The many races of Athla in the Age of Wonders series. In Age of Wonders 3, classes are introduced to allow diverse cultures and playstyle for the races, granting them additional synergies to their natural abilities or compensation for their weaknesses. In Age of Wonders 4, race is reworked as they are all customizable and their appearance are purely cosmetic. For more information on races in Age of Wonders 4, go to this page.

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Races

Races Introduced in Age of Wonders

Humans

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_human.png

Human Form in Age of Wonders 4

^{Humans in Age of Wonders 3}

^{Humans in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

^{Humans in Age of Wonders}

Humanoid beings who are organized and entrepreneurial, albeit impatient at times.

Banished from their Garden, a new race called Humans entered the Valley of Wonders. They were welcomed, but they betrayed the trust and slew the Elven Court, creating a rift among the Elves. Their actions also upset the balance between Good and Evil. However, they are mighty and manage to expel all other races from the Valley of Wonders.

Age of Wonders Units: Human Archer, Human Swordsman, Battering Ram, Human Pikeman, Human Priest, Human Medium Cavalry, Catapult, Ballista, Human Charlatan, Human Cavalier, Human Musketeer, Human Air Galley
Age of Wonders II Units: Halberdier, Infantry, Crossbowman, Cavalry, Swashbuckler, Knight, Witch (The Wizard's Throne), Herbalist (Shadow Magic), Chaplain (Shadow Magic), Air Galley
Age of Wonders III Units: Human Civic Guard, Human Longswordsman, Human Archer, Human Halberdier, Human Priest, Human Cavalry, Human Knight

BFS: Human Longswordsman are soldiers equipped with two-handed swords. They are effective against shielded and Pikeman units with the Overwhelm trait, and elite-ranked Longswordsman can break enemies out of defend mode with the Guard Breaker ability.
Born Under the Sail: Human units have the Mariner ability in Age of Wonders III, which allows them to embark on water without any of its penalties and has three more movement during embarking. In addition, their Protector-ranked Economy Racial Governance increases gold income and population growth on cities with a harbor.
Combat Medic: The Human Priests in III focus on healing allies with Bestowed Iron Heart, which also grants Strong Will and extra defense and resistance, and targeting enemies with ranged spirit damage. Upon reaching Elite rank, their attacks can inflict Daze, preventing the enemy from attacking.
Con Man: Charlatans are masters of deception who claim to be "servant of the people." They are support units who can cast magic bolts, increase morale with Bard's Skills, and can charm enemies into joining his side.
Hunter of Monsters: Human Knights in Age of Wonders II and III deal more damage to dragons, while the latter also are effective against monster units.
Humans Are Average: Both played straight and subverted. Straight in that most races have special characteristics, but human units set the baseline for unit statistics, with no innate bonuses or weaknesses. Subverted in AoW III by many class units built by humans having special abilities, such as enhanced spirit damage for Theocrats or powerful cavalry charges for Warlords.
Our Humans Are Different: In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the human form are Adaptable (non-hero units gains more experience), Defensive Tactics (unit gains extra defense, resistance, and evasion when adjacent to another unit with the Defensive Tactics trait), and Fast Recuperation (unit regenerates extra HP than usual in the world map).
Humans Are the Real Monsters:
- Well, humans are very expansionist, ambitious, and refuse to let anything like, say, the elven empire stand in their way. Most Undead leaders and Doom Priests are ex-humans. However the angelic Highmen (lead by Gabriel) claim that humans are just the first True Neutralinvoked race who can choose good or evil.
- The flavour text on War Galley and Fire Thrower units states that they started out as benign Dwarven inventions before humans refitted them for war.
- In Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, while a neutral faction, regular humans and nomads are the main enemies of the expansion. Their respective leaders are both allied with the Shadow Demons. On the other hand, in the Wizard's Throne, Merlin, the player character, is human and the one who brings balance to the world.
- In the third game, they appear to be this from the Elven Court's perspective, leading the Commonwealth. The truth is, unsurprisingly, more complicated.
Inescapable Net: One of the Patron-level Racial Governance upgrades allows Civic Guards to throw nets to immobilize enemies. In addition, several class units, like Hunters, Scoundrels, and Engineers, can throw nets as well.
Knight in Shining Armor: In III, the Knight is the strongest Human unit in their roster. Several of their notable traits include high defense, Devastating Charge, and Dragon and Monster Slayer. In addition, reaching Elite rank grants them Mind Control Immunity through Strong Will. Their flavor text also shows them as paragons of justice, protecting their people from evil.
Magikarp Power: Their Cavalry are rather generic compared to other Cavalry units, but they can evolve into Knights, whcih are the Human's strongest units.
No Campaign for the Wicked: Despite having a central role in the story in the original game, humans don't show up until the last levels and are never playable as a race in the campaign.
Pirate: Swashbucklers in II are skirmishers who fight with a cutlass and a pistol and can traverse through water. They can taunt enemy units, forcing them to attack the Swashbuckler, ideally wasting their turn trying to reach him and collecting attacks of opportunity from units they must pass by.
Wicked Witch: Witches are spellcasters employed by the humans. They hurl magical blast of death magic and can drain the life of their enemies. Shadow Magic replaces them with a much more benign Herbalist, who functions as a support unit that shoots poison darts and camouflage in forests.

Azrac

Azrac in Age of Wonders

People of the desert. Guided by their god Yaka, they fight against all who trespass their lands. Effectively replaced by the Tigrans from the second game onward, though the Nomads are fairly similar as well.

Age of Wonders Units: Azrac Archer, Azrac Swordsman, Elephant, Scorpion, Azrac Priest, Azrac Rider, Catapult, Ballista, Beholder, Djinn, Sandworm, Yaka Avatar

Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Azracs are basically a mix of Arabic and Ancient Egyptian themes.
Our Genies Are Different: Djinns are magical spirits, often confused for Air elementals, and allies to the Azrac. It is told that they are often Jackass Genie to greedy people, leaving them as bleached skeletons in the desert sands. In battle, they can strike their foes with magical powers and are considered floating creatures.
No Campaign for the Wicked: Azracs' main purpose on the original's campaign is to antagonize the Orcs in the evil campaign.
Oculothorax: The beholder is a giant monster with a spherical body and a single eye. Due to living in desert ruins, they are revered by the Azrac as Yakamaheli, the Eyes of Yaka. They are capable of inflicting fear and firing a doom gaze to deal Death damage. Since they have many eyes, they also have increased vision and True Sight.
Playing with Fire: As worshippers of Yaka, they wield fire magic to fight. Many of their units are resistant to fire damage, while the Azrac Priest and Yaka Avatar are immune to fire damage.
Sandworm: An Azrac third-tier unit. They are effective in the desert, due to being able to conceal in the sands, and the underground, as they can easily traverse through it and can tunnel for the Azrac.
Scary Scorpion: Scorpions are creatures tamed by the Azrac. Their attacks deal poison damage, are resistant to fire damage, and is completely immune to poison damage.
Sinister Scimitar: The Azrac swordsmen are equipped with scimitars.
War Elephants: The Azrac replacement of the Battering Ram.

Lizardmen/Lizardfolk

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_lizardfolk.png

Lizardfolk form in Age of Wonders 4: Dragon Dawn

^{Lizardman in Age of Wonders}

Slender, scaled creatures who use their tongues to get a sense of their surroundings.

A race that lives on the swamps, normally they stand neutral towards all races, but can be persuaded to join one faction or the other.

Age of Wonders Units: Lizardman Archer, Lizardman Swordsman, Battering Ram, Giant Slug, Lizardman Shaman, Lizardman Frog Rider, Turtle Catapult, Turtle Ballista, Salamander, Lurker, Green Wyvern, Basilisk

Basilisk and Cockatrice: Basilisks are the Lizardmen's dangerous and ravenous creature in their roster. Due to its monstrous hunger, the Lizardmen feed their prisoners, the elder and the enfeebled to the basilisks so that they aren't eaten themselves. They also possess a doom gaze to deal death damage.
The Bus Came Back: The Lizard Men are reintroduced in Age of Wonders 4: Dragon Dawn as the lizardfolk form.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Their absense from 2 onwards is explained as a genocide committed by the wizard Nimue.
Dungeon Bypass: Lizardfolk's innate swimming ability give them a powerful advantage on some maps, which is why they didn't appear in the sequels. Particularly since there's a water spell that flooded the map, giving them even more water to have an advantage with.
Fiery Salamander: Salamanders are an fiery offshoot of the lizardmen, but are shunned by their aquatic brethren, because of it.
Horse of a Different Color: The Lizardmen are the most unusual and ride giant frogs.
Lizard Folk: It's in the name. In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the lizardfolk form are Cold Blooded (morale loss is reduced), Poisonous (increases blight resistance, grant immunity to being poisoned, and enemy melee attackers may receive poison), and Tenacious (damage penalties from casualties are halved).
Making a Splash: The Lizardmen are associated with the waters, due to living in swamplands and their ability to swim. Which makes it ironic that they were destroyed by Nimue, the wizard of the water sphere.
Poisonous Person: Several of the lizardmen, like the giant slugs and basilisks, are resistant to poison damage and can inflict poison damage themselves.
Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Lizard Men are portrayed as savage and believing in survival of the fittest, though their alignment is neutral rather than evil.
Sturdy and Steady Turtles: The Lizardmen employ war turtles as their siege engines. While they are slow like other siege units, their ability to swim gives them an edge in moving through the sea.
Super Swimming Skills: Many of their units are expert swimmers, allowing them to move through rivers and seas while most races require defenseless and vulnerable transport ships to move through water.
Our Wyverns Are Different: Green wyverns are relatives of dragons, but were shunned and rejected by dragonkind and takes their frustration on the lizardmen that live in their habitat. The lizardmen offer tribute in exchange for their service, though they sometimes eat their elders for their dissatisfaction. They specializes in poisonous attacks.

