Imagine 19th century Budapest, but with airships overhead, monsters in the shadows, and an elected emperor who’s mostly a figurehead.

Welcome to Noricum, the sprawling empire where the Hunter Healer King trilogy takes place. It’s a land of steam-powered innovation and ancient bloodlines, where Dr. Maxim os Storm hunts algomancers through gaslit streets and Chloe Fortebat discovers that the “Old World” is far stranger than she ever imagined.

An Empire in Name Only

Noricum calls itself an empire, but the title is largely a matter of prestige. It’s trying to claim continuity with Emperor Carlhart, who united this part of the Continent two thousand years ago.

In reality, Noricum is a confederation of states where power lies not with the emperor but with the Assembly. The Emperor of Noricum is elected by a mix of nobles, priests, and commoners, and his chief responsibilities are ceremonial. His real powers are limited. He can endorse or veto laws passed by the Assembly, and he can endorse or veto the promotion of officers to the rank of General or Admiral.

That’s it.

A powerful nobleman with extensive holdings can sit in the Assembly, become Prime Minister, and wield far more actual power than any Emperor. In the world of Noricum, the Prime Minister is the one who truly governs, and that position is achieved through political maneuvering, wealth, and influence. The current Prime Minister is Prince Bertram os Carlhart, a descendant of Emperor Carlhart the Great and a friend to the Stormcrows, especially Maxim.

This matters for the trilogy because by Dragon’s Teeth, Maxim finds himself caught between the Imperial throne and the Stormcrow crown, and neither one is what he wants.

A Stormcrow on the Imperial Throne

Carlhart the Great united this region two thousand years ago, establishing the first real empire on this part of the Continent. His sister married a Stormcrow named Elegast (the “os Elegast” in the longer versions of Maxim’s pedigree), forging an alliance between mundane and Stormcrow bloodlines.

When Carlhart’s direct descendants started a brutal civil war amongst themselves, it was this Stormcrow line, descended from Elegast, who stepped in to hold the imperial throne and restore order. The Stormcrow dynasty cycled in and out of power in Noricum, using their long lives and accumulated wisdom to maintain stability.

Until the Empress Inquisitor.

After her children were killed by a monster, she became obsessed with hunting down algomancers and anyone she suspected of conspiring with them. What began as justifiable grief became paranoid persecution. She executed innocents based on the flimsiest evidence. Those acting in her name tortured confessions from the accused and killed entire families if a single member was suspected of sorcery.

Eventually, she was deposed by a faction of rebels, backed by several Stormcrows, including a kinsman of the Empress who was one of Maxim’s ancestors. But the damage was done. The mundanes were left believing that monster hunting was superstitious nonsense and that Stormcrows were dangerous fanatics who couldn’t be trusted with power.

Since the removal of the Empress Inquisitor, no Stormcrow has held the imperial throne. The Stormcrows withdrew from politics, focusing on monster hunting and preserving their ancient knowledge. They’ve worked to rebuild trust by sharing some of their Thulean technology, which has led to advances in steam power, medicine, and airship design.

But the legacy of the Empress Inquisitor still haunts them.

Haupstadt: The Capital City

The capital of Noricum is Haupstadt, a sprawling city built on hills overlooking a great river. Readers familiar with Budapest might recognize certain landmarks: a labyrinth of caves inside the hills, a historic bridge spanning the river, and grand government buildings that speak of both old power and new ambition.

The choice of Budapest as a model wasn’t political commentary. It was purely practical. The plot of Undead Flight required the capital city to have important locations on a hilltop, and Budapest’s geography worked perfectly for those scenes. Vienna, by contrast, is flatter and wouldn’t have provided the same dramatic settings.

Haupstadt is where the Assembly meets, where the Emperor holds court, for what little that’s worth, and where the Prime Minister wields actual power. It’s a city of contrasts. Ancient Stormcrow technology powers modern innovations, newspaper reporters rub elbows with nobles of ancient pedigree, and over it all hangs the delusion that there are no such things as monsters in this civilized age.

In Dragon’s Teeth, Haupstadt is also where Maxim and Chloe must navigate the dangerous world of imperial politics while hunting a monster that has attacked a candidate for the Imperial throne.

The Continent and the Old World

The Stormcrows still call this region “the Continent,” even though there are several other continents and it’s been three thousand years since their ancestors lived on the island of Thule. To them, this is the Continent: the mainland their ancestors fled to when Thule sank, and the place they’ve called home ever since.

People like Chloe, coming from the New World, call it the “Old World.” Ironically, the Stormcrows tend to call all mundane humans “Continentals” (meaning “not from Thule”) regardless of which continent they actually hail from. A mundane human from the New World is still a “Continental” in Stormcrow parlance. To them, it’s about bloodline, not geography.

These naming conventions reveal the cultural divide at the heart of the trilogy: the Stormcrows see themselves as separate from and superior to mundane humanity, while the mundanes resent Stormcrow arrogance and distrust their power. The future of both peoples depends on bridging that divide.

A Man of Noricum

Understanding Noricum’s political structure matters because it explains Maxim’s dilemma throughout the trilogy.

The crown of the Stormcrows would make him king of his people, but the Stormcrows are dying out and largely isolated from mundane politics. To him, the Stormcrow crown represents an endless round of settling petty internal disputes among his people, and being kept from the real work of hunting monsters.

The Imperial throne would give him influence over the entire empire, and perhaps bring the Stormcrows back into the public eye in a more positive way, but it would cut him off even further from the kind of work he’s best at. Not even his friend the Prime Minister can convince him that it’s a good idea.

But with a certain rancher’s daughter at his side, he’s willing to face any peril, even politics.

A World of Steam and Shadows

Noricum is a world where ancient Stormcrow technology powers modern progress, where airships cross the skies and steam engines drive industry forward. It’s a world where monsters are real but most people don’t believe in them, where hunters like Maxim work in the shadows to protect a population that thinks they’re paranoid fanatics.

It’s a world where Chloe Fortebat arrives expecting opportunity and adventure, and finds werewolves, political intrigue, and a sharp-dressed monster hunter who might be the most complicated man she’s ever met.

Ready to explore Noricum? Start with Wolf’s Trail, where Chloe discovers that the Old World is far stranger, and far more dangerous, than her father’s ranch in Silberne ever prepared her for.

Read the Hunter Healer King Trilogy today!