Ophionic Empire (Great)

The Great Ophionic Empire was a vast polity that arose in the crucible of the Regime-Legion Wars. As the Legion pushed north from the Darklands and the Regime expanded from Talahaea, both sides began to arm the Human bands and villages which occupied the bulk of Cathlaea.
As the wars dragged on, these Humans suffered terrible losses in the service of powers they cared for as little as those powers cared for them, especially when the Drow left the Regime and the High Elves looked to their auxilliaries to fill the military ranks. In this fertile environment, a mystery cult arose, led by a small alliance of tribal priests who promised freedom in the name or names of a god or Gods who had come to them in dreams: The Three-Headed Serpents. They provided a catalyst for rebellion and a weapon, in the form of a sacred draft and attendant rituals which allowed the priests and their supporters to absorb the powers of their patrons, becoming the beings known as the Yuan-ti.
The followers of the Three-Headed Serpent, led by the Yuan-ti, threw out the garrisons and the armies of north and south alike, then began to spread their cult and their power, conquering rival tribes, and driving the engine of expansion with blood sacrifices. They offered the rulers of neighbouring territories a choice - the benefits of the Blessed Venom, or the blades of a fanatically devoted army.
The Empire grew until it reached intractable barriers - the Darklands, the coast, the remnant territories of the Regime, and the Great Shield. It was then that it ran into trouble. Of the Serpent's three heads, only Asphyx is remotely suited to a cult of empire. Stygis is a chaotic god of bloodshed, and Sythis explicitly a god of betrayal, and so the Empire functioned largely in spite of the Imperial faith, rather than because of it.
The empire was ruled by its dynastic houses, familial religio-political entities which controlled the shrines of the Three-Headed Serpent and access to the Blessed Venom which catalysed the transformation into a yuan-ti, and the ascension to higher forms. The central houses controlled the capital, while smaller cities each had their regional houses, who served to project the empire's power over their territory while scheming to increase their own power. Without expansion, the nobility and theocracy of the Empire turned their efforts inward even more than any other stalled superpower.
The collapse of the Great Ophionic Empire saw the secession of the territories on the coast of the Narrow Sea, as human and Petari, and even pure-blood Yuan-ti rejected the cult and its practices. The Yainah of the Dustlands never accepted the rule of the Empire, and the Zeranzeri Ash Elves emerged from the Underhollows and seized control of the lands of the 'great delta.'
Threatened with total collapse, the Empire was saved by the actions of the House of Ysseth, which reforged the remaining provinces into the Second Ophionic Empire

Type

Geopolitical, Empire