Abysia does not have any clear inspirational sources. Malign devil-worshiping empires of the fantasy genre combined with some ancient Middle Eastern concepts, perhaps. Think of great temple ziggurats adorned with ever-burning braziers fed with still-beating hearts in pompous ceremonies, witnessed by a cowed populace of slaves and smoldering Abysian rulers. Imagine magma-lit caverns filled with screams, roars, and fleeting shadows. With blood sacrifices being part of the official state cult, it might be considered an evil nation, but it is sprung from elemental forces and only under the infernal influence‒ and ignorance‒does the kingdom turn to evil. It is a tragic nation with a proud heritage, and dilution of their magic - perhaps due to temptation by infernal forces - leads it to embrace blood sacrifice. -Illwinter

Abysia is a hot wasteland, at the center of which lies a great volcano whose lava-lit caverns are inhabited by magma-born humanoids. Their flesh radiates heat, and they are not harmed by flames. Abysians are stronger than humans and use very heavy armor and weaponry. Bows are not used, as they would burn to cinders in the glowing hands of the Abysians. The war machine of Abysia also includes salamanders, lizard-like beings composed of the same hot lava-born flesh as the Abysians. The Anointed of Rhuax and the Anathemant Priests of the Flame Cult practice blood sacrifice to strengthen the power of the Awakening God. The Warlocks of the Smouldercone, a newly formed magical order, practice Blood magic and search for suitable blood slaves in conquered lands. Abysians prefer to live in extremely hot places. They do not farm or hunt for a living, so their income and supplies are not affected by the Growth or Death scale of a province. However, the population will still die slowly in Abysia-controlled provinces with Death scales.

Abysians are lava-men clad in the heaviest armour. Abysia is a powerful expansionist nation early game with a fixation on fire. All but the hardest indies cannot stop you as you march forth.

Abysia can gain a big lead on expanding initial territory, but the real challenge comes from other players. Grinding through indies is all fine and good, but EA Abysia has a problem with being too in-love with only Fire. Magic diversity is a problem you must deal with, as your opponents can out buff your troops while you struggle to keep your troops relevant, in addition to Fire being an easily-countered path.

If you can overcome your magical one-note-ness and survive the player rushes, you can be decent blood power.

Race	Military	Magic Access	Priests	Buildings
Prefer +3 Abysians Darkvision Resist Fire Heat Aura wasteland survival	Fire Immune, very-Heavy Infantry Salamanders Abyssal Crossbreeds No Shields or Missiles	4 (rare 5) 2 (rare 3) 1 (rare 2) 1 (rare 2)	Powerful but costly (3) +2 Fire Bless points. Perform Blood Sacrifice	Standard Forts (Fortress)

• and scales have half the standard effect on income and population growth, in addition to not affecting province supplies.
• gain extra Gold and Resource from cave forts
• +2 Fire Bless points.
• Spread Heat (Max 3)
• Mercenaries are 25% more expensive.

Abysians have all have Wasteland Survival, Resist Fire (25), Darkvision (50%) and Heat Aura (3).

Abysians are practically safe from "friendly fire". This resistance does narrow down what your opponent can throw at you.

