How this doc was built

Surfaced during a deep GPT-log research pass (2026-08-13) specifically hunting for race-kingdom locations, which turned up named capitals for four of the five Post-Yawning blocs that had never been written up anywhere — they only ever existed as scattered messages across three 2023 sessions. Every claim below is attributed to its source; verify against the original before treating anything here as locked canon, same standard as the rest of this vault.

Capitals of the Post-Yawning Empires

Catholic League — Rome, with a dispossessed Archduke's court at Vienna

The Catholic League's formal seat is Rome. The Demiduke of Vienna — the current holder is Franz Joseph, styled "the Magnanimous Archduke of Steel" — resides in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, but not as a rival claimant to the city: his line was excommunicated and stripped of its real Habsburg territories generations ago, and the title he holds carries no land beyond his own tiny exile zone. Full biography, the 1705 origin of that excommunication, and how his presence there reconciles with Vienna's own neutrality: see Franz Joseph.

Source: DnD Victorian SCP Campaign, 2023-07-23

Orthodox Empire — Krestgrad, on the Volga

"Krestgrad" — a city named for the cross, a potent symbol in Orthodoxy — on the Volga river.

Source: DnD Victorian SCP Campaign, 2023-07-23 (2023-07-31 sub-session)

Protestant Union — Bornholm, in the real Baltic Sea

The council's actual meeting seat is the island of Bornholm, a real Danish island in the Baltic — not a fictional or symbolic-only location. The path to that decision is itself worth keeping:

  • Initial ideas (2023-07-17): a "floating council" meeting offshore near Berlin/Vilnius/Riga/Tallinn for security from Orthodox attack, or a rotating circuit through Baltic capitals (Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki).
  • Then narrowed to two real island candidates: the Åland Islands (between Sweden and Finland) or Bornholm.
  • Bornholm won specifically for defensibility ("the most defensible when looked at by map") and size (588 km², enough for real land grants to member states) over a smaller initially-considered island, Hesselø.

Source: Disney-inspired D&D Artifacts, 2023-07-17; Uniting Protestant Powers, 2023-07-20 (2023-07-21 sub-session)

The island itself is politically structured as ten radial wedges, one per member state, radiating from a central meeting house with "spoke" halls representing each capital — with the Huguenots given an enlarged wedge (from Gudhjem to Tjørneby) as a homeland gesture given their real history of persecution and diaspora. The small islands of Christiansø and Frederiksø, a real ferry-linked pair just northeast of Bornholm, tie in as a satellite outpost.

The council's own institutional identity, also from this session:

  • Motto: "Unity in Faith, Strength in Diversity"
  • Alternative names: The Protestant Union, The Council of Protestant Nations, The Protestant Alliance
  • Founding date: 1705 (matching the Yawning itself)
  • Leadership: rotating among member-state representatives, no single fixed head — consistent with the "no obvious single ruler" structural note already on the Protestant Confederacy page
  • Named formal meeting place: "Artzainen Etxea" ("House of the Shepherds," Basque-derived) — a name, not a location; the location is Bornholm above, not the Basque country.

Source: Uniting Protestant Powers, 2023-07-20 (2023-07-21 sub-session)

Islamic Caliphate — Istanbul

Istanbul. No further elaboration recovered.

Source: DnD Victorian SCP Campaign, 2023-07-23 (2023-07-31 sub-session)

Co-Prosperity Sphere — Kyōten ("Tenjokyo"), discussed as Lhasa

"Kyōten", also called "Tenjokyo" (Celestial Cooperation / Celestial City of Cooperation), was discussed as being Lhasa, Tibet's historical capital and traditional seat of the Dalai Lama — chosen for the contrast its high-altitude, remote, spiritually significant character offers against the other four capitals.

Source: DnD Victorian SCP Campaign, 2023-07-23 (2023-07-31 sub-session)

Mughal Sultanate — Aurangabad, not Delhi

Per author direction (2026-08-13): use the Mughals' real historical capital rather than inventing one. That capital is genuinely Aurangabad, in the Deccan, not the more famous Shahjahanabad (Delhi) — and specifically so at 1705. Emperor Aurangzeb had shifted his functional base to the Deccan decades earlier (around 1653) and spent his final years ruling from there and from mobile military encampments while the Deccan wars ran on continuously; Delhi remained the formal, traditional seat (the Red Fort, the Peacock Throne) but wasn't where the emperor actually governed from at this exact date. Aurangzeb died in 1707, two years after this map's date, still without having returned to Delhi.

Source: real-history research, 2026-08-13.

Shia Bloc — Isfahan

Per author direction (2026-08-13): same principle, Persia's real capital. Isfahan was the Safavid capital continuously from 1598 (Shah Abbas I) until the dynasty's fall in 1722, spanning the entire reign of Shah Sultan Husayn (r. 1694–1722), the Shah on the throne in 1705. This holds regardless of how the Sunni/Shia unification question is ultimately resolved (see Sunni Caliphate's pinned inconsistency) — if a separate Shia-specific polity persists in any form, Isfahan is its capital.

Source: real-history research, 2026-08-13.

Related