Abraxas
| Biological | |
| Full name: | Abraxas |
|---|---|
| Born: | Unknown |
| Birthplace: | Unknown |
| Sex: | Male |
| Race: | Unknown |
| Hair: | Golden |
| Eyes: | Golden |
| Height: | 16'7" |
| Weight: | 570 lbs |
| Personal | |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Family/Relationships: | {{{family}}} |
| Religion: | The Church of Abraxas |
| Title: | God-King of the Divine Empire, All-Giver, He Who Shines with the Sun, The Eternal Hero |
| Nicknames: | None |
| Hobbies: | None known |
| Known skills: | Manipulation of energy and physical forces, invulnerability, possession, speaking all languages, superhuman strength and speed, telepathy, imbuing power into mortals, teleportation, immortality. |
| Favorite color: | Gold |
| Inspiration: | Himself |
| Motto: | "The word of the God-King is the word that you shall live and die by." |
Abraxas is the self-styled God-King of the Divine Empire. He has ruled the empire since its founding some thirteen hundred years past, and personally presided over every stage of its founding and subsequent expansion. He is very much at the center of his world; he defines those he rules as much as his enemies, thanks to the sheer force of his presence and will. He is famous throughout his world, both as a leader and warrior of divine and superhuman power.
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Nature
Abraxas is far from human. The form he takes most often and presents as his true form is that of a man with golden hair, perfect in physique and shockingly beautiful. He appears human in form, though not in stature or in sheer force of presence. Abraxas stands some sixteen feet in height, and his hair and eyes have a metallic sheen to them. He seems to constantly be surrounded by an aura of glowing, golden light. He often wears armor of a similar golden color, but covers it rich red garments.
Abraxas' power is immense. In combat, he is a monster; he has personally led the Divine Empire to victory is every major battle they have fought in. He wields an immense, gold-plated broad sword that is as long as him. He can also project raw power with his mind, creating fires and storms with equal ease. His power seems to go beyond magic, as it comes to him easily and wordlessly. His flesh is also resistant to weapons of normal make; to date, he has never been injured, and swords of even the finest steel shatter when they touch his skin. Weapons using magitechnology have never been tested upon him, but he has been observed to withstand an entire mountain collapsing atop him.
However, his fearsome prowess in combat is not what makes Abraxas feared. He has personally held his empire together through superhuman traits. Most notably, Abraxas can teleport across the world in an instant. He has shown himself reluctant to teleport into the midst of enemies, but he has effectively fought in three battles simultaneously through carefully timed teleportation. However, it is his domination of others and his ability to communicate that truly tie his people together.
Abraxas is amazing to behold; those who gaze upon him often have their own wills chipped away at. The sheer presence of the God-King commands respect; even his worst enemies, when seeing him in person, have paid him heed and tribute. Those who serve him have been known to bow in worship just at his sight. He can never cause perfect obedience - but he does make those around him have a compulsion to serve him. This is compounded by the fact that he can understand any language, and whenever he speaks, his words are heard in the listener's native language. He can also see out of the eyes of those who swear their service to him, and even take control of them - speaking and acting through them when need be (though without the vast power he commands in person, including the subtle compulsion to please him).
It has been through this, as well as his Avatars, that his empire is held together. Abraxas, simply put, is much of his empire's government. His ministers and officers act independently at times, but are often possessed by his spirit - sometimes simultaneously - and allow him to personally lead his empire. If a problem is truly dire, then Abraxas can teleport in and handle a problem personally.
Avatars
Abraxas can imbue individuals with a part of his power. The extent to which they receive power varies a great deal, but all individuals imbued with a fragment of his power are called Avatars.
The strongest of his Avatars also possess little free will. These individuals are often capable of incredible feats of magic. While they are not capable of instantly creating magical effects like Abraxas himself, they can use most any spell that he knows (and, rest assured, he knows quite a few). Most can see mana strands, as well, and can see supernatural phenomena like ghosts, spirits, and demons easily. They also are of incredible stamina, proving near impossible to poison, and naturally resistant (but not immune) to simple physical forms of damage. They are supernaturally strong, dexterous, and fast. The exact capabilities vary from Avatar to Avatar, but they are of similar might.
