Six More Steampunk figures.

I painted these six a while ago, but didn't varnish them, due to the humidity. I put them in a box for safe keeping and only remembered them yesterday. So, here they are varnished and photographed.

First, Professor Prospero, Criminal Mastermind and his Arch-Nemesis, Sir Henry Huntley-Palmer.

Professor Prospero is a man of great intellect and few moral scruples. His interests include making huge amounts of money, outsmarting the minions of Laura Norder and making even more money. His fingers are in many pies; drug smuggling, white slavery, art theft, forgery, blackmail and espionage are only the most common of his criminal activities. He is often found working for Foreign Government Agencies and Secret Shadowy Powers. The Professor's preferred weapon is his sword stick, but he is also a Master of Mesmerism and other Arcane Talents.

Sir Henry Huntley-Palmer, late of the 10th (The Prince of Wales's Own) Royal Hussars, is a man of huge physical strength, which exceeds his intellectual prowess, and much personal charm. His friends tend to think of him as a clubbable stout chap, always worth having on one's side in a scrap but hardly the book-reading aesthete. His favourite weapon is the fearsome seven-barrelled Nock Gun. A founder member of The Adventurer's Society of Pall Mall, Sir Henry is descended from the famous 18th century government agent and soldier Sir William Huntley-Palmer, and is the younger brother of the diplomat and Foreign Office mandarin Sir Arthur Huntley-Palmer. Sir Henry's father, Lt. Col Henry Huntley-Palmer (b.1801 d.1889) was former British Military attaché to Syldavia in the 1850s.

Next, here are four more Agents of a Secret Shadowy Power. The first two are equipped with some long-range firepower. The one on the right has a Nock Gun and his companion is equipped with some kind of experimental gun for firing explosive or gas grenades.

And finally, here are two more Agents with the same kind of pistols and bombs as their comrades I painted a while back.

I think that these Shadowy Agents will end up carrying out the Nefarious Schemes and Damnable Stratagems of Professor Prospero most of the time.

These figures are all from the excellent Ironclad Miniatures Victorian Sci Fi and Steampunk range and will be used for games of In Her Majesty's Name.

The Last Amazon .....

... which sounds like it ought to be the title of a novel, but it isn't.

She is the Queen of my Bad Squiddo Amazons, and obviously her name is Hippolyta. In Greek mythology, Hippolyta was the daughter of the god Ares and Otrera. Otrera was the creator and first Queen of the Amazons. 

Below is a side view of her. The name Hippolyta can be translated as something like "She who let loose the horses". Her girdle (actually a kind of belt and not an undergarment) was the subject of the Ninth Labour of Heracles. In that legend, she was slain by Heracles. Miraculously, perhaps, she also pops up in the legends of Theseus of Athens, where she becomes his wife, leading to the Attic War, when her sister and successor as Queen, Penthesilea led the Amazons to attack Athens, and Hippolyta is killed in battle. Other variations of this story also exist. In some of those other versions different daughters of Ares and Otrera are named as the Amazon who ran off with Theseus.

Mary Renault tells her own version of Theseus and Hippolyta in her novel "The Bull From The Sea". It is a book I fell in love with as a teenager.

Here she is again from the other side. I really like her bronze arm armour and armoured glove. She clearly couldn't use a two-handed axe with a shield, but she would still need protection in battle, so this armour seems appropriate.

I have used the same violet/lavender colour for her cloak, which you can see below. This view shows the one thing that I think I've done wrong with this figure, and that is miss the unsightly blob of ink on the lower part of her cloak. I only noticed it after the varnish had dried, which is a pain. I may have to go back and do some remedial work to minimise it.

Four more Bad Squiddo Amazons

This is my penultimate Amazon post. Scroll down to see all four.

Above are an archer and a warrior. Below are two more warriors.

I have tried to stick to a relatively limited colour palette throughout, but a few splashes of red and pale blue seem to lift the appearance of the group as a whole. They have been a fun project, but it isn't quite finished, though. I still have to finish painting the Goddess Athena and I have a few minis left that I want to turn into a vignette, but that will have to wait. Hopefully, I'll  get Athena done this weekend, bar varnishing, because of the humidity.

