In ages past, a distant star inhabited by a great race of strange, alien beings was struck with an unimaginable catastrophe. The star fell from the heavens, breaking into tiny shards. One such shard fell through the Spheres and down upon the world. The shard came to rest on the ocean floor and there a remnant of this great race adapted and survived. They multiplied and enslaved a race of fishlike humanoids by sheer strength of mind and conquered the underwater realms ofthe world.

In the halls of R’lyeh the Starspawns, the Great Ones who survived the Fall opened a gate into the Void and unleashed its horrors upon the world. But the Void was not to be controlled even by the Starspawns. The very fabric of the Veil was weakened and madness struck the inhabitants of mighty R’lyeh. Only the most powerful of the Starspawns were able to keep their minds intact. The Empire crumbled as insanity took the leaders and the former slaves and servants of the Empire were able to lift the yoke of R’lyeh.

But now a God is awakening, and it is a God Dreaming of the Void. The mind-breaking Dreams of the Sleeping God plague the inhabitants of coastal and underwater cities and with the Dreams come the horrors. Strange, cannibalistic cults worshiping the Void call them from Beyond. The Dreamlands of R’lyeh threaten to destroy the world. All coastal forts of R’lyeh have a special well where women can submerge themselves in the hope of being impregnated by a Great One. However, most will be taken by Deep Ones instead and the women’s offspring will be strange, fishlike humanoids instead of the noble Starchildren they wanted. These half-human hybrids are usually devoted to the cause of putting mankind below the sea and often join the army

LA R'lyeh is an underwater nation that heavily relies on hordes of chaff backed by powerful mages and void monsters. R'lyeh is often building for communions to further push this strategy. LA R'lyeh's dominion will kill off the population of any province to which it has spread, converting a number of the dead into dreamers and cultists for use as fodder in their armies. It will also cause any non-immune units spending time within the domain to eventually go insane, causing them to perform random actions rather than obeying orders. The R'lyeh capital contains a [Void Gate], which any astral unit (regardless of the nation) can enter in an attempt to tame the void spawn beyond.

LA adds additional difficulty to the Middle age R'lyeh lineup by occasionally taking away player agency. One must always keep in mind the ticking clock that is popkill dominion. Income will go down and upkeep will go up. Beware that the piles of free spawn do cost upkeep, which can be problematic if there are no other water nations around to suicide the chaff into.

It also doesn't help if Atlantis is in the game, as they hard-counter R'lyeh.

Race	Military	Magic Access	Priests	Buildings
Illithids Slave Alatians, Mermen, and Tritons Hybrids troops	Amphibious Armoured Slaves Lobotomized Slaves Illithid Mind Blasters Madmen Freespawn Voidspawn	4 (uncommon 5, rare 6) 3 (rare 4) 1 (uncommon 2, rare 3) 1 (uncommon 2, rare 3) 1	Medium (2)	Standard (Citadel*) Can build Underwater Forts

*You start with only a Castle, which you cannot upgrade. Citadels can't be built underwater.

The Dreamlands

Your Dominion claims your taxpaying Population at a rate of 0.5% per candle per turn, either putting them into endless sleep or converting them into Madmen who will serve your Pretender. Those claimed don't pay taxes, of course, and don't contribute to your Recruitment Point total; on the other hand, your Mad troops each require 1 Gold per year in upkeep, or half that if they're Sacred. Your Dominion also sometimes "Freespawns" beings you'd typically get from the Void Gate, some of whom typically aren't found outside your capital.

Commanders are somewhat safe from this, but they're not immune; the Dominion occasionally adds Insanity to them if they lack Void Sanity, seemingly no greater than the strength of your Dominion in the province they're in (per turn). Your Pretender is immune, thank gosh.

Oh, and LA R'lyeh gets a slightly-different list of actions the Insane can undertake, compared to other nations; the biggest difference is that they can sometimes make themselves Prophets, even if you already have one. This is potentially pretty cool.

LA R'lyeh has access to two types of Starspawn. The capital only one is a very powerful mage for its cost. The other is an otherwise mediocre level 2 priest. Many of R'lyeh's front line units have the slave tag, which halves upkeep costs. The Meteorite Guards, Illithids, and Crab Hybrids are among your stronger troops but note that Crab Hybrids are not amphibious.

