Anrashan Empire

The lands of Etrisium are very temperate with large swaths of rolling hills and plains, the mountains that are present on the only land access to the country. Over the thousands of years of the Anrashan empire, they have been made into massive fortresses with a walled gate between the gap between two mountain ranges known together as ‘The Bladeward Mountains’. So far neither the gate nor the fortress has been breached by invaders. Being near the equator of the world they rarely see snow leaving them able to maintain crops year-round, which is a great benefit given their love of wine.

Culture

The Anrashan society is a very complicated one when you try to think about it and the contradictions they seem to get away with. At once they are a deeply honor-bound society with rules and practices on how one should behave and deal with rivals and enemies, while at the same time allowing for violations of those same rules under the thought ‘if there are no witnesses there are no rules.' This leads to deadly games of cat and mouse between the Anrasha more often than direct confrontations and the Anrasha love such things taking it as challenges to foil one another attempts on their lives. They will send slaves or even seemingly unrelated members of their society to try and kill a rival while they are at a party surrounded by their potential assassins but most importantly, witnesses. There are some Anrasha who forsake the cloak and dagger games, and these generally devote themselves to life within the military where such games are not tolerated even a little. The military is kept under strict rules of conduct and if there is an issue between two people, they solve it in a supervised duel to make sure no cheating occurs. Those even suspected of being involved in the death of a rival are detained until there is proof without a doubt that they are innocent of the charge, and they do expect their rivals to frame them and work to uncover such as well.

Assets

Portals

The Anrasha have a very distinct advantage when it comes to defending their home, each of their cities and major military bases is connected by a series of portals. These portals do not teleport, like a spell or other form of portal instead they eliminate the distance between the two portals allowing the user to take a step through and be across the country. These portals are made of a naturally occurring crystal native to Etrisium that for one reason or another holds no power outside of Etrisium. These crystals are shaped into portals of varying sizes, often quite large and require a shard of the same crystal attuned to the owner to allow passage, a limiting factor is that to go between portals you must have been there first to attune your crystal shard with the portal.

Defense net

Long ago the Anrashan magisters began work on a series of obelisks with forts built around them, many developing into full cities. These obelisks are the support and power source for a massive net over the lands of Etrisium, strongest along the peninsula but extending into the southern islands. This net does nothing to prevent material creatures or objects from passing through, instead, it prevents magical teleportation or scrying attempts in or out. Those within the net can teleport inside the confines of the net and scry within it but not out. As a result, the Anrashan military has more of its forces along its borders helping it maintain its status of never having been occupied by a hostile force.
The net is unaffected by even the wild magic storms and is theorized by the mages of Escini to be indestructible to beings not of god-level power. Should one be foolish enough to try and teleport through the net if they are lucky their spell will simply fail. As one gets progressively unluckier, they can be shunted to one of the spots designed to deposit those seeking to teleport in, invariably these are filled with Anrasha or horrible creatures designed to deal with intruders. If you are truly unlucky you will simply smash against the net scattering across it.

Slavery

The Anrasha are one of the only major races to still practice slavery as a species, some other factions still have slaves or servants that are slaves in everything but name. The Anrasha are honest about it, they take slaves and show no signs of stopping the custom. They will take nearly any species as a slave, the exceptions being those of the Draz Tyran so as not to anger the dragons and their allied races. While a terrible thing the Anrasha benefit from the slaves they keep immensely and as such is a large part of their culture.
Slaves under the care of the Anrasha have a very bleak future in store for them used as fodder in war either true war or the wars between noble houses, sent to fighting pits, mines, to be emergency food for the war beasts, entertainers, or any number of far more cruel fates at the hands of the Anrasha. A favored bit of sport for the Anrasha is to offer their slaves the chance at freedom by having them lead others of their kind into traps to become slaves themselves. The Anrasha do honor their word when it comes to these games of theirs so long as the value of the new slaves is more than the original slave.

The Mythstyre Academy

The Mythstyre Academy is the second largest magical college only dwarfed by the college of Xoln. The Academy itself is very selective about its students with only the best of the Anrashan mages accepted, however, they do accept some of the Voltaris Academy students as transfer students, these students are only the best of the best and are under unusual protection by an Anrashan Patron, often one of the Witch-Council members who are second only to the Witch-King. The Academy teaches all aspects of magic, even necromancy but they do highly discourage the summoning of undead as they understand its consequences.
The library portion of the Mythstyre Academy is known as the ‘Chronicle of Ages’ as it has remained intact since its creation early in the world even having information from the Meldarii, it is said that any information you wish to know about the world can be found there. Most also say that it is skewed to be self-serving and likely fictional on all counts, the Anrasha to their credit record history, and what they see as they see it preferring to leave the information as unbiased as they can to allow for readers to make their conclusions. Gaining access to the library is difficult as it is well guarded and seen as a national treasure, however, those within the mage’s guild and adventurer’s guild can sometimes be granted access to the library if it is for a valid reason.

