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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TerraDave" data-source="post: 1910662" data-attributes="member: 22260">I am writing this as someone who has traveled a little in the balkans/south east europe and run a Transylvania campaign in my home brew alternate earth.   Hence the long post, which I will focus for now on language, history and religion.First, to confirm Bulgarian is Slavic (and very close to Macedonian as well as Old Church Slavonic), Hungarian is related to Finn and Turkish, and Romanian is romance language like French or Italian (French is a common second language in Romania today).  Also, as has been mentioned Romania has traditionally been divided into three principalities: Transylvania, Walachia and Moldavia. The latter is now divided between the Romanian region of Moldavia and the former Soviet Republic of Moldova (Moldovan is for all intents and purposes Romanian).Translvania was ruled by the Hungarians (Magyars) for a long time, first when Hungary was a separate Kingdom, then latter as part of the Hapsburg empire (with the Hungarians in turn being dominated by the Austrians in that period).  In between the Ottoman Turks were in charge.There are three ethnic groups, Magyars, the Romanians (called Vlachs, which I think is derogatory), and a third group, the “Saxons”, German speaking colonists brought in by the Hungarians (sometimes there is reference to another group of Hungarians, but here we are really getting into the details).  The Saxons built the cities (which traditionally have both German and Romanian (and Hungarian??))names.  The “vlachs” where not allowed in them.BEGIN EDIT There is of course also Gypsies!! END EDIT The various ethnic divisions (4 main ones, plus outside intervention by Turks and Austrians) are one big source of conflict. This is compounded by religion, the Romanians are Orthodox, the Magyars Catholic.  A Unite church was created to combine rights, but I don’t know much about this.     Transylvania in its hay-day was not poor, thanks to minerals in the mountains.  But it has a bloody history.  Speaking of which Vlad Tepes (Dracula) was I think Walachian, though he got around to the other principalities as well as other parts of the Ottoman Empire.  I am sure you can easily research him—and the country in the process. A good game oriented source is the Transylvania supplement produced for Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death.</blockquote>

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