Broken up between the mindless hoard units with no Prot and MR, the armored Slaves, and the Illithid mind blasters. Freespawn grants you a lot of chaff, extra care should be taken as you're going to be tight on money even though most of your units are slaves.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Lobo Guard 5 1 2	Amphibious Darkvision(100%) Magic Being slave mindless	The backbone of R'lyeh's armies. Despite being quite fragile, especially to AOE spells, they are easily and cheaply massable and will not rout.
	Slave Trooper 9 2 6	Amphibious Darkvision(100%) slave	Versatile, cheap and dangerous chaff. They hit very hard with their trident on both land and water and fight without penalty in deep waters.
	Slave Guardian 9 10 6	Amphibious Darkvision(100%) slave
	Slave Guardian 9 11 6	Amphibious Darkvision(100%) slave
	Slave Trooper Slave Trooper 9 2 6	Amphibious slave	Mermen have less survivability than the Atlantian troopers but can act like a sort of underwater cavalry. No armor but could be mixed with other chaff to support its high attack.
	Slave Guardian Slave Guardian 9 10 6	Amphibious slave	Mermen have less survivability than the Atlantian troopers but can act like a sort of underwater cavalry. They aren't spectacular or very relevant. Can be used as land chaff (unlike tritons).
	Slave Trooper 9 1 6	aquatic slave	Not as fast as Mermen, but Tritons have more HP, Atk, and Str over Atlantians. Comes at the cost of being unable to go on land and costing slightly more. Useless if the player already owns the seas.
	Slave Guardian 9 11 6	aquatic slave	The Guardian is slightly more useful as in its role as fast-moving killing chaff if you go to war with another underwater nation.
	Meteorite Guard 13 33 16	Amphibious Darkvision(100%) slave	Your best unit, combine with Productivity scales so you can spam them.
	Shambler Thrall 20 1 22	Amphibious Darkvision(50%) Magic Being slave mindless trample	Cheap. Enough survivability to trample into indies before getting minced.
	Crab Hybrid 35 1 33	aquatic Darkvision(50%)	Moderate Prot unit with two decent attack for almost no resources, high rec point cost
	Illithid 50 1 37	Amphibious Blunt Resistant Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity (10)	The stun locker artillery R'lyeh is well known for. High upkeep (keep in mind the slave chaff costs upkeep)and low morale for their price.
	Illithid Soldier 50 51 37	Darkvision(100%) Amphibious Blunt Resistant Magic Being Spirit Sight Void Sanity (10)	In the event you have extra resources and need mind blasters that can survive flying backline attackers or evocation pelting. If you have a resource surplus, they make excellent bodyguards.
	Hybrid Soldier 14 19 26 Coastal Fort Only	Amphibious Spirit Sight	"OK", armored land fort recruit with a trident.
	Hybrid 12 3 21 Coastal Fort Only	Amphibious Spirit Sight	A high Rec point chaff unit with two attacks. Has decent Morale but is overshadowed by Atlantian slaves and their high damage tridents. With high Sloth scales, you would have coastal forts spam in addition to the slave and Thralls underwater to overwhelm the enemy with chaff.
	Hybrid Trooper 13 6 24 Coastal Fort Only	Amphibious Spirit Sight

Add info

Any astral mage can enter the magic site in R'lyeh's capital (including enemy nations that conquer it). Only one mage may enter per turn.

Each mage is assigned a percent chance to summon something, Starting at 20% and increasing by +20% until something comes out of the portal. If successful (includes being attacked by summon) the mage's chances reset to 20%. A mage's percent chance will persist as long as it's not killed ( does twiceborn change it?).

If a mage succeeds in their summoning, what comes out is determined by a roll.
summon roll = unit summoning ability + 2d6 (not open)

After this roll is made, the unit's summoning ability is increased by a value between 0.5 and 1.5. This increase will NOT apply to the current summon roll, it will only apply to the NEXT summoning. While the game will display the rounded-down value, the extra .5 will still be counted.

The units that rolled will then appear. However, there is a 50% chance that the roll will be ignored if Astral Corruption is up. In that case, there is either a 75% chance of getting the horror attack roll or a 25% chance of attack by Eater of Dreams.

By default, there is a 20% chance the summons will attack the summoner, with the percent value increasing when Astral Corruption is up and specific rolls have a higher chance of attack. The chance of being attacked is multiplied by 4 if your nation isn't R'lyeh.

In addition to the summon attempt, there is a 2% chance for the unit to get feebleminded. There is also a chance of getting lost in time and space or going insane. The base chance for either is 65%. This chance is divided by the unit's void sanity and rounded down, so a 10 void sanity unit has a 6% chance of either. These chances are done independently and both can happen at once.

If the unit goes insane, an open roll of 65 / void sanity is done. A unit without void sanity rolls an open 1d65 but a 10 void sanity illithid rolls 1d6. If the roll is greater than 100, the unit is given 100 insanity. Otherwise, a different open roll of 65 / void sanity is added to the unit's insanity.

These are all sacred but you won't be able to gather enough of them to justify a blessing specifically for them. Higher Summoning skill increases the chances of summoning better units.

