Graustark

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Principality of Graustark
Flag Coat of Arms
Motto: Better lost than forgotten
Anthem: "Sweet homeland of mine"
Map versions	16.4.6 - Present
Capital	Edelweiss
Largest city	Ganlook
Official language(s)	English (official) Phoklandian (regional)
Official religion(s)	Roman Catholicism
Demonym	Graustarkian
- Adjective	Graustarkian
Government	Absolute Monarchy
- Prime Minister	position vacant
- Prince	Charles of Graustark
- Legislature	Royal Diet
Establishment	25 August 2019 (land changed hands)
Area	810,000 km²
Population	6,200,000
Active population	4
Currency	Imperial Dollars (ʑ), Genoves (ɛ̃)
Calendar
Time zone(s)
Mains electricity
Driving side
Track gauge
National website	N/A
National forum	National Forums
National animal	Mallard Duck
National food	Meat Loaf
National drink	Balmora Sunrise
National tree	Palm Tree
Abbreviation	SPG

Graustark, officially known as the Principality of Graustark, is a wiki/reality based simulationist micronation located in northwestern Eura. The nation was created as a geofictional project based upon the idea of operating a fictional nation within the "real world". Though the nations's territorial claims are by their vary nature fictional, the royal government is strongly based in the realm of reality.

Etymology

The nation's name of "Graustark" comes from the novel "Graustark: The Story of a Love Behind a Throne" by George Barr McCutcheon in which the fictional country serves as the main setting.

Geography

Due to her fairly large size (both within and witout Micras), Graustark contains a vast variety of geographical oddities.

Micras

Within Eura, the principality is located in the northeastern most parts of the continent. Inside these territories, the state consists of a mostly tropical environment with vast coast lines and small forests farther inland.

The seasonal climate of Graustark is fairly mild with summer time temperatures reaching averages of around 70-80 degrees (Fahrenheit) and winter temperatures of 60-65 degrees. Temperature aside, Graustark is often prone to severe tropical thunder storms and rain is commonplace near the nations southern coasts.

Earth

Graustark is described in novels as a mountainous nation with a total land size of roughly 800 square miles (2,100 km2). However, there is at least one source that places the state somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains near Romania.

This all is debatable though as according to another source, Graustark is only 25 miles wide by 150 miles long and the nation's capital city, Edelweiss, is apparently accessible by train from Vienna.

History

The nation of Graustark has a long, rich and often frightening (supposed) history dating back to the late 19th centaury.

Mythology

This article contains information from Wikipedia. For editing credit and citation, view said Wikipedia article.

During the 1870s, Graustark's ruler, Prince Ganlook of Graustark, was killed in a war with neighboring Axphain. As part of the ensuing peace treaty, Graustark agreed to pay a large indemnity to Axphain, to be due, with interest, in fifteen years.

Graustark found itself without the resources to pay the indemnity when it was due, and in desperation, Princess Yetive—Ganlook's daughter and now occupying Graustark's throne—was on the verge of contracting a state marriage to Prince Lorenz of Axphain in exchange for more favorable payment terms. But before the marriage could take place, Lorenz was murdered. The princess's true love, the American Grenfall Lorry, whom she had met while travelling in the United States appeared to be the murderer. Lorenz's father insisted on the murderer's punishment, but the execution was prevented by the revelation of the true murderer: the villainous Prince Gabriel, ruler of Dawsbergen, who was another of Yetive's suitors. With Lorenz dead and Gabriel imprisoned, Yetive instead married her true love.

Princess Beverly of Graustark who ruled the nation during its most tumultuous times in the early 20th century.

During Gabriel's imprisonment, Dawsbergen was ruled by his younger half-brother, Prince Dantan, a popular figure among his own people and a staunch friend of Graustark as well. But after two years, Gabriel escaped from prison and, supported by the Dawsbergen army, returned to the throne. Dantan was forced to go into hiding in disguise in Graustark. For a time it appeared that Graustark might be forced into war with both Dawsbergen and Axphain, but this was averted when Gabriel was recaptured. Meanwhile, the disguised Prince Dantan had fallen in love with Beverly Calhoun, an American guest of the Lorrys; they were married upon his restoration to the throne of Dawsbergen.

Yetive and her husband were tragically killed in a railway accident near Brussels, leaving their young son Prince Robin as ruler of Graustark. While still a child, Robin was the target of an assassination plot by anarchists acting under the direction of the exiled Count Marlanx, whose ultimate goal was to establish himself as sole dictator of Graustark. But the assassination attempt was foiled by the intervention of the American Truxton King, and Marlanx was killed in the ensuing attack on the royal palace.

Graustark was still in financial difficulties by the time Prince Robin reached adulthood. William W. Blithers, a very rich and very vulgar American, offered to finance the country in the hopes of arranging a marriage between Robin and his own daughter. The two principals, however, had very different ideas of their own about marriage. Robin eventually married Bevra, the Crown Princess of Dawsbergen, daughter of Dantan and Beverly.

Graustark's debts eventually ended up being held by Russia. In exchange for entering World War I as Russia's ally, Graustark negotiated cancellation of this debt. Later, with Russia out of the war, Graustark also negotiated a separate peace. There followed a period of prosperity in the country.

Axphain, however, was taken over by communists after the war, and was in a state of much distress and unrest. Its ruler, Prince Hedrik (brother of Lorenz), and his elder son were murdered in the communist revolution, leaving the younger son Prince Hubert in exile in Graustark and an illegitimate son Gregory who lived with his mother in Italy. Hubert was hoping to marry Princess Virginia of Dawsbergen—Bevra's younger sister—but she had previously contracted a marriage of convenience to Pendennis Yorke, an American journalist, and much to the surprise of everyone it became a genuine love match. The communist regime in Axphain was defeated after an unsuccessful attempt to invade Graustark, and the monarchy in that country was restored with Gregory on the throne rather than the unpopular Hubert, who was himself assassinated in the aftermath.