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 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

When the Warlocks began their horrible breeding experiments, they unknowingly spelled the doom of Abysia. But it was not the Demonbreds that posed a threat. The real danger came from the Humanbreds, who were multiplying like vermin and swarming the kingdom. Now the heat of the Smouldercone is faltering with the declining number of pure Abysians and magic is seeping from the land. Other sources of magic are needed and the Blood Cult of ancient times is renewed with fervor. Pureblooded Abysians, now rare, serve as priests and sacred warriors.

With the coming of the late ages pureblood abysians become rare, with humanbreds now making up the majority of the army. The level of available fire magic has decreased and the Anathemants have traded earth for death, but the use of blood magic has increased and Abysia finally has access to blood mages outside of its capital.

The nation has multiple tiers of sacred assassins, and some of the most powerful blood-astral mages in the game.

Special Race Attributes	Military	Magic Access	Priests	Buildings
Prefer +2 Abysians Resist Fire wasteland survival	Highly fire resistant light and heavy humanbred infantry Berserker warbred Hell spawn	4 (Rarely 5*) 3 (Rarely 4*) 3 2 1 (Rarely 2*)	Powerful 3 Can perform blood sacrifices	standard Forts(Citadel)

• and scales have half the standard effect on income and population growth and no effect on province supplies.

Abysians and their humanbred all havewasteland survival, with the Humanbred having Resist Fire(15), and pureblooded Abysians having Resist Fire(25), Darkvision(50%) and Heat Aura(3). All pureblood Abysians have a max age of 35 and a base encumberance of 2 and humanbred have a max age of 45 and a base encumberance of 3.

Abysians mages are generally more expensive than average but most can lead units fairly effectively, and most are also priests.

Warning: An important thing to note about blood magic is that their gems are an actual unit. Blood Slaves are humans with no heat protection, so your abysian's heat aura will ignite them. Slaves can be used by any mage even if they are a few squares away, so using humanbred and indy commanders to hold them between 2 to 4 squares away from your pureblooded abysians is good practice.

Img	Unit Name	—-SpecialAttributes—-	Comments
	Slayer Newt 80 10 1	sacred Darkvision 50% Stealthy(65) Assassin(2) Resist Fire(15) ambidextrous(2) wasteland survival	Sacred Assassins with two poison daggers. The slayer worm at just 10 extra gold compared to the slayer newt has better stats all-round and can self bless, which makes it usually the go-to choice.
	Slayer Worm 90 10 1	1 sacred Darkvision 50% Stealthy(60) Assassin(2) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(3) ambidextrous(3) wasteland survival
	Slayer Anathemant 195 10 2 Capital Only	121100% sacred Darkvision(50%) Stealthy(60) Assassin(3) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(4) ambidextrous(3) wasteland survival	A mage Priest assassin that can be used to kill harder targets in the midgame. Either get 11(Skelli-spam and Bane Fire Darts) or 2 (Phoenix Pyre and fire elementals). Both the Slayer Anathemant and the Slayer Sanguine are cap only and so compete with Warlock and Anathemant Dragon recruitment.
	Slayer Sanguine 205 10 2 Capital Only	22 sacred Darkvision(50%) Stealthy(60) Assassin(3) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(3) ambidextrous(3) wasteland survival	Blood priest assassins. Has two built-in life-stealing daggers. Note: Slayer can still sneak with Blood slaves but they are rarely brought into assassinations. While there is a better chance of bringing some blood slaves into an assassination if you carry a large number of them, it should probably not be counted upon. better use is as a stealth raider with Summon Imps and supris blood mages.
	Abysian Commander 70 26 1	Resist Fire(15) wasteland survival	Well armored 80 leadership Commander and your only recruitable commander that can use line formations.
	Newt 85 1 2	11 7 sacred Resist Fire(15) wasteland survival	Relatively expensive for a fire 1 mage. They can lead expansion parties and use fire gems to spam Summon Lesser Fire Elemental to clear out indies. They are also your most cost efficient Lightless Lantern forger.
	Sanguine Acolyte 85 1 2	11 7 sacred resist Fire(15) wasteland survival	Similar to the Newt, a relatively expensive blood mage that can lead troops. They are your most Gold efficient blood hunters and can be used as additional Sabbath slaves.
	Warlock Apprentice 135 1 2 Capital Only	12 11 Darkvision(50%) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(3) wasteland survival Adept Cross Breeder(2) Old Age(34/35) In one year.	Cap only astral and blood mage. The combo of Astral and blood could make them decent for creating communions during the mid to late game, but their cap only status makes them compete with the recruitment of the much more powerful Warlocks and Anathemant Dragons.
	Sanguine Anathemant 210 1 2	122 11 Sacred Darkvision(50%) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(4) wasteland survival Old Age(34/34)	The strongest blood mages you can recruit outside of the capital. They are good for serving in sabbaths both as slaves and for getting high levels of on the battlefield for Fanaticism and Divine Channeling.
	Anathemant Salamander 210 1 2	212 11 Sacred Darkvision(50%) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(5) wasteland survival Old Age(34/33)	One of your primary combat mages. Are also your most gold efficient Smoulderghost summoners, and can summon Mound Kings and longdead. Can lead a decent number and mix of Living, magical, and undead/demon units.
	Warlock 285 1 2 Capital Only	231100% 10% 17 Darkvision(50%) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(3) Adept Cross Breeder(6) wasteland survival Old Age(46/35) Prophet Shape(Anathemant)	Your strongest Blood mage (surprisingly not slow to recruit). Masters of communions, efficient crossbreeders, and generally your best ritual casters. Astral randoms (33) can cast Send Lesser Horror without boosters, blood randoms (24) can with a Blood Thorn cast Infernal Disease, and earth randoms (123) are good for buffing troops with communions. They do not last long, especially if you've taken Death Scales (due to the higher chance of catching Disease in the Winter), and they're a bit too old on average to quickly forestall that. You can still preserve your decent-random Warlocks with Blood's numerous tools, but the cost is high.
	Anathemant Dragon 280 2 4 Capital Only	2131100% 13 Sacred Darkvision(50%) Resist Fire(25) Heat Aura(5) wasteland survival Old Age(42/33)	powerful priests and throne claimers. Fire randoms (31) let you cast big army-wide spells and summon Fire Kings. Death randoms (22) let you forge important death items like Skull Staffs, and with all three relevant boosters they can summon the King of Banefires. The same issues with Warlocks apply to the Dragons, but clearing Disease from the Dragons costs 4 instead of countless lives.