So, this is the complete Band of Sisters. The final post will be their Queen, who obviously has to be called Hippolyta. I'll probably include a group shot in that post, too.

A couple more Bad Squiddo Amazons

I finished off all the rest of my Bad Squiddo Amazons yesterday, but I've decided to make separate posts for them. To be honest, there wasn't a great deal left to do, just the tufts and then varnishing, but I don't want to just bung them all into one single post, because they all deserve their own moment of glory.

Here we have a musician and a warrior at rest. You'll note that for these two, I have stuck closely to the colour palette I used a month or so ago for the standard bearer. I think that the violet works well for their tunics and the turquoise tail on the musician's helmet is a definite Baggy colour.

Once again, these are lovely clean casts and they painted up really easily. The bases are adorned with more excellent Gamer's Grass tufts, available on the Bad Squiddo website.

Early Imperial Roman Auxilia

As a preparation for my next big painting project for the TooFatLardies Infamy, Infamy rules, I wrote up a backstory for the Auxiliary Cohort that I will be assembling from the excellent plastic Victrix Early Imperial Infantry and Cavalry Auxilia sets.

My plan is to create a force based on a cohors equitata quingenaria, which was a mixed cohort of 600 men, 480 infantry and 120 cavalry. 

Although the Romans had long used auxiliary units recruited from allied tribal groups bordering on or from within the empire itself, these were never formally incorporated into the structure of the army. However, from the time of Augustus onward, auxiliary cohorts became a regular part of Roman armies, and were fully integrated into the Roman system. The auxiliary cohorts were recruited from  the class of people known as peregrini, that is to say from the free non-citizens of the provinces of the empire.

I decided that instead of basing my troops on any existing historical unit, I would place their origins in my imagi-nation of Syldavia.

Roman Syldavia

History tells us very little about the peoples of pre-Roman Syldavia. A fragment of a lost work attributed to Herodotus records that black pelican feathers from the Land of the Sylvans were much sought out for helmet plumes in Greece and that the tribes of the country were “warlike, tall, well-built and fond of feasting, hunting and drinking in the manner of the ancient heroes of the long-haired Achaeans”, that their lords lived in “great hill-top palaces girt with tall walls built by the Cyclopes” and that the people honoured “Chthonic gods unknown to the citizens of the cities of Hellas”.

Sometime around 337 BCE: Alexander the Great is said to have campaigned against a  number of tribes of the region. These were recorded as being the Goganidae, the Calippians and the Donantae, these being the Greek names for the tribes. The Romans later knew them as the Goganii, Calippii and Donantii.                           

In 281 BCE, an army sent by King Pyrrhus of Epirus is said to have been defeated by the Goganidae in a battle in a place called Xalippium. This site has never been definitively identified, although it has tentatively been linked to a site on the plans about 30 km east of the modern city of Travunje, where archaeologists have uncovered what appear to be the remains of a battle of the Hellenistic period.

In 87 BCE, the Roman period begins when the tribes of the northern regions along the valley of the River Trebjesa and southern Zympathia are defeated and subjugated by the legions of Gaius Hilarius Pollo. A number of oppida were besieged and reduced in the modern provinces of Zympathia and Wladruja and the Goganii and Donantii submit to Roman rule. In the following year, Bestus, king of the Calippii (Rex Calippiorum) submitted to Rome and most of the coastal littoral and the lowland interior of modern Syldavia was absorbed into the Empire as the two provinces of  Syldavia Superior and Syldavia Inferior. The cities (colonia) of Klovinus (Klow) and Istriodunum (later Istrow, modern Istow) were founded by veterans of Legio XXXXII Invictus.
                                                                                     
During the Civil Wars of the First Triumvirate, both Syldavian provinces were controlled by Julius Caesar, who recruited auxiliary troops from the peregrini of Syldavia, the warlike Goganii of the north being considered amongst the best of his allied contingents.

