Zargovia

Encircled by blood-red forests, necromantic barriers, and undead walls stretching farther than the eye can follow under conjured mists, Zargovia remains one of the most isolated realms in existence. The land itself appears hostile, with twisted vegetation, death-shrubs, rot-fog, and dead places where life refuses to grow.

Its people endure hardship through discipline and austere devotion, governed by priests, nobles, city lords, Fallen Angel patrons, and hidden masters of forbidden arts. Outsiders often speak only of necromancy when discussing Zargovia, yet the average citizen lives a life of restraint, obedience, sacrifice, and grim national purpose. Few lands are as unsettling to visit, and fewer still are defended with such relentless determination.

History & Founding

Zargovia begins in disaster and exile. After the ruin of Numahen, Opsinoi and the Fallen Angels gathered the broken survivors, bound them through blood-pacts, and sheltered their descendants in Avernia until the long First Darkness passed. These people became something neither wholly Numahian nor wholly devilborn: disciplined, severe, and marked by the belief that flesh is a prison through which the spirit must prove itself.

Flesh is a prison through which the spirit must prove itself.

The decisive foundation of the Dominion came in 1250 BS, when the Zargovians returned from Avernia and undead-protected refuges to reclaim a valley bordering Avaton and establish a foothold upon Therasya. Following endless skirmishes with the Aenarchs, in 250 BS Asmodeus engineered the theft of the Necromancy Grimoire from Helkor, delivering it secretly to Zargovia and founding the monasteries of the afterlife. This event launched the creation of the Wall of Undeath surrounding Zargovia and of its border mists.

Since then, Zargovia has survived by refusing the habits of ordinary kingdoms. Its dead do not rest in cemeteries, its borders are not guarded by simple walls, and its rulers do not pretend that mercy could ever stop Entropy. The Dominion, as they call their country, believes itself a necessity of triumph over Entropy.

Government & Succession

Zargovia is ruled by the High Council of Ivox. The presidential throne stands empty, since Zargovians believe Asmiil already guides the nation’s path and no mortal may replace his wisdom. In practice, power belongs to the high priests of Opsinoi, the lords of the cities, the ruling officials who hold land grants, and the archmages of necromancy who often hide behind clerical titles.

There is no royal succession in the familiar sense. Titles of aristocracy are not truly hereditary, and accumulated wealth returns to the state at death, though name, prestige, and secret patronage still matter. Citizens may vote for judicial and military leaders, yet candidateship requires wealth, faith, discipline, and acceptable devotion to the Dominion’s patrons, keeping true authority in a narrow circle.

The result is a cold fine tuned gear. The state owns the land, grants its use, controls training, defines duty, regulates public conduct, and substitutes family bonds with service to the Dominion. To foreign eyes it resembles tyranny, but to Zargovians, it is the only wall strong enough to hold back Entropy, his demons, and the treason of the flesh.

Society & Culture

Zargovian culture is built around the doctrine called the Tyranny of the Flesh. The body is treated as an instrument of Entropy, a corrupting shell that must be disciplined, pierced, scarred, denied, and overcome. Beauty is distrusted, hunger is a test, lust is regulated, and excess is treated as a spiritual danger rather than a luxury.

Daily life is austere but not empty. Zargovians are restrained in public, avoid unnecessary touch, veil emotion behind strict manners, and treat ordinary extravagance as moral weakness. Yet they are not without joy: festivals can erupt with startling intensity, war-ballads are beloved, taverns exist, games are played fiercely, and the sport called Merit proves that even the Dominion cannot extinguish the desire to test strength before witnesses.

Family is deliberately weakened so loyalty to the Dominion may stand above blood. Marriage as other realms know it does not dominate Zargovian society. Women choose partners, bear children, and often raise them until the state, guilds, army, clergy, or institutions claim their training. Women hold equal rights under devil doctrine, for the spirit is considered sexless, and the flesh is merely the same rotting matter in a different shape.

Faith

Zargovia’s public faith is centered on Asmiil, the ancient angelic name for Asmodeus, and the Six Fallen Angels who rule Avernia’s sacred order. Their worship is presented not as demonic corruption but as the Sacrifice: the belief that the Fallen Angels took upon themselves the burden of hatred, strategy, and unforgivable methods so that demons might one day be destroyed.

Only a few Eternals are openly represented in Zargovia. Harmony clerics are not forbidden. Once a year, in the Grand Festival of the Flesh, some faithful gather to celebrate the All-Mother and hope for the return of the Fallen Angels to her embrace. Such worship remains carefully contained, for open devotion to foreign powers can be treated as disloyalty.

The clergy of Afterlife holds enormous power. Public damnation rituals punish insubordination, bodies of offenders may be turned to undeath, and burial is replaced by controlled cremation or state retrieval. Zargovia leaves few bodies for Mortigian and fewer secrets for strangers.

Military

The Zargovian army is a unique combination of hardened infantry, Opsinoi priests, necromancers posing as clergy, unliving constructs, raised dead, and flesh-stitched horrors. The Dominion lacks the cavalry strength of open plains kingdoms, but compensates with summoned corpses, night-fighting doctrine, disciplined formations, and defenders who can refill their own lines from the slaughtered.

Their devil heritage grants unusual resilience against demonic corruption. Their training favors darkness, silence, and low-light killing, while their emotional control gives them a reputation for advancing through terror without breaking. In the last Nightfall, Zargovian forces proved able to destroy demons by the score, and at Dragonal their swords, undead armies, and devil allies helped crush a demonic horde.

