The Old Country is regrettably prone to invasions and upheavals of various sorts. Romans, Huns, Avars, Magyars and other barbarians have appeared to trouble the inhabitants. Shadow Lords prowl the mountains and vales, and the untracked forests are home to things stranger still. And so, since time immemorial, the test of a Fiend’s mettle has been her ability to seize and hold land.
Land holding Tzimisce commonly take the title “voivode,” though other regional titles (zhupan, margrave) are used in appropriate areas. In many ways, a voivode acts as any other vampiric ruler does: He dictates hunting grounds, arbitrates disputes, and otherwise oversees the affairs of the dark. In practice, though, voivodes are much more exclusive about their domains, and suffer few Cainites other than their own childer to dwell within.
Also, while the establishment of a power base is a longstanding Tzimisce custom, the base itself is merely a means to the ends of personal security and supernatural might. Regrettably, the voivode gives little thought to his subjects’ welfare, save that they are sufficiently nourished and populous to be fed from at will.
On the other hand, even the cruelest voivode must mitigate his pleasure with an iota of pragmatism. Stories have wafted from the East — tales of fire-eyed voivodes angrily defending their subjects from werewolves or Teuton Ventrue. This is done not out of concern for the subjects’ welfare, but as a matter of pride: The subjects are the voivode’s to abuse, and he shall suffer no others to do likewise.
The first step in becoming a voivode is the construction of an impregnable fortress. Other Cainites whisper fearfully of the vast Tzimisce manses, spiring above the darksome forests and crags like stone dragons. Some voivodes take pride in constructing just such obvious, menacing citadels. Others prefer to use magic or simple topography to construct hidden lairs — labyrinths and the like — so that the peasants know the master of the domain only as an evil, invisible malignancy. The first century of dominion is commonly spent in the cultivation of terror. Children are taken from their parents’ cottages and returned as bloodless corpses or gibbering freaks; a rebellious headman goes to sleep and at cockcrow wakes up next to the empty skin of his wife; an overly intrepid forester disappears, and the villagers discover.., traces at various sites and intervals over the next year. However, a Fiend must be careful not to overdo things; constant massacres lead the inhabitants to leave, and not even a Tzimisce and all her retainers can stop an entire village’s wholesale migration.
Once the mortals have been pacified and bullied, the next step is to mold the domain into whatever will best serve the voivocle’s interest. Koldun and other sorcerous types seek merely to establish a secure herd, while Fiends of more political inclination take a more active hand — or talon, as the case may be — in the governance of their fiefdom. In many cases, this involves indoctrinating the mortal populace into serving as weapons against the voivode’s rivals. The most effective form of rule is to insinuate one’s minions into the mortal power structure. Revenant families are the most advanced products of this tactic, but many mortal families have also fallen under the intoxicating spell of Tzimisce vitae. Over the centuries, these families — influenced by the nocturnal visitations of the vampyrs —become more and more depraved, more and more tyrannical, more and more twisted. As decade blends into decade, individual incidents are woven into the cloth of legend, and it becomes impossible to distinguish the atrocities of the vampyr from those of his servitors. Some Tzimisce exacerbate this process, fleshcrafting themselves to resemble the mortal lord or fleshcrafting the lord to resemble the vampire. Tales of “devil twins” haunting crossroads have survived in the Old Country to this night. This, of course, serves to direct priestly aggression against the mortal pawns, leaving the vampire unscathed. In certain sheltered areas (Lithuania, isolated mountain tracts), Tzimisce rule overtly. The vampire who utilizes this tactic must be strong indeed, fearful of neither Shadow Lords nor rival voivodes and sufficiently dreaded that his flock would sooner stay and suffer than risk the reprisal of a failed escape. He may use fleshcrafted doubles when necessary (dealing with mortal rulers, misleading clergy, etc.), but the peasants are well aware to whom they answer. In such places, the subjects often deliberately offer up sacrifices during appropriate holidays, preferring to lose a few loved ones per season than suffer the vampire’s greater wrath.

(LS 52-53)