After the death of Caesar, the Syldavian provinces came initially under the control of Brutus, but following the Treaty of Brundisium in 40 BCE, they became part of the possessions of Lepidus. After Lepidus was deposed and exiled by Octavian, the inland portions of Syldavia were absorbed into the empire, as a result of Octavian’s campaigns in the Balkans and the two provinces were then much enlarged. The colonia of Klovinus had been partially razed during these campaigns but was rebuilt by the provincial governor, Marcus Totalis Nervus in 39 BCE.

In the years following the assumption of imperial power by Octavian as the Emperor Augustus, both Syldavian provinces prospered and became integrated into the empire. During the Augustan period six cohorts of auxiliary troops were raised in the provinces. These consisted of four cohortes equitate quingenarie (i.e. a mixed unit of 480 infantry 120 and cavalry, totalling 600 men), one cohors peditata milliara (800 infantry) and one ala milliara (720 cavalry).

These were named as;

Cohors Primus Syldaviorum equitata Luperci
Cohors Secundus Syldaviorum equitata
Cohors Tertius Syldaviorum equitata
Cohors Primus Calippii equitata
Cohors Primus Syldaviorum peditata
Ala  Primus Donantorum                                                                                 

All of these units are recorded as still being in existence in the 4th century, in a little-known addendum to the Notitia dignitatum, known as the Notitia Syldaviorum (a document that should not be confused with a text dating to the 8th century known as the Notitia Syldaviarum). In this text, the Ala Donantorum is categorised as being equites clibanarii, which indicates that at some point in the unit’s existence it was converted into heavily-armoured cavalry.

Little is known about the deployments of any of these auxiliary cohorts, although it has been suggested that the three cohortes Syldaviorum equitatae were present in the Dacian campaigns of Trajan and that the first cohort may have been part of the Roman garrison in Britain during the second half of the 1st century and, together with the second cohort also served in Germania in the 1st and early 2nd centuries. A partially legible funerary inscription found in northern Syria in the 1930s contains the following;

“M. HOSTILIUS GAVIA. OPTIO III COHORS S...........M”

Which some have taken as evidence that the Cohors III Syldaviorum equitata could have been stationed in Syria Coele at that time.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
It is recorded that the initial recruitment for the first cohort was exclusively from among the Goganii, a tribal grouping living in an area roughly contiguous with modern Zympathia, Hum and Wladruja, and associated with a cult that venerated a wolf deity sometimes called Lykas, and this was reflected in the occasional wearing of wolf pelts as cloaks by some of the troops, as well as the sobriquet Luperci, i.e. “Brothers of the Wolf” attached to the name of the cohort. The 2nd century Roman author, Gnaeus Populus Silvus, of Goganian origins himself, connected the traditional cult with the Roman festival of Lupercalia and the Roman deity Lubercus.

Similarly, the fourth cohors equitata from Syldavia was named the Cohors Primus Calippii equitata because it was initially recruited from the Greek-speaking Calippians of southern Syldavia Inferior, who lived in an area stretching north from modern Cataro (Roman Castrum Caetarus) to the valley of the River Wladir (ancient name uncertain, but suggested to be Vallidos or Ballidos) and west as far as the modern Travunje.

The ethnic  composition of the remaining cohorts is presumed to have been mixed, apart from the all-cavalry Ala Donantorum, which was raised from the Donantii, a group of tribes who appear to have inhabited a large area covering the modern day provinces of Moltuja and Polishov, centred around the modern city of Istow. Roman Istriodunum was built on the site of a large oppidum which was probably the “capital” of the Donantii. Numerous objects of Illyrian and Scythian origins have been found at various times by archaeologists working in the extensive ruins of Roman Istriodunum, which has been preserved because the site was never reoccupied after its abandonment in the 4th century.

Thus, we can see that Roman Syldavia was inhabited by three main tribal groups,  the Goganii in the west and north west, the Donantii in the centre and north-east and the Calipii in the south and south-east.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                         
  

More Amazons join the Sisterhood

Thanks to the continued dry weather, the Curse of the Fogged Varnish has receded. Therefore, I have finished off five more Bad Squiddo Amazons. 

