The Valkari States (often referred to colloquially as Valkaristan or The Shattered Lands) is a geographic and political region located in the southwestern interior of the Nastavak continent.
Formerly a proud, militarized frontier province of the Vosti Empire, the region famously failed to coalesce into a unified nation-state following the Collapse of 1918. Instead, it dissolved into a permanent, century-long state of civil war. Today, Valkaristan is not a sovereign nation, but rather a violent patchwork of competing fiefdoms ruled by local “Atamans” (warlords), international criminal syndicates, and heavily armed proxy militias funded by neighboring powers.
The absolute poverty and lawlessness of the region are heavily exacerbated by its geography. Wedged between Kresimiria, Boskenmark, and Kruhlstutt, Valkaristan is entirely landlocked. Cut off from legitimate maritime wealth and surrounded by heavily militarized borders, the failed state possesses no viable legal export market. Consequently, local warlords and the infamous Zelen Cartel are forced to rely entirely on violent, overland smuggling routes, flooding the continent with illicit synthetic narcotics and untaxed weaponry. For its neighbors, the Valkari States represent a massive, ongoing security crisis, serving as both a humanitarian disaster zone and a convenient, lawless arena for covert proxy warfare.
History
The Imperial March (Pre-1918)
Under the Vosti Empire, the region was known as the Valkari March. It was a heavily militarized buffer zone designed to protect the imperial core of Vost against the naval and industrial might of the Kingdom of Kruhlstutt to the west. The local population, the Valkars, were a semi-nomadic steppe people heavily recruited into the Imperial Army as irregular cavalry. This fostered a culture of intense martial pride and clan loyalty, but completely stunted the development of civil institutions or administrative bureaucracy.
The Great Collapse and the Five Atamans (1918–1931)
When the Vosti Empire collapsed in November 1918 due to the Kruhlstutt blockade and the “Turnip Winter,” the central imperial authority in the provincial capital of Volkovo instantly disintegrated. Unlike Filip Novak in Kresimiria, who successfully centralized power, the Valkari generals turned their weapons on one another.
From 1919 to 1931, the War of the Five Atamans ravaged the steppes. Rival warlords fought brutal cavalry and artillery skirmishes for control of the remaining imperial armories. The conflict leveled the region’s limited infrastructure and permanently prevented the formation of a unified government. In 1922, Kresimirian General Dominik Loncar briefly considered intervening to annex the border towns for the Divine Republic of Kresimiria, but pragmatically decided against it, preferring to leave the warring Valkari factions as a natural, chaotic barrier protecting Kresimiria’s western flank.
The “Proxy Marches” and the Ataman Truce (1930s–1970s)
Following the Unification Wars, the Valkari States became the premier theater for proxy warfare on the Nastavak continent.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the authoritarian President of Boskenmark, Nielz Metzger, funneled massive amounts of covert military aid to the Volkovo Directorate, a powerful warlord faction in the east. Metzger utilized the Valkaris to constantly harass Kresimiria’s southwestern border, forcing Sinj to divert troops away from the Bosken insurgencies in District X.
In response, during the “Iron Era,” Kresimirian Chancellor Kresimirovic II authorized the CIA to fund rival anti-Volkovo militias, keeping the region perpetually destabilized.
This era of proxy chaos was briefly interrupted by the “Skufca Truce” (1964–1978). A ruthless high-ranking member of the Volkovo Directorate named Nej Skufca managed to briefly unite the central steppes, ruling with an iron fist. However, Skufca was assassinated in 1978 by a Bosken-funded rival, blowing the region wide open once more.
The Narco-State (1980s–Present)
The power vacuum left by Skufca’s assassination in the late 1970s coincided with the economic isolationism of the Sanjakorin era in Kresimiria. Desperate for income, the surviving Valkari warlords shifted their economy entirely to illicit trade.
