Airyglyph

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The Union of Airyglyph
Motto Death need not be the end of hope Anthem None officially
Capital	Aquios
Official languages	Sanskrit, Akkadian, Atlantian, Galavan trading language
Government	Reservation
Leader	Emperor Apophis the First (disposed) Emperor Dagon the First
Established	One week after the two year war with the Grand Naga Empire
Area	UNRECORDED
Population	UNKOWN
Currency	The Throne

They generally live very short lives, thirty years at the most and mature within four years, this is not always the case as some lords have been known to live twice that length of time. Despite this disadvantage they generally lay eggs in batches of fifty with a high survival rate for each egg, meaning that they can recover from losses in battle much more efficiently than other races. On average Naga are stronger and tougher than humans but with a lower intelligence, as such they are a highly hierarchical race with only the most intelligent leading.

Though the cause for this is unknown, Naga are capable of evolving and adapting to environments in hundreds rather than thousands or millions of years, this has caused a large number of subspecies to exist along with a high mutation rate amongst each generation. There are two major subspecies of Naga in Airyglyph, those who exist below water and in the seas, and those who live on the coastlines and jungles of the surface provinces and enclaves. There are several major differences between the two, ‘Sea Nagas’’ scales are generally a number of dark blue shades and have several fins and a much more streamline body to help them swim, they are capable of breathing both air and water but are very reliant upon water to live in. ‘Jungle Naga’ meanwhile are generally a mixture of reds and greens and are physically much more robust with a higher endurance. Though they cannot swim as well as sea variants they are natural climbers and can still hold breath for many hours at a time.

The Atlantian Remnant

The Atlantian species are characterized by a pale blue or light-green skin, reflective yellow eyes, and white hair. As a species they have a social structure similar to that of Ants or other hive/nest-based creatures, with distinct physiological differences between castes of Atlantians, tailored to facilitate different functions within the society. They also possess low level telepathic abilities. They have displayed in phenomenal physical strength, along with excellent physical agility.

The majority of Altlantians so far observed outside hibernation are male. Adult female Atlantians have been seen to fill the higher echelons of Atlantians society as 'Queens'. Beneath the Queens are the Worker Cast and Royal Guard. The lowest echelons are distinctly different from most others; as they lack intelligence but are larger and much more muscular. While it is unknown how Atlantians reproduce, it is likely that they procreate similarly to placental mammals, given their presumed origin and other sexual characteristics similar to those of humans. Royal Guard and Worker Cast Atlantians meanwhile are created by the Queens, but these are little more than machines possessing no notable sentience or imagination, just simply programming.

The younger races currently know little of Atlantian physiology, but some facts have been learned. Though humanoid in appearance, the Atlantians are genetically closer to the insects than humans. They possess none of the normal human inhibiting proteins, giving them a frighteningly efficient regenerative mechanism in their genetic makeup, allowing their bodies to heal themselves. Their regenerative abilities are so powerful that, as long as the cells are properly nourished, it is unlikely that an Atlantian would ever die from natural causes the way that humans do. However, they do have their weaknesses. Though advanced, Atlantian technology is almost purely based upon magic with very few conventional means of fuel and against a magically resistant enemy they generally withdraw rather than attempting to fight an uphill battle. On more than one occasion they have also been shown to be highly susceptible to extreme temperatures as wounds from both freezing and burning spells take far longer to heal than those inflected by traditional weapons.

While the Atlantians share many elements with insects, there are aspects of their biology that are similar to humans. They contain all the necessary organs within their body that are required to digest food. However, while they may get a moments pleasure from such actions; it does not sate their hunger.

The major method of drawing in substance or food is by drawing it from other creatures, this is done by an incredibly powerful (but very short ranged) draining spell which can draw even the life essence from a creature to regenerate an Atlantian. Though this has helped lead to many of the legends about their people being vampires focused upon becoming overlords of this world during their reign, the Atlantians regarded themselves to be the world’s guardians and protectors, this fact was constantly shown in their wars against the Meta and (possibly) the Naga kingdoms of old.

[edit] Religions

The Naga have no real religion but in ancient times leaders and heroes were worshipped like gods, this has slowly evolved to the essential worship of past ancestors who achieved great accomplishments. Those who die unnamed but fought and worked for their beliefs are said to become 'the one,' an entitiy representing every last fallen Naga who worked for thier leader, clan and empire and betrayed no one. Due to this reason many Naga are at odds with tomb robbers and those who they see as being ‘evil’ undead. There are however several ancient tales of conflicts that took place before the Eternal War.