These two look quite different to one another. I think that the one on the left, drawing her sword is more of a fantasy figure, reminding me very much of an old Warhammer fantasy High Elf but I don't think that really matters. She could equally be a dismounted cavalry figure and, when all's said and done, the Amazons themselves are a people from legend.

Here are three heavily-armoured warriors, the kind of women you would definitely want in the front rank in your shieldwall.

I absolutely love these three. They came out exactly as I had visualised them in my head, which made me very happy. It is always a good thing when what I plan comes together so well. Shame I didn't spot the small piece of dog hair on the shoulder of the left hand figure before I photographed her. Still, it is gone now.

Amazons ............... or maybe something else?

Well, I decided that I would risk a spot of varnishing this morning, seeing as it hasn't been raining here for a while. I have a few more Amazons finished, ready for the ordeal by spray but I thought that I'd stick to just two first.

They are a nice pair; an experienced fighter and a younger warrior in training, equipped with a quarterstaff. I think these are pretty good proxies for Xena and Gabrielle of Xena: Warrior Princess fame.

I rather like the way the bases have come out here, once again using Gamer's Grass tufts, but also bits of cork debris as rocks, plus a gravel and ballast mix. I think that the "rock" on Gabby's base looks quite like a piece of broken column with those vertical dark lines.

The Xena figure is one of the nicest ones in the whole Bad Squiddo Amazon range, to my eye. The sculpt is really nice, but the thing that makes it stand out is the ornate hoplon shield with the lion pelt attached to it.

So, I am happy, as well as relieved that there was no fogging this time. I shall now varnish a couple more figures.

What do people think? Xena and Gabby? Yes or No?

Rain stops play ..................

It is hardly unexpected that as we move towards Summer here the heavens open and we have days of heavy rain. Perhaps the Rain Gods weren't told that Glastonbury had been cancelled because of the machinations of the Plague Daemons? Who knows? Maybe, the deities aren't involved and it is just  the arrival of yet another classic British Summer. 

Anyway, the side effect of this is that although the isolation painting continues apace, I cannot finish anything off because of the risk of fogging caused by excess humidity. To say that I am not happy with this state of affairs is an understatement.

What with the rain and the pandemic, I am a very disgruntled bunny. 

<OK, rant starts here> 

Because of the pandemic, we had to cancel our planned and booked (but not paid for, apart from the deposit) Summer holiday in south-west France. There is still too much uncertainty over travel regulations and possible quarantine rules to carry on with a trip planned for July 3rd. 

It will be the first time since 2003 that we haven't been over there and, I think only the third year in which I haven't visited France since the mid-1980s. We still harbour plans to get over there before the end of the year, though, assuming that travel etc is all back to normal by late-Autumn. 

I really hope we can get across because it will probably be our final chance to take the dogs over with us, partly because they are old ladies now (they will be 14 at the end of October) and partly because January 1st next year marks the end of membership of the EU Pet Passport scheme for the UK. 

We had already discussed the issue of long journeys for the dogs in 2021 and considered that it might be too much for them and had decided to make this year's holiday a special event. Anyway, the pandemic put an end to that. I'm not complaining about the restrictions. We have seen too many deaths and sadness to behave selfishly in this matter, but I cannot pretend to be happy about it. So, unless we can get to France before the end of the year, last Summer was our final French holiday. I really cannot contemplate going away and leaving them behind. They are too much a part of our lives to leave them alone with strangers for two weeks.

</Rant over>

Infamy, Infamy

Some people, mainly those of us who are Followers of the Lard, have eagerly been awaiting the arrival of ToofatLardies new rules for large skirmish games set in the Julian and Earlier Imperial Roman periods. Well, the wait is over. Advanced orders are now being taken over on the TooFatLardies website.

The image shown above is the actual artwork for the official rulebook, painted by famous military artist, Chris Collingwood. It is an image called "Breaking the Line AD 73" and represents a battle from the period when Petillius Cerialis campaigned in northern Britain against the Brigantes, Parisi or Carveti in that year. 

All advanced order entries will be entered into a draw to win a signed copy of a highly limited edition print, one of only 10 produced.