Frostlings

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frostling.png

Frostlings in Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Lord

^{Frostlings in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

^{Frostlings in Age of Wonder}

A race of small humanoids that live in the cold lands north. They are always at odds with Dwarves of the region in a fight for temperate, fertile lands. In Age of Wonders III Eternal Lords expansion, they went further north as the result of the gaining power of the Commonwealth and blames the Elves for the loss of their goddess. They have since became a matriarchal society as the result of meeting with the Ice Queens and White Witches.

Age of Wonders Units: Frostling Archer, Frostling Swordsman, Battering Ram, Dire Penguin, Frostling Shaman, Frostling Wolf Rider, Catapult, Ballista, Yeti, Frost Queen, Nordic Glow, Ice Drake
Age of Wonders II Units: Snowscaper, Raider, Shard Thrower, Wolf Raider, Frost Witch, Icedrake Rider, Mammoth Rider, Yeti (Shadow Magic), Doom Wolf
Age of Wonders III Units: Frostling Snowscaper, Frostling Harpoon Thrower, Frostling Raider, Frostling Royal Guard, Frostling White Witch, Frostling Mammoth Rider, Frostling Ice Queen

An Ice Person: The Frostling race's main characteristic.
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti:
- In Age of Wonders and Shadow Magic, Yetis are featured as a Frostling Tier 3 Unit.
- Although Frostling cannot produce Yeti in III, they can build the Artica's Embassy to produce Yeti when their city has a Hall of the Forefathers in their domain. Since the treasure site usually spawn at the arctic, which the Frostlings tolerate, they are likely to build Yetis.
Chariot Pulled by Cats: The Frostling Ice Queen, the highest tier unit, are pulled by polar bears.
Counter-Attack: The Deity-ranked Military Racial Governance grants Support units, like the White Witch and Ice Queen, the Frost Aura ability, which allows the unit to counter melee damage from the enemy with Frost damage and a chance to freeze them. The Governance also grant additional Frost damage and applies to class support units, like Succubi and Evangelists.
Defeat Equals Explosion: The Frostling Royal Guard has the Explosive Ice Death ability, which deals damage upon death.
The Dulcinea Effect: The Frostling Royal Guard in Age of Wonders III has the Pledge of Protection, an ability similar to Absorb Pain. It only works on Frostling females and heroes (regardless of gender).
Elemental Weapon: In Age of Wonders III, Frostling units wield enchanted ice weapons, which allows them to deal extra frost damage at a cost of reduced physical damage. Some of their class units, like Assassins and Crusaders, wield them as well. In addition, the Prophet-ranked Military Racial Governance grants any units with frost weapons the ability to inflict frostbite.
Exposed to the Elements: The White Witches wear very little for a race that lives in the arctic. That said, it is subverted as the Frost Queen's Dome of Ice ability lowers resistance, frost protection, and deals frost damage to any adjacent units that aren't Frostlings or have 100% frost protection.
Heroic Sacrifice: The Frost Queen can used the Last Rite of Winter ability to create a three-hex field but requires sacrificing the unit. Since Frostlings dislike certain terrains and the ability turn the field into Arctic terrain which the Frostling tolerates and has some advantage in Arctic, it is necessary to do it so that the Frostlings do not lose any advantage.
Horse of a Different Color: Polar bears are Frostling heroes' default mount and the animals pulling the Ice Queen's chariot. Meanwhile, there is the Mammoth Rider, which can deal massive damage with their Devastating Charge.
Javelin Thrower: The Harpoon Throwers in III throw harpoons that can immobilize targets. Since they are hunters and fishermen, they have the Fishing ability, which lets them regenerate more HP while embarking.
Mammoths Mean Ice Age: The Frostlings tamed mammoths as war mounts. Due to their massive size, they can break down fortified walls, are very durable, and can crush any foes with their charges, especially in III, where they have Devastating Charge to increase the potency of their charges.
Matriarchy: They worship powerful women who possess the power of snow and ice. At first, they worshipped Artica, but in Age of Wonders III, they shift their focus on the White Witches and Ice Queens. They also choose the strongest of the Frostlings as their mate, which results in a hybrid that serve as Frostling leaders and heroes.
No Campaign for the Wicked: Just like the Azracs, the Frostlings' main purpose on the original's campaigns is to antagonize the Dwarves over territory issues.
Polar Penguins: The ever-dreadful Dire Penguins began in the series as a recruitable creature for the Frostlings. They are capable of swimming, can steal life from enemies, and are resistant to the cold and prefers the arctic.
Put on a Bus:
- The Frostlings were absent in the original Age of Wonders III, but return in Eternal Lords with the explanation of becoming isolationist from the expansion of the Commonwealth.
- The Frostlings no longer exist as a playable race in Age of Wonders 4. They exist in spirit as a race transformation, which allows any race to be cold-adapted like the Frostlings.
Savage Wolves: Frostlings rode wolves in Age of Wonders and II. In addition, the Frostlings in II train Doom Wolves, who can breathe ice and transform the land they touch into snow.
Shovel Strike: The Snowscaper in Age of Wonders II onwards. In Age of Wonders III, they can deal deals bonus damage against frozen or petrified units and units under Stone Skin through their ability, Shatter Strike.
Weak to Fire: Fire is their primary weakness.

Elves/Wood Elves

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aowsm_unittypes_elves.jpeg

Elves in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne

^{Elves in Age of Wonders}

The branch of the elves who, after the war at the Valley of Wonders, followed Queen Elwynn and left in peace to the island of Aldor.

Age of Wonders Units: Elf Archer, Elf Swordsman, Battering Ram, Nymph, Elf Cleric, Elven Scout, Catapult, Ballista, Fairy, Elf Ranger, Unicorn, Nature Elemental
Age of Wonders II Units: Glade Runner, Swordsman, Longbowman, Nymph, Scout, Druid, Iron Maiden, Treeman (Shadow Magic), Fairy Dragon

The Ageless: They're potentially immortal — they never die of old age, but can be killed by unnatural causes.
Druid: In II, the Druids are elven protectors of nature. Their natural abilities allow them to befriend animals, hide in the forest, and call upon vines to entangle the enemies. Reaching Gold Medal allows them to transform the ground into grasslands.
Our Elves Are Different: Vanilla Tolkien-style, immortal wood elves In Harmony with Nature.
Our Fairies Are Different: Nymphs and Fairies are allied with the elves on the first games.
Fairy Dragons: Their fourth-tier unit in Age of Wonders II. It is a strange creature, as it can be both playful towards children and merciless towards evil beings. It can teleport with Phase, detect hidden units, resist magic, and deals magical damage. It also has the Pixie Dust ability that lets it sprinkle magical dust for unpredictable results.
Fertile Feet:
- In I, the Nature Elementals leaves a trail of grasslands and flowers when crossing other terrain types.
- In II, the Druids can turn the ground they walk on into grasslands upon reaching Gold medal.
Green Thumb: Elven druids can entangle the enemy to incapacitate them.
Our Nymphs Are Different: Nymphs are creatures in the elves' roster; they resemble beautiful women in minimal clothing, can befriend animals and attack by seducing enemies.
Plant Person: The Nature Elementals, the Elves' top tier unit in Age of Wonders.
Treants: In Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, the Elves get a Treeman. "Concealment" means that if this wall-crushing behemoth stands in a forest, foes will not see it until it's one step away.
Unicorn:
- In Age of Wonders, the Unicorns are magical and elusive creatures who are attracted to virgins and wizards. They can charge into battle like cavalry, possesses healing abilities, has high resistance, and deal magical damage.
- In Age of Wonders II, unicorns are the preferred mounts of Iron Maidens. The Iron Maiden can use Phase to teleport behind their targets for a flank attack.
When Trees Attack: Treemen are one of the units available for the Elves to send to fight their foes.

Dwarves

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_dwarfkin.png

Dwarfkin form in Age of Wonders 4

^{Dwarves in Age of Wonders 3}

^{Dwarves in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

^{Dwarves in Age of Wonders}

Stout, hardy and stubborn beings who are used to living in the most rugged regions of their world.

Stout people from the mountain regions, old allies of the good races.