The Atlantians also seem to have no religion and have displayed no sign of any beliefs in any 'higher' beings.

[edit] History

"And so from the ashes of war our golden age shall begin".

[edit] In The Beginning...

In many thousands of years ago, the first Naga kingdoms existed ruling more than half of the world's seas. These mighty empires were focused upon both trade and imperial conquest against their enemies, few could stand in their way until they discovered Atlantis.

Atlantis was an artificially created city which was far more advanced than the weapons wielded by the Naga, their mages could defend against any attack and heal almost any wound, however, they were both highly xenophobic and arrogant. It is not known when the war began but it is known how, a Naga sail ship was blown off course by a tempest eventually crashing against Atlantis' walls. With their ship destroyed the Naga scaled the walls and attempted to enter the city and were cut down by the sentinels defending the city.

Frightened of the alien race and of their seemingly stealthy entrance into the city Atlantis began a holy war of purification against the Naga sending out their advanced ships to destroy the kingdoms. The Naga were cut down were they fought by the ships and casualties were high. In their self believed invincibility the Atlantians drove their ships deeper and deeper into Naga territory until they made a fatal error, they sailed right into a trap. The Naga swarmed an Atlantian splinter fleet with almost every last soldier they had, the cost was high but the Naga managed to capture the ships along with their crew. The Sages of one of the kingdoms began to use the forges of the ships to channel the life-forces and magic of both the ships and the crew into several weapons which would end the war, The Six Eyes of the Ancients.

The Eyes effects were devastating, shattering entire continents and destroying all armies that attempted to stand up against them, the war turned in the Nagas’ favor and the ancients were driven back. Rather than allowing the Naga to take the city the Atlantians committed mass suicide and sank the city into depths in which even the Naga could not reach.

The war had been won but there would be no rest for the Naga, suddenly and terribly the surviving kingdoms faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history, the Shadow beasts.

No one knows where the beasts came from but they were terrible to behold, described as a swarm of giant insects that devoured all life as they swarmed from the northern wastes of the world. These creatures had gone unchecked for many years during the Atlantis-Naga war but now they reached the kingdoms as they recovered.

The bedraggled soldiers of the kingdoms fought a desperate battle to hold the line against the enemy even as their kingdoms were overrun. For six months this war was fought with few of the shadows falling to the defenders but many annihilating entire battalions of warriors. In one last desperate act the greatest warriors within the kingdoms were equipped with the Eyes and given orders to head north and destroy whatever was spawning the beasts. This was a desperate gamble as the Eyes had been the one true defense against the shadow beasts, in little under a week all but one kingdom had been utterly wiped out without the use of the eyes, but then without warning the Shadows began to fall dying and exploding into black fire before disappearing from the earth.

Several days later one of the heroes returned, her mind utterly broken but carrying the Eyes. She spoke of impossible things and the Shadows domain, a terrible chasm and a bridgehead that they had destroyed, she died several years later never recovering from the experience.

The Naga of the surviving kingdoms chose to remain beneath the waves, forming the kingdom of Airyglyph.

[edit] Ancient History

It is known that Airyglyph in the early ages was not united, eight Naga tribes battled amongst one another continuously attempting to gain the upper hand in a never ending war, in this era many heroes rose and fell. This war was left essentially undisturbed due to the Naga settlements being located deep beneath the waves of the eastern oceans with only the occasional trade ship disappearing or being destroyed. This age to the Naga is now known as the Eternal War.

This however, was soon to drastically change.

[edit] The Two Year War

One of the lesser tribes gained knowledge that a large supply convoy from one of the more distant Naga empires, which was said to be carrying a large portion of the finances from one of the empire’s fallen leaders. Believing that the distant empire would not retaliate for a single attack upon one fallen member of their hierarchy, the tribe attacked while it was in transit. The assault was successful and only a handful of guards survived the ambush. However, this was only the beginning, the ‘fallen lord’ had in fact been the former Emperor, who had recently stepped down from his position to allow his son to rule. Enraged at the attack from an upstart clan, the Emperor ordered a massive attack on the tribe and all those who stood with them. The first attacks were merciless slaughters of several unsuspecting villagers, but the tribes were quick to respond and agreed to temporarily unite under one banner to fight this threat.

Believing a mass counter attack would at least slow the invasion, a total of sixty armed warships attacked nineteen of the invading ships. The battle lasted one hour, the tribal fleet was utterly decimated and only one ship was permitted to leave and inform their leaders of the crushing defeat.