You can read all about the rules on the Lard Island blog;

Infamy, Infamy! is a game that will, ultimately, be divided into three parts.  This is the first rule book which covers Rome’s conflicts with the western barbarian between 60 BC and AD 100.  Covered in the rules are lists for Late Republican forces that can be used for Caesar and his campaigns in Gaul and Britannia and against the German tribes raiding across the Rhine.  The Early Imperial Roman lists are perfect for the conquest of Britannia under Claudius and the continuing campaigns through to Agricola’s conquest of the North and beyond.  The British lists cover the period from Caesar’s invasions through to Mons Graupius, including lists for Boudicca’s revolt.  Gallic lists cover the classic period of conquest of the Gallic Wars with the Belgea and Aquitani represented and make every effort to reflect the more advanced culture of the Gauls. The Germans, on the other hand, are the ultimate Barbarians, with lists for the tribes of the Rhineland and those of the dark forests of Germania Magna and for the Batavian Revolt.

I now need to actually make a start on my Victrix Early Imperial Roman Auxiliary Infantry and Cavalry for my planned force, which will represent troops of a Cohors Equitata Quinquagenaria, a mixed auxiliary force of both foot and mounted troops, of the kind that was widely used in the Principate across the Empire, and which was stationed along or near the limes, the borders of the Empire.

Recruited from the peregrini, that is non-citizens living inside the empire, the Auxilia became increasingly important during the 1st and 2nd centuries, with auxiliary cohorts forming at least half of the empire's fighting power in the 2nd century.

Two more Amazons

I completed two more Bad Squiddo Amazons yesterday and varnished them, with a degree of trepidation after what happened to the previous two.

The figure on the right with the owl is an older Bad Squiddo figure, but she fits quite nicely into the Amazon theme, seeing as the owl was a common symbol of the goddess Athena. She makes quite a nice Shaman, I think, or maybe a rustic priestess of the Goddess. The origin of the association of the owl with Athena is unclear and a number of ideas co-exist. The anthropologist and archeologist Marijas Gimbutas, considered a controversial figure (mainly for her feminist interpretations of the past) suggests an origin going back to the Neolithic Period in Europe before the arrival of Indo-European-speaking peoples. 

The figure on the left looks quite like she could serve as a Roman female gladiator, which were a real thing, although the evidence for them is not large. They were sometimes described as "Amazons", which is perfect in this context. The Emperor Domitian is said to have put on Games features battles with Amazons.

There was a class of gladiator (or gladiatrix here) known as dimachaeri, meaning "carrying two knives or blades" in Greek, and these could easily have been siccae, a curve-bladed sword associated with Illyrians, Dacians and Thracians. I think that is appropriate for an Amazon.

The next Isolation project - Bad Squiddo Amazons.

Well I actually started this project about a month ago, here with a Standard Bearer, but I am now working on all the rest of my Bad Squiddo Amazons. Here are the first two I have completed;

On the website, Annie describes the figure on the left as an Assassin and the other as an Amazon Captain. I think of her as my Strategissa (the female counterpart of a Strategos, meaning "army leader").

I am really very pleased with these two figures. They are lovely clean casts of excellent sculpts and the folds and drapes of the cloaks and robes gave me lots of nice detail to work with. The tufts on the bases are also from Annie. They are Gamer's Grass ones.

Originally released as a Kickstarter, these are currently available on the Bad Squiddo website, along with many of their sisters.

I thought that I had had a disaster when I varnished these. I usually use Humbrol spray varnish, which I always give a good shake to ensure the contents of the can are properly mixed. I was horrified after spraying to see that all the metallic paints had fogged. I can only assume that there was residual humidity in the air. However, I was able to salvage matters by a judicial application of additional paint over the affected areas, which solved the problem. Strangely, the parts of the figures with no metallic paint weren't in the slightest bit fogged, otherwise I would have had a real problem, requiring the olive oil treatment.

The rest of the Syldavian Königliche Gendarmerie

Here are the remaining five members of my Königliche Gendarmerie. They are in two pictures, so you'll need to scroll down.