Sprite	Unit Name	Summon Roll	Comments
	Horror	2-3	100% chance to attack
	Lesser Othernessxd6	4-5
	Vile Thingxd4	6
	Thing Of Many Eyesxd3	7
	Thing From The Voidxd3	8
	Elder Thingxd3	9
	Formless Spawnxd4	10
	Thing From Beyondxd3	12
	Othernessxd4	11
	Dweller-In-The-DeepXd2	13	40% chance to attack
	Greater Othernessxd4	14
	Thing That Should Not Be(1)	15
	Vastness	16
	Greater Otherness(1)	17
	Shubejc - Visitor	18	Can only have one Visitor, if you already have one then you get a Greater Otherness
	Greater Otherness(1)	19
	Vastness	20
	Greater Othernessxd2	21+

These are all sacred but you won't be able to gather enough of them to justify a bless specifically for them. Higher Summoning skill increases the chances of summoning better units.

Sprite	Unit Name	Comments
	Vile Thing	Weakest of the spawn. Slow and only two weak tentacle attacks with no special damage type.
	Thing Of Many Eyes	Can't leave the Capital except for army-wide teleports. Is a defense turret with a ranged and melee weaken attack that can punish besiegers.
	Thing From The Void	Anotherr mediocre, slow unit. Has 3 tentacles and a Slime attack.
	Elder Thing	Free Illithids with no upkeep. Not only does it Mind Blast, it also punishes backline attackers with additional paralyze Damage, stalling long enough for other units to make an offensive
	Formless Spawn	Hard to kill regenerating slime. Stalls and crushes chaff.
	Thing From Beyond	Like the Vile Thing, a defensive mind blaster and with 3 tentacles for melee combat.
	Lesser Otherness	A hard to kill regenerating slime with resistence to the main elements. Can also trample. Wreaks havoc in the enemy lines. The size 5 and 6s especially so.
	Otherness
	Greater Otherness
	Dweller-In-The-Deep	Similar to Elder Things but can't leave the water. Has poison barbs and Life Drain + paralyze attack for defense.
	Thing That Should Not Be	A big, high strength + fear monster with 4 life drain attacks. Should be saved for important fights in a war.
	Vastness	One of the greatest terrors to come out the gate. A monstrous creature that starts fights with 4 mind blasts, then blinks around the battlefield and attacks with its strength stealing melee attacks, having Damage reversal for protection. Even more terrifying if made a commander as its a 3 Innate Spellcaster
	Shubejc - Visitor

Provided by user iRFNA¹⁾

Dreams of R'lyeh Ritual, Requires 4 and 4. Targets a province with an enemy commander. His dreams are pulled into the void where he will do battle with the caster with significantly reduced stats. Effectively this is an assassination spell if the player is prepared for it due to the stat reduction.

Contact Void Spectre Ritual, Requires 3 and 25 Summons a Void Spectre . The Void Spectre is a stealthy unit that has a chance to drive any non-resistant commanders insane in the same province that it's located in.

normal spells that define the nation

LA R'lyeh has very strong access to astral magic and strong access to water. A good early game research path is conjuration to get summon sharks for combat in the water and eventually summon water elemental. 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, The weaker Starspawn and Starchildren make for good communion slaves while the capital only Starspawn make powerful communion masters.

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 when leading groups of Meitorit guards, Illithids and Liboimize hoards. A decent-sized communion can use Army of Giants, Howl and Bone Melter, Marble Warriors.

Starspawn adds Stygian Rains, Darkness, Fields of the Dead and Enslave Mind. For laughs, a Starspawn with minimum support and boosters can cast Soul Drain (don't have important units around when you cast that nuke).

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 Stellar Focus out the box or Arcane Nexus with boosters.

• Anemone Mace Construction 2, 1 5. A thug weapon that grants a lot of attack skills and deals Paralysis and Mortal poison.
• Jellyberd Construction 6, 11 55. Fire Astral crossbath is not native magic. A more defensive Anemone Mace with stronger secondary damage, more Ideal for a suppercombatent.

Focus on controlling the body of water you find yourself in. Water magic is far weaker in combat once you step on land. It's not a bad idea to try and carve out a small section of coastal provinces if able just to ensure you have a foothold for later expansion. Often if there are multiple underwater nations sharing a body the first half of the game will largely be them warring with one another in an attempt to gain sole control over the sea. R'yleh is not particularly strong in such encounters so be cautious. Special care should be taken if Atlantis is on the map as they can expand into the waves rapidly and with far more early game power than your own.

I tend to focus Conjuration first to get access to the water elementals and Voice of Tiamat spell. Conjuration 5 gives full sized water elementals as well as the Voice of Tiamat. If you choose to take it to 6 you will gain access to Summon Void Spectre for harassing your opponents. A few points in construction is always beneficial (Construction 6 to give your Starchildren water elemental items makes them excellent assassins) and don't forget that you need a couple in Thaumaturgy eventually just to set your communions up.

How do you close out the game if you are in it, is the high level research stuff you can do uniquely well, does your nation fall off, aka do you have to force things to conclude swiftly

youtube of someone discussing the nation
guide page on steam??
forum thread or AAR

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