Age of Wonders Units: Dwarf Archer, Dwarf Axeman, Battering Ram, Dwarf Berserker, Dwarf Cleric, Dwarf Boar Rider, Bombardier, Ballista, Giant, Dwarven Balloon, Dwarf Mole, Dwarf First Born
Age of Wonders II Units: Axeman, Crossbowman, Berserker, Boar Rider, Engineer, Mole, Runemaster, Gargoyle (Shadow Magic), Steam Tank
Age of Wonders III Units: Dwarf Prospector, Dwarf Axeman, Dwarf Crossbowman, Dwarf Deepguard, Dwarf Forge Priest, Dwarf Boar Rider, Dwarf Firstborn

The Berserker: Dwarf Berserkers are their shock trooper, who can charge into the fray naked (as in, lacking defense unlike other Dwarves) and deal damage to surrounding enemies. In Age of Wonders III, only Warlords can train Berserkers, though Warlord-owned Dwarven cities or even Dwarven Warlords can train them.
Doomed Hometown: In Age of Wonders, the dwarves' homeland, Deepmir, collapses from an earthquake and Frostlings see their downfall as an opportunity for territorial expansion. The Keeper, canonically, helps their dwarven allies recuperate their losses. It is later revealed that Melenis is responsible for the tragedy.
Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Vanilla Tolkien-style dwarves. In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the dwarfkin form are Defensive Tactics (unit gains extra defense, resistance, and evasion when adjacent to another unit with the Defensive Tactics trait), Hardy (gain extra HP), and Tough (gain extra defense).
Our Gargoyles Rock: In Shadow Magic, the dwarves unleashes the gargoyles in battle. They are flying creatures with willpower and immunity to any magical and elemental attacks, except for lightning damage.
Our Giants Are Bigger: Boulder-thrusting good giants allied with the dwarves.
Heavily Armored Mook: With the exception of Prospectors, all of their dwarves in III have the armored trait. This trait allows them to receive upgrades, like the Enchanted Armory mythical city upgrade that also increases their resistance, Dreadnought empire upgrades that reduces their cost and increases their defense, and their Deity-ranked Military Racial Governance that grants them Meteoric Armor.
Horse of a Different Color: They ride boars.
Literally Shattered Lives: Prospectors and Firstborns possess the Shatter Strike ability, which allow them to deal 5 additional damage against frozen and petrified units and units affected by Stone Skin.
Mighty Glacier: Their defense and resistance is higher than other races, but their unit cost is much more expensive.
Mole Miner: Giant moles are just animals, but they are domesticated by Dwarves to serve as both mounts, tunnel-diggers, and wall breakers.
Playing with Fire:
- While they have no protection to fire, specialized dwarf units have resistance to fire damage and can deal fire damage themselves. Each games have certain units that are associated with fire.
  - Firstborns in I and III are primal dwarves who rested on lava pools and molten caves, returning from the slumber to aid their descendants in their time of need. They have fire immunity and their melee attacks can dish it out with fire damage, with III granting it additional abilities, like Mind Control Immunity, lava walking, giant and dragon slaying, and Fire Aura.
  - Runemasters in II are immune to fire and can deal fire damage. They have the leadership ability, which grants extra attack and defense to the army, and wall crushing to aid in sieging cities.
  - Forge Priests in III cast fire bolts, are immune to fire damage, and can walk on lava. They can cast Guardian Flame to an ally to heal 10 HP and grant addition fire damage and resistance.
The Prospector: Prospectors are Dwarf irregular units that can tunnel through dirt walls without the need of builders. When they are forced into battles, they are equipped with their pickaxe and can throw rocks.
Thunderbolt Iron: Their Deity-ranked Military Racial Governance grants their units Meteoric Armor, which makes them immune to Armor Piercing, raise 2 defense and 40% on both Fire and Frost protection.
Tunnel King: The Prospector and Firstborn in Age of Wonders III have the Tunneling ability, which allows them to dig through dirt wall underground. As such, dwarves doesn't need to rely on Builders to dig through the caves.
Underground City: Dwarves in Age of Wonders III love to build cities in the underground, as their city gain happiness for every subterranean rock walls in their domain.
Wreathed in Flames: The Firstborn in III has a fire-like effect on their body which not only grants them 100% Fire Protection, but they also gain Fire Aura upon reaching Elite rank, which allow them to counter adjacent enemy's attack with Fire damage and a chance of inflicting Immolation against non-elemental and incorporeal units.

Halflings

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_halfling.png

Halfling form in Age of Wonders 4

^{Halflings in Age of Wonders 3: Golden Realm}

^{Halflings in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

^{Halflings in Age of Wonders}

"Stocky, happy-go-lucky beings who enjoy wild adventures just as much as a well-deserved nap."

Small, kind people. They are the ones that cede the island of Aldor so the Elves can live there. Gentle folk, they prefer trading to war, but can fight fiercely and have many allies to call upon in times of need.

Age of Wonders Units: Halfling Slinger, Halfling Swordsman, Battering Ram, Halfling Pony Rider, Halfling Cleric, Satyr, Catapult, Ballista, Halfling Rogue, Halfling Eagle Rider, Centaur, Leprechaun
Age of Wonders II Units: Peasant, Swordsman, Slinger, Rogue, Pony Rider, Sheriff, Eagle Rider, Centaur (Shadow Magic), Leprechaun
Age of Wonders III Units: Halfling Adventurer, Halfling Jester, Halfling Nightwatch, Halfling Farmer, Halfling Brew Brother, Halfling Pony Rider, Halfling Eagle Rider

Chef of Iron: The Brew Brothers in III can heal an ally and raise their morale with the Nourishing Meal ability. In combat, they throw cleavers at foes.
Fatal Fireworks: The Jesters in III shoot fireworks to deal physical and fire damage at a single target and inflict Dazzle (which causes the enemy to perform retaliations or attack-of-oppurtunities) at the target and adjacent units. Inflicting Dazzle at an animal will inflict Panic instead.
For Happiness: The Flavor Text for the halfling cleric says that this is at the core of the halfling's faith, noting that halfling clerics have been known to travel hundreds of miles just to learn a really good joke that they can bring back to their friends.
- The game states that while they value happiness above everything, this can mean very different things. Some Halflings are incurable pranksters, other selfless priests, while yet other adventurous rogues.
- Their abilities revolve around the morale system. For example, their Lucky racial ability grant them a dodging mechanic if their morale is high.
Glass Cannon: Halfling are very weak against physical attacks, with their abilities that deals 20% additional damage, however makes up for it with ways of preventing damage like Lucky which lets them dodge based on morale and preventing them from attacking or getting close.
Hobbits: That's kind of given, for sure. In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the halfling form are Elusive (increased defense and resistance against retaliation and opportunity attacks), Light Footed (allow unit to move through friendly units), and Quick Reflexes (lowers the chance of being hit by a ranged attack).
Hunter of Monsters: Their irregular units, Adventurers, in Age of Wonders III deal more damage against animals and monsters.
I Shall Taunt You: In Age of Wonders II, the Leprechauns get this ability.
Leprechaun: The most powerful unit of the Halflings, which are actually rate the status - they're naturally invisible on the world map, have respectable melee abilities and a ranged attack, and are exceedingly frustrating to attack due to their superior defensive abilities. Oh, and they do magical damage, which is the hardest damage type to get protection against.
Lethal Joke Weapon: The Halfling Farmers in Age of Wonders III can Throw Chicken at their enemies. The chicken actually deals good amount of damage and has a chance of reducing the enemy's movement.
Proud Merchant Race: Halflings are skilled traders. They are prone to creating large centers of trade as the United Cities in the original game and New Heartwood in Golden Realms. In Age of Wonders II, their cities contribute more gold.
Suffer the Slings: Halflings' arms are too short for bows, so they hurl rocks at enemies instead.

High Men/Archons

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aowsm_unittypes_archons.jpeg

Archons in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne

^{High Men in Age of Wonders}

An enigmatic people of angelic beings that have appeared recently in the world. They consider themselves stewards of Humanity.

Age of Wonders Units: Highman Archer, Highman Swordsman, Battering Ram, Spirit Puppet, Highman Saint, Highman Paladin, Catapult, Ballista, Titan, Valkyrie, Highman Avenger, Astra
Age of Wonders II Units: Militia, Legionary, Archer, Paladin, Avenger, Pegasus Rider, Charioteer, Saint (Shadow Magic), Titan

Always Lawful Good: The only Pure Good race.
Ancient Grome: Their aesthetic. Many of their units don hoplite helmets and legionary armor. In fact, one of its units in the second game is the legionary.
Arch-Enemy: They're noted to have a particularly intense dedication to wiping out The Undead. Age of Wonders 3 and 4 establish that the Archons have a specific arch-nemesis named Urrath, The Anti-God to the Allfather.
Back from the Dead: Saints in Shadow Magic are capable of resurrecting dead allies.
Good Is Not Nice: Although they're clearly Good, at times they feel like they're bordering on Blue-and-Orange Morality as their idea of "Good" isn't exactly the same as that of the other Good races.
Greater-Scope Paragon: The Archons are simply popping into Athla to fight threats to their divine plans, and depart as soon as the dust settles. They eventually disappear altogether into The Multiverse, launching a military campaign against an unspecified threat to the whole of creation.
Holy Hand Grenade: The incorruptible, quasi-angelic race has several units that deal holy damage in melee or from afar, the earliest example being the Saint unit, which can fling Holy Bolts as an effective ranged attack.
Our Angels Are Different: The Astra is the High Men's fourth tier unit - a winged female with a flaming sword.
Our Giants Are Different: The Archon Titan.
The Paladin: Their second-tier cavalry. Unlike their equivalents from the other races, they double as healer unit.
Precursor: Ever since they disappeared in the Shadow Realm, the Archons faded into legend, where only their necropolises remain as a remnant of their civilization.
Put on a Bus: Prior to Age of Wonders III, the Archons launched a military campaign into The Multiverse and only occasionally returned to demand supplies and soldiers, until the last shadowgate was destroyed. Age of Wonders 4 establishes that they're still out there somewhere, holding the line against an unspecified cosmic threat.
Sudden Name Change: Originally referred to as High Men in the original Age of Wonders, they were renamed to Archons in Age of Wonders 2 and the name is used in later games.
Valkyries: Work for the High Men. In-story it is said that they used to perform their standard function, but with the mass appearance of The Undead, so many souls of fallen warriors became trapped that they took to direct action to set them free. In game they're mounted on flying horses and have a Holy Strike ability.
What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: The High Men are said to perform lengthy funeral dirges in the aftermath of every battle they fight, mourning the tragic loss of life on both sides. The Keeper protagonist thinks the singing is beautiful, while the Cult of Storms protagonist very quickly gets sick of the racket.

