North of the Empire, where the forests thin into black pine and then into nothing at all, the land rises into a vast cold plain that the men of the south call the end of the world and the folk who live there call home. This is Kislev, the northernmost realm of men, a harsh country of frozen steppe, iron winters, and skies the colour of old steel. Beyond its final watchtowers lie only the Troll Country, the High Pass, and the Chaos Wastes themselves, from which the doom of the world pours south whenever the Dark Gods stir. Kislev is the last inhabited land before that horror, and its people have made of themselves a wall.
They are a hard folk, forged by a country that tries to kill them every winter and mostly fails. Two peoples share the realm: the ancient Ungols, grey-clad horse-nomads who ranged the oblast long before there was a nation, and the Gospodars, the warrior-tribe who rode down from the east centuries ago, conquered the land, and gave it a Tzar. From their union came Kislev as it stands, a realm ruled by a line of Tzars and Tzarinas who are also its greatest sorcerers, wielders of a bitter ice-magic found nowhere else in the world, and defended by a folk-faith older than any temple: the worship of Ursun the Father of Bears, and his kin among the gods of sun and winter.
The Endless Oblast
Kislev is mostly emptiness: the oblast, a rolling ocean of grassland and snow dotted with felt tents, horse-herds, and the odd walled town clinging to a river. Its two great cities are Kislev itself, the fortress-capital that gives the realm its name, and Erengrad, the western port that keeps the sea-road to the Empire open. Between them lies Praag, the northern city, twice-cursed: once razed by a Chaos horde and rebuilt over ground so soaked in dark magic that its very walls are said to remember screaming faces. To live on the oblast is to live within reach of the north, and every Kislevite village keeps its weapons oiled and its horses close.
The Ice and the Bear
Two powers hold Kislev together. The first is the Ice Court, the sisterhood of ice-witches ruled by the Tzarina herself, sorceresses who draw their magic from the cold heart of the land and wield frost and blizzard as weapons of war. The second is the folk-faith, the deep and stubborn devotion of common Kislevites to Ursun the Bear-God and the old gods Tor and Dazh: a religion of hearth-tales, hard bargains, and hags in the wilds, closer to the bone than the ordered cults of the south. Between the witch-queen's frost and the bear-god's growl, the realm endures.
The Shield of the Old World
Whatever else it is, Kislev is first and foremost a fortress facing north, and every other nation of men lives more safely because of it. When the Chaos hordes descend, they strike Kislev before they strike anyone, and the realm's winged lancers, bear-riders, and oblast horsemen buy the south its time in blood. Again and again Kislev has been overrun, its cities burned and its Tzars slain, and again and again it has risen from the snow to hold the line once more. The Empire builds its cannon and Bretonnia its castles knowing that far to the north, a colder, harder people are already dying so that they may prepare. Kislev asks little in return: only that when it sends the beacon south, the south remembers to come.
Units
BoyarsSpecial · Heavy CavalryThe warrior-nobles of Kislev and their sworn druzhina, a hard-riding fist of lance and sabre that scorns to give ground before any foe.
Elemental War BearRare · MonsterA colossal bear blessed by the god Ursun, its pelt rimed with frost and its tread freezing the ground: winter itself given claws.
Great CannonRare · War MachineHeavy bronze guns bought from the Empire and cast in Kislev's own foundries, the realm's iron answer to the monsters of the north.
Gryphon LegionSpecial · Heavy CavalryAn exiled brotherhood of Winged Lancers who won undying renown in the Empire's service, their shrieking wings unhorsing the foe before the charge.
Horse ArchersCore · Light CavalryUngol light riders who loose arrows at a full gallop, the far-ranging eyes and stinging skirmishers of every Kislevite army.
Ice GuardSpecial · InfantryElite warriors blessed by the Ice Court, who fight with frost-wreathed blades and bows that loose shards of killing cold.
Kislevite Winged LancersCore · Heavy CavalryThe proud heavy horse of the Gospodars, whose tall feathered wings scream in the wind as they thunder into the charge.
KossarsCore · InfantryHardy Kislevite foot-soldiers who carry both axe and bow, equally at home holding a city wall or skirmishing across the frozen steppe.
Kreml GuardSpecial · InfantryThe Tzar's own household warriors, grim veterans who defend the ruler of Kislev and the citadel at the realm's heart with two-handed axes.
Snow LeopardsSpecial · War BeastsGhost-furred hunting-cats of the northern mountains, loosed ahead of the host to run down scouts and flush hidden foes from the snow.
StreltsiSpecial · Missile InfantryGrim northern gunmen who steady long handguns on forked bardiche-rests, loosing crashing volleys before taking up the axe at close quarters.
War Bear RidersSpecial · Monstrous CavalryWarriors of the deep forests who ride the great war-bears of the north to battle, sacred to Ursun and terrible in the charge.
Characters
Boris UrsusThe Red TzarThe first and most storied Tzar of Kislev, the warrior-king who welded Gospodar and Ungol into a single realm and set it as the shield of the Old World.
OstankyaThe HagThe dread hag-witch of Kislev's wild places, keeper of the old folk-magic and the harsh bargains of the wilderness gods, feared even by the Ice Court.
Tzarina KatarinThe Ice QueenThe reigning Tzarina of Kislev and mightiest of the ice-witches, whose command of frost-magic keeps the realm's northern border and her people's fragile hope alive.
Subfactions
The GospodarsThe conquering warrior-folk who rode from the east to found the Tzardom, masters of the great cities of Kislev and Erengrad and the line from which the Tzars are born.
The Ice CourtThe sisterhood of ice-witches ruled by the Tzarina, sorceresses who wield the bitter frost-magic of the northern land as both weapon and throne.
The Ungol Horse-FolkThe grey-clad horse-nomads of the northern oblast, older than the nation itself, whose keen-eyed riders and horse-bows are Kislev's eyes upon the Chaos frontier.
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