Warning: the funny thing about blood is that their gems are an actual unit. Blood Slaves Are humans with no protection, so your Warlock's heat Aura will Ignite them. Any mage can use slaves if they are a few squares away, so get an indie to hold them and learn how to space units.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Slayer 70 10 1	Darkvision 50% Stealthy (60) Assassin (1) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Ambidextrous (3) Wasteland Survival	Assassin with two Poison daggers to kill problematic Commanders.
	Demonbred 80 14 1 Capital Only	Darkvision 100% Stealthy (60) Assassin (1) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Ambidextrous (3) Flying Wasteland Survival Scale-Walls	Has higher mobility than the Slayer to surprise opponents and stop spell casting. Can also kill commanders when you besiege them. hard to find time to recruit them as your capital is crammed with important mages.
	Beast Trainer 45 41 1	Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Animal Awe (4) Beastmaster (3) Wasteland Survival	Best commander to lead Salamanders, other animals, and some magic creatures if you don't have a mage available. A cheaper thug Chassis then the warlord and has high Animal Awe for rare circumstances.
	Warlord 80 38 1	Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Ambidextrous (2) Wasteland Survival Prophet Shape (War Master)	National Leader with 80 Ld. Also a decent thug chassis with most of the tools already given to him. Prophetizing him also makes him a better leader and thug. (His badass prophet shape duel-wields two two-handed battleaxes.)
	Warlock Apprentice 55 1 2 Capital Only	1 7 Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Wasteland Survival	Meant to be the cheap blood hunters and research monkeys. Their intended purpose is held back by being forced to share a capital with the better Warlocks. May get a few over the game when gold is tight and keep your capital active.
	Warlock 135 1 2 Capital Only	12010% 11 Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Adept Cross Breeder (2) Wasteland Survival Old Age (35/35)	The mage your capital should be mass-producing. The combo of Astral and blood, + a few Fire or Earth randoms makes them decent at creating a communion during the middle game.
	Anathemant Salamander 175 1 2	21 9 Sacred Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (5) Wasteland Survival	Expensive Fire 2 mage-priest. Not the best mage but is the "cheapest" one to recruit off cap. They can bring to bear a lot of fire spells like Summon Fire Elemental, Fire Cloud, Cold Resistance, Inner Furnace, and Heat from Hell, Especially when you're rolling in Fire gems.
	Anathemant Dragon 260 2 4	312 13 Sacred Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (30) Heat Aura (6) Wasteland Survival Old Age (40/32)	The next level above Anathemant Salamander with a path in earth. They are meant to be spammers of the Liquid Flame of Rhuax. They are also Fire Storm Casters. If you can stitch them into Warlock communions they can also cast earth buffs and Magma Eruption.
	Anointed of Rhuax 435 1 4 Capital Only	413010% 15 Sacred Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (32) Heat Aura (7) Fire Shield (12) Fire Power (2) Wasteland Survival	The next step above an Anathemant Dragon. Their main purpose is to throne claim thrones or perform a Fire Ritual. Outside of that, spamming Warlocks is a higher priority. Do cherish the 2.5% chance Earth, Astral, or Blood Randoms. For what they are, they can be expensive thug chassis, Especially when in +3.

Abyssians are Gold and Resource intensive. Despite having low Defense, they have decent HP, Strength, and boast a very high Prot for the Early age. Abyssinians don't need too much in number to out grind indies, especially with their heat aura inflicting fire fatigue Damage and might cause them to Ignite.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Abysian Infantry With Battleaxe 20 26 8	Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Wasteland Survival	Wields a big, high damage axe. Works as a counter to units that are hard to kill by hacking at its HP pool with a few hits and likely causing afflictions.
	Abysian Infantry With Flail 20 26 8	Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Wasteland Survival	Your primary non-sacred expander and front-line fighter. Makes two attacks that gain bonus Atk Skill against a unit with a shield (a very common unit). This is a very viable way to mulch through infantry.
	Abysian Infantry With Axe 20 27 8	Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Wasteland Survival	Trades the high damage two-handed battleaxe for a not-so-damaging one-handed axe, higher defense, and a tower shield. Too protection-focused for expansion but better later in-game when evocation and buffs make you just tough enough to not immediately die. Use like battleaxes to carve up HP pools.
	Abysian Infantry with Morningstar 20 28 8	Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Wasteland Survival	Also has a tower shield and higher defense. Unlike the other one, the morning star does the same amount of damage then as the flail, except it also deals piercing damage 50% of the time to ignore some of the enemy protection. The real trade-off comes from the higher encumbrance and slower combat speed.
	Misbred 20 5 22 Capital Only	Darkvision (100%) Stealthy (40) Part Undead or Demon Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (3) Ambidextrous (3) Flying Wasteland Survival Start Affliction (75)	Misbred are your Shock troops. Can be created from the little resources not used for the creation of Burning Ones, but need a lot of Rec Points. Sure they need Undead Ld, start with affections, and die in few hits, but unprotected mages will also die in that many swings.
	Salamander 50 1 15	Fire Power (1) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (6) Wasteland Survival Undisciplined Animal	Gold expensive but low resource glass cannons. Belches AOE AP fire to delete a square of elite enemies but will get mulched in return.
	Burning One 70 41 13 Capital Only	Darkvision (50%) Resist Fire (25) Heat Aura (6) Fire Shield (8) Fire Power (1) Ambidextrous (2) Berserker (3) Bad Formation Fighter (1) Wasteland Survival	Your primary expanders. Mulcher of most infantry- being a big berserking lava-man that dual-wields morning stars with a fire shield. They are monsters in early games, but start to fall off in the mid-game when picked off by spells like Earth Meld, Destruction and armour piercing evocation (mostly because you don't natively have a good buffing option).