Dark Elves

Dark Elves in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne

^{Dark Elves in Age of Wonders}

The branch of the High Elves that after the war at the Valley of Wonders followed Meandor and swore revenge against the Humans. Rejecting Julia and her Keepers, they hid underground, preparing for the day when they would cleanse the land of Humans and reclaim the Valley of Wonders. Reunited with the Elves in Age of Wonders 3 as High Elves.

Age of Wonders Units: Dark Elf Archer, Dark Elf Swordsman, Battering Ram, Lady of Pain, Dark Elf Storm Priest, Dark Elf Rider, Catapult, Ballista, Dark Elf Executioner, Spider Queen, Shadow, Incarnate
Age of Wonders II Units: Night Guard, Warrior, Archer, Executioner, Bladedancer, Shade, Spider Queen, Succubus (Shadow Magic), Incarnate

Body Surf: The Incarnate is the energy of pure evil that can destroy their host's soul and take control over their bodies. When the mortal body is destroyed, the Incarnate is exposed so that they can possess another creature or be destroyed.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Ironically, despite the dark elves' contempt towards human and drive to eradicate them, their race relations with them is "neutral."
Revenge: They started out as a revenge-driven faction of the Elves and it went downhill from there.
Shock and Awe: As the founding race of the Cult of Storms, they would be associated with lightning. Their Storm Priest cast lightning bolt and are resistant to lightning damage.
Spider People: Inspired by drows and driders, the Spider Queen are an amalgamation of dark elves and spiders. Due to their spider anatomy, they can climb on walls, deal magical and poison damage, and webbing their prey to leave them vulnerable to attack.
Succubi and Incubi: The Succubus fulfills a similar role of the Lady of Pain in Age of Wonders as a support unit that seduces their target into joining the dark elves. When they are forced into combat, the succubus can at least drain the life out of their prey.
The Vamp: The Lady of Pain can seduce enemy units.

Orcs

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_orcoid.png

Orcoid form in Age of Wonders 4

^{Orcs in Age of Wonders 3}

^{Orcs in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

^{Orcs in Age of Wonders}

Passionate and strong beings who have faced great prejudice as a result of their kin's history.

Tall and muscular race of warriors. Their code of honor involves killing the most things possible. Fearsome when united, but most often bicker among themselves.

Age of Wonders Units: Orc Archer, Orc Swordsman, Battering Ram, Kobold, Orc Shaman, Orc Heavy Cavalry, Catapult, Shredder Bolt, Orc Warlord, Doom Bat, Orc Assassin, Red Dragon
Age of Wonders II Units: Impaler, Axeman, Archer, Heavy Cavalry, Abomination, Shaman, Warlord, Doom Bats (Shadow Magic), Glutton
Age of Wonders III Units: Orc Spearman, Orc Greatsword, Orc Razorbow, Orc Impaler, Orc Priest, Orc Black Knight, Orc Shock Trooper

BFS: Orc Greatswords are orcish warriors that wield mighty two-handed swords. They are effective against shielded and Pikeman units with the Overwhelm trait, and elite-ranked Greatswords can inflict bleeding.
Black Knight: The Orc Black Knights in Age of Wonders III are their cavalry units. They are armored, can fight mounted and flying units with great prejudice, and can see through dark areas better. Further levels let them fight other armored units, shielded units, and even pikeman units, their primary weakness.
Blood Knight: Orcs love warfare and fighting. In Age of Wonders III, all Orc units gets the Victory Rush ability, which regenerate 10 health for every victory in battle.
Close-Range Combatant: Orcs prefer close-quarter combat, which is represented in Age of Wonders III by Orcs having one additional Physical melee damage, but one less Physical ranged damage.
Damage Over Time: Orcs in Age of Wonders III are capable of inflicting bleeding on their enemies, causing them to lose health for the Orcs to pick off. Orc Razorbows and Shock Troopers use razored arrows and mighty battleaxes, respectively, to inflict bleeding by default, while elite-ranked Orc Greatswords can inflict bleeding.
Expy: The Orc Glutton has a strong resemblance to Jabba the Hut.
Javelin Thrower: Their irregular unit Spearman in Age of Wonders III can throw javelins as a cheap ranged attack. Some of their class units, like Martyrs and Hunters, replaces their original ranged weapons (rocks and bows and arrows, respectively) with javelins.
I Shall Taunt You: In Shadow Magic the Orc Gluttons get this ability.
Our Orcs Are Different: They have strong melee attacks and make excellent mooks for any aspiring Evil Overlord. The sequels make them Affably Evil. In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the Orcoid form are Ferocious (increased damage for retaliation and opportunity attacks), Hardy (gain extra HP), and Strong (physical attacks deal more damage).
Professional Killer: Orc Assassins were disgraced orcs who took up espionage, instead of relying on brute force. Orc society shun the Assassins, even considering the word insulting, but are not above to disregard their talents for... good reasons. In-game, Orc Assassins deal poison damage and can shoot poison darts, can climb walls, and can hide on forests.
Status Buff: In III, many Orc units have the ability War Cry, which increases their melee attack for one turn.

Goblins

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_goblinoid.png

Goblinoid form in Age of Wonders 4

^{Goblins in Age of Wonders 3}

^{Goblins in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

^{Goblins in Age of Wonders}

Small, hunched beings who love to rampage around in groups. Some are strangely fascinated by sheep.

Small and crawling people of the underground. Bullied and enslaved by other races, they specialize in trickery, subterfuge, and the use of poisons.

Age of Wonders Units: Goblin Darter, Goblin Spearman, Battering Ram, Goblin Bomber, Goblin Shaman, Goblin Wolf Rider, Catapult, Ballista, Troll, Goblin Wyvern Rider, Goblin Big Beetle, Karagh
Age of Wonders II Units: Grunt, Swordsman, Darter, Bomber, Wolf Rider, Butcher, Big Beetle, Wyvern Rider, Troll (Shadow Magic), Kharagh
Age of Wonders III Units: Goblin Untouchable, Goblin Marauder, Goblin Swarm Darter, Goblin Butcher, Goblin Blight Doctor, Goblin Warg Rider, Goblin Big Beetle, Tame Troll (Eternal Lord Prophet-ranked Military racial governance upgrade), Goblin Skewer (untrainable)