For the next two years the Empire’s forces continued a swift advance, entering settlements and annihilating every warrior they could find before moving directly onto the next area leaving the civilians alive. After they had driven to the capital and destroyed the last of the tribes’ defenses, they would demolish the village, and proceed back out into the nearby areas, destroying every Naga settlement until no Naga were left alive. This was, for the Empire, a war of genocide.

It was at Heaventide that the tide finally turned in flavour of the defenders, one of the few provinces actually built on land with a network of rivers leaving through to the coast. Having very little experience in fighting within other environments than the ocean, the attacking legions were wiped out attacking the settlement defenses in waves. Swarm after swarm was killed, but they were slowly whittling down the defenders number until on the fourteenth day no more came.

Eventually after two months of endless attacks, the assaults ended. Deciding that such a costly victory would not be worth simply avenging one life the Emperor sent messages of peace to the ruling tribal council to end the war.

Despite militarily losing the war, the tribal union did have victory in the economic sector as the Empire war effort nearly caused the collapse of its centrally planned and isolated economy, which hadn't had to go on a war footing for almost a thousand years; the tribal economy survived relatively intact, due to its more flexible nature and extensive trading links between the different factions, as well as military experience due to the Eternal Wars war 2 years previous.

[edit] The Rebuilding

With the end of the war, and the ever constant threat of the surface empires and raiders closing on Heaventide, the few remaining tribal leaders agreed to abandon their surface enclaves and focus upon rebuilding their shattered domains. One of the heroes of the war and commander of the forces at Heaventide, General Lasbard quickly rose to power with a great popularity from both the military and the civilian groups. Knowing that the lords would eventually return to war, he proposed to them that they should pool their resources and unite their lands under one banner with each lord monitoring their territories but answering to a higher power, this ‘higher power’ was soon elected to be Lasbard himself, and thus the first Emperor of Airyglyph came to power.

For the next fifty years the rebuilding would continue with Naga occasionally raiding surface ships to gain knowledge of the above world events, and in an attempt to prevent what they saw as an intrusion.

One generation later during the reign of Emperor Apophis Airyglyph would announce itself to be a power in Galava, and in turn would become dangerously close to self destruction.

[edit] The Schism

As time went on in the council chambers one topic continuously arose, what to do about the 'outlanders' or surface races. Recently several had come and gone but now a large number of well established ones had been set up around the southern and northern kingdoms, even occupying the old land provinces. Many leaders wished nothing to do with them and to simply drive the surface races out of their realm at best, while the new Emperor and Apophis and several of the lords believed that their empire should reveal itself to the world and trade with these empires.

This came up time after time during meetings, during which the several surface ships that continuously intruded upon their domain were sunk with their holds looted of all items by the Naga Imperial Guard. Eventually one of the older lords, Tantalus, chose to act alone. Sending messages to the nearby empires of their existence and the offer of peaceful terms of existence, he used the ancient orb of replication which was one of the Naga’s greatest artifacts to create an above surface version of Aquios, the Naga capital.

No one knows why he believed that the lords would do nothing, some believed that it was good faith in them or senility due to his age (Airyglyph’s Naga lived very short lives, a maximum of forty years.) He was of course discovered and imprisoned by the empire’s Lord Protector, Agamemnon. This caused uproar within the lords accusing the Emperor and the leaders loyal to him to be traitors and schemers, this at the time appeared to be the line being drawn for a war.

The first few ships that reached the white city (as the replica became known) were boarded and captured with their crews imprisoned before those loyal to Tantalus could act, from there on all other ships were redirected from Airyglyph with the message that intruders would not be tolerated.

Fortunately some of Tantalus’ servants were able to intercept and contact some of the surface empires’ representatives and secret trade routes were established to supply the Emperor’s forces, the empire was on the very edge of civil war.

[edit] The Crusades

Shortly after their resurgence the Naga became much more active in other empire's matters, most of the Naga armies joined with Rattao in the Crusades in a massive deception by the opportunistic Lord Imhotep, fortunately this failed. A number of their forces were involved with the Not Yet rebellion of the Rose Gold Empire and even sent fleets to help the Empire in preparation for their crusade into Necropolis.

[edit] The Final Shadow War

Shortly after the eastern Papal crusade, reports began to drift down from the north of black insect-like creatures randomly attacking and destroying settlements, leaving only the strongest alive. Believing for some time that the prophesy of the Meta’s return would come to pass Apophis began to gather his forces in preparation for an offensive against the ‘end tide’ only to find that over a third of his lords were unwilling to participate in the war, having serious doubts about the existence of the Meta or their chances of victory over them. Unable to gain the support of Airyglyph’s entire military forces a call to arms was sent out to the other empires of the world, warning them of the impending attack and managing to gain the support of the Rose Gold Empire, The Empire, Talkir, Manisteria, and The Chosen.

