"The Pixilated Peeress" and its predecessor "The Incorporated Knight" are both set in the medieval era of an alternate world sharing the geography of our own, but in which a "Napolitanian" (Neapolitan) empire filled the role of Rome and no universal religion like Christianity ever arose, leaving its nations split among competing pagan sects.The present-day of the novels corresponds to the High Middle Ages, in which the preeminent power is the German-based Neo-Napolitanian Empire, an analog to the historical Holy Roman Empire.