However, these Avatars are the ones that Abraxas is most likely to control - both directly, by taking over their bodies and working through them, and indirectly through command. He pays attention to them carefully, and regards them as resources to be used. It is rare that he will have more than ten of them at any given time.
The more common form of Avatar can be found in the middle to upper levels of the imperial bureaucracy and officers. Abraxas will gift mid-ranked officers with more basic sets of powers. He may make a bureaucrat who handles ledgers able to think more quickly. A shaman may have access to healing magic. Sorcerors will be given a selected set of spells to be used in battle. Soldiers will be stronger, harder to kill, and faster than some. He gives most all of them the ability to speak any language and understand any language, as well, and he can choose to see from their eyes and hear from their ears whenever he wishes. There are generally two to three thousand such individuals at any time.
Abraxas can take an Avatar's abilities away at any time.
Personality
Abraxas presents an outward persona of being a divine, magnanimous being. He prefers to maintain an air of being far above human. To most he meets, Abraxas will speak and act as a God. Simply being in his presence involves a great deal of ritual. Servants bow low to him, and soldiers swear lengthy oaths of fealty to him. Abraxas likes to speak in cryptic words and leave men in awe.
He does not show his real personality to many. It is clear that he regards humans as something underneath him; while he tries to protect them, he also believes it is his right to rule over and even dominate them.
History
Abraxas first emerged thirteen hundred years ago. He was said to appeared on the plain that now bears his name, in a column of searing white light that exploded down from the heavens. He came to the tribes nearby, and then united them underneath his power. From there, he began a two century campaign of conquest to bring the neighboring tribes underneath his direct rule.
Founding of the Divine Empire
He founded the city of Abrazerei two hundred years to the day after his appearance, forcing the nearby tribes to move their people to that land and instituted farming and agriculture. That day, he sat on the throne built inside his palace, and declared the founding of the Divine Empire and himself to be its God-King. Abrazerei was built up over some fifty years under his direct guidance, created in less than a century to be one of the greatest cities in his world.
After that, the expansion began. Abraxas personally led campaigns against the Domai people; he brought their lands to the south of his capital underneath his aegis. He then continued south, into the Mobila lands and even claiming (though never truly taming) the Veldt. Afterward, he moved up into the north, seizing the scattered forest tribes there before coming up against the Letians. There, at their mountains, the armies of Abraxas found they could go no further. In a bloody battles that employed Domai samurai, Mobila elephants, legions of chocobo riders, and tribesmen pressed into his servers, the Letian mountain folk cast them back.
Abraxas vowed to come back, and gave his promise physical form when he shattered a mountain with a single great blast of energy.
Consolidation of the Empire
Abraxas saw that the empire he had created was little more than a loose collection of tribes, who followed him out of fear of his capabilities. His commanders only knew their own tribes' soldiers and strategies. Moreover, there was dissent within his empire. Mobali forces could not fight alongside Domai forces, otherwise they would begin fighting. As he moved his armies back, he noticed other problems within the lands of the Divine Empire.
The people of his empire largely lived in small villages, which were proving difficult to control. Some that Abraxas' army came to were unaware that their lands were claimed by the empire. When he returned to the capital, Abraxas decided to create more cities and solidify his control across the regions of the empire.
It was in this era that Abraxas created the bureaucracy and institutionalized the Imperial Army. This pervaded the new regional capitals, and made the villages know and expect tax collectors to come. The army began to train together; while diverse local units were employed, the higher-ranking officers were trained in utilizing different tactics. Moreover, Abraxas began making and employing his Avatars.
700 years since the Divine Empire's founding, Abraxas waged another war against the Letians. His previous campaigns had been quick victories, pacifying and conquering regions in less than twenty years. This campaign did not rest on any single, great battle. Instead, it was a hundred and fifty year-long campaign that claimed the mountains of the Letians. Individual villages were claimed and taken, barbarian tribes that could not be pacified killed, and local warlords bought into loyalty.
At the end of the campaign, Abraxas consolidated roughly a fourth of the Letians into the city of Narzig. Located in the mountains, this city was made into a mining camp that grew over time. It was something of the Divine Empire's prison colony; criminals, unwanted individuals, and slaves sold to the empire were sent to mine the place. Its ore, initially a small output, began to flow down the Iron Road through the Letian Mountains and to the empire itself.
