The Provinces of the Empire are the great semi-independent states from which the Empire is stitched together — Reikland, Middenland, Talabecland, Averland, Stirland, Wissenland, Ostland, Ostermark, Hochland, and Nordland, alongside the great city-states and the wild border counties. Each is a realm in its own right, with its own capital, army, dialect, and centuries of pride, and each is ruled by an Elector Count who owes the Emperor loyalty in war and very little else in peace.
Sigmar founded the Empire by uniting the twelve human tribes who dwelt between the mountains and the sea, and the modern provinces are the heirs of those ancient tribes — the Reikland of the Unberogen, the Middenland of the Teutogens, and so on down the roll. This inheritance is a source of both strength and endless friction. Reikland and Middenland scorn one another, provinces have gone to war over rivers and insults, and a slight three generations stale is remembered as though it were yesterday.
Yet the provinces are also the Empire's arsenal. Each raises and drills its own state regiments — the red-and-gold of Averland, the blue of Reikland, the wolves of Middenland — and when the Emperor's call goes out against a common foe, this quarrelsome patchwork can field one of the mightiest armies in the world. A nation of rivals, the counts know, is a nation of armies; the argument only continues if the Empire survives to have it.