Late Era versions of existing nations

[DrPraetorious]

Frank and I are close to delivery on our LA extension mod, which will include Pythium, Serpent Cult; Machaka, Golden Kingdom and Helheim, Beyond the Pale Sea.

Serpent Cult will get capital-only lamias modeled after the (much later, and Turkish, not Byzantine) sultanate of women. Point is, if you're serpent cult, you should get hot, capital-only snake women. Some of the lamias are armed with poison bows. The Varangian Guard will be sacred predator lizards in plate armor with tower shields - you are expected to wet yourself. Magic will be astral, water, death, nature and blood (note that this is EA Sauromatian magic, cutely enough.) Other than that you get pretty much the same stuff you get in Dom 2. Still picking magic and trying to decide which (if any, probably some of the lesser characters) of the snake women aren't capital only.

Helheim, beyond the Pale Sea, has Machakans instead of serf warriors, and kleurlinge (mixed-race) units with glamour who are not sacred (except for the valkyries, who also turn into spiders now). Your helhirdings ride giant spiders (not black hunters, the regular spiders), and get spider armor. It's inspired by the Boer republics of South Africa. Death, nature, fire, air, blood and earth - in various combinations never rising above a 2 in any path, maybe 3 death (compare to T'ien Ch'i). Your kleurlinge sorceress is sacred, flies and has glamour but is otherwise similar to an existing black sorceress - kleurlinge sorcerers are stealthy assassins with bane-spider armaments and spider armor. You also get helkarls who ride on spiders, but only in your capital.

Machaka, Golden Kingdom loses the Black Hunter spiders, but gets poisoned arrows, poisoned javelins, as well as bracers of protection on their elite units. Their most elite units are sacred magic beings with bracelets of protection who are otherwise naked - you get a group of national combat spells in conjuration that buff them by allowing spirits associated with one of the Orishas (divine beings who act as intermediaries between the people and the awakening God) to possess them. You can also summon people who are permanently posessed by each of the Orishas (unique by copystats), you get "Petro" (I need to check if this concept is exclusively Haitian) versions who are not demons and come out of blood magic. Yes I know that the Malinese were nominally muslim, and in any case are not the same as the Yoruba and bleah bleah. You keep the Sorcerer and the Witch Doctor, but they are sacred now (and marginally more expensive), and you get Houngan, who have one astral and a FEDN random, as well as a Medicine Men (capital only) who gets two astral, three 50% FEDN randoms and a 20% FEDSN random. You may also be able to summon Wakyambi (since those are cool) as well as undead blackhunters (maybe in psychedelic colors) whom the orisha-vessels *ride*.

Anyway, suggestions are appreciated. We're doing artwork right now.