A plan was made for an assault into the northern wastes, but before their forces were gathered the Meta began an all out assault on the eastern seas. Pillars fell from the sky into the oceans opening up portals and allowing hordes of the creatures into the world. The Meta's first attack was devastating and the Army of Light (as the combined forces had been dubbed) barely held the line against the shadow swarms losing many of their number in the process, during the battle a Bastion class Ha'tak (one of the largest an most powerful forms of warships in Airyglyph's navy) made an attack upon the portals of one of the ‘pillars’ managing to destroy it.

In the same instance just over a quarter of the Meta forces fell from the skies, dead and unmoving with the other swarms retreating back to their portals.

Seeing that the enemy now had a weakness the Army moved north towards the crimson light which now covered the northern skies, and in the centre of it a gigantic portal which was slowly growing in size.

Inch by inch the Army fought it’s way across the ice and the seas towards this portal, constantly having to fend off insect like beasts and the war machines of the Meta. During the journey, a great discovery was made as several thousand Atlantians were found in a winter locked fortress which had been frozen in time by their great magic. Managing to break the spell, most of the Atlantians were convinced to join their fight, though they remained highly distrustful of the Naga for the destruction of their empire and seemed to regard themselves to be superior to most of the younger races.

The force continued onwards into several months of fighting, the army managed to fight it’s way to the portals and successfully closed it using the Eyes of the Ancients and several ancient but powerful Atlantian warships, but at the cost of many thousands of lives.

With the threat over the forces parted ways and returned to their homelands, only for the Naga to find a new threat awaiting them…

[edit] The Naga Civil War

Upon their return the surviving warriors and ships were ambushed by a number of Ha’taks and almost half the surviving force was destroyed in the attempted escape. It had been discovered that in the months of fighting, Lord Dagon had executed the lords Apophis had left in power and proclaimed himself emperor. Most of the forces left behind had joined with Dagon and the Empror’s Praetorian guard were ambushed and killed in their barracks with only a few individuals escaping the massacre. Warriors were trained en mass and the shipyards began to build ships at high speed, almost doubling Airyglyph’s forces in only a few weeks.

Apophis was declared an outcast and fleets were sent to hunt him down as the other forces prepared for an offensive against the Eastern empires…

[edit] Military Forces

Imperial Guard- The Imperial Guard is the main backbone of the Airyglyph military forces, consisting of over seven tenths of the overall regiments and soldiers. They are notable for the sledgehammer tactics used to combat and conquer their enemies with the large majority of their number being conscripts, and most weapons and armor have been stolen from the armories of other empires and the holds of passing or sunken ships. Despite this the Imperial Guard is still a highly disciplined and organized fighting force.

Divine Marksmen- Unlike the mass fighting force of the Imperial Guard, the Divine Marksmen are divided into a series of small skirmishing units chosen to scout out other empires and lands which could either be a threat of colonized in the future. Most of these Naga go through years of training before being sent into combat and large numbers of the squads consist of combat veterans from the Imperial Guard giving them an ‘elite’ status.

Grand Sages- The Grand Sages are an ancient society of mages who record and defend the artifacts and secrets of the empire, it is only recently that they have become a unit in the military forces. As they are few in number, most of the truly active members are in direct service of one lord or another, recording their life and defending them against threats when necessary. Due to ther attunement to magic, many Sages are mutants to some extent or another.

Praetorian Guard- The very best soldiers of Airyglyph are the Praetorian Guard, these Naga are trained from birth to fight in the worst of battles and fighting conditions. Along with the fact that they can outfight almost any enemy in armed and unarmed combat there are two distinct divisions to the Guard, the Serpent Guard and the Horus Guard. The Serpent Guard are strong warriors who have some magical abilities and spells, they do not have the same skill as the Sages but this weakness is made up for by the sheer strength of each spell. The Horus Guard are specialist warriors who are best used when fighting mages, they are chosen at birth for a mutation amongst the Naga which gives them incredibly high resistance to magic attacks. All Praetorian are heavily armed and armored, and trained in the use of spear, sword and staff weapons. Almost all of the legion were wiped out during the first acts of the civil war and it is yet to be seen if it will be rebuild by the few survivors.

Ashrak- Ashrak are Naga trained in the skills of espionage and assassination, and are trained to hunt down targets and kill them even at the cost of their own lives. Little is known of the Ashrak other than this.