#i also have a drawing of knight!anatoly somewhere if i can find it 👀

[muppetjackrackham]

medieval chess au….? that sounds so cool

so originally i wanted to do some kind of historical au for chess set during the medieval era, but the more i looked into it the more i realized that trying to do something like that in a real world context while still keeping the same real world political context (apolitical chess is just not as interesting to me tbh) just wasn't going to work, so instead i decided to do what george r.r. martin did when he was writing game of thrones and use real world history (game of thrones was largely inspired by the war of the roses) and real world politics within the context of a fantasy setting, so the main conflict is still east vs west, but it's the eastern kingdoms vs the western kingdoms.

freddie is ser fredrick, the gilded lion, born and raised in the golden city (the main seat of power among the western kingdoms similar to king's landing, located by the sea) to become king, beloved by most while also being regarded as a petulant child that (seemingly) hasn't had to deal with any real hardship, and then across the emerald sea are the eastern kingdoms, a colder, harsher climate compared to the western kingdoms, which is where prince anatoly, the black prince (or the white wolf, depending on who you talk to), lives with his wife, svetlana, and his advisor, aleksander molokov, who himself was born in the small settlement of alexandrovitch, located just outside the black gates, which separates the northernmost mountain range and the freefolk lands from the rest of the southern kingdoms. florence, meanwhile, is ser florence, a former advisor and freddie's royal mistress whose family comes from the eastern kingdoms but grew up in the golden city before deciding she was fed up with her life and ran away to become a knight instead, and then other plot details that include things like anatoly abdicating the throne because he never wanted the responsibility of ruling a kingdom and leaving his wife to take over the responsibility instead as the czarina and her doing so knowing that there are people who depended on them for leadership and guidance (and honestly probably being better at it than he was), molokov secretly plotting to take over the throne for himself (having already earned himself the nickname of the wolf whisperer), freddie regularly competing in the tournaments held in the golden city and being a very capable warrior in his own right (he's big on jousting).