Vrcholsce

From Scandia

Duchy of Vrcholsce

Flags of Scandia
Parent	Haromszek ( CHzS )
Founding Date	28 March 1332
Government  • Type  • Duke	Constitutional Duchy Martin sanGeriz Ruchasit
Adjective	Vrcholsci
Capital	Tisujszaburgh
Administrative Divisions	districts (22), counties (9)
Largest City	Tisujszaburgh (410,700)
Area  • Total  • % water	km² ( sq mi) 2.1%
Population  • Total  • Growth Rate  • Density  • Rank in CHzS	6,767,100 0.3/1000 /km² (/sq mi) 6 / 25
GDP  • Total  • GDP/capita  • Growth Rate  • Rank in CHzS	HzSk 48,817,803,500 HzSk 20,485 + .24% / 25
Time Zones	NMT (SMT -8)
Technology Codes  • scandianet TLD  • Trigraph  • Calling Code	.dv; .hz DVY +77

The Duchy of Vrcholsce is one of the twenty-five nominally sovereign constituent territorial republics of the Confederation of Haromszeki States.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Government 3 Economy 4 Geography 5 Military

Origins

As an independent Duchy in the 1300's and early 1400's, Vrcholsce was only heavily populated along the Jakobrieka River. The seven eighths of the Duchy then and now titled Upland Vrcholsce were sparsely populated. With better transportation numerous mining camps and villages are seeing an influx of retirees and nature lovers. If you have grown to despise today's Hz city life, it would be hard to get farther away than the Sedyvici Horskaa, Vrcholsce's mountains.

As the CHzS' Mongral ethnic group is Niveskian, and their forebears came from the north and east, the proportion of Mongral to other ethnic-republic groups is higher in Vrcholsce than anywhere else in the Haromszeks except neighboring Tarej. By the same token, the Loirisien Alpard tribe moved into Haromszek from the Cisteuvian coast, hence there are less of them in Vrcholsce than in the other territorial Haromszeki States.

The name "Vrcholsce" has been in use for over three hundred years for one political entity or another in the Sedyvici Horskaa. Locals most often pronounce the name with two syllables, as "VURR-choles", with Loirisian-speakers instead saying "veer-CHOLL-see". Others across Haromszek and Niveria use alternate pronunciations including "vir-CHOWLZ", "vir-CHOWL-zuh", or (particularly among Teuvian speakers) "vurr-CHOLL-skuh". It relates to several old Niveskian terms for high-altitude forests.

Government

Vrcholsce is a constitutional duchy. Duke Martin has limits upon his power, and the actual laws of the realm are formulated by a legislature of mixed representative and hereditary composition. Nonetheless, the Duke is a strong leader and the constitution reserves many prerogatives to him and him alone.

Ministries:

• Ducal Office 9 - intelligence service
• Production Ministry
• Ministry of Revenue
• Defense Ministry

Most of the administrative branch of the Duchy's government operates from the sanGeriz family's venerable palace just outside Tisujszaburgh. Legislative offices and meeting halls are housed in modern quarters in the center of the city, a good twenty kilometers distant. Recovering from an impasse between the Duke and his lawmakers is referred to as a dozen-kilometer position - in other words, not quite that full distance apart. Pointedly, the royal family has not removed the cannons on the front lawn of the palace -- once part of the palace's defenses, and now symbolic of the Duke's sometimes adversarial relationship with reformers in his government's domain. The artillery points in the general direction of downtown Tisujszaburgh.

Economy

Vrcholsce's stock in trade is raw materials. The duchy is a net importer of foodstuffs and manufactured goods. Barley, apples, hickory nuts, and cattle are the major agricultural products, though Longfin Trout are the best known. A growing services segment makes use of the spreading use of Scandianet to work at a distance from less picturesque business locations. People might be said to be an import -- the population is growing steadily, even more through immigration than by births.

Geography

Vrcholsce is both the easternmost of all the Haromszeki States, and the highest. With twelve of the highest fifteen peaks in Hz (only Vysocina and Tarej sharing that altitude), it has some of the wildest, most inaccessable terrain of the region. Too, though, with smelters and concentrating plants in the 1400's it became among the dirtiest of Haromszeki industrial areas. Runoff from mine tailings and toxic smokestack fumes, not to mention logging to provide mine supports and railway ties, all contributed to denuded slopes bereft of any green thing. Only in the 1500s have some of these areas begun to recover. The Uespekkic Basin still bears scars where deforested mountainsides were stripped of soil by the yearly Vesna rains.

But that heritage of mineral wealth built some prosperous cities -- villas of the mine owners draw tourists to this day. Nakruzvel grew from a hamlet of a few dozen herders and a general store to a fully-electrified city of thirty thousand with paved streets, three railroads, and telegraph connections to far-off Fitzallaine, all in ten years. Some deposits of ore played out, but those above Enju Tsjedy and Ves Parsufel continued to produce for decades. Consequently, Nakruzvel is now a thriving commercial center of ninety thousand, *still* served by three railroads, and now by a modern highway. The Duke's capital of Tisujszaburgh boasts 410,000 inhabitants and some dozen-floor buildings. Skiing in winter and hiking in summer draw CHzS and Riechstadtan enthusiasts alike.

An unusual weather condition draws immediate notice during thunderstorms. Vrcholsce produces a large portion of Niveria's noble gases. The inert gas helium is visible only in the number of lighter-than-air craft above the duchy. The active ones though like neon, argon, and xenon can leak from the ground in enough quantity to produce colorful flickers and flashes in response to lightning.

Military

The Ducal Forces are a small professional military of several-division strength. One division is always infantry, another permanently cavalry (some mechanized, some horseback). A third shifts from cav to infantry and back -- military doctrine in the Duchy has been in flux for the last decade. Winter mounts for the cav units are snowmobiles and snowcats. An air arm flies older prop fighters and patrol craft, as well as a selection of special-purpose dirigibles. Both are preferable to modern jets, considering the short runways and rugged terrain of the Duchy.

Regular military units perform border patrol duties. Riverine patrol is by a police organization, the Otter Corps (a corps in name, not in formal military organization or size).

A large contingent of reserve troops is kept in shape by yearly training and use in disaster relief. Duke Martin himself has a reserve commission of Colonel, from active then reserve duty before he became Duke. He does participate in yearly training with a different unit each year, though seldom in the field.