Varangian Blues

"'White snow, gray ice,""Upon the dry, cracked earth.' —The Sun Burns On" Varangia is shattered. The titan of the east was decimated in an instant by the hellfire of the atom, spiraling into a panorama of mass atrocity and terror as brother betrayed brother, the rivers running red with the blood of innocent and criminal alike. In an instant, Verkhazovka was obliterated: and so the great Varangian bear was decapitated. The loss of most of the Union's government in the blink of an eye immediately created a power vacuum that the remnants of the Politburo and the Proletarian Army were desperate to fill. The ensuing political struggle in the provisional capital of Smonezh ultimately led to the Army Faction triumphing, with forces loyal to the Politburo evacuating to the north, headquartering themselves in Duninsk.

The army's integrity would not last long, however. Uprisings, mass defections and collapsing infrastructure quickly confined the reach of both factions to Heosian Varangia. Two military uprisings are particularly notable as the Tsarist Uprisings, as the Zelaya Government and the Tambovskoye Government both view themselves as legal successors to the Varangian Empire, and thus function as self-declared continuations of the Varangian Empire, anticipating the eventual and total return of the Rasskazovs.

The sons of Varangia stand in the shadow of past greatness, their hands soaked with the blood of once-comrades. The Union is in shambles, and all that remains is fear and loathing.

Factions
A variety of factions now contend for supremacy in post-nuclear Varangia. The collective sum of these conflicts is generally referred to as the Second Varangian Civil War, or the General Crisis, a sarcastic quotation of state media employed during the beginning of the crisis.

This list accounts for factions of note involved in the present quagmire. Minor bandit groups, raiding parties and rogue military forces are not included in this list.


 * Army Faction - Headed by an emergency military junta, the Army Faction formed with the military's attempt to seize power after the nuclear devastation of Verkhazovka. Currently a variety of sub-factions are loyal to the junta. A tense (and oft-violated) truce currently exists with the Politburo faction, with the goal of restoring order in the region a present priority.
 * Politburo Faction - When Verkhazovka was destroyed, the state security apparatus of the Union, together with the surviving members of the Politburo, made their move. The vagueness (and overlap) of emergency succession defined in the constitution, along with severe miscommunication, led to the confrontation in Smonezh, in which the Army Faction was triumphant.
 * Transaluan SSRs - The Transaluan Sovereign Socialist Republics remained neutral in the power struggle, primarily focusing on internal restoration of order. Ethnic tensions plague the confederation of states, with pogroms especially detrimental to stability. In the north of the Varkanan SSR, Tsarist forces associated with the Zeleya regime are currently in conflict with SSR forces. There exists a significant movement in the various constituent governments of the SSRs, in the absence of Union assistance, to secede and determine their future independently, though it is subject to severe censorship and observation by the Homeland Security Bureau, or BVB.
 * Varangian Tsardom (Tambovskoye) - After the nuclear exchange, General Prokhor Zavrazin was a broken man. Aimless in the chaos following armageddon, he and his unit occupied the city of Tambovskoye in 1985, where he experienced a vision of Soter commanding him to rebuild Varangia anew. Collapsing at the steps of the Orthodox cathedral in Tambovskoye, Zavrazin pleaded for baptism, for a chance at penitence and absolution. The clergy complied, and in that moment the General was born again. Shattering the hammer and sickle, he raised instead a new banner: the tricolor of the bygone Varangian Empire, its eagle adorned with a golden chi rho. Using the radio station, he declared the Varangian Tsardom and called upon the heirs of the throne to return. Though it is uncertain who will receive the message — or even if — the Tambovskoye government remains hopeful. With access to the city's massive arsenal, underground bases and storage facilities, and a fervently loyal and zealous army, the self-declared Varangian Tsardom dreams to one day bring peace and order to all Varangia, acting with the full sanction of God.
 * Varangian Empire (Zelaya) - In November of 1984, an uprising in the Aluan Mountains took place with the aid of Estria's internal and external intelligence agency, the NSB. The Tsarists were instructed to await for the return of the Tsar, though that would never come due to the nuclear war, with only Elisavetta having arrived in the self-declared state by the time of the nuclear exchange. Left without a choice, Elisavetta was crowned Tsarina with full Orthodox ceremony, the embattled rebellion leading its struggle against the factions of the crumbling Union in a perceived sacred war to restore the Empire to bygone glory.
 * Tukkhum Imamate - The Barakist Revolution in neighboring Viran in 1983 and the ensuing civil war sowed a wave of Barakist extremism across the Middle East and its peripheries. When the nukes flew, the jihadists seized their opportunity and took control in Tukkhum, alongside defecting military forces.
 * Varangian Republic (Orno) - The closest thing to a functioning democracy in post-nuclear Varangia, the Orno Republic was founded by a ragtag mixture of different ideologies and worldviews: from disillusioned liberals in the Communist Party to traditionalist conservatives to various different dissident groups (such as the Eurysianists), the Orno Republic was founded in the spring of 1985 with the backing of local military forces that had been left aimless in the aftermath of the nuclear war. An idealist beacon of hope and a better future for Varangia, only time will tell how the great experiment of democracy will run its course in the battered post-war republic.
 * True Believers - The True Believers are a militant, ultranationalist Orthodox sect following in the footsteps of the elusive prophetess Evdokiya Annikova, whose unusual gifts and abilities demonstrated in her adolescence in the late 1970s led to a cultlike following forming around her. The cult was proscribed by Pomoisch authorities in 1982, though the young girl would elude detention by military and police. After the nuclear exchange in December of 1984, the cult, now referring to themselves as the 'True Believers', declared Evdokiya the Second Coming of Soter, and have since waged a militant campaign in the postnuclear apocalyptica to spread word of the new Savior.
 * Kovkar City Council - Due to the city of Kovkar's strategic position along the Orol Highway, along with its significant mining industry, the soviet of Kovkar managed to successfully declare the city's neutrality in the Political Crisis. Growing wealthy on the tolls it implements for passage, the city has become a beacon of hope in a hopeless land. Anyone may come to the city... provided they are educated and succeed in the Entry Raffle.
 * Volashin Republic - The General Strike of 1984 paralyzed Pomoisch industry along the Orol Mountains. It would be cut short by the nuclear war, however, forcing the provisional 'Volashin Republic' to be declared. Now it serves as an officially neutral actor in the conflict, boasting a somewhat operational democracy (albeit dominated by the interests of miners' unions and the republic's security forces). As it is a provisional state, the Volashin Republic intends to rejoin the Union once proper succession legitimacy has been asserted.
 * Mastoravian Republic - The underrepresented Mastoravian minority seized control of Cherkow Oblast in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear war, declaring the Mastoravian Republic in a plea for greater autonomy and representation.