Two winters have passed since the kings and princes of the North sat in bitter council at Cintra and signed the peace that ended the last great Nilfgaardian war. The ink is dry; the graves are not. Roads are thick with deserters and hungry men who still wear their old colors, and every border-stone seems to have sprouted a gallows beside it. In taverns, folk call it “peace.” In chancelleries, they call it “the pause.”
The Yaruga remains the hard line in every soldier’s mind: on one bank, the quarrelling crowns of the North; on the other, the Empire—disciplined, rich, and patient. Nilfgaard did not march north to be satisfied with a treaty; it marched north to learn the taste of the North, and it has not forgotten it.
South of the Yaruga sprawls the Empire: provinces stacked like shields, vassals bound by marriage and coin, and a court that wages war as easily with parchment as with steel. Conquered lands are made “provinces,” and even when the legions halt, the imperial machine continues to turn—through trade monopolies, “advisers,” and a thousand quiet knives.
Cintra’s name is still spoken in the North like a curse and a warning. Its fall poisoned the North’s trust, and its fate at the negotiating table proved that even defeated empires can bargain from strength. The city’s stones may be rebuilt, but its independence is a story for bards, not diplomats.
Far to the south-west, Toussaint drinks wine and calls it virtue—an old, privileged land that keeps its pageantry so long as it remembers whose banner shades it. That very calm is its bargain: stability purchased by deference.
The North is not one realm but many—Temeria, Redania, Kaedwen, Aedirn, Lyria and Rivia, Kovir and Poviss, the Hengfors League, Cidaris, Kerack, Verden, and a scatter of lesser duchies and city-powers—united only by fear of the South and their shared habit of turning on each other.
And in the cracks between kingdoms, older powers endure: dwarven holds, elven valleys, dryad forests, and free cities that worship gold as devoutly as any god.
Temeria sits astride the heart-roads and the Pontar’s southern reaches, rich enough to matter and central enough to bleed first. King Foltest rules from Vizima, and his realm’s greatest danger is not a foreign banner at the gate—but the rot of faction within: nobles with private armies, towns that simmer, and a populace eager to find someone to blame for hunger, plague, and “nonhuman trouble.”
In Vizima itself, the world’s ugliness has lately taken the shape of open street fighting: the Order of the Flaming Rose, Scoia’tael rebels, and the king’s loyal forces have all spilled blood in the city, turning “public order” into a battlefield and faith into a weapon.
Brugge is a scar on the map—small, proud, and punished heavily during the invasion, now tied closely to Temeria’s protection. The people there remember who burned their fields, but they also remember which northern neighbors arrived too late.
Sodden is the North’s sore tooth: split by old wars and river politics, forever argued over by those who want its passes and vineyards and those who simply want the Yaruga line to stop moving.
Redania watches the world like a merchant watches a scale—always measuring. Its great cities, Oxenfurt and Tretogor, breed scholars and schemers in equal number. The crown’s power is real, but so is the chaos left by royal assassination and the long shadow of intelligence services that learned, in wartime, how to rule from behind curtains.
Redania’s conflict is the classic Redanian conflict: outwardly an ally of the North, inwardly convinced it should lead the North—by treaty if possible, by debt if necessary, and by blades if it comes to that.
Kaedwen is broad, cold, and martial—an anvil kingdom that always seems to be preparing for the next war even while ending the last. King Henselt’s gaze is fixed west and south where borders are “disputed,” and where the Pontar valley promises land, levies, and prestige.
Kaedwen’s most dangerous rivalry is with Aedirn: the struggle over Upper Aedirn—called the Lormark by those who want to swallow it—has kept both realms poised like duelists with hands on hilts, daring the other to blink.
Aedirn is proud, battered, and politically cornered—its fields fertile, its nobles fractious, its enemies numerous. King Demavend III rules a realm that has survived invasion only to face the slower violence of border loss and internal resentment.
Aedirn’s great conflict is the same Lormark wound: Kaedwen presses from one side, opportunists from another, and Aedirn’s own lords weigh loyalty against whatever bargain keeps their keeps standing another winter.