Action Bomb: Goblin Bombers carry enormous bombs on their backs. They are rather frail and cannot attack, their only action is to blow themselves up and take down anything next to them with them.
All Trolls Are Different: In all three games, the Goblins can train Trolls. However, in III they can only train "Tame Trolls" through a Racial Governance. "Tame Trolls" are identical to regular trolls except that they are trainable when a city has the Beetle Command building and are not constrained by Dedicated to Evil. The trolls are known for their monstrous strength and capability of regeneration.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Goblin Big Beetle, a goblin who rides a giant beetle into battle. They can dig through tunnels, break down walls, and, in Eternal Lords, can smell as bad as Untouchables with the Champion-ranked Racial Governance.
Blow Gun:
- The Darters are their main archer units, which shoots poison darts to deal both physical and poison damage.
- In Age of Wonders III, their successor, the Swarm Darter, is their main archer unit. They are Glass Cannons due to their terrible HP, but their Mosquito Dart attack deals both physical and blight damage and is not affected by long-range or obstacle penalties.
Butt-Monkey: Every other race disses them.
Explosive Breeder: Compared to other races, especially the High Elves, Goblin cities have a higher population growth. In addition, one of their first Racial Governances allows newly built cities to gain population based on the number of Wetlands in their domain, allowing them to grow quickly upon settling.
Geo Effects:
- Goblins enjoy Wetlands as they give both a morale boost and as terrain to traverse through. In addition, their racial traits include Wetland Foraging, which allows them to regenerate more HP when standing on Wetlands.
- While Goblins don't benefit from being underground, it is their secondary preference due to Cave Crawling and Night Vision giving them benefits in Subterranean terrain.
Our Goblins Are Different:
- They're good underground and favor Zerg Rush tactics. The latter gets lampshaded in the name of of the first Keepers scenario, "Goblin Rush".
- In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the goblinoid form are Hideous Stench (reduces resistance and status resistance to adjacent units that doesn't have the trait) and Sneaky (deal additional flanking damage).
Horse of a Different Color: The Goblins' preferred mounts are giant wargs and big beetles.
I Shall Taunt You: In Shadow Magic, the Goblin Bombers get this ability.
Life Drain: Goblin Butchers have the Life Steal ability, which lets them recover health upon striking.
Our Monsters Are Different: The Karaghs are subterranean creatures that wields a serrated iron sword. The Goblins capture and unleash them to bring terror in the battlefield.
Mutual Disadvantage: Goblin Warg Riders in Age of Wonders III shares a weakness like other Cavalry units, Pikemen. However, Warg Riders have Overwhelm and, upon reaching Elite rank, First Strike, which allow Warg Riders to deal a lot of damage against Pikemen on a charge.
The Pig-Pen:
- The Goblins enjoy living in swamps filled with diseases, and playing with their filth. As a result, the Goblins are resistance to poisonous effects.
- In Age of Wonders 3, the Untouchables are their Irregular units that possess the Disgusting Stench ability, which reduces resistance and morale to any adjacent enemies that aren't another goblin, machines, undead, incorporeal, elementals, and Dread Monkeys.
- In Age of Wonders 4, the Goblin gains the trait "Hideous Stench" through the "Golem" update as part of the Empires & Ashes expansion.
Plague Doctor: The Goblin Blight Doctor in Age of Wonders III. They deal good blight damage and use the Weakened ability to make their blight damage deal more damage against them.
Poisonous Person: They specialize in Blight damage and are also resistant to Blight damage. Rogue heroes can even be immune to Blight damage with the right upgrades in Age of Wonders III.
Tunnel King: Their Untouchables and Big Beetles have the Tunneling ability, allowing them to dig through dirt walls without the need of Builders.

Undead

Undead in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne

^{Undead in Age of Wonders}

The remains of the living, seeking only to grow and turn the whole world to a state of undeath. The constant wars increase their number, and their inexorable advance makes them become fearful enemies of all. In Age of Wonders III, they were first represented as the Archon Revenants minor faction, and then reintroduced as part of the Necromancer class in the Eternal Lords expansion, leading ghouled versions of regular troops while controlling literal necropolises.

Age of Wonders Units: Undead Archer, Undead Swordsman, Undead Bone Ram, Hell Hound, Undead Doom Priest, Undead Knight, Undead Bone Thrower, Ballista, Undead Bone Horror, Demon, Undead Wraith, Undead Reaper
Age of Wonders II Units: Zombie, Swordsman, Archer, Death Knight, Vampire, Spectre, Bone Horror, Necromancer (Shadow Magic), Dread Reaper

Always Chaotic Evil: Their alignment is Pure Evil.
Black Knight: Undead Knight and Death Knight are undead horseman who ride on dead steeds into battle.
Fearless Undead: The Undead are immune to fear.
Grim Reaper: The Undead Reaper in I and the Dread Reaper in II are the Undead's most powerful units. As reapers, they are a bringer of death to all who sees it. The two reaper units share similar abilities, like dealing death damage, stealing life to replenish their HP, inflicting fear, and transforming the land they move into wasteland. For difference between the two, Undead Reaper possesses the ability to instantly kill their target through Invoke Death, while Dread Reaper can drain their enemies of energy to lower their attack and damage.
Hell Hound: The Hellhound in Age of Wonders. They can deal fire damage and resist both death and fire damage.
Walking Wasteland: The Reaper, an avatar of death.

Races introduced in Age of Wonders II

Draconians

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/draconianicon_1.png

Draconians in Age of Wonders 3

^{Draconians in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

A race of humanoid dragons. After the humans arrived in the Valley of Wonders, Dragons were hunted to near extinction. To protect their species, they asked the Wizards of Evermore to enchant their remaining eggs and from those grew the Draconian race.

Age of Wonders II Units: Hatchling, Charger, Flamer, Crusher, Slither, Elder, Flyer, Hydra (Shadow Magic), Red Dragon
Age of Wonders III Units: Draconian Hatchling, Draconian Crusher, Draconian Flamer, Draconian Charger, Draconian Elder, Draconian Raptor, Draconian Flier

Airborne Mook:
- Chargers are Draconian pikemen that possesses wings. While in II, the wings do absolutely nothing, in III, they have Lesser Flying, which lets them fly in battle, but will walk in the map.
- Fliers are some of the Draconian's strongest warriors due to possessing wings that let them fly into battle. In III, they are considered an Infantry unit and they have Projectile Resistance and Overwhelm. Elite-ranked Fliers gain Killing Momentum that lets them swoop into the fray after killing an enemy.
Breath Weapon: The Draconian Flamers get this special ability. In III Hachlings possess the "Fire Spit" attack, while Flamers instead lob explosive fireballs from their hands.
Draconic Humanoid: Draconians are a species of humanoid dragons created when the true dragons, facing extinction at the hands of the humans who had settled into their homelands, surrendered their remaining eggs to the arch-wizard Tempest to create a new humanoid race, which would hold humanity at bay until such a time as the ancient dragon species could be brought back safely. Ironically, as both are Neutral-aligned species noted chiefly for their ambition and their desire to carve out a place for themselves in the world, humans and draconians tend to get along fairly well and are often allied with one another.
- They tend to be skilled in magic, due to their highly magical origins, and tend to eschew most tools in favor of their strength and natural weapons. They are physically very variable: Several draconians have vestigial wings, which in some cases are well-developed enough to allow them to fly, but many are wingless. Further, while most have typical humanoid proportions, some are hulking and heavily muscled and a few are quadrupedal like their dragon ancestors.
- Particularly large and developed draconian nations are sometimes capable of flattering true dragons into joining them, represented by the draconian army roster including hydras and red dragons as high-end monster units.
Fantastic Racism: Victims of this by the time of III, as the human-ruled Commonwealth doesn't extend its message of equality towards the draconians. Sundren notes that other races regard them with distrust as well, since the dragons had specifically created them to conquer the world and pave the way for the resurgance of their species.
Giant Mook: Crushers in II are enormous and hulking draconians capable of destroying walls. III has them downgraded to human-sized Smash Mooks armed with clubs.
Healing Factor: In Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, draconian units can receive the Regeneration ability if the city they are built at has the Hydra's Pool upgrade, which fully heals every unit with this ability at the start of the next turn. In Age of Wonders III, all Draconian units have Fast Healing, which increases their turn-by-turn HP recovery.
Hive Caste System: The differences between Draconian units is mostly biological, and their role is determined by the presence or absence of natural fire breath, flight-capable wings, massive size and strength and so on.
Horse of a Different Color: In III, Draconians gain Raptor cavalry, whose attacks deal physical and fire damage, and can inflict Scorching Heat and Immolation as they gain experience ranks. Draconian heroes ride green raptors by default, though the cavalry unit's red raptors can be gained as equipment that bestows bonus fire resistance.
Our Hydras Are Different: The Hydra in Age of Wonders II is a monstrous dragons that fights alongside the Draconians. It is capable of attacking enemies in all directions, can strike twice, and can regenerate. It is also immune to poison.
Kill It with Ice: Their primary weakness is Cold attacks.
Lizard Folk: They replace the Lizardmen of the original game as the primary faction of humanoid reptiles.
Magikarp Power: The Hatchling in Age of Wonders II and III are weak Irregular units that can only attack with a single fire spit. However, upon reaching Elite rank, they evolve into a random Draconian unit as a sign of maturity.
Mayincatec: In Age of Wonders III, the Draconians adopt a dragon-themed Mesoamerican aesthetic, as seen with their city architecture, Draconian Elders wearing plumed dress, and Draconian Crushers wielding spiked clubs similar to the macuahuitl.
Playing with Fire: Draconian Flamers can breathe fire and in Age of Wonders III fire it from their hands. Also in Age of Wonders III the whole race gets a bias to fire, resisting it and with several units getting flame attacks.
Put on a Bus: The Draconians doesn't exist as a playable race in Age of Wonders 4. They would return in spirit in the first expansion pack, Dragon Dawn, as a race transformation and the lizardfolk form.
Weaponized Offspring: Draconian Hatchlings are Tier 1 units that evolve to larger and stronger units upon gaining maximum experience.
Winged Humanoid: Flyers are draconians whose wings are developed enough to let them fly. Chargers have wings as well, but they're stunted and they cannot fly. Later expansions to Age of Wonders III grant them this ability, but only during battles.

Tigrans/Feline

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_feline.png

Feline form in Age of Wonders 4

^{Tigrans in Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Lords}

^{Tigrans in Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne}

Cat-like beings who move with feline grace.

A race of cat-people, heirs to the legacy of the Azrac and the will of their god Yaka.

