So, 10 years prior to the start of Kingmaker, the entire royal bloodline (House Rogarvia) disappeared, and Noleski Surtova appointed himself regent.
Question 1: What are your ideas for what happened to Rogarvia?
Now it's 10 years later, and the balance of power is so delicate that Restov can't be seen to be annexing the Stolen Lands. However, according to the map of Brevoy in Kingmaker #1, Rogarvia controlled about 1/6 of the nation in the southeast, which includes Restov.
Question 2: What happened to Rogarvia's lands? Who controls them now?
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As far as the cause of their disappeareance, in our game I am playing it like the writers of the TV series Lost...I don't know until the party gets there. I have left major clues that point to a secret hidden villaness (you know who), some sort of draconic influence due to their bloodline, evil influences of an outsider from the Dark Tapestry which ties in with Skywatch being sealed, and a conspiracy by the Regent to "clear the field" so to speak. So far my PCs have decided that the Regent isn't good enough to pull it off so cleanly, but have not been able to determine which is the true cause. So far neither have I :)
As far as Rogarvian lands, you could play this several ways:
1- No one. its is contested or unofficially unclaimed lands within Brevoy. This would mean that you have to explain why Surtova has not claimed it as Crown Lands. Perhaps this would be seen as too grasping by the other nobles?
2- It is "Crown Lands" and controlled by no noble but protected by the Regent.
This does allow you to have quite a bit of political fun with Rogargia lands:
We expanded the houses a bit. The seven houses of Brevoy are all duchies, with the named families being the dukes over several smaller baronies contained within each Duchy's border. Normally the barons keep peace among their lords and the dukes keep peace among the barons within their duchy.
In order to give my PCs more influence in Brevoy politics and have their actions weigh heavy in Brevoy, I had a strong, canny, peaceful Rogarvian baron sponsor the party's efforts in the Stolen Lands. He is the young ruler that is getting married in Wedding Knight (GoT module) which I ran as a zero level adventure for the PCs when they were 14yrs old. They grew up serving the young baron and were rewarded and well-regarded by him, so when he usurped by his weak brother (who was controlled by an evil priest), the party became part of the Game of Thrones in Brevoy.
Why the missing Rogarvia family is so important
The regent needs at least 5 votes among the dukes to become king. He has Lodovka, Surtova (his uncle) and Lebeda wants to intermarry their daughter or son. That leaves two votes. Garess always votes last and basically "sells" their vote to the highest bidder to gain the most from each decision. That leaves one vote the regent needs to gain the throne: the duke of Rogarvia.
Unfortunately, there is no duke (due to the family disappearance). So currently the barons in this duchy are all competing to gain enough support among their fellow barons to claim the title. At the beginning of the campaign, things were balanced in favor of the PCs sponsor in line to become the next Duke of Rogarvia. He had secret, tentative agreements in place to support Medyvyed, Orlovsky, and a swordlord contigent vs Surtova, effectively blocking the regent from ever becoming king. When he is usurped, Surtova's pawn is next in line to become Duke.
This effectively makes the PCs directly able to affect who is king of Brevoy and makes every contest with other barons extremely influential to overall politics. So far in our game, the PCs have reinstated their sponsor, fought off attacks on their lands and their sponsor's lands by the "bad" future duke, and have military and trade alliances with several other barons in Rogarvia. They are campaigning to have him become the next duke since the PC queen is a swordlord and the general is a bastard son of Duke Medvyed.
Needless to say, our game is constantly busy between things happening "at home" in the Stolen Lands and major happenings in Brevoy that affect their newly created kingdom.
This is just one example of ways you can handle the power vacuum left by the missing royal family. Whatever you decide to do, I recommend that their absence be a major disruptive factor, as others in Brevoy attempt to fill in the void left by their departure.
I'm almost certainly going to use the 'return of Choral' as the final act in the campaign. And since my players are bound to be more than capable of dealing with a red dragon by then, I'll be giving him the devil-bound template. So in my campaign, the disappearance was obviously something to do with his infernal contract.
As for Rogarvia's lands, I think they're effectively run by the Swordlords, if not officially owned by them. Restov was in Rogarvia territory because it was the last place to be conquered by them, and the population has never really accepted the unification. In my campaign at least, the Swordlords have no intention of getting involved in the civil war so much as using it as cover for splitting from Brevoy entirely, and that's why they want allies to the South.
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Here is my personal development for the story.
And the background I am using is here
The Rogavarian lands are held in a sort of Mexican stand-off. The Swordlords have moved into the area north of Restov, while Surtova has moved south from New Stetven. There is a border somewhere in the middle - however there has only been a few skirmishes along it.
The souther trade route (through the slough) has been blocked up and has been affecting trade for all sorts of people - and some of noble houses had a hand in funding Fort Drelev. Now the party hold Port Slough (the new name for Fort Drelev) and have cleared the route through the slough - politics are starting to get lively in Brevoy again. And will probably come to a head just after Book 6 ... all at the same time as the events in the link come to pass.
There will be a reckoning ....