Doesn't look good when the only path you can recruit off cap is Fire and an expensive slow to recruit extra fire mage with an 1. Your cap does softens the blow by having 12 Warlocks that can make communions with their 10%s doing additional things for the nation.

EA Abysia is among the more desperate nations to need Indie mages. Helpful that Earth random Warlocks can forge Crystal Matrixes. Unsupported infantry sucks when you don't buff them in the mid-game (even if they are super armored and can tear up indies, most mid-game battle Mages can still prey on any of their weakness, just flat out disintegrating them or create infantry that is about as hard to kill as you but their cheaper to mass-produce. (I can counter that by out-buffing them, it doesn't matter too much if the enemy has 3 guys with 20 prot when you have one guy with 30).

It's essential to have a pretender to break them into new paths and forge boosters.

• Summon Spectral Infantry 11 Conj 2 for 5 (summon 5 Smoulderghost). A very decent summon despite not having native Death. Basically, Hellbred Giant Abysian infantry with A magical GreatAxe that deals additional Fire damage. A decent Front line unit. It's your lucky day if you find an indie that can cast this.
  
• Pride of Lions 2 Conj 3 for 10. (summon 10 Great Lion) + overcast. Can't Be cast natavly and if you have nature gems thier are better things to spend on then chaff.
  
• Contact Scorpion Man 11 Conj 8 for 12 (summon a Scorpion Man). Contact Scorpion Man is always in an awkward spot for any nation as it comes too late in-game to be most effective. If your failing to get a mage with an lv in earth higher than 1, this is an ok way to spend your surplus.
  
• Hellscape 4 Alt 6 for 10. An Abysian exclusive enemy set back ritual. Giving +1, -10% Pop, +20 unrest, and a big shift in temperature scales can greatly reduce what a province could give a player. Despite it being notified as a really bad anonymous event, players can recognize when they are being messed with. Also, a way to support troops before going into combat(Bonus to Fire Power and heat auras, Extra Fagua to enemies, and catch cold nations like Niefelheim with their pants down)
  
• Infernal Breeding 2 Blood 3 for 25. grants decent units that will likely replace most of your infantry, especially since EA is the most likely incarnation of Abysia to get Hellbred Giants
  

• Liquid Flames of Rhuax 31 Evocation 5. Ment to be the signature spell for Anathemant Dragon and anointed. Throws an AOE 1 High damage AP fire that deals lingering heat fatigue damage to the square. Decent low fatigue way to eliminate groups of high prot units
  
• Inner Furnace 3 Enchant 5 for 1. A battlefield wide spell that causes your infantry Heat aura to increase by 3. The main downside is that your infantry has to fail an easy MR, and they have decent MR. I need a few Cast of this to ensure most of your Infantry benefits and Fire gems flow like water(Lava) back home. If your in an infantry stalemate, fatiguing the enemy more(as long they don't put up fire resistance) is a way to win the grinding game.
  

Fire magic is a decent unit clearer path early game as the EA has many units with low prot, and the amount of cap Fire gems you have begs you to spam Fire Elementals. Feel to spam Fire as much as you want; Prot 17 dudes with Fire-resistance 25 are practically immune to all of it.

