| Saurid Autocracy | |
|---|---|
| History | |
| Founded on | Muraganda |
| Active | Omenpath Era |
| Status | Active |
| Membership | |
| Notable members | Tyrox |
| Races | Saurids, Humans |
The Saurid Autocracy is the mightiest state on the plane of Muraganda.[1]
Description
The Saurid Autocracy is a kingdom of saurids and their human subjects, who the saurids call "softskins".[1] Raiders from the Autocracy are typically composed of mixed units of "immortal", "shedskin", and "softskin" cavalry who ride armored flatback raptors and larger beasts.
Saurid society is stratified along rigid caste divisions, with the leading dynastic tyrant families sitting atop a vast and byzantine social pyramid.[1] The top of this pyramid is lavish and hedonistic, alien to the experience of the rest of saurid society by design. The middle is a mix of bureaucrats, priests, and military commanders who, since the conclusion of the unification, squabble over internal politics, policing the lower classes, and the maintenance of their precious bureaucratic systems. The vast, seething base of this pyramid is composed of the myriad laboring classes of saurids; below them are the softskins, who are subcreatures to the tyrant lizards. All are subject to the absolute rule of the autarch, the sole leader of the Autocracy, who is revered as a divine monarch.
The Autocracy is capable of incredible feats of engineering and infrastructure, relative to other groups on Muraganda.[1] They have built vast temples inside their fortress city from which the plane's first paved roads extend out across their state. Arching irrigation canals feed water from alpine lakes, reservoirs, and rivers down into the saurid lands, where paddle-wheel engines power industrial pit mines and smelting factories. Rather than fields and granaries, they maintain industrial pastures and abattoirs, smoking plants, and vast subterranean salting cellars. Humans under the Autocracy's dominion are allowed to grow small plots of communal vegetables and grains to satisfy their diets.
Saurids keep a close relationship with Muraganda's oozes, who they worship as the physical, supernatural remains of their departed ancestors.[1] They regard the Mimeoplasm especially as a great figure if not a living god. Oozes contain and shape the beings that they consume; upon their deaths or on their deathbeds, saurids feed their revered elders to oozes so that they may live forever in the holy jelly.
History
Advance teams from Avishkar were deployed to Muraganda a year before the beginning of the race, split into four divisions: diplomatic, construction, maintenance, and security.[1] Though the Avishkari delegations were granted assurances by a ruling power, the Saurid Autocracy, that the land they built on was the proper place to do so, the race's security and maintenance teams have since discovered that the treaties their counterparts in diplomacy secured were not signed with the full knowledge of the land's other inhabitants.
The Autocracy's agreements with Avishkar were a rather canny bit of political maneuvering; from their easements and agreements, the Autocracy advanced their borders along the race route, secured infrastructural and technological exchanges, and assured themselves the prime position of "speaking" for the plane.[1]
References
- ↑ a b c d e f g Miguel Lopez (December 11, 2024). "Planeswalker's Guide to Aetherdrift, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.