The First Jido-Abraxas War
Narzig rapidly grew beyond a mere mining colony. It turned into a city, as the Letians were moved there, and created industry beyond mining. Airships began to come from the empire proper, bringing food with them, and taking back local metalworks with them. Within a hundred years of its founding, Narzig was a small city, but it was easily the center of activity in the frozen north.
After time, the Iron Road proved inadequate. It was hard, cold even in the summer months, and nearly impassable in the winter months. Transporting ore over it was costly. This led to an expedition down the nearby Lete river, which led them out of the mountains and into a flat coastal plain. Abraxas, who teleported to the Avatar leading the mission, decided to build a new city at the mouth of the river.
The expedition found one had already been built. The Divine Empire first encountered the men of Jido here. The Jidorans were a seafaring people from a far off city in the west, traders who had sailed most of the world's seas and later skies. The Jidorans had founded colonies most everywhere they went, bringing their culture with them. They created the city of Nicea at the mouth of the Lete River, to create a colony to supply their ships and trade with the local cultures.
Abraxas was confounded by the existence of a culture and empire similarly advanced as the Divine Empire. Trade was initially considered, but the early efforts by the Divine Empire proved ineffective. The merchant, wealth-oriented oligarchy of Jido clashed with the autocratic, elaborate culture that Abraxas encouraged. Diplomacy soon broke down as well as trade.
Abraxas elected to take a gamble, and attempt to conquer Nicea twelve years after its discovery. He initially attempted to take the city only with Letian forces. Their fur-clad spearmen and axemen, supported by mammoth cavalry and tamed wolves, proved crippled in the medium climate and wide coastal plains of Nicea. They lacked the mobility needed, and the tight formations of armored spearmen and heavy cavalry on chocobos easily defeated them and threw them back to the mountains.
Jido sent additional forces to Nicea. There was small-scale conflicts against Letian raiding parties and Jidoran skirmishers for four years, before a sizeable force landed in Nicea. At the same time, Abraxas marshalled an army and began to march it up the Iron Road. The Niceans, using seapower and airpower, got their forces to Nicea and prepared well before the Imperial Army was halfway up the Iron Road.
The Jidoran host moved into the mountains, easily meeting and defeating the challenges mustered by the native Letians. Their approach persisted, and they laid siege to Narzig. The siege went poorly for the Imperial garrison there; the town was fortified against raiders, not a dedicated army utilizing cannons, catapults, and airships to support them. After two weeks, their defenses broke and the fighting began in the city. Narzig seemed on the verge of collapse.
It was in their darkest hour that Abraxas himself teleported into the city. He caused immense earthquakes, which brought down the mountains on the Jidoran host - and part of the city. He personally cut down thousands of soldiers, striding through their ranks and crushing them. He called down ice storms, freezing the Jidoran war machines solid and their crews with them. He even caused the Letian river to flood, to sweep away reinforcements. He made the skies themselves burn to destroy the airships. The Jidoran host fled before his might, and received their first taste of Abraxas' power.
Abraxas was forced to remain in Narzig for the rest of that year, personally leading its meager defense forces against constant attempts by the Jidorans to take the city. The Imperial Army arrived at the end of the year, with a quarter of its forces dead from exposure. Abraxas took the command personally (having largely led them through an Avatar during the march), and began to lead them to Nicea. The Imperial Army forced its way onto the Nicean plain.
The Jidoran host chose to meet them there. Once again, Abraxas was on the field personally. The Battle of the Nicean Plain went poorly for the Jidorans. While their units performed well individually, Abraxas was once again unstoppable and unharmable. Moreover, with more Avatars on the field, their forces were unable to keep up. Their host broke apart after two days of battle, and Nicea surrendered when Abraxas came to their gates.
Despite his victory, Abraxas found his empire facing a dangerous new enemy. For the first time, he had nearly lost; the victories his forces won came only through heavy personal intervention, and his enemy had comparable military resources. Moreover, Nicea never fully integrated; Jidoran culture was strong and centered elsewhere, beyond Abraxas' reach.