Mid game is when fire stops working as other nations will likely obtain counterspells like Rain or Fire Resistance.

From that time onward, your magic power comes from Warlock communions empowering mages, especially if they are indie with a foreign. If you spam Warlocks, your likely to get one to forge Crystal Matrexes for your shamans.

Adding Earth and Nature to your communes are very important to keep your infantry viable. Your primary magic power comes from Blood and Astral spam, Being very good at Call Horror spam. see Horror.

Although Fire is easy to counter, When dealing with communions instead of fire, They won't have counters ready. That's when in the late game, you unleash Heat from Hell and Fire Storm.

Having National Darkvition, Solar Eclipse is a spell most players don't think about.

Abysia doesn't have native ranged units but as a fire nation, finding indie archers and casting Flaming Arrows is a Lucrative endeavor to add "Rapid Fire fire crossbows" to your armies.

Fire Magic has a limited number of good rituals like Alchemy to turn their plentiful Fire gem to gold, summon the Fire Kings, or Spam Terracotta Army for cheap chaff.

You have easily access to Raging Hearts, a good remote attack spell to ruin an enemy's recruitment and gold printing centers. it will appear as an anonymous event but lots of players will point fingers at you even if you weren't the one to cast it.

Creating a Blood economy is important as it's easy to empower in. Summoning Demons and Horrors benefits you.

Go for the Bind Heliophagus, Bind Arch Devil and Vampire Lords for late-game thugs (some of the Heliophagus can break you into vampires if your pretender can't). Your natural end game is Demon Lords.

need to get a 2 for Eath Boots and empower an earth random Warlock further in blood, but after that, you can forge most of the Fire, Earth, Astral, and blood boosters. (which is important for you battle mage in terms of magic diversity)

This is probably the most difficult section to get consensus for. Describe how strong the nation is during expansion, the early, mid and late game, and what makes it strong/weak at each of those points. This should give readers an idea of where the weaknesses of a nation lie (if they have not been shown already) and when to take advantage of a nation's strengths.

Mid game is when enemy magic starts to catch up with your infantry.

Fire magic stops being as effective when Rain is cast, and Earth mages would decimate infantry with Earth Meld and Destruction.

At this point, you should be shifting to a blood economy, hunting for slaves, and using Infernal Breeding Create better troops. We may want to recruit indies for cheaper chaff.

Battle magic comes from Blood Astral communion with some 10% warlocks leading with the Dragon, Anointed, or indie mages with a Matrix.

Late game is a standard affair for a blood nation, climbing blood until you can summon Demon Lords.

Can Also summon The Fire Elemental Royalty.

Expanding is easy with your infantry and spamming Fire Elementals when things get tough.

Abysia likes to be an aggressive early game, taking many territories and possibly even completely devouring a weaker neighbor (You appreciate having a land lead).

Try to produce Warlocks from your cap each turn (you can only get so many of them).

Indie mages are a high priority, and you should be producing them when you get the chance.

List some example pretender builds. Try to use the following format to keep authorship and pretender design rationale clear.

Youtuber GeneralConfusion Basic Nation Analysis

Nations
Early Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Ulm • Marverni • Sauromatia • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Mictlan • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Agartha • Tir na n'Og • Fomoria • Vanheim • Helheim • Niefelheim • Rus • Kailasa • Lanka • Yomi • Hinnom • Ur • Berytos • Xibalba • Mekone • Ubar • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Therodos
Middle Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Sceleria • Pythium • Man • Eriu • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Asphodel • Vanheim • Jotunheim • Vanarus • Bandar Log • Shinuyama • Ashdod • Uruk • Nazca • Xibalba • Phlegra • Phaeacia • Ind • Na'ba • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Ys
Late Ages	Arcoscephale • Pythium • Lemuria • Man • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Jomon • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Midgård • Utgård • Bogarus • Patala • Gath • Ragha • Xibalba • Phlegra • Vaettiheim • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Erytheia