Age of Wonders II Units: Shredder, Hunter, Fire Cat, Cat Master, Prowler, Mystic, Manticore, Beholder (Shadow Magic), Sphinx
Age of Wonders III Units: Tigran Cheetah, Tigran Shredder, Tigran Sun Guard, Tigran Prowler, Tigran Mystic, Tigran Sabretooth Chariot, Tigran Sphinx

Cat Folk: They largely resemble humans with tigrine heads, and are allied with feline creatures such as manticores and sphinxes. In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the felines are Desert Adaptation (increases movement on sand, allow building farms in sand, start at desert, and unlock the Scorch the Land spell), Athletics (increase movement), and Elusive (increased defense and resistance against retaliation and opportunity attacks).
Chariot Pulled by Cats: The Tigran Sabertooth Chariot is pulled by sabertooth tigers.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of Ancient Egypt. Many influences such as pyramids, sphinx, worship of the sun, clothings, and chariots.
Flechette Storm: Tigran Shredders are an Archer unit that throws sharp knives instead of shooting a bow and arrow. In Age of Wonders III, the knives can cut and bleed their victims.
Horse Archer: Tigran Cat Masters are Tigran riders whose mounts are sabertooth cats and are mobile archers.
Inescapable Net: Prowlers with a Protector-ranked Racial Governance upgrade and elite-ranked Shredders can throw nets to immobilize enemies. In addition, Tigran cities with the Enchanted Thread building can throw nets at a random enemy during a siege.
Injured Vulnerability: The Prowlers deal additional damage against bleeding enemies, due to their Bloodthirsty ability.
Javelin Thrower: Tigran Sabretooth Chariot can throw Sun Spears to a distant target for physical and fire damage and a chance to inflict Immolation through Immolating Projectiles. Since throwing a Sun Spear is a free action, the Chariot can perform another action like defending or attacking either the same target or another target.
Kill It with Ice: Their primary weakness is to Cold attacks.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Tigran Sun Guard are equipped with the Sun Shield, instead of an ordinary shield. It grants extra Fire protection and raises defense and resistance against non-flanking attacks (the shield only raises defense against non-flanking attacks). Any Tigran class units that use shields, like the Phalanxes and Crusaders, are equipped with the Sun Shield as well.
Our Manticores Are Spinier: Bat-winged, scorpion-tailed manticores can be recruited as late-stage elite units.
Oculothorax: The Tigrans utilize the beholders in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. They possess True Sight, magic immunity, Dispel Magic, and Doom Gaze, a magical beam that can paralyze their targets.
Proud Merchant Race: Tigrans are skilled traders and their cities contribute more gold.
Our Sphinxes Are Different: Sphinxes are a high-tier unit, resembling lions with human heads and pharaonic headdresses. In Age of Wonders II, they have the ability to dominate enemies into joining the Tigrans. In Age of Wonders III, they can inflict fear and possess the ability to fire a beam of solar energy to harm a line of units.
Our Werebeasts Are Different: The Tigran Mystic in Age of Wonders III has the ability Were Panther, which transform them into a Dire Panther for the rest of the battle. As a Dire Panther, they possess many of the Tigran's racial abilities and can pounce on targets like the Tigran Cheetah. Tigran Shamans have the ability Were Bear, which transform them into a Dire Bear, in exchange for Awaken Spirit.

Races introduced in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Nomads

Nomads in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

A mix of the ancient race of Azracs and the Humans, forsaken by their god Yaka. They have since then become wandering people. They conquer and enslave those in their path.

Age of Wonders II Units: Caravan, Spearman, Barbarian, Horse Archer, Djinn, Elephant Rider, Slaver, Chieftain, Pit Guard, Roc

Our Genies Are Different: The Nomads have Djinn unit.
Giant Flier: Rocs are large birds ridden by the nomads. They deal magic damage, have willpower, and can grab their prey that hurl them away from combat.
Horse Archer: They have Horse Archer as their low-tier ranged unit. They possesses high mobility, due to riding on horseback.
Javelin Thrower: The Spearman can throw their spears as a single-use ranged attack.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Pit Guards are warriors that possess four arms and wields a whip. They have willpower, inflict fear, and can strangle their foes to paralyze them. They also look like Goro.

Syrons

Syrons in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Warriors of the Shadow Realm. They fight an unending battle with the Shadow Demons.

Age of Wonders II Units: Prospector, Lightning Catcher, Spellbinder, Rider, Shadow Runner, Giant Warrior, Changeling, Astral Sprite, Forceship

Ascended Extra: Originally a neutral unit in the first game, Shadow Magic expands the unit by making them a playable race.
Shock and Awe: Some of their units have lightning attacks.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: The changeling unit can take the form of the last enemy it killed.

Shadow Demons

Shadow Demons in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Creatures of the Shadow Realm. A hive-mind of monsters that wants to consume all.

Age of Wonders II Units: Larva, Spawn, Bombard, Stag Mount, Skimmer, Brain, Harvester, Spirit, Lord

Alien Invasion: Shadow Demons are this, Legions of Hell and a Bug War at the same time. It is unknown where the Shadow Demons came from, and for how much time they have been invading worlds, but they are hinted to be doing it for a long time.
Bug War: Shadow Magic combines this with Legions of Hell to produce the shadow demons.
Hive Caste System: The differences between Shadow Demon units are mostly biological.
Weaponized Offspring: Their larvae are Tier 1 units that evolve to larger and stronger units upon gaining maximum experience.

Races introduced in Age of Wonders III

High Elves

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/form_elfkin.png

Elfkin form in Age of Wonders 4

^{High Elves in Age of Wonders 3}

Slender, pointy-eared beings whose kin were the first to inhabit the realms.

After the marriage of Queen Julia and King Saridas, a ritual known as the Mending was performed to reunite the splintered elves into a single race of "high" elves, which now leads the Elven Court.

Age of Wonders III Units: High Elf Initiate, High Elf Swordsman, High Elf Longbowman, High Elf Union Guard, High Elf Storm Sister, High Elf Unicorn Rider, High Elf Gryphon Rider

Bling of War: High Elf armor is made of shiny, gold-like metal, paired with tabards and robes of the player's bright faction colors.
Composite Character: While most of the High Elves' roster are similar to the Elves' roster in previous games, the Initiate and Storm Sister are similar to the Dark Elves' Storm Priest.
Our Elves Are Different: Tolkien-style immortal elves clad in shiny golden armor, but this time they've shed their Friend to All Living Things image and become more ruthless in battle. In Age of Wonders 4, the default traits of the elfkin are Arcane Focus (deal more magic damage), Keen-Sighted (increased accuracy on physical ranged and magic attacks), and Sharp Eyes (increased vision and sense range).
Good Is Not Soft: While they have plenty of wood elf hippiness still in them, the High Elves have inherited enough dark elf callousness to no longer consider all life to be sacrosanct. The flavor text for the Union Guard sees a Commonwealth commander lament that the elves have become much more effective at employing spear-walls, as they no longer try to spare the lives of "innocent" cavalry horses.
Immortal Procreation Clause: They're The Ageless, and one of their disadvantages is that they generate less population than other races.
Magikarp Power: Initiates are basic irregular units with only a single-shot lighting attack. If they live long enough to hit Elite rank, however, they evolve into tougher Storm Sisters.
Master Archer:
- The High Elves boast some of the best archers in the third game. Their Longbowman's attack does not receive the long-ranged damage penalty like most ranged attacks, and many of their Military Racial Governance options revolve around their archers. These options include raising their archers' attacks, granting their archers Arcane Arrows for physical and shock damage, and finally removing the line-of-sight penalty on their archers' and supports' attacks. In addition, some of their class units, like Mounted Archers and Hunters, wield longbows and benefit from the Racial Governance bonuses.
- The Flavor Text of the High Elf Longbowman has an elf named Nockfeather participate in an archery tournament sponsored by the Commonwealth. He was so skilled that he held his skill back to give his competitors, but when a servant girl fell in love with him and learned that he was an elf, he fled back to the forest. This caused a rule rewrite of inspecting the competitor's ears to identify elves, who are banned from participating.
Our Gryphons Are Different: The Gryphon Rider is a Tier III unit which is capable of flight and has First Strike, a trait that is usually reserved for Pikeman units.
The Paralyzer: Storm Sisters have the Shocking Touch ability, which has a chance to disable a targeted unit within melee range. Disabled units are unable to take actions, retaliate or perform attacks of opportunity, and take flanking damage from every direction.
Proud Scholar Race: High Elf cities produce more knowledge than other races and their champion-ranked Economic Racial Governance upgrade allows their laboratories and observatories to generate 7 more knowledge, allowing them to research upgrades and spells far quicker.
Shock and Awe: They have widespread access to shock damage, particularly through Initiates and Storm Sisters. All of their ranged units, regardless of category or class, also gain +1 shock damage.
The Social Darwinist: Implied by the flavor text of the High Elf Swordsman:
We are the pinnacle of fitness, better than past generations. Nowhere is this more evident than in our basic infantry. No longer do we allow any elf who can lift a knife to fight. High Elves are stronger and quicker than ever. We train to fight with both sword and shield. Those who survive without crippling injuries are guaranteed the honor of having children, so that only the fittest elves father the next generation. They are eager to kill our enemies with perfect obedience.
Unicorn: Unicorn Riders, which possess the Phase ability. High Elf heroes also ride unicorns by default, though they lack the teleportation power.

Racial forms introduced in Age of Wonders 4

Molekin

Molekin in Age of Wonders 4

"Beings who have evolved from underground dwellers and retain their heightened sense of touch.''

