Xabaxes' Realm

## Geography

Xabaxes' Realm is a tyranny in northwest Karvhat, a land of varied inhabitants and geography. Its capital citadel, Xabrax, and second city Euryli, sit on Lake Augur and host agrarian economies. The town of Sathe extracts minerals from Xabaxes' share of the Cranial Caps. The coastal acropolis of Baxys Mons serves as the personal fief and testing ground of its Beholder Overlord.

## History

The modern borders of Xabaxes' Realm are roughly consistent with the old borders of Edestrus, a human kingdom which controlled Lake Augur as part of the Confederation of the Eye, prior to the 2nd Schism. During the Aberrant Wars, Edestrus' army was obliterated by the Beholders in the Battle of the Eye near Helfast, and the undefended city was quickly surrendered to the Beholders. Unlike its brethren, who were keen to rip and tear to remake their urban citadels in their own image, Xabaxes left the former city of Edestrus mostly intact save for its name change. Instead it built itselt a new city-laboratory in Baxys Mons, formerly a small town at the foot of Mt. Fragor.

Since its inception, Xabaxes' Realm has been involved in dozens of border wars with its neighboring Tyrants, primarily Daedrax and Hetortion. In particular, its border with Hetortion along the Arterra River has become perhaps the bloodiest sliver of land in all of Eluseus, the site of thirty eight battles and counting between the two tyrants, mostly focusing on control of the city of Arduux at the mouth of the Arterra. Entire generations of conscripts have been raised to fight and die in an endless battle that repeats every year or so on the banks of this bloody river. Most recently, in 1328 Hetortion's Legions have seized the city, and since then Xabaxes' Legions have been brewing a counteroffensive rumored to be the largest in scale since the Aberrant Wars.

Although all seven tyrants are terrifically potent in magic, the three commonly agreed to be the most powerful are Daedrax, Hetortion, & Xabaxes. All three have claimed sole rite to the fertile lands surrounding Lake Augur, constructing their citadels equidistant from each other on the shores of the inland sea, each building their towers just high enough to glare at the others from a distance. While all seven tyrants have bitterly agreed to forgo all out war, the egos of these three exceptionally powerful tyrants have meant that they cannot resist the opportunity to skirmish each other's armies in the hinterlands of their realms. As a result of this continual violence, more sport than war, the universities of Xabrax, Daedrux, & Hetorch are the most advanced centers in the world for the study of destructive magics, pumping out war mages by the dozen.

## Strategy

The University of Xabrax specializes in Evocation magics. Its war mage graduates are perhaps the most feared in all of Karvhat due to their ability to unleash firestorms, avalanches, or even small meteor showers upon unsuspecting conscript hordes during border skirmishes. Xabaxes' Legions have adopted this advantage into an unpredictable, explosive doctrine focused on breakthrough and shock and awe. These tactics are mirrored by the industry of Xabrax, which has a swollen manufacturing district specializing in the development of war machines from the timber of the neighboring woodlands and gunpowder from the saltpeter mined in the Cranial Caps.