Territories

The Anrashan Empire holds a tight grip on Etrisium as well as what is known as the Anrashan Archipelligo the islands to the south of Etrisium where they gather most of their Beast Race slaves.

Military

Military As Elves the Anrasha are long lived people with a focus on martial and magical prowess for the purpose of battle, as such from a young age they are trained in combat. The standard Anrashan soldier has had easily over a hundred years of training before seeing any real battle, this is a great boon to their skill, but it also means their soldiers are hard to replace quickly as each one has so much training put into them.
The Anrasha often enhance their combat abilities through magic and include war beasts to help account for being outnumbered in every engagement they have ever fought. They favor crossbows and bladed polearms for the standard troops, the more specialized are known to use sword staves, magic, and longbows, the longbows are exclusively the domain of the fabled dragon riders.
Dragon riders are a holdover from the dark ages when the weight of Savorah was pressing down on the Anrasha for their own evil ways and harboring the dragons. The relationship between one of the riders and a dragon was of friendship over ownership in either way. It took a great deal of expensive magic items and training to fully equip a pair for combat, but the results were devastating, even the roc riders of the Rhyderians who were much more nimble couldn’t stand against the brute force and power of a dragon and the precision of elven arrows. The tradition still exists but is rarely practiced anymore, even the airship that was designed for dragon riders to land on and resupply remains docked near Mol’Amoroth as a showpiece.
The Anrasha prefer raiding and fast surgical strikes to keep an opponent on the defensive or reeling to prevent an attack against themselves. Most of the Anrashan military is focused on defense with the raiding parties being much smaller and highly mobile making it seem like there are for more of them than there really are. Should a force be able to tie them down in a long engagement that is where their strategy can begin to fall apart, and they are most vulnerable.

Foreign Relations

The only relations that the Arnasha have that don't hate them fully is with the Draz Tyran owing to the fact the Anrasha shielded most of the dragons who survived the Dark Ages. This was hardly out of a sense of nobility and instead self preservation as they were fully aware of what would happen to them should the dragons die off, and with them the Arcane.
While Ormir says they oppose the Anrasha the Shadow Lords are more than willing to do business with them buying slaves and offering the slaves the chance to buy their freedom working jobs. These jobs hardly pay anything and are designed to keep the slave just that, but under a more flowery title of endentured servant.

Agriculture & Industry

Arcane flora

For reasons not fully known many of the plants that exist south of Mol’Amoroth have a curious glow when exposed to moonlight and radiate a faint touch of magical energy. For all other purposes they are the same as mundane variants of the plants just glow a soft blue when the moons shine on them lighting in the night in a very pleasing way.
Arcofruit is a result of the unique plant life of Etrisium these fruits grow underwater and there are vineyards that are submerged like rice paddies that grow nothing but this fruit. It is a favored ingredient for wine among the Anrasha. In its normal form it only has a slight magical aura to it mostly providing a light blue glow to the dark purple melon shaped fruit.

Trade & Transport

Much of the trade is done by ship meeting with Ormirian ships in open waters to exchange whatever coin and goods are part of the arrangement. These trades are held in a set point in the ocean on a small bit of land where the Anrasha show off the slaves or other wares they have brought and price is negotiated.
Transportation within Etrisium is unique and while there are still carts, ships, and wagons travelling the country most transportation happens through the portal networks that link the major cities of Etrisium together.

Guild Protection

The three major guilds of Savorah enjoy protection while within Etrisium, though they should remain wary. Those who bear the symbol of their guild are not to be enslaved, making it very important to properly identify yourself if you find yourself in their lands.

Beast races

Perhaps the favored of the Anrasha for slaves, the various beast races make for excellent slaves according to the Anrasha. Some are obvious, minotaur’s are strong and tough, but they all serve a purpose to their creative owners. A personal favorite is a form of a fox hunt in which the Anrasha hunt down kitsune as their ability to shape change makes them ‘excellent quarry’ to be hunted down.

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Government System

Monarchy, Absolute

Major Exports

Mostly slaves but the rare contanier of Anrashan Arco wine can be sent out as well.

Controlled Territories

• Mol'Amoroth

Neighboring Nations

• Rhyderian Kingdom