Colorful Gypsies and peasants, fierce mounted warriors, dark castles you dare not go near at night. These lands share much with their western and eastern neighbors, but they have there own ways as well. It's own languages, distinct in Eastern Europa. It's own bloody history of religious and ethnic conflict and foreign invasion. And it's own special reputation. The wolves are more common and more bloodthirsty; the dead do walk the earth, and sometimes rule over it as well. Men turn not only into wolves, but boars and even ravens.
Not all is so bad. The food can be pleasantly spicy, the horses fast, the Gypsy fiddlers remarkable. The Priests (Holy Church in the west, Orthodox in the east) have less influence here then elsewhere, and that is a relief for some. And a year or two can go by without the Turks or Mongols invading, or the peasants rebelling or the magnates warring.
This region lacks the universities and academies that wizards train at in other lands. Some alchemists can be found in the towns, some astrologers at court. Gypsies are said to know certain kinds of magic, as do the wise men and woman of the villages, who follow very ancient traditions. However the great sorcerers stay in the shadows, out of the light in which they may perish. And foreign wizards will come seeking their fortune in those ruined castles they rarely see the light of day again.