Hungary is a country in Central Europe that covers an area of 93,030 square kilometres (35,920 sq mi) in the Carpathian Basin.
Overview[]
Hungary was one of the nations ruled as Ottoman provinces until they won independence in the 19th century. Hungary boasts rich farmlands and silviculture. Hostility between Hungarians and Romanians mounts daily, and future warfare is an unpleasant but distinct possibility. Large sections of the Carpathian Mountains, including Transylvania, are in Romania, and yet in recent years this has been a terrifying place for Kindred and kine alike.
Due to the insane policies of fear and intimidation practiced by the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who refused to acknowledge the possibility of AIDS in his country, the entire nation's blood supply has been contaminated. The suffering experienced during his regime was extreme and only after his overthrow and execution in 1989 could progress toward healing the country begin.
Most of the oldest vampires in Europe live in this area, remembering ancient nights before the power of the Church, when Lupines howled in the nights and mages conducted arcane rituals in secret hovels.
As for the Inconnu themselves, most have chosen to hide themselves away and to avoid involvement in the volatile politics of the region. They look with concern toward Russia. Despite contacts among the numerous Ravnos in this area who serve as agents, the Inconnu can learn nothing about what is going on within the Russian borders. With mounting concern, they now ponder their next course of action.
Over the recent Nights, The Bahari have been expanding their operations, using the country's capital, Budapest, as a Garden of Hope.
Early History[]
Occupied and incorporated into the Roman Empire, the lands called Hungary were then known as the Province of Pannonia. The empire's defenses were upheld by the capital of Pannonia in the west, a fortress-town known as Aquincum (later to be known as Obuda) overlooking the Danube river at the point of a natural ford. The settlement on the other side of the river, Contra-Aquincum, would later form the nucleus of the town Pest.
Humans didn't act alone in their attempt to "civilize" the barbaric East. Several Cainites supported the Roman Empires. But every time the legions tried to penetrated the dark lands beyond the fertile Dacian planes, they failed. Since before remembered time, the lands had housed a great demon - a twisted, maddened entity known as Kupala.
Along with the native Tzimisce who had long ruled and feasted on the Dacians, brutal Shadow Lord werewolves stalked the land. One of their Kinfolk, known as Decebel, King of Dacia, invaded Pannonia and slaughtered the Roman armies there in the first century A.D., bringing both Dacia and Pannonia under barbarian rules. Emperor Trajan led the Roman armies in an invasion of Dacia in A.D. 106, and Decebel was driven to suicide. After fierce fighting with the Dacians, Rome settled some of her soldiers among theses independent tribespeople to prevent another uprising. The two cultures merged to become people known as Romanians. The Shadow Lords retreated to the Transylvanian Alps to lick their wounds.
When Rome withdrew from the northern provinces in 271, many of the wealthy (including most of the Roman Cainites who had come with the legions) chose to evacuate, but some remained and accepted the rule of the Goths.
When Emperor Constantine made Byzantium the second Roman capital in 330, it reflected a schism in the empire. With its collapse, the Rome's outposts in Dacia and Pannonia were abandoned. Pannonian moved westward, pushed along by invading barbarian, while the Romanians fled to the Carpathian mountains and into Transylvania. When the Roman troops fled, they left behind a sleeping Cainite, a native of the region who had been embraced by a Roman Malkavian. This tormented soul unwittingly bound himself to the demon's heart while mortal, which maddened him with its visions of the future. This Cainite took the name Octavio, for he believed that eight great signs would portend the awakening of the demon Kupala. Alter slaying his sire in a moment of madness, Octavio haunted the Roman settlement of Aquincum until he fell into torpor when the legion withdrew.
The Carpathian Basin became an outpost of the Hun Empire in the fifth century. Attila the Hun assaulted the eastern portion of the Roman Empire, driving hist troops as far as Constantinople. A huge ransom (and some say, other methods of persuasion by Michael of Clan Toreador, patriarch of the city) dissuaded Attila from pressuring further; his kingdom was short-lives. Less stable kingdoms followed.
References[]
- DAW: Werewolf: The Dark Ages, p. 47-48
- VTDA: Transylvania By Night, pp. 13-18