The R’lyeh of the Early Age was a strange parallel of the R’lyeh of later ages. Its basest origins were in strange Polyps of the deepest depths, whose spawn could swim on their own. Over the centuries, these spawn developed into enormous and powerful beings called Aboleths. Even the Aboleths didn’t understand the source of their sapience, but the oldest ones (called “Mind Lords”) eventually developed the power to enslave lesser minds with simply their force of will. These slaves – mostly Deep Ones that picked the wrong gorge to emerge from, but a few from other races as well – were coerced into building small but fabulous cities for their rulers. The emergence of their Awakening God coincided with the Mind Lords’ growing interest in the Stellar Sphere, with one star drawing more attention than the rest…

Early Age R'lyeh is like Early Age Pelagia, except that its gimmick is sort of useful for getting ashore. I suppose it helps that R'lyeh also has pet Atlantians.

Under the sea, Early Age R'lyeh will be a pain in the butt to deal with, due to their endless hordes of Polypal Spawn and slave chaff. Their Aquatic Mages are ridiculous with how much they can do, including Mind Blasts and (on the really-expensive ones) outright Enslavement.

On the surface – which is where almost all games are decided, mind you – it's a different story; your troops and Mages are short-lived, and you'll have to rely on either Indies or a steady stream of Atlantian slave chaff to push the tide inward. The investment isn't as ridiculous or difficult as Early Age Pelagia's, but it's still quite rough. This is not a nation for beginners.

Description of the workhorse options. For the sake of sanity, skip the clearly subpar and generic stuff (no h1's unless there are special qualities, no 40-60 leadership dudes that are average, etc.)

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Scout 25 1 1	Amphibious Darkvision Stealthy(50)	Amphibious scout to see things on land and sea.
	Slave Prince 80 49 1	Amphibious Darkvision	The easiest access to generic leadership. High protection. Slave Prince is the only one of your commanders with 80 leadership that allows using formations. Has taskmaster for some extra morale for your plentiful slaves. Could work as an early game thug chassis if you need melee stats.
	Slave Priest 45 1 1	1 Sacred Amphibious Slave	Cheap access to a level 1 priest. Really cheap upkeep as he is both sacred and slave.
	Slave Mage Slave Mage 175 1 2	211100% 13 Amphibious Slave	The Prime Mage of R'lyeh. Has leadership for potentially leading early expansion parties. About the same upkeep as a 90 gold mage due to being slave. The best researcher for R'lyeh. Your main combat and communion mages. Those landing extra water from randoms can Summon Water Elementals out of the box, astral ones can Mind Burn and earth and nature ones can communion to cast buff spells for all your a chaff. Their high gold cost is going to be high early game, but near the end of year 0 you would really love to mass produce them.
	Aboleth 215 1 2	221100% 15 Aquatic Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity (5) Taskmaster (+2) eyes(4) abolith Twiceborn(Necrodai)	efficiently costed and powerful water mage. Will help you win the Oceans with Water summons and mind bullets, but like all aboliths, will just sit around doing lab work after that.
	Abodai 265 1 2 Capital Only	12111100% 15 sacred Aquatic Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity (5) Taskmaster (+2) eyes(4) abolith Twiceborn(Necrodai)	Situational but needed 1/4 of them to be 2 to forge death staffs for your summoned death mages (because no hands).
	Mind Lord 420 1 4 Capital Only	331100% 10% 19 resist cold(5) Aquatic Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity (10) Taskmaster (+2) eyes(4) abolith Twiceborn(Necrodai)	Very powerful. Not as strong as traditional super-combatants given their limited slots but makes it up by being a strong and meaty wizard. Has a AOE lifedrain and Enslave mind attack. Good Thug with some meat shields for support.
	Androdai 190 1 2 Coastal fortress only	111100% 10% 9 sacred Amphibious Spirit Sight insane(10%) mindvessel	Your "reward" for making a fort on land. By themselves, they may be overpriced compared to your Slave Mages. They do add Death and Holy magic to your above-water communions. As you don't usually benefit of a bless for your troops, you could create a mage bless to make them better in communions to justify their cost. Target for the spell Mind Vessel, allows you they can copy the Astral might of an abolith and bring it on land. TL;DR You rather wish making Amulet of the Fish was a easy process, but you have to make the best of what you do have. Another Take: As they have full slot you could also give them a lot of MR Penetrating items so your save or Die spells can go through even the toughest super combatant.
	Polypal Mother 100 1 2 Forighen Rec only	2 sacred resist poison(15) Mind Slimer(5) blind Aquatic Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity (10) unsurroundable (5) Dominion Monster Summoner(Polypal Spawn) immobile Blunt Resistant Pierce Resistant need-not-eat Death wail (10) female	Equivalent to Underwater Defence turrets (rarely the best thing to spend on your gold on). Their use is dependent on if your on the back foot in the water wars. They produce additional chaff, in some weird situation you don't have enough. Immovable rock priest that mind blast, a way to counter potential waves of undead breaking into your fort, and improving your chaff's moral. Mothers are the most likely to see use as if you first build a temple, they can protect the UW provinces from raiders while the fort is being constructed. Grandmothers would only see play if your getting swamped by undead. TL;DR: Unless you are under serious pressure, buying more abolith is a better long term investment.
	Grandmother 300 1 2	13 7 sacred resist poison(15) Mind Slimer(5) blind Aquatic Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity (10) unsurroundable (5) Dominion Monster Summoner(Polypal Spawn per month) immobile Blunt Resistant Pierce Resistant need-not-eat Death wail (10) female

any breakout hits that might sway someone towards luck or away from it ?

