The Volkovo Directorate is the oldest and most heavily militarized warlord faction operating within the fractured Valkari States. Headquartered in the ruined, historic provincial capital of Volkovo in the eastern steppes, the Directorate claims to be the sole legitimate successor to the Vosti Empire’s military administration in the region. In reality, it functions as a brutal military junta, controlling less than 30% of the Valkari territory.
Composed largely of the descendants of Vosti imperial officers and irregular cavalrymen, the Directorate is defined by its archaic martial pride and its profound reliance on foreign proxy funding. For decades during the mid-20th century, it was massively subsidized and armed by the Federation of Boskenmark to wage a low-intensity border war against the Divine Republic of Kresimiria. Today, severely weakened by internal corruption, the rise of the Zelen Cartel, and the disastrous 1998 “Blueprints Scandal,” the Directorate operates primarily as an illicit arms-trafficking syndicate and a buffer force on Kresimiria’s southwestern flank.
Origins and the Great Collapse (1918–1922)
Prior to 1918, the city of Volkovo was the administrative heart of the Valkari March, a heavily fortified frontier zone designed to protect the Vosti Empire from western incursions.
When the Empire collapsed in November 1918 due to the Nastavak Drought and the Kruhlstutt export embargo, the central authority in Volkovo instantly evaporated. The highest-ranking surviving officers formed a provisional military council, which they dubbed the “Directorate,” intending to maintain martial law until a new emperor could be crowned in Vost.
However, as the Unification War consumed the continent, it became clear the Empire was dead. Rather than unifying the province, the generals in Volkovo turned on one another. During the “War of the Five Atamans” (1918-1931), the Directorate was forced to violently subjugate rival cavalry commanders simply to maintain control over the immediate ruins of the capital, permanently losing the northern and western steppes to nomadic banditry.
The Boskenmark Proxy Era (1940s–1970s)
The Directorate’s survival throughout the 20th century was entirely dependent on foreign intervention. Following the Unification War, the revanchist government of Boskenmark recognized the strategic value of keeping Kresimiria’s western border permanently destabilized.
Under the authoritarian rule of Bosken President Nielz Metzger (1948–1961), the Federation of Boskenmark began funneling massive amounts of covert military aid, artillery, and untraceable cash across the southern border to the Volkovo Directorate. The Directorate’s leader, Ataman Ilia, effectively transformed his faction into a heavily armed proxy militia for Vost.
Throughout Kresimiria’s Iron Era, the Directorate launched relentless, harassing raids against Kresimirian border outposts in Zahodecelska. This forced Kresimirian Chancellor Kresimirovic II to permanently station tens of thousands of Council for Defence troops in cities like Ozla, draining Sinj’s military resources and preventing Kresimiria from fully crushing the BRC-21 insurgency in the south.
Decline and the Narco-State (1980s–Present)
The Directorate’s golden era of proxy funding ended with the liberalization of Boskenmark under Ivan Piltz in the 1970s, which drastically reduced the flow of heavy weaponry to Volkovo.
Simultaneously, the Kresimirian economy isolated itself under Chairman Ljubo Sanjakorin. Desperate for revenue to maintain their aging arsenals, the Directorate’s commanders turned to extortion and illicit smuggling. However, they were slow to adapt to the changing criminal landscape. By the 1990s, the Zelen Cartel had industrialized the production of synthetic opioids (“V-Dust”) in the north. The Cartel’s staggering narco-wealth allowed them to purchase modern Kruhlstutt-manufactured weaponry, completely outgunning the Directorate’s aging, Bosken-supplied Imperial-era artillery.
The 1998 “Blueprints Scandal”
In a desperate bid to reclaim military supremacy over the Cartel and remain relevant to Boskenmark, the current leader of the Directorate, Ataman Branko Kuras, attempted to purchase highly classified, modern artillery schematics from corrupt military officials in Vost.
The illicit transaction was exposed in 1998 by Kaskivian intelligence. The resulting “Blueprints Scandal” caused a massive international uproar, severely humiliating Boskenmark and directly contributing to the sudden resignation of the socialist Bosken President, Jannik Vorreich, despite Vorreich allegedly not having knowledge of the purchase.
Modern Status and Relations
Today, the Volkovo Directorate is a shadow of its former martial glory. The Directorate’s power is absolute only within the immediate, crumbling walls of their capital, Volkovo. Operating out of the heavily scarred limestone Imperial Garrison, Ataman Branko Kuras enforces a brutal military dictatorship over the city’s 115,000 desperate civilians. Beyond the city limits, their influence rapidly evaporates. While the Directorate still exacts brutal “tolls” from smugglers crossing its eastern territory, its military capacity is severely degraded. Economically besieged by the vastly wealthier Zelen Cartel to the north and cut off from legitimate trade by the Kresimirian border walls, Volkovo functions less as a capital and more as a decaying, besieged fortress.
The Directorate maintains a tenuous, highly corrupt diplomatic backchannel with Kresimiria’s Council for Foreign Affairs. Kresimirian intelligence often quietly bribes Ataman Kuras to utilize his remaining forces as a physical buffer against the Zelen Cartel, essentially paying the warlord to keep the drug convoys away from the fortified walls of Ozla.
Despite their current decay, the Directorate’s brutal history occasionally produces individuals of terrifying competence. The most famous example is Nino Arh, the billionaire CEO of Kresimiria’s DecelChip monopoly, who began his life as a conscripted militia soldier for the Directorate before deserting and fleeing the failed state in 1984.