"Ermor was initially a conglomerate of the Roman Empire and undead nations of general fantasy stock. With time, it has received a history that begins as something like the early Roman republic, with military units of that age and priests and diviners inspired by Roman religious officials. The New Faith replaces the old state cult of the Numina, as Christianity eventually replaced the old Roman state cult. With the turn of the age, the mistake of the Augurs becomes apparent, and the nation is brought into darkness.

Ermor is one of the first conceived nations in the Dominions universe. In the first Dominions, the Ermorian backstory influenced many of the other nations. When the eras were introduced in Dominions 3, the undead empire ended up in the late age and the Dominions history lost some of its coherency. With Dominions 4, I tried to straighten things up and once more placed the Ashen Empire of Ermor in the middle age where its antagonists and splinter empires can be found.

The backstories of Sceleria, Pythium, Marignon and Ulm are all influenced by Ermor. Several other nations have interacted with the nation or its shadow. It would be difficult to imagine the Dominions setting without Ermor." –Illwinter, in 'The Origins of Nations' section of the Dominions 5 Manual

Ermor was once a great empire that had conquered most of the known world. The realm crumbled as the great mages of the Empire studied dark magic under the Sauromancers of C'tis. Unaware of the dangers of dark sorcery, priests performed unholy rites in the capital city of Eldregate. But there were voices who demanded the foul practices to stop. Theurgs and Thaumaturgs foresaw the cataclysm and advised generals, governors and consuls to revolt. When the Apostate Emperor marched on Ermor itself, the Augurs and Bishops of the Empire were forced to act in concert. In one cataclysmic event, Death was let loose and the empire was shattered. The Cataclysm attracted attention from an earlier God, a dark and hungry God. The vast power of this Awakening God erased the boundaries between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Ermor is now a cursed land of ashes and darkness where nothing grows. The bones of long-dead inhabitants reassemble to form legions of undead under the leadership of the cursed priests of the old Ermorian faith. Undead legions march forth to reconquer a world once theirs. The Ermorian Dominion reanimates the dead without the aid of unholy priests. It also destroys the land, turning crops and forests into ashes and people and livestock to bones. The Pretender God of Ermor will also be able to sense where any corpses are in provinces under his Dominion. –National Description of MA Ermor in the nation selection screen, copy pasted from Dominions5.exe

• Your dominion kills the local Population at a rate of 5% per candle per month.
  
• Your dominion spawns undead units and commanders passively.
  
• All owned priests can reanimate undead units.
  
• Non-Undead troops have their Morale decreased by 1 in your Dominion, even if they belong to you.
  
• Your Dominion counts Corpses for you, potentially relevant for the raising of Soulless.
  
• Your Pretender already starts with their Growth/Death scale at Death 3. This does not provide any additional design points.
  
• Mercenaries are 100% more expensive.
  
• Starting population is 1/4 that of a normal nation's.¹⁾
  

• Standard Fortifications for MA (aka: can build Palisades and upgrade up to Castles).
  • Starts with a Fortified City in the Capital.
• Each Temple owned adds a 1 to your gem income, up to a limit of current base Dominion Strength.

Commanders:
None.

Troops:
None.

Repeatable:
None.

Unfinished

Taken and reformatted from Loggy's Freespawn reverse engineering notes.

If you don't have candles, you get nothing.
If you don't own the province, you get nothing.

1. CandleValue = (candles / 2) + 2
2. If you have a temple, add (8 * game setting's gold multiple)/100, rounded down, to CandleValue.
3. Number of Spawn Attempts = CandleValue * 175/100, rounded down
4. If the number of Spawn Attempts is 0 or negative, you get nothing.

For each spawn attempt:

1. If this is your capital (90% chance of change), OR any other fort (30 * (1 + commander point bonus))% chance of change:
   1. Consider the roll below to instead be a closed d6 + 89
2. Roll a closed d(candles) - 1, and spawn accordingly:
   1. If 0 and the province is not UW:
      1. 50% chance for: 1 Ghoul troop
   2. If 1, 3:
      1. 100% chance for: 1 Soulless troop
   3. If 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10:
      1. 100% chance for: 1 (random, equal chance between: Longdead, Longdead, Longdead, Longdead, Longdead, Longdead) troop
      2. Separately, 2% chance for: 1 Mound King commander
   4. If 5, 8:
      1. If not underwater, 50% chance for: 1 Longdead Horseman troop
      2. Separately, 1% chance for: 1 Mound King commander
3. Any other value (So only applicable to a result of 95 that the fortification roll might get):
   1. 50% chance for: 1 Knight of the Unholy Sepulchre troop
4. If 90, 91:
   1. 100% chance for: 1 Longdead Velite troop
5. If 92, 93, 94:
   1. 1 in 3 chance for: 1 (random, equal chance between: Longdead Triarius, Longdead Principe) troop
   2. Otherwise: 1 Longdead Legionnaire
   3. Separately, 1% chance for: 1 Censor commander

Dusk Elder Access: Although MA Ermor starts with a D2 Spectator, to access their Dusk Elders (and thereby any magic paths outside of Death or independents), they need a D3 to cast Revive Dusk Elder. This can be achieved through path boosting items, notably the earliest Death Booster is the Construction 4 Skull Staff, or building a pretender with at least D3.

Low Income: Low starting capital population and a hefty passive population loss from dominion means MA Ermor often has much less income than other nations, despite having no percentage based income reduction like EA Yomi.

Lictor Summoning: The Black Laurel's ability to boost the amount of Lictors summoned applies to all spells that summon Lictors, but not the Reanimation order of H3+ priests.

Applying MR in Battle: Due to Protection of the Sepulchre's buff not being applied to your units if they pass an MR check, it can be more effective to use Unholy Protection even when an H3 could cast the former.

Dusk Elder S: It is useful to keep in mind the Dusk Elder's ability to "opt out" of battles while still following armies by moving with stealth. Because of the fact that all Dusk Elders have at least S1 but rarely more than that, this is especially pertinent when a Magic Duel trap may be on the table.

Siege Defense: Due to the mindless trait of Longdead, and the mindless and undisciplined traits of Soulless, the siege defense stat of most of MA Ermor's freespawn is only 0.1. The major exception to this are Ghouls, who have 0.6 siege defense per troop.

Freespawn HP: Longdead have much lower HP than one would expect of troops their size. When mixed in with armies with units like Ghouls and most especially Soulless, MA Ermor's armies might rout unexpectedly early due to the larger HP and generally lower protection non-Longdead being targeted and killed first; see the illwiki page for Morale and Loggy's Morale Notes for details on HP rout.

If you can know some example expansion strategies unique or uniquely affected by the nation here, please get access and add them or contact someone with access to explain the strategy and/or tip!

As always, there are some more general expansion strategies available on this page: General Expansion Notes

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.

If you want to add your own build here, get an account and it'll be more than welcome! Try to use a format to keep authorship clear and pretender design rationale visible.

• National Overview video by LucidTactics
  

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