Img	Unit Name	—-SpecialAttributes—-	Comments
	Auluudh - Mind Lord	44 21 aquatic resist Cold(7) Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity(15) Eyes(4) aboleth Twiceborn(Necrodai)

Such Flexibility with Water, Earth, Nature, Death, and Astral every path has something and will depend on the situation. WHat would be a priority are Conjuration become water Elementals are important in Water wars, and must get thaumaturgy for communions eventually.

• Mind Vessel: 3 Thaum 3 15. Aboleth tag Only. A multistep and convoluted method of getting your astral magic on land. an Aboleth can pick a Androdai to let it share his Astral paths, by overwriting the slaves. As it's replacing the paths. Not cost-effective use this on a 2 Androdai but worthwhile if you random 4 on the Aboleth. Mind Vessel multistep and elaborate spell as it requires that the caster and target be in the lab and you had Constructed a Fort, Temple, and Lab for a unit that requires this spell to justify its price tag. If you plan to mass them, you need a lot of gold, Pearls, and holding the nearest coastal fort to make this an efficient strategy rather than a gimic. If you don't have an urgent need for mages with a base 3 and 4s, you could just double down on slave mages.

• Enslave Sea Trolls: 32 Thaum 5 15. ( Slave Trollx5 + [1/2 lv]): Oh wow, this nation (and this nation alone) makes Sea Trolls good!

EA R'lyeh has very strong access to astral magic and strong access to water. They do have solid cheap mage, but thier stronger are confined under the sea.

To secure your ocean, A good early game research path is conjuration to get summon sharks for combat and then eventually summon water elementals as your cheap slave mages will often have water 3.

As the game progresses and you're doing more fighting on land astral magic can take the forefront. Slave Mages and the weaker Androdai make for good communion slaves while the mind vessel Androdai forms the communion masters.

Your Aboleths are powerful mages but lack the slots for path climbing, but you can do some finagling with your lesser slaves.

A water random Slave mage with boosters is 5 to make water queens.

nature random Slaves with a single water booster can make Naiads and then Thistle Mace for 4.

Your stuck at 1 unless you get lucky with a 10%, find an indie, or empower once so you can make Earth boots, and then climb higher with Troll King for 4 if you want it outside of communions.

Streams from Hades gives Kokythiads for a strong Deathmage with slots. Only gets you up to 4 with a Skull Staff. Decent but you need an intervention to go higher.

With The Mind Vessel spell, you can Androdai cast powerful Astral Rituals. you can have an Aboleth copy its Astral paths onto an Androdai, letting you have two 4s. if you can get Earth boosts they can also forge Crystal Coins. That combined with Starshine Skullcap can boost that 4 into 6. From there, a Ring of Sorcery and then Ring if Wizardry is possible to boost any of your Sorcery paths like death by to and elementals by 1. Making the rings requiring a strong pearl economy, so your only getting the ones and should only use them for rituals.

What is the best spell you can use in combat. What spells the best support your national lineup, Is there weakness that you need to fix? Any tricks you should be aware you have?

Your a communion nation with some of the most cost-effective communion mages.

Even without communions Slave Mages are strong water mages that can be mass-able numbers.

Already they can random in Earth and Nature into communions with Starspawn adding Higher Astral and death to it.

Just by themselves, a group of Slave Mages is a force, especially with hoards to buff. A decent-sized communion can use Army of Giants, Howl and Bone Melter, Marble Warriors.

Mind vessel Androdai is your above water Astral of your Aboliths and also add Holy and Death spell to the communion. cast Enslave Mind and Nether Darts.

Do you have any National items(Construction Level, Price, and required Paths). Any unique generic items few other nations can forge? What item would be useful on your unit lineup (non-standard recommend thug gear)?

You are very flexible and can help you climb important end game magic, death, and Nature.

Can summon Kokythiads and Naiads with boosters. Nabbing a Ether Gate for Ether Lord could add Air and blood to communions, if not better death.

A Starspawn can easily nab a Highlevel Astral global like Stellar Focus out the box or Arcane Nexus with boosters.

You have very good Mind Hunting game.

• Anemone Mace Construction 2, 1 5. A thug weapon that grants a lot of attack skills and deals Paralysis and Mortal poison.

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.

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

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