Sylvanian

The people of Sylvania are the descendants of the ancient Fennone tribe that had inhabited the region since the time of Sigmar and his reign as the First Emperor before the Fennone were eventually subjugated by the invading armies of Emperor Sigismund the Conqueror. Sylvanians often have a blasé attitude towards death and the dead that is at odds with their neighbours. They take a perverse pride in the harshness of their life, seeing others as “soft” for living in warmer climes, using blackpowder weapons, or associating with the other races. Sylvanians believe in the worst stereotypes, and it is common to find they believe Dwarfs drown cats, and Halflings routinely eat each other. This attitude goes all the way back to the Fennones of old, who refused to deal with the Dwarfs they encountered in the foothills of the Worlds Edge Mountains because they ignorantly believed that they came from the same place as the marauding Greenskins who raided their land.
The largest towns of Sylvania are still considered rural backwaters by the standards of cultured Empire folk, half-empty places where most wear clothing that hadn't been in fashion for nearly a century. These towns support only a few burghers, as most are merely overgrown villages that happen to be built on better land. Since Sylvania’s population never truly recovered from the horrors of the Black Plague and the contagions that followed, overcrowding had never been a problem in these towns and villages.
In addition to disease, mutation is relatively common amongst the peasant populace. The thin soil has been riddled with Warpstone since the Warpstone meterorite falls of 1111 IC, giving Sylvania one of the highest rates of mutation within the entire Empire. The most deformed Mutants are cast out into the woods or sent to Drakenhof, but many who would be burned elsewhere are accepted in Sylvania. Hunchbacks, walleyes, and those with additional digits are treated no differently from others.
With the understandably low yield of crops, starvation is a constant threat, and many accept times of hunger pains as a normal part of life. Turning to “sweet pork” the Sylvanians’ euphemism for Human flesh, is considered distasteful and low but not evil. Desperate times can call for desperate measures, and the Ghouls that raid the villages often lived amongst their victims the winter before. All this has led to the Sylvanians becoming an insular but hardy people. They harbour resentments towards the Empire, especially Stirland. They avoid all contact with the outside world, and many know little about it. In fact, it is said that some Sylvanians do not even realise they are a part of the Empire at all. As a result, Empire folks have as low of an opinion of Sylvanians as Sylvanians do of the Empire folk.
The life of a typical Sylvanian is as harsh, brutal, and short as that of any Old Worlder, yet they see the Vampires as merely another aspect of that. Sometimes the crops fail, sometimes the winter is harsh, sometimes Greenskin or Chaos Warriors raid from the mountains, sometimes the plague comes, and sometimes the Vampires come. The Sylvanians have become so accustomed to hardship that they have become very indifferent to it, though they keep garlic and other herbs around their windows as a matter of course.
Despite their general dismay for the horrible circunstances of their lives and the cruelty of their undead masters, some Sylvanians have been brave and lucky enough to escape west into Stirland, becoming refugees. As Sylvania is legally considered a part of Stirland, Alberich Haupt-Anderssen, the current Elector Count of Stirland, has showed concern for the well being of the Sylvanians. Despite this he has refrained from marching into Sylvania to liberate his would-be people, as he knows how costly open war with the Vampire Counts would be.

Related Organizations

• The Empire of Man