I'm been tinkering with making my setting more inherently East-Europaean in tone. I don't really know why I like it, but it just triggers something in my mind.
So my question is, what do you associate with East-Europe/central Europe in a fantasy sense? For one, this is the place where many of the original monster stories are set (Dracula for one), and they have the gypsies, and superstition seems to be a common theme as well. They also have their dark gothic mountainscapes and darker woods, and river-cities such as Prague and Bucharest.
Anything to add?
Cold forests, isolated fairytale-like villages with thatch straw roofs, mysterious creatures that wander in between the trees, etc. Those are the kinds of vibes I get when I think East European.
"East European" seems a bit too broad for my liking, to be handled as a single flavor type. I'd break it thusly:
Baltic
* Coastal lands, heavily forested, cold winters
* Rising mercantilism, last haven of pagans
* Vikings, Germans vs Slavs
Pontic
* Vast plains and grasslands, great rivers
* Viking settlers (along the rivers), Slavic princedoms, Tatar raiders
* Agriculture vs Nomadism, cities vs pasture vs wilderness
Balkanese
* Rugged mountains and valleys, divisive and isolating geography
* Crossroads of north, south, east and west
* Ruins/surviving old empires, migrating tribes, hotbed of conflict
* Greeks vs Slavs vs Bulgars vs Vlachs vs Magyars vs Germans vs Turks vs everyone
That pretty much sums it up Ghostman.
Well I think you have a good feeling for your setting currently- which seems to be more Nordic than Balkan or Ukrainian/Russian- it seems to play interestingly against the semi-industralization, and if you are going in for E. Europe, I'd suggest creating another setting. But if you want to alter it to Eastern Europe, here are my suggestions:
(see signature) In my setting of GodSmack http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?68604.0 I tried to incorporate an eastern european vibe for the E. Europe section of the setting. You may need to scroll down a bit, but I have some jumping-off points for ideas there. E. Europe has some of the most disturbing European-based monsters.
Good reading suggestions:
Gogol - Village Evenings Near Dianka (and other writings for fantasticality) (Ukrainian Author).
In the Hills, the Cities- Clive Barker (horror, collectivization, folk-modern) (Read this. I think it's available on line. It's also in a bunch of collections).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_%28play%29 (one of the most famous)
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Ionesco
For Eugene Ionesco the French/Romanian playwright...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesson (Well worth the read). See his plays and be chilled. Read them and find the vibe that I think you are looking for.
Of the three you named, Ghostman, Balkanese is probably the one I was thinking of (the most).
And yeah, LD, Kolyaev is probably a bit nordic (or actually maybe a bit more "imperialstic"), but Ferzest could easily be a sort of London-Bucharest hybrid. Mainly I'm just thinking of moving it to a more central location on my mental map, foregoing the coastline, and stuffing some heavy wooded areas next to it while keeping the mountain valley kingdom feel of it.
I won't outright rewrite much of what I've already written on Kolyaev and Ferzest, I'm pretty happy with the two of them. Although I might send the empire a century back or so... I'm having trouble with the history of my world in general (and the geography).
And I will check out some of the links and books when it's not 01:00 A.M.