Stat wise Humanbred have +2 HP, +1 MR and Str, and -2 Precision compared regular humans.

Img	Unit Name	—-SpecialAttributes—-	Comments
	Abysian Axe Thrower 13 11 10	resist Fire(15) wasteland survival	A mix of light and ranged infantry. Has high damage short-range throwing axes. With only two ammunition, casting Flaming Arrows for them is probably not worth it unless you are massing them or also using indy crossbows with them. As thown axes fully scail stangth, stength of giants and Blood rush cause them to deal 24 Damage if they survive to be in throwing range.
	Abysian Light Infantry With Spear 12 10 9	resist Fire(15) wasteland survival	Spammable line chaff with a tower shield that will help to absorb arrows. Spears let them be more defensive with repelling against shorter weapons. Axes have a point less defense skill but inflict more damage to units with low prot.
	Abysian Light Infantry With Axe 12 10 9	resist Fire(15) wasteland survival
	Abysian Heavy Infantry With Axe 12 27 9	resist Fire(15) wasteland survival	Higher encumbrance and lower defense for higher body protection. Axes work well against low prot targets. While morningstars are allrounders with a high chance to hit(against the common shielded targets of LA) with half the hits being piercing damage that circumvents 20% of enemy prot.
	Abysian Heavy Infantry With Moningstar 12 28 9	resist Fire(15) wasteland survival
	Abysian Heavy Infantry With Battleaxe 12 26 9	resist Fire(15) wasteland survival	These trade the tower shield for either a two-hand a battleaxe or a two-handed flail. The battleaxes are decent at hacking through large HP pools, while the flails have 2 attacks for up to 6 attacks per square and an attack bonus against shields. Without shields both are vulnerable to massed crossbow fire.
	Abysian Heavy Infantry With Flail 12 26 9	resist Fire(15) wasteland survival
	Guardian of the Pyre 30 28 14 Capital Only	sacred Darkvision(50%) resist Fire(25) heat Aura(3) wasteland survival	Your cap only sacreds. Heavy Infantry With morningstars, they are pureblooded Abysians and have more HP and Strength. They can make for solid expanders with a bless, and are good at holding a line while the enemy gets fatigued.
	Warbred 30 40 28	Darkvision(50%) resist Fire(5) berserker(2) wasteland survival	a size 3 berserker with a hard hitting battleaxe attack. Warbreds are much more expesive than your humanbred heavy infantry but can be useful in taking down high prot and/or high HP targets. Note that warbred are only resist Fire(5) and so can be vulnerable to friendly-fire from your mages.