By the 2010s, this survivalist smuggling had evolved into industrial-scale drug manufacturing. The Zelen Cartel, operating out of the northern border city of Zelen, emerged as the most powerful entity in the region. Becoming the continent’s primary supplier of synthetic opioids (“V-Dust”), the cartel precipitated a massive public health crisis in Kresimiria, ultimately forcing Sinj to pass the 2023 Harm Reduction Act.
Major Factions and Territorial Control
Valkaristan is roughly divided into four distinct zones of control, though the borders shift constantly due to low-intensity warfare.
- The Volkovo Directorate (East): Controlling the historic capital and the borders near Boskenmark, the Directorate is composed of the descendants of Vosti imperial officers. They claim to be the legitimate government of the Valkari people but control less than 30% of the territory. They maintain a tenuous, highly corrupt diplomatic channel with Kresimiria’s Council for Foreign Affairs and are heavily subsidized by the Boskenmark military.
- The Zelen Cartel (North): A transnational criminal syndicate that effectively rules the rugged terrain bordering Kresimirian District IX and District VIII. Far wealthier than the Directorate, the Cartel possesses sophisticated Kruhlstutt-manufactured weaponry and frequently engages in direct firefights with Kresimirian Civil Order Force border patrols.
- The Free Hosts (The Interior): Nomadic paramilitary groups and clan-based militias that roam the deep, arid interior steppes. They live primarily off banditry, extortion, and charging “tolls” for Cartel smuggling convoys moving through their territory.
- The Ostra Enclave (West): A heavily fortified, independent city-state pressed directly against the border of the Kingdom of Kruhlstutt. This enclave is quietly funded and armed by Kruhlstutt intelligence agencies to act as a physical buffer, actively fighting off the Zelen Cartel to prevent narcotics from reaching Western coastal cities.
Geopolitics and the Refugee Crisis
The total collapse of civil authority in Valkaristan has triggered a massive, ongoing humanitarian crisis that directly impacts its neighbors.
The Kresimirian Wall and Ozla
For Kresimiria, the Valkari border is a “Hard Frontier.” In 2005, Kresimiria completed a massive, fortified border wall along the Zahodecelska line, equipped with automated drones from Otonik Ordnance.
Hundreds of thousands of desperate Valkar civilians fleeing the warlords have piled against this wall, with the vast majority settling in the Kresimirian border city of Ozla. This influx has created a severe demographic shock; today, nearly a third of Ozla’s population consists of ethnic Valkars. Because they are not adherents of Kresimirianism, they are legally disenfranchised under the Faith Restriction Clause. They live as a heavily policed, stateless underclass, frequently scapegoated by local Vjetrusa politicians like Misko Maretic for regional crime rates.
Despite the severe poverty of the diaspora, a few Valkar expatriates have achieved staggering global success. The most famous is Nino Arh. A former militia soldier for the Volkovo Directorate who deserted in the 1980s, Arh utilized the region’s illicit smuggling routes to flee to Kruhlstutt, eventually building a massive corporate empire as the founder and CEO of Kresimiria’s state-subsidized semiconductor monopoly, DecelChip. The father of Karl Brkic, CEO of Kresimirian construction company GradnjaMC, was also a Valkari immigrant. Current Mayor of Vijrje, Sadmir Arzensek, was born in Volkovo.
The Boskenmark Arms Trade
The Volkovo Directorate remains a hub for the illicit arms trade, utilizing Boskenmark’s southern ports to bypass Kresimirian blockades. In 1998, the Directorate was deeply implicated in the “Blueprints Scandal” that brought down the Bosken government of Jannik Vorreich, after it was revealed the warlords were attempting to purchase classified artillery schematics from corrupt officials in Vost.
Furthermore, the lawlessness of the region severely impacts Boskenmark’s industrial stability. The sprawling, unionized mining city of Rudarja, located in Boskenmark’s western hills, is particularly vulnerable to the Zelen Cartel, which aggressively smuggles “V-Dust” opioids into the city’s grueling labor camps to physically and politically cripple the socialist opposition.