A racial form of anthropomorphized moles.

Mole Men: The default traits of the Molekin are Underground Adaptation (increases movement on underground terrain, remove the food penalty on farms in Fungus fields, start at the underground, and underground cities gain an extra province annex range), Bulwark (defense mode gives extra defense and resistance), and Tenacious (damage penalties from casualties are halved).

Ratkin

Ratkin in Age of Wonders 4

"Rodent-like beings whose groups are often referred to as mischiefs."

A racial form of ratmen.

Rat Men: The default traits of the ratkin are Adaptable (non-hero units gains more experience), Overwhelm Tactics (unit has a higher chance of dealing a critical hit if they are adjacent to an ally with the Overwhelm Tactics trait), and Quick Reflexes (lowers the chance of being hit by a ranged attack).
Zerg Rush: The ratkin are designed by default to be the rushing faction, as they have traits that lets them hit hard with numbers and avoid ranged attacks. However, this is Downplayed as, due to race customization, any race of a different form can perform similar results, including the Goblins.

Toadkin

Toadkin in Age of Wonders 4

"Stout amphibian-like beings, born with vocal sacs that allow them to communicate through loud croaking."

A racial form of toadmen.

Frog Men: The default traits of the toadkin are Swamp Adaptation (increases movement on swamp and rivers, remove the food penalty on farms in swamps, start at the swamps, and unlock the Flood the Land spell), Hardy (gain extra HP), and Resilient (increased status resistance and reduce duration of negative status effects).

Avian

Avian in Age of Wonders 4: Empires & Ashes

"Feathered, beaked beings whose families are usually defined as "Nests." Their sing-song calls can carry over entire forests."

A racial form of birdmen.

Bird People: A race of birdmen, though none of them are capable of flight without the proper racial transformation. The default traits of the Avian are Adaptable (non-hero units gains more experience), Elusive (increased defense and resistance against retaliation and opportunity attacks), Light Footed (allow unit to move through friendly units), and Sharp Eyes (increased vision and sense range).

Lupine

A racial form of wolf humanoids.

Wolf Man: A race of wolf humanoids. Their default traits are Athletic (increase movement) and Pack Tactics (which grants the unit Pack Hunter, which increases damage for each unit with the trait adjacent to the target).

Goatkin

A racial form of goatmen.

Extreme Omni-Goat: Considering that one of their default traits is Herbivore, which allows it to eat plants during tactical combat, like trees, bushes, and poisonous mushrooms.
Fauns and Satyrs: A race of actual goat people. Their default traits are Herbivore (which allows them to eat plants for health and grant buffs), Hardy (gain extra HP), and Tough (gain extra defense).

Age of Wonders III Dwellings

Dragons' Peak

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dragonicon.png

Dragons in Age of Wonders 3

The Dragons are an ancient race of powerful reptilian creatures. Born into this world during its creation, the Dragons are said to have shaped the world for the other races to inhabit. Each Dragon type to emerge represented one element; ranging from metals and gems to fire and frost. The Giants came next, shaping the land in finer detail, often changing what the Dragons had formed. This is thought to be the source of the fierce animosity between the two races. All Dragons can fly and possess powerful magical abilities and immunities, combining breath attacks with powerful claws.

—The Tome of Wonders

Units: Fire Wyvern, Frost Wyvern, Gold Wyvern, Fire Dragon, Frost Dragon, Golden Dragon, Bone Wyvern, Bone Dragon, Obsidian Wyvern, Obsidian Dragon

Always Chaotic Evil: Obsidian and Bone dragons are Dedicated to Evil (unless summoned by a spellcaster).
Always Lawful Good: Gold Dragons are Dedicated to Good.
Breath Weapon: All full-grown dragons can breathe damaging energy in a cone, but the damage they deal varies on their type.
Dracolich: Bone Dragons. They are just as strong as regular dragons, but are undead, with the strengths and weaknesses that entails. Their breath deals Blight damage and their bite can inflict several nasty diseases, including Brain Rot, dreaded by casters.
Our Dragons Are Different: Pretty standard as far as dragons go, all things considered. As usual, they fly, have a Breath Weapon, are unfathomably ancient, and are some of the most powerful creatures in the setting. There are several types of them, including fire, frost, gold, Obsidian and Bone.
Summon Magic:
- In Age of Wonders III, a leader may obtain spells that summon Bone or Obsidian dragons. No class learns them naturally, but with some luck they can be obtained from the Wizard Tower Ruins, a Mythical treasure site, or from completing a certain Empire quest.
- Sorcerers can summon Fire, Frost, and Obsidian Wyverns through the Summon Fantastic Creature spell.
Weak, but Skilled: Obsidian Dragons. They are some of the weakest dragons in terms of damage and health, but they have Concealment on almost all types of terrain that are not just flat plains, which can make them into a really nasty surprise to run into, considering they're still a tier 4 unit. Their Weakening Breath inflicts pitiful damage compared to that of other dragons (8 instead of the usual 20), but can inflict the nasty Weakened debuff.
Our Wyverns Are Different: In Age of Wonders, wyverns are reptilian creatures that resemble dragons but aren't actually infantile form of them. However, Age of Wonders III does classified wyverns as dragons.

Giant's Keep

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Giants in Age of Wonders 3

According to ancient scripture, the Giant kin helped the Allfather form the continents, with Fire Giants directing the flow of molten rock, the Rock Giants shaping the solidified rock, and the Storm Giants giving the lands their final polish through erosion. The Titans were the masters of the Giants, and they oversaw the work of their kin, until the Giants rebelled. Now, Giants are rarely seen, and they keep mostly to themselves. They can sometimes be rallied behind a cause though, often with devastating results.

—The Tome of Wonders

Units: Ogre, Fire Giant, Frost Giant, Stone Giant

The Dragonslayer: The Giant's Keep can construct the Rock of Ages building, which gives produced giants the Dragon Slayer trait.
Flaming Sword: The Fire Giant's weapon is a massive sword made out of fire.
Our Giants Are Bigger: Come in the Fire, Frost and Stone varieties, as well as Ogres, which are referred to as "Degenerate Children".
Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Ogre are demi-giants, and although not considered true giants have similar properties to them.

Naga Lair

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Nagas in Age of Wonders 3: Golden Realm

The Naga are an ancient race of powerful, reptilian creatures. They tend to hide in their swamps and only come out when provoked or hired in mercenary armies. Ruled by Matriarchs, they have a strictly organized society, so much so that the different roles and duties have started influencing their appearance. All Naga are strong melee fighters, with the slightly dimwitted Glutton the strongest of them all. The Matriarch possesses powerful magical abilities to control her subjects and neutralize enemy threats.

—The Tome of Wonders

Units: Baby Reed Serpent, Naga Slither, Naga Guardian, Naga Matriarch, Mature Reed Serpent, Glutton

Achilles' Heel: The Glutton has a lot of health and several ways to heal itself, but awful armor for a tier 4 unit, sitting at a pitiful 8 at Recruit rank. This makes them incredibly vulnerable to physical restraints. Even baby spiders (a tier 1 unit), let alone Spider Queens, can easily trap them in webs and prevent them from doing anything for several turns.
Large and in Charge: The Gluttons, who are worshiped by the Naga as a god.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Naga Matriarchs have four arms.
Multiboobage: The Naga Matriarchs also have two sets of breasts.
Snake People: They are snake-like creatures with a vaguely humanoid body shape with arms. The Glutton is barely even humanoid at all, though it still has arms.
Swallowed Whole: The Glutton's attacks may have a chance of swallowing an enemy whole and restoring the Glutton's health upon success. It will release the victim when it dies.

Necropolis

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Archon Revenants in Age of Wonders 3

Archon Revenants are corruptions of the glorious and noble Archon. In life, the Archon were a race of enlightened men. Outwardly very similar to humans, their inner peace and nature resembled that of the elves. Always helping humanity, their most fervent goal was fighting and obliterating the undead, who they saw as their ultimate nemesis. They eventually left, leaving behind tombs of warriors in large necropoles. By some cruel twist of fate, they eventually rose from their resting places as undead themselves. Nothing like their former selves, these Archon Revenants are soulless beings intend on spreading death and destruction.

—The Tome of Wonders

Units: Archon Revenant Infantry, Archon Revenant Archer, Archon Revenant Caster, Archon Titan, Wraith, Wraith King

Allergic to Evil: Archon Revenant Infantry have the "Unholy Champion" trait, which gives them bonus fire damage against Dedicated to Good, Devout, Fey and Animal units. Archon Revenant Archers get the lesser "Good Slayer" trait, which grants extra physical damage against Dedicated to Good targets. Archon Titans also start with Good Slayer, but unlock Unholy Champion as well when they reach veteran rank.
Always Chaotic Evil: All Archon units are Dedicated To Evil, the only dwelling race to have a uniform alignment, and their dwellings are always hostile to players by default. While their dwellings can be acquired by a Good empire, their troops will suffer harsh morale penalties.
And Then John Was a Zombie: The Archons were sent to Athla to destroy the undead, but now their own dead have risen as evil monsters.
Giant Mook: Archon Titans, immense mummies swinging huge maces. It actually has the Giant trait, giving it Wall Crushing, Mountaineering, and +2 vision range. It also comes with Guard Breaker and Overwhelm, allowing it to easily break formations of infantry.
Irony: For a race dedicated to fighting the undead, the Archon's own dead are resurrected as evil undead.
The Undead: What remains of the Archons.
Wrong Context Magic: The Archons of the past were believed to be immune to necromancy, as they were created to destroy the undead, but the cult of Urrath — an implied Eldritch Abomination — still managed to resurrect them. The other races of Athla are unnerved by the implications, and give the Necropoli a wide berth.

