Factions in the Dark Country

Much like Scott, I've been thinking about the combination of wargames and Roleplaying games quite a bit recently.  There are a number of reasons for this, but the main ones are that I'm a bit of an armchair general and I'm rather curious to see what kinds of armies I can come up with for Nightwick's World.

Thinking about this has also helped me coalesce my ideas about the Nightwick campaign and the milieu's various movers and shakers.  12 out of the 25 squares on the large map I made are devoted to the Dark Country, so there is some room for armies to move about and battles to be had.

Here are some brief descriptions of the various factions and/or leaders.  These only cover the ones that can be found in the Dark Country parts of the map.  There are other factions to be found in the World, but they won't have a large enough presence in the Dark Country itself to warrant an army list yet.

The Seven Cities  -- The Sword Brothers and the merchants who funded them founded these cities at various points during the attempted conquest of the Dark Country.  They are\ still controlled by various Westerners, but settlement has slowed to a trickle due to the disbanding of the Sword Brothers and losses to the barbarians.  The cities are not unified, but usually band together against their common enemies.  Some cities are ruled by bishops, others by merchant houses, and others by exiled Western nobles.  I would most likely do up one army list, but paint different armies to represent the different cities.  Culturally speaking they are Western European c. 15th century (particularly French and English) sans gunpowder.  Their fantastic troops are probably going to be various clerics and magicians rather than out-and-out monsters.

The Petty Kings  -- Barbarians who lived in the Dark Country before the arrival of the Sword Brothers.  They're who the Brothers wanted to convert.  They aren't the natives, but threw out the natives centuries before the Sword Brothers set up their monasteries so they might as well be.  They're even less unified than the Seven Cities.  Culturally speaking they're Germanic tribesman (think Saxons and Goths not Vikings).  Their fantastic troops will most likely be things such as Giants, giant wolves, and bone witches.

Novgova -- A pseudo-Russian City-State that lies across the mountains.  They hold a key mountain pass to the East and use it to trade with the Petty Kingdoms and the Seven Cities.  They worship the God of Law but their Church is considered heretical by the West.  They're similar to the Rus c. Alexander Nevsky and have some Steppe People allies.   I'm not sure what kind of fantastic troops to give them.

The Mountain King  -- The last Dwarf King who still retains his hold.  His army doesn't move that much from his hall because of constant goblin threat.  Still, he might be persuaded if something was to threaten the place of Law in the Dark Country.  I'll probably have to settle for the typical Norse style Dwarves, but if I can find some that resemble ancient Semitic peoples I'll snap them up in a second.

The White Lady  -- Fairy bitch from hell.  Her army issues forth from the Witch Wood and carts people off to God knows where.  Mostly Orcs but the elite troops are elves and fairies of various types.

Nightwick Abbey -- For Roleplaying purposes, the Abbey is more or less dormant, but I can see wargaming scenarios in which the unquite dead ride to ruin and to slake the blood lust of their demonic masters.  The Sword Brothers are modeled after the Teutonic Knights, so some of those minis painted to be ghostly and blood covered should work.  All of their troops are fantastic (being undead) but some demons and ghosts will help to add to the other-worldlyness.

Thats all I have for now.  Again, that's only the factions that are in the Dark Country itself.  The West will have a number of different kingdoms, and the Desert Lands and the remnants of the old Empire haven't even been touched yet.