To your west lies the Duchy of Wingbardy, a smaller, weaker realm, but possessing fertile soil and ample game for hunting, trapping and skinning. While the might of your army could doubtless bring it under your control with little difficulty, doing so would enrage your true rival to Empire: Aquileia. Holder of the Western third of the lands of Gryphus, its strength, size and wealth match your own, and its King has no intention of submitting himself and his subjects to you. And finally, scattered across the territory of all three, the independent city-states that compose the Feathersian League. And though the members of the League are pitifully weak individually, they are quick to leverage their combined economic might against those that would seek to threaten them, hiring armies of mercenaries to supplement their own militias.