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Conj 3: Lesser Fire Elemental, Phoenix Power

Blood: Later game strategy. Call Horror, Curse of Blood

Enchant 4: Flaming Arrows

Continuing from the Middle Ages, Abysia's Magic access in the capital is pretty deep. Reaching the benchmarks for Blood and Fire gives it a lot of Boosters, while it has serviceable Astral and Death; you're still beneath some stuff in each of those paths, but you have enough magic to do moderate amounts of late-game trolling.

• 7 → 4, plus the Blood Thorn, the Armor of Souls, and the Brazen Vessel.
• 5 → 3, plus the Skull of Fire and the Flame Helmet.
• 4 → 3, plus the Starshine Skullcap.
• 3 → 2, plus the Skull Staff.
• 1 →

It should be noted that your Communion paths - Blood and Astral - don't line up with your Death. Your Fire doesn't line up very well with the Communion paths, either, though it's at least more reliable than before.

Abysia's Magic access has always been mocked relentlessly, for absolutely sucking off-capital. This was the limiting factor of the previous incarnations of Abysia; you could expand just fine, but your expansion stopped meaning much the nanosecond you ran into a player who had their mages ready, since you couldn't really grow or expand your magic at the same rate. For the Late Ages, Abysia's expansion has gotten worse, and its off-capital magic access is still not very good.

• 2 from your Sanguine Anathemants (who also have 1 for Sabbaths).
• 21 from your Anathemant Salamanders.

Access-wise, the best Empowerment option is spending 30 on a 123 Warlock; this gives access to the Earth Boots, the Blood Stone, and the Crystal Coin, enabling 5 and 4, or 47 on Warlocks you've sought maximum Blood boosters for.

8 gets you all of the Blood Rituals you're missing, so you might consider empowering a 4 Warlock for that, at the cost of 75.

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• Summon Abysian Ancestors 11 Conj 2 for 5 (summon 5 Smoulderghost). A very decent summon. Basically the ghosts of old Abysian infantry that are sacred with a magical Greataxe that deals additional Fire damage. A decent Front line unit but will still die on mass to anti-ghost statagies (except Enchanted Salt).
  
• Pride of Lions 2 Conj 3 for 10. (summon 10 Great Lion) + overcast. Can't Be cast natively and if you have nature gems their 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 then 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 Caelum with their pants down)
  
• Reawaken Fossil 21 Enchantment 5 for 10 (summon Fossilized Giantx5+[1/2 Lv]) can't be natively summoned but some generic undead summon can cast it(may need earth boots). For your trouble, you get undead stone giants with very high prot and a heavy-hitting sword.
• Infernal Breeding 2 Blood 3 for 25. grants decent units that will likely replace most of your infantry.
  

• Liquid Flames of Rhuax 31 Evocation 5. A decent spell that you normally can't natively cast. 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 grants your infantry a Heat aura and boosts existing ones by 3. You may Need a few Cast of this to make sure most of your Infantry benefits from it witch is not much worry as 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 an away to win the grinding game.
  

Fire magic is a decent unit clearer path early game as the nation begs you to spam Fire Elementals. Feel free to spam Fire as much as you want.

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

You should also be building a blood economy all that time. Your primary magic power comes from Blood and Astral spam; being very good at Call Horror spam. see Horror. Adding a Crystal Matrix Earth, Death, or Nature mages to your communes are very important to keep your infantry viable—the addition of death ass Skelli-spam and banefire.

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

Abysia does has ranged unit in anti-light infantry Axe throwers, but you should find indie crossbows and cast Flaming Arrows on them. Don't mind shooting your own forces as they have a high prot shield and resist most of the fire damage.

Fire magic doesn't have limited good rituals like Alchemy to turn their plentiful Fire gem to gold, summon the Fire Kings.

Creating a Blood economy is important as it's easy to empower in. Summoning Demons, Crossbreeds, and Horrors benefits you. Smoldersghosts are also a good unit to spam if you have the death economy.

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).

The end game with Demon Lords.

Fire, Astral, Death, Blood, and their crosspaths grants you many decent thug items (like Lantern Shield). The fact you have a Fire/Death means you can boost your Fire magic by two.

• Blood Thorn: Construction 6, 12, 3: an Iconic thug item, a blood Magic booster, and a dagger that let thugs Drain HP from enemies. Even better as you have to pay less for it.

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.

needs a rewrite.

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 to Create better troops. May want to recruit indies for cheaper chaff.

Battle magic comes from Blood Astral communion with some warlocks leading with the Dragon, 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.

List some example expansion strategies here. If a strong bless or pretender is required then leave the specifics for the pretender section.

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

Abysia likes to be aggressive in the early game, taking many territories and even Devowering 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).

Obtaining good independent mages is a priority.

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

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Link here to guides for the nation, on and off(?) the wiki. This should likely include things like suggested pretender designs as well as strategy guides.

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