Where other kingdoms speak of honor, Lyria and Rivia have had to pay for it—again and again. Queen Meve’s realm has a reputation for stubborn courage and a history of being trampled whenever great powers decide to “settle matters.” It endures through grit, hard alliances, and a ruler who learned to treat politics as a battlefield.
Their conflicts are survival-conflicts: rebuilding after war, keeping hold of strategic valleys, and ensuring neither Nilfgaard nor a northern “ally” decides the realm is easier to administer than to respect.
In the far north, Kovir and Poviss glitter like a promise: ports, mines, and counting-houses fat with coin. Under King Esterad Thyssen, the realm has guarded its neutrality like a dragon guards a hoard, letting other nations spend blood while it spends money. That wealth buys mercenaries, influence, and (most importantly) time.
Kovir’s conflict is quieter but no less dangerous: keeping neutrality in a world where everyone assumes neutrality is just a fancy word for “waiting to pick the winning side.”
North-eastern and often overlooked, the Hengfors League is a stitched cloak of petty states and duchies gathered under one banner—held together by the will of King Niedamir and the shared fear of being eaten by larger neighbors. Its capital is Hengfors, its politics a balance of pride and necessity.
The League’s conflicts are constant border anxieties: to remain a league, it must act like a kingdom; to act like a kingdom, it must convince its own members they haven’t merely traded many small masters for one.
Cidaris is smaller than the giants of the North, but older than some and wealthier than it looks—its ports and commerce making it a prize that nobody admits to coveting. Its conflict is perennial: staying independent while larger crowns treat small neighbors as “natural spheres of influence.”
Kerack is a young coastal kingdom by northern standards—strategically placed between sea trade and dangerous interior forests. It profits when caravans move and suffers when armies do. Its conflict is simply this: it is too useful to be ignored and too small to refuse demands.
Verden has worn too many collars—Cintran, Nilfgaardian, and its own fragile independence. Its people remember what it means to “surrender early” and what it costs when empires pay you back for that surrender.
Out in the cold sea, Skellige remains Skellige: jarls, longships, feuds, and honor measured by scars. The isles are an elective monarchy, and in this period King Bran Tuirseach holds the crown—yet even a king on Skellige is always negotiating with proud clan leaders who would rather die than be managed.
Skellige’s conflicts are both internal (clan rivalries) and external (raiding, retaliation, and the delicate dance of alliances with mainland powers who want Skellige’s ships—but not its customs).
Novigrad is a city that behaves like a kingdom: rich, crowded, and holy in a way that makes merchants and priests indistinguishable at a distance. The Church of the Eternal Fire dominates life there, and the city’s conflicts are religious pressure, political “purity,” and the constant friction of foreigners, refugees, and competing guilds packed behind the same walls.
Dol Blathanna is the thorn that never stops pricking: an elven realm ruled by Francesca Findabair, existing because Nilfgaard found it useful and the North found it humiliating. Officially, its queen must distance herself from Scoia’tael violence; in practice, every human lord treats the valley as proof that concessions only breed more demands.
Mahakam is stone, craft, and grudges measured in centuries—a dwarven kingdom in the mountains, bordering human realms that want its metals and fear its independence. Its conflict is constant pressure: to remain itself while humans argue whether Mahakam is an ally, a vassal, or a larder.
Brokilon is “forbidden territory,” and the dryads enforce that law with arrows. It is not a kingdom that negotiates—Brokilon is a boundary that bleeds anyone who tries to erase it. That alone makes it a strategic piece on every general’s map and a nightmare on every merchant’s route plan.
Across every realm, the same tinder lies waiting: wounded veterans, displaced peasants, starving towns, and the old hatred between humans and nonhumans—hatred that feeds the Scoia’tael, justifies crackdowns, and keeps Nilfgaard smiling behind polite diplomacy. The kings call it “security.” The rebels call it “justice.” Ordinary folk call it “another winter.”