Exalted Audean Dominion

"The call of greatness calls to ye all, to make the apostates meet their deserved fall."

"Audeos' light grant us might, and forever stand we tall"

-Exerpt from the Audean anthem

The Exalted Audean Dominion (EAD) is an interstellar state originating from (old) Azunel. It is generally considered to be the galaxy's greatest power, towering over its rivals in terms of population and territory with its almost 9 trillion inhabitants and over 200 worlds. The dominion is strongly intertwined with its state religion of Audeanism, a faith centred around a pantheon of 8 gods which highly prizes ambition and strength of will.

The Dominion was initially founded on the Zuhl homeworld of Azunel, a lush and humid world, as the culmination of several centuries of global religious conflict and syncretisation. The EAD itself upholds an extensive and mythical narrative around its founding centred around a variety of legendary kings, including its supposed founder, the sorcerer-king. Through these conflicts, the Zuhl consolidated at a relatively early point and rapidly developed towards space-age technology, with the invention of FTL capabilities marking the year 0 of the current Audean calendar. Though the Zuhl reached the FTL stage of civilization at a mostly average time, they proved to have a fundamental and overwhelming advantage over their counterparts: their psionic abilities. Whilst these abilities initially only supported relatively benign abilities such as a general sense of the location of other life, it had rapidly developed over time to the point where it supported seemingly otherworldy abilities such as telepathy, telekinesis, mindreading and an extremely accurate ability to detect other life. The edge given by these abilities, combined with the ruthlessly ambition-driven nature of its society enabled the dominion to crush any opposition for centuries in one of the most impressive periods of conquest seen in galactic history. This period of expansion would only end in 354 AC when the dominion suffered an unexpected defeat during an attempted invasion of the Universal Technocratic Commonwealth, which grew to be the first true counterweight to the EAD and has contested its grasp over the youthful quadrant ever since in the prolonged struggle which has come to be known as the Silent War. These developments have forced a shift in strategy for the EAD towards a less overt but equally aggressive style of diplomacy to achieve dominance across the quadrant.

The Dominion is a rigidly organised theocracy where all facets of society are controlled by the 8 Audean cults, where areas of responsibility are internally divided based on the domains of the cults. Society is furthermore divided between three broad social casts; the anointed, who are the Zuhl which are directly bound to one of the cults and serve as the more elite class of the society. The 'servants of all' or universals, who are the Zuhl not directly affiliated with any of the cults and which form the general lower class of the empire. Lastly, there are the untouched, which are the various non-Zuhl races residing in the Dominion, generally left segregated upon their own homeland worlds from the rest of the Dominion (and galaxy at large). Whilst the EAD is often noted for its oppressive degree of societal control, even many of its critics concede that its society is remarkably harmonious; lacking many social ills like crime, substance abuse and poverty, even if the life of most is more austere than in most empires.

History
"Where there is a will, there is a way"

-Common human saying.

Before the Incursion
The story of the EAD began upon the world of Old Azunel and with the Zuhl species. Starting as semi-aquatic ambush predators, the Zuhl quickly developed into sapient variants. While the Zuhl followed a similar path of development as other sapient species, a relatively unique feature was the added importance of religion within their societies. An entrenched faith was at the centre of nearly all major civilizations and these faiths were considered the most salient division between societies for centuries. One of these faiths to rise was that of Audeanism, a faith that was initially centralised around the Audeos, the god of ambition, rulership and law. The tenets of Audeos formed society into a highly stratified yet competitive society where the pursuit of ambition was paramount. While this emphasis on ambition made Audean civilization highly unstable and prone it fracture, it also made it a terrifying force in the times where it did achieve unity. Its capacity for sheer fanatism allowed it to overwhelm even explicitly marshal societies and its fierce selection process for its leaders brought forth many great figures in all fields. Through these advantages, the Audeans managed to subjugate six other cults through various means, establishing Audeos as a god of gods.

Despite its achievements, the foundations of the new Audean pantheon seemed shaky as Zuhlkind was moving into the modern age and more unified societies were gaining the upper hand. Sheer fanaticism would not be able to save the Audeans forever and it would have been expected for them to be diminished or entirely destroyed before long if trends continued. Fortunately for the Audeans and not so fortunately for the Zuhl as a whole, the future turned out not to be so smooth.

Universal Catastrophe
The Incursion, as it has come to be known, is both one of the most pivotal moments and one of the greatest mysteries of Audean history. Little is known of its origins beyond the fact that around the earliest stages of industrialisation, societies all over Azunel began recounting the appearance of unusual activity; mysterious disappearances, unnatural disasters and waves of strange mental ailments to name a few. Within a couple of years, accounts emerged of supernatural beings stalking the land and not long after the first attacks were reported. This led to panic and anxiety across the globe.

Even so, the occurrences the world had experienced were nothing compared to what washed over it when the Incursion began in earnest. From out of the blue, large regions were overrun by hordes of strange monstrosities while smaller groups terrorized the rest of the planet. Furthermore, all sorts of unnatural activity increased across the world in frequency and scope as violent storms raged, lands rearranged themselves and random individuals were imbued with strange abilities.

The combined pressure of all these disasters put enormous strain on societies across Azunel as they scrambled to guard themselves against the otherworldly onslaught and the destabilising occurrences that accompanied them. Many states buckled under the pressure as the crisis dragged on for years and then decades. Yet, as most of the world struggled for its very survival, the Audeans thrived in the new situation. Already accustomed to internal chaos and driven by iron wills the Audeans found their footing much sooner than any rivals, allowing them to contain attacks within their own lands. At the same time, the empowered individuals which destabilised most empires only empowered the Audeans, channelling their abilities and their ambitions to achieve rapid advances even as the world burned. The success of the Audeans during the incursion furthermore helped the integration of their subjugated cults, who increasingly looked to them as protectors as the Incursion wore on.