Falkovnian Politics

[Gwenfloor]

I read the history of Falkovnia, how Drakov has managed to cow his population into submission and receive complete totalitarian control. I read a little bit in the history section.
My question is has anyone attempted to assassinate or plan a military coup against Vlad Drakov? Has it been discussed in any Ravenloft product?
Maybe it has happened a few times, but the Falkovnian government covers it up, attempting to give the illusion that the leader is invincible.

[Scarycount]

There is a rebellion in eastern Falkovnia. You can find this information in GazII

[HuManBing]

Falkovnia is very interesting. I have it that the Drakovs (who are sort of Hungarian or Bulgars) are in power for most of the brute-force ministries, but there is a significant ethnic population of Slavs or vaguely Russian types. This ethnicity is treated with some distrust by the minority, but sometimes they are allowed into positions of power, which leads to tension within the system.

Although it's not canon, I have it in my campaign that the head of the Falkovnian intelligence apparatus is one Yuri Mitrovic, described in the Black Box family lines as being a grand-son-in-law of Drakov himself (and connected very tenuously, across several marriages and/or illegitimate affairs). Mitrovic definitely has a Russian or Slavic ring to it.

It shouldn't be too difficult to write in a sort of assassination attempt involving other people. I don't have any scripting of an attempt against the big man himself, but I do have a flashback in my campaign regarding an attempt to kill Vigo Drakov by his concubines. (When the attempt fails, he takes his revenge on them in a gruesome public execution.)

The GazII talks of two major challenges to Drakov's order: Gondegal's rebellion, and a nonhuman movement involving kobolds and other reptilian nasties.

The second one struck me as being a little too fantastical for my campaign, so I relegated it to an untamed wilderness sort of thing. Gondegal, however, is an excellent partisan sort of character and I sort of envision him as a bandit king moving from village to village while taking out Drakov's guards here and there. The closest analogy that comes to mind is the mad scramble by the U.S. army to find a certain deposed Iraqi leader in the desert...

[Garudos Celestar]

My question is has anyone attempted to assassinate or plan a military coup against Vlad Drakov? Has it been discussed in any Ravenloft product?

According to the Drakov family tree from the original Ravenloft campaign setting, one of Drakov's grandsons plotted a coup in 753 BC against him. It failed, and the grandson was executed. Off the top of my head, I don't remember which grandson it was.

Of course, the interesting catch is that the "present day" of the Black Box was 735 BC, so noting the coup attempt in the family tree was an excellent little bit of inspiration for future DMs.