Above are a Feldwebel (sergeant), a senior NCO, in his distinctive red uniform trousers with a Gendarm, that is the basic rank in the Gendarmerie, equivalent to a Soldat (private) in Infantry regiments. Below are three more members of the Gendarmerie, two Gendarms and a junior NCO, a Gefreiter (corporal) on the right. In the Gendarmerie, junior NCOs are only distinguished from rankers by a brass button on each of their shoulder tabs (not visible in the photo).

So, these are the last of my figures for my Syldavian and Bordurian companies for  In Her Majesty's Name . 

I need a new project now.

Some Syldavian troops of the Königliche Gendarmerie

I mentioned in an earlier post that the plainclothes Syldavian secret police, the Vohunska, often call upon support from the Königliche Gendarmerie. Here is an officer and two gendarmes from that fine service.

The Syldavian Königliche Gendarmerie was created in 1855 as part of the reorganisation of the existing regional militia battalions, to serve as both a Police force and a military reserve. In 1871, a separate National Reserve was created, leaving the Gendarmerie as a specialist national Police Force and Border Service. The Gendarmerie is part of the Syldavian army, and uses army ranks, except that the lowest rank is Gendarm instead of Soldat. Senior NCOs hold the rank of Wachtmeister.

The Gendarmerie wears the blue/grey army uniform, first introduced in 1822 (to replace the previous light grey uniforms worn since the end of the 17th century) as modified in 1849 when the kepi replaced the shako. Senior NCOs and officers wear red trousers and officers wear the 1867 pattern officers's kepi with a black leather peak. Other ranks wear grey gaiters with the trousers. Leather is brown for all ranks. The top part of the kepi is in the Gendarmerie's pale blue arm of service colour, as is the crown of the officer's kepi. 

Uniforms are cut in a French pattern and there is a white French-pattern "salacot" helmet, which is often worn on parade or by gendarmes guarding official buildings. In these situations, white gaiters are also worn. Where using a rifle is inappropriate, all ranks wear sidearms and will also be equipped with batons (swords for officers).

These figures are from North Star and are actually Artizan Designs French Foreign Legion ones. Obviously I will be using these figures in games of  In Her Majesty's Name and also in other pulp and Cthulhu Mythos games. 

I think that these will be worthy opponents of the Bordurians I have already painted. I will post the rest of them in future posts.

The final plainclothes Syldavian agents

Well, here are the two final plainclothes members of my Syldavian secret policemen. As previously, they are from the North Star Steampunk range. 

The eagle-eyed amongst you will note that they are duplicate poses to two of the others. I don't see this as any kind of a problem, because they have been painted in different colours. I think that the chap on the left looks a bit like Neville Chamberlain. I expect that he takes a much firmer line with miscreants and ne'er-do-wells though.

I can see these figures in all manner of settings. Blasting away fruitlessly at Shoggoths in Cthulhu-based games is a distinct possibility, as are supporting roles on Pulp games too.

So, now I have to paint up some uniformed members of the Königliche Gendarmerie. That should be fun. When they are done, that will mean that my Syldavian company for  In Her Majesty's Name is complete.

Some more information about Syldavia

In 1878, the 21-year old Miss Dorothea Huntley-Palmer travelled to Syldavia with her parents, Sir Arthur and Lady Caroline, for the coronation of the new King, Muskar VII. Sir Arthur was travelling in an official but unspecified capacity as a representative of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office.

      This image is by Edward Lear of the Albanian city of Durres.

The Huntley-Palmer family had a long history of visiting Syldavia, dating back to Captain (later Sir) William Huntley-Palmer of the 11^th Dragoons, who travelled widely in that country in the mid-18th century at the behest of the British government, first visiting Syldavia in 1753 on the orders of General Sir George Augustus Melchett, a relative and his superior in an unnamed government department. William Huntley-Palmer lived in Syldavia for a number of years and in 1763 married the 22-year-old Doroteja Svinjske-Klobase, a member of a noble family related to the Syldavian Royal House of Almaszout.