The Hounds are the Dominion’s elite scouts and border-guides. Based in Ivox, with their guild house in the Talons district and Daybreak Towers, they serve as guides, scouters, protectors of the borders, and state mission agents. They know the secret passageways through the Fumes, operate in triads or small companies, and are sworn by blood and soul to keep their maps from all outsiders.

Economy & Trade

Zargovia’s economy exists to sustain the Dominion, not individual comfort. Land belongs to the state and is temporarily granted to lords and officials, while grain distribution keeps many city populations alive. The valley could be fertile, but deformation spells, death shrubs, undead vegetation, and poisoned regions make agriculture difficult and dangerous outside given areas.

Nothing is sentimental in Zargovian use. Iron coin circulates within the Dominion, while silver and gold mines are controlled by the state and carefully hoarded, perhaps for the next great war against demons. Money can buy food, mundane goods, services, and weapons, but not land, unchecked status, or freedom from doctrine.

Craft is disciplined and martial. Weapons are among the most cherished possessions a Zargovian may own, and those allowed to bear arms keep them in pristine condition and visible places. Armor is common enough to make foreigners joke that the Dominion is clothed in plate even when drinking ale.

Foreign Relations

Zargovia is almost closed to the world. Foreigners are arrested, deported, or handed to clerics and undeath masters unless they carry rare licenses, enter for controlled tribute, or arrive as recognized envoys. Even passage through the Triple Gates does not guarantee safety, for strangers are easily blamed for corruption, failed crops, bad omens, or espionage.

Its neighbors distrust it for good reason. Avaton and the Aenarchs have long sought weaknesses in the walls, Lydorians regularly cross the mountains to destroy undead things, and Dymarth and Makinka lands border regions where Zargovian secrecy breeds fear. Yet most realms apart from Avaton choose watchfulness over open war, for invasion would be ruinously costly.

Against demons, however, Zargovia becomes indispensable. Its ultimate hatred is reserved for Othmog, Graazt, Helkor, and the demonic powers of Evernight. Even the southern realms that despise the Dominion cannot ignore that Zargovia was built as a blade against the same darkness they fear.

Zargovia was built as a blade against the same darkness they fear.

Notable Settlements and locations

• Ivox — Capital of the Dominion, seat of the High Council, the empty presidential throne, and the hidden machinery of Zargovian rule. The Hounds keep their headquarters here, in the Talons district and Daybreak Towers.
• Apolyon — A secluded castle-school on the sharp Cryll hilltops between Ivox and Emeran, secretly tied to the Necromancy Grimoire. It is guarded by necromancers, obscuring spells, and the cornugon twins Arasel and Methiatys.
• Emeran — Major city near the Cryll hills and one of the two urban shields around Apolyon. Its proximity to the forbidden school makes it a nest of rumors, clerical patrols, and silenced questions.
• Glasyr — Major city of the Dominion and birthplace of Edvar of Glasyr, one of the remembered Hound masters.
• Backlyn — Major city within the Dominion’s sealed interior, useful as a trade, military, or political center under the watch of the clergy.
• Dragonal — Battlefield-city remembered for the crushing of a demonic horde by undead armies, Zargovian swords, and Devils during the last Nightfall.
• Stilet — Major city associated with past Hound leadership and the hard discipline of Dominion service.
• Rend — Major settlement of the Dominion, suited for fortress, foundry, and grim provincial court use.

• Thorn — A major city name preserved in the Zargovian lists. Training ground of ground troops.
• Sphynx — Major city of the Dominion, likely tied to older rites, guarded knowledge, and frontier defense.
• Fol’Marg — A conquered city taken from the Makinkas, standing as a reminder that Zargovia’s borders were not drawn without violence.
• The Avenue of Opsinoi — One of the few controlled approaches into Zargovia, heavily guarded and fortified by three lines of titan walls.
• The Inner Wall — A vast barrier raised against the walking dead, encircling much of the southern realm and feeding the Dominion’s reputation for impossible defense.
• Romfea Ridge — Western barrier toward Makinka lands, a rugged frontier watched by scouts, undead, and hidden passes.
• Felldrake and Blood Mound — Eastern defensive heights, looming over the edge of Zargovian territory.
• Undergate — The subterranean Evernight border beneath Zargovia, where fallen angels and Asmens swordsmen hold the dark with bone armor, living shields, and obsidian blades.

Adventure Hooks

• Four monasteries train clergy. The fifth is Apolyon, the hidden necromancy school. A page from the true grimoire is stolen. The party must retrieve it and punish the offender.
• A dying Hound has revealed part of a Fumes-passage map to an Aenarch agent. The Dominion wants the betrayal erased before Avaton can find a safe route through the blood-red woods.
• A child born outside the approved order is seized by the state. The mother begs outsiders for help, but the clergy claims the child bears a dangerous sign of Asmiil’s favor.
• The undead wall begins devouring souls from soldiers who merely stand near it. Zargovian priests call it purification, while the Hounds suspect something from Mortigian has entered the barrier.
• Beneath Dragonal, relics of the crushed demonic horde begin to pulse again. If the old battlefield wakes, the Dominion’s proudest victory may become its largest breach.
• Every diviner who attempts to spy on Apolyon suffers crippling pain. When one sees a flash of Helkorian symbols before dying, the High Council sends the party to Arcanum for insight.
• A Lydorian expedition crosses the mountains to burn undead growths and accidentally destroys a protected Dominion shrine. Zargovia prepares a reprisal that could ignite a border war.
• During a council session, the empty throne of Asmiil delivers a command in a voice no one recognizes. Some believe it is Asmodeus, while others fear it is Graazt wearing his shadow.
• The statue containing Enereran of Falconia’s retrieved spirit begins to move. It points toward Undergate, where his missing company may still be fighting in darkness.