Reef Colony

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Merfolks in ''Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Lords

Merfolk are mysterious creatures, able to breathe both water and air. It is said that the few Merfolk cities seen on the surface are just a tiny fraction of the nations the Merfolk have established in the deep beneath the oceans. Although most Merfolk cannot leave the water, the sailors they have enslaved with their magic are sometimes sent onto the land to act as their agents. Sailors also whisper of a mighty Lord of the Deep, a giant being who emerges from the waters to rain lightning down on those who threaten the sanctity of the Merfolk.

—The Tome of Wonders

Units: Baby Kraken, Meramid, Lost Mariner, Siren, Lord of the Deep

Awesome, but Impractical: Several of their units are very powerful - the Siren has a very strong sonic attack and a powerful Dominate ability, while the Kraken is very tough and powerful in general. But their usefulness is crippled by their inability to move on dry land. Even the Druid's Wild Hunt, which gives their armies Floating, does not work on them, so no Flying Seafood Special for you. Thankfully, their strongest unit - the Lord of the Deep - has Walking as well as Swimming.
Charm Person: Mermaid has the Seduce ability while Sirens have the Dominate ability.
Kraken and Leviathan: The Kraken and its baby form.
Our Mermaids Are Different: In their flavor text, they are very beautiful but they use their beauty to lure and sink anyone, even women.
Shock and Awe: The Lord of the Deep unit deals Shock Damage with his attacks, has the ability to conjure storms at will and with sufficient levels will deal shock damage and stun any melee attacker.
Sirens Are Mermaids: The upgraded version of the Mermaids. Their Siren's Wail deals powerful physical damage within an area of effect, and their Dominate ability is stronger than the Mermaids' seduction, but they're still confined to water.

Sylvan Court

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Fey in Age of Wonders 3

Fey are supernatural beings with a close connection to nature. As caretakers of the woods they favor deep forests and often shun the other races. However, due to their playfulness, curiosity and carefree nature, the strongly individual Fey can be found all over Athla supporting a wide variety of different causes. All Fey are highly magical and possess unique magic abilities.

—The Tome of Wonders

Units: Buttercup Fairy, Toadstool Fairy, Nightshade Fairy, Unicorn, Nymph

Always Lawful Good: The Unicorns and Nymphs are Dedicated to Good.
Fairy Sexy: The Nymphs have the ability to befriend animals and seduce sentient beings that aren't immune to mind control.
Fire, Ice, Lightning: The buttercup, toadstool and nightshade faeries' main attack is launching Faerie Fire which deals damage of the three types at once.
The Fair Folk
Our Fairies Are Different: Come in Unicorn, Nymph, and three tiers of pixie units.
Unicorn: It has the ability Phase, which can teleport to any destination within range.

Classes (Age of Wonders III)

Dreadnought

Dreadnoughts work in a world of pulleys, boilers, engines and gears. They are inventors and engineers. The Commonwealth esteems their machines because they can automate everyday chores. Their tanks and battleships allow the common man to safely slay monstrous creatures. However, the power of steam doesn't come without its price, so Dreadnought lords have pioneered new ways of stripping resources from the earth. I once heard one proclaim that when they ran out of fertile lands, they'd invent an alternative fuel. From what I've observed, he is probably right.

—Gifted Lords of the Third Age, by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

Dreadnoughts bring in powerful firearms and machinery in order to wage their battles. Due to the fact that most of their units such as the Musketeers and the Cannons must reload, it is more defensive army, in addition to primarily defensive spells.

Units: Spy Drone, Engineer, Musketeer, Golem (non-Halfling Dreadnoughts only), Party Robot Prototype (Halfling Dreadnoughts only), Cannon, Flame Tank (non-Frostling Dreadnoughts only), Frost Tank (Frostling Dreadnoughts only), Juggernaut, Ironclad Warship

Blinded by the Light: Engineers can throw flash bangs to deal physical and fire damage and inflict blindness on the target. Flash Bang is also one of the Dreadnought's combat spells.
Defeat Equals Explosion: Spy Drones and Flame Tanks explode and deal damage to any adjacent units upon death. Dreadnought heroes with the Bomb Squad skill confer this trait to units in their stack as well.
The Engineer: Dreadnought heroes and Engineers can repair damages and give benefits to machines.
Fantasy Gun Control: Averted. This class uses a lot of firearms and powerful cannons.
Fantastic Nuke: The Destabilized Mana Core combat spell. After two turns, a massive, battlefield-wide explosion deals a whopping 60 fire damage to every unit, and 90 damage to all barriers/walls. It also neutralizes all active spell effects, both upon individual units and the map as a whole. If successfully used in a city battle (whether or not the timer runs out before the battle ends), the settlement loses 15% of its population, the city's happiness takes a -300 malus for ten turns, and the happiness of the race that lived in the city suffers a -50 malus permanently.
Fire-Breathing Weapon: In addition to their Flame Tanks, their primary form of damage is Fire, which can give an extra boost with Draconian Dreadnoughts. Inverted with Frostling Dreadnoughts, who replace their Flame Tanks with Frost Tanks that deal frost damage instead of fire damage, though they keep the other fire-based aspects of the Dreadnought arsenal.
Geo Effects: Suppress Nature neutralizes any happiness penalty from terrains and climates.
Golem: They're Tier 2 war robots that deal significant melee damage and have fairly high defense against enemies that don't deal shock damage. Halfling Dreadnoughts replace them with Party Robot Prototype which, while weaker than the regular Golem, has a more support role such as gaining the Nourishing Meal ability, which heals and give happiness to a unit, and gains a rocket ranged attack at gold rank.
Heavily Armored Mook: Dreadnoughts are encouraged to build a lot of units with the Armored ability because of the Great Blacksmith and Solid Engineering empire upgrades, which reduces their gold cost and increases their defense, respectively. However, this is downplayed if their race doesn't rely on armored units, like Goblins and Draconians.
Horse Archer: While Dreadnoughts don't exactly have horse archers, their "Side Arm" empire upgrade grants their cavalry and heroes the "Fire Pistol" ability, granting them an extra ranged attack.
Immune to Mind Control: Machine units are normally this as most mind control abilities are generally based on the Spirit damage channel, which machines have a default 100% protection against.
Magikarp Power: It takes a long time for the Dreadnoughts to get their empire rolling. Once they enchant their cities with Mana Fuel Cells, and collect empire upgrades that increase gold production, reduce gold costs and grant nifty upgrades to units, they can crank out enormous mechanized armies.
Magitek: Much of their technology relies on mana as fuel, and most Dreadnought class units cost both gold and mana to build.
Man on Fire: Dreadnought heroes, Draconian Engineers, and Elite-ranked Flame Tanks and Juggernauts can immolate non-Elemental and incorporeal enemies, decreasing their attack, defense, resistance, and morale and deal fire damage at the start of their turn.
Mighty Glacier: Dreadnought heroes are much bulkier against physical attacks than other heroes except Warlord heroes, as they start with extra defense and the armored trait and can receive an upgrade that increases their physical resistance by 20%.
The Musketeer: Dreadnought heroes are equipped with a melee weapon of any choice and a musket.
No-Sell: Machine units are completely immune to blight and spirit damage, making them especially dangerous against enemies that specialize in those damage types. Though certain abilities such as the Goblin Blight Doctor's Weakening or spells such as Degenerate from Wild Magic can at least partially get rid of these immunities.
Short-Range Shotgun: The Engineer's Blunderbuss ability counts as a 'breath' weapon, meaning it hits every unit (including allies) in a short cone.
Summon Magic:
- Dreadnoughts can summon Spy Drones in the strategic map.
- The Summon Siege Engineer spell allows Dreadnought heroes to summon either a Trebuchet, Flame Tank, Cannon, or Juggernaut in the tactical map.
Support Party Member: The Engineer is very important in any Dreadnought army. With their ability Rapid Reload, they can remove the cooldown of Musketeer and machine units, and Maintenance, which gives healing to a party of machines out of combat, which cannot regenerate naturally, they can provide good benefits to a machine-heavy army. At gold medal, they also get Emergency Repair, which lets them also heal machine units mid-battle.
Surveillance Drone: Spy Drones are floating machine summons built for scouting and exploring, and they acquire the True Sight trait at elite rank (which makes them handy for sniffing out concealed units in the world map).

Sorcerer

After the ascension of the ancient Wizard Kings at the end of the Second Age, a new breed of magicians, called Sorcerers, claimed power. Seeking to unravel the mysteries of cosmos, they've learned to directly tap into the mana currents and wield magic in its purest form. Sorcerers are capable of summoning magical creatures ranging from shock Wisps to extra-dimensional Eldritch Horrors. Being the most magically focused of all the classes, the