Before visiting the country, Dorothea (named after her Syldavian ancestor) investigated the journals and papers of her illustrious forefather and because of family connections was able to consult many documents contained in the Melchett Archives.

William Huntley-Palmer was resident in Syldavia between 1756 and 1764 and wrote at length about the people, customs, places and history of the country. Dorothea was most interested in the capital city Klow (variously pronounced as Klau, Klov and Klor), because that is where she would be residing initially. In one report, Sir William describes Klow as;

"an ancient but well-preserved city, constructed of pale yellow limestone with several grand palacioes in the Venetian style, possessing a number of fine antique ruins from the Roman period. The Basilica of St Budvar gives the appearance of great antiquity and was surely constructed by mighty engineers from imperial Rome or Constantinople in the years of its glory This great church is decorated in the Byzantine manner, with many mosaics and icons and has a great dome of ancient and ingenious construction. Much of the water supply to the Old City comes from a still-functional Roman aqueduct. The Old City, which occupies the long ridge overlooking the confluence of the Wladir and Moltus rivers is still known by its Roman name of Klovinus and is dominated by the great mass of the mediaeval Castle, formerly the Royal Residence and location of the Royal Court, although nowadays there is a modern Royal Palace built in the French style facing the Castle across the main square. The Castle itself is of a stern aspect and strongly built in the old Italian manner, with all manner of machicolations, arrow slits, round towers and fortified gateways”.

Sir William writes at length about the Old City, noting that many mediaeval buildings were razed to allow the building of the New Palace, which was only completed in 1742, although construction had begun in the 1720s. Sir William himself spent some time residing in a mediaeval tower house in the Old City, once the residence of Sidekar Krutusne, a famous warlord of the Slavonic Hvegs in the 15th century. Close to the Basilica, the house bore a bas-relief indicating that in 1464 its owner had been made one of the founding Knights of the Order of the Black Pelican. The carving above the entrance to the house showed a Pelican Rampant, bearing in its beak a scroll emblazoned with the Latin phrase “hoc signo vinces nigrum onocrotalus” and dated 1464.

Sir William also describes the newer parts of the city of Klow, which are mainly on the south bank of the River Wladir, although there are many houses and warehouses of the 17^th century on the slopes outside the Old City Walls that lead down to the wharves that line the northern bank of the river. To the north of the city, he describes the market gardens and small farms that have sprung up over the centuries to feed the urban population. He also notes the remaining Roman ruins at the western end of the Klovinus ridge, enclosed in a walled park which forms part of the modern Royal Palace. In his words;

“The remaining vestiges of Roman Klovinus, which was built on the site of an Oppidum of the Illyrian tribe of the Kallipians, are to the west of the Palace and are part of the parklands in which King Ottokar, his wife Queen Octavie and their children may be found taking the airs and enjoying musical performances in the simulacrum of a small Roman theatre which has been reconstructed from the stones left from the destruction of much of the mediaeval city. The remains themselves consist of two pillared temples, one still with its roof, the lower floor levels of a great villa, some statuary and a square building which had been decorated with mosaics in the Christian period of Roman rule. The famous aqueduct, which is one of the marvels of the country, lies elsewhere, entering Klovinus through a tunnel through the walls further east, filling the great cisterns beneath the Castle. These waters come from the north, transported by this great Roman enterprise from springs high above the fortress of St Vladimir, which was rebuilt in the manner of Marshal Vauban in the early 1700s.”

Discussing modern Klow, Sir William says;

