a statue of a woman pouring out a large vase into the falls stands at their apex, and she stretches one arm out over the basin. Some claim to have heard voices coming from within the falls themselves.


23. RUNO CAVES

Believed to have been the site of an ancient temple from before the Dawn Kings - the rooms near to the surface, which is now crumbled ruins and piles of earth and stone, are man wrought and beautifully carved. Stairs go down into darker places where torchlight does not reach wall nor ceiling, and few have attempted to explore their Stygian depths and returned without raving like madmen.


24. THE BASIN

Surrounded on all side by steep crags, the basin’s stony bottom spreads out for miles, with the water of the Damovi creating streams and pools for as far as the eye can see into the mists. Perhaps a great lake in ancient times, now the cliff’s edge is dotted with caves, and on a clear night, one can see the lights of the strange Cliff Dwellers blinking in the gloom. The fork of the river comes back together on the far side, and flows all the way to the Drenn Sea.


25. THE HIVE

Flowers, both wild and cultivated grow all over the cliff face and above on its edge - Bluefoil Rose, Redwine Blossom, the deadly Goldenveil - all are frequented by the clouds of bees that the Cliff Dwellers tend here, and many strange and wonderful kinds of honey are produced; including the narcotic Dreamhoney that comes from the Goldenveil plant and fetches a high price for a small clay jar.

Men will kill for the money it makes, as well as to taste it again once they awaken from the strange and eldritch visions it produces. The beekeepers of the Cliff Dwellers always wear robes and elaborate veils, much like the Brothers of the True God that they are said to have abandoned before coming here - their hierarchy and customs are strict and complex. 


26. SHALE WALL MINES

Prisoners who are kept at Clifftop (27) mine shale here, load it up the Rimrock into carts, and break it into pieces to maintain the roads of the region. It is crushing work, landslides are common and almost always fatal. Those not hanged for their crimes are usually sent here to work the shale mines, build roads, or quarry stone for expansion of the Clifftop towers, prison, and more recently, village walls.


27. CLIFFTOP

At one time Clifftop was only a watchtower and small jail for the area, but it has grown over the years into a fort surrounded by a small but growing village. The dungeon is now dug deep into the Rimrock, built into the existing cave and tunnel systems that form a formidable and nearly inescapable prison. The past few years have seen the expansion of Clifftop past the river, as they clear the woods and pasture livestock, and extend a low stone wall about the burgeoning little hamlet. 


Stay tuned for more!