“The Lower City, the Extra-Muros, dates mainly from the 15^th and 16^th centuries. It is found on the Right Bank, that is to say the northern side of the great River Wladir. Much of the building is in the Venetian style and there are a number of fine Palacios belonging to merchant families. At the western end of the Extra-Muros is the Quarter of the Musselmen, where the tall towers of their temples, known as Mosques, dominate the skyline. There are also numerous residences on the terraced slopes leading down from the Old City Walls, which were once the mansios and hotels of various Syldavian lords and gentry, although these are mostly now much decayed and occupied by those artizans and workers of the Old City whose homes were razed to build King Ottokar’s father’s new palace. The Lords and Gentlemen have decamped to a location to the east of Klow, in the tongue of land between the Moltus and Wladir rivers. Formerly the fishing village of Sankt Budvarius (there is a shrine to the saint situated close to the river), since the middle part of the 17^th century this village has been built up into a sophisticated suburb with a theatre for the Opera and other musical diversions. South of the Wladir, the Left Bank may be reached by three great bridges. New Klow proper can be found here. Close to the river, there are many enterprises and manufactories and the houses are small and close together. This area was formerly known as die Häfen, that is to say, The Harbours. This is where the urban poor and labouring classes of New Klow are concentrated. South of these warrens, past the New Market of Klow, built in 1670 by the order of King Muskar IV (grandfather of the current King), there is much new building, including districts of fine houses when the new middling classes reside. At the western edge of the New City lies the Champs de Mars (named in the French way) and the main depots and barracks of a number of regiments of the Syldavian army. None of New Klow is walled and the city is extending southwards as the population grows”

Dorothy notes that her family will reside in a mansion in Sankt Budvarius which is currently the British Embassy. Since the 1760s, Sankt Budvarius has developed into an administrative centre, with a number of government ministries and foreign legations and embassies located there.

In her journal, Dorothea writes that her family and personal servants would travel across Europe by train to Venice, before taking a steamer to the main Syldavian port of Dbrnouk, from whence they would complete their journey by train to the capital. She expresses a desire to explore the old town of Dbrnouk and practice her watercolour techniques by painting the ruins of the Venetian castle. She tells us that she is much taken with the story of the first King of Syldavia, Muskar I, recorded in mediaeval documents as Muscarius Hivegiorum, that is to say Muskar Hveghi or Muskar of the Hvegs, who became king in 1127, leading an army of Hvegi and Istrovni supported by Venetian and Carinthian mercenaries, overthrowing the last Turkic khan of Lower Syldavia at the Battle of Zileheroum. Legend tells that the night before the battle Muskar dreamt of a giant black pelican who flew out of the dawn bearing in its beak a scroll inscribed with the words “hoc signo vinces nigrum onocrotalus”. This legend will much later on give birth to the Knightly Order of the Black Pelican.

Dorothea writes that the Hvegi and Istrovni were Slavonic tribes who had migrated into the region in the 6^th century, and who were later “enslaved” by Turkic-speaking tribes from the area north of the Black Sea, who conquered the Duchies of Klovinia, Zympathia and Istrovia in the 10^th century. The first recorded Slavic ruler of the area was Budvar I, known as Budvarios Sclavenios in a document from the reign of the eastern Roman emperor Tiberius II Constantine. The inhabitants were referred to as the Klovinioi. The 8^th century Notitia Syldaviarum tells us that the peoples (populi Syldavari) of Upper and Lower Syldavia are comprised of the Illyrian Ghogs, the Syldavi (descended from Roman colonists), the Gothic Tervingi and the Slavic Istrovni and Hvegi.

Other things that Dorothea discovers in the Melchett Archives date from the end of the 18^th century and the early years of the 19^th.. One of these is that Admiral Nelson spent some time in the southern port of Cataro with Lady Hamilton in 1799, while his ships were refitting in the great Cataro Lagoon, a safe harbour for many ships. Another is that her grandfather Sir Robert Huntley-Palmer (b.1794 d.1867) met Lord Byron in Klow in 1819, while visiting the country as a guest of Count Otto Svinjske-Klobase, a member of his grandmother Doroteja‘s family. Dorothea expresses the hope that she will also meet her Svinjske-Klobase relatives while staying in Klow. She writes, somewhat colourfully, of her desire to meet dashing young Syldavian Hussar officers and being able to attend glittering balls and soirées where she can spend her time dancing amidst the cream of Syldavian society. She notes that her great-uncle Lt. Col Henry Huntley-Palmer (b.1801 d.1889) was British Military attaché to Syldavia in the 1850s and was an observer present at a number of engagements between Syldavia and Borduria in the War of 1859-1863, which eventually led to the end of the Bordurian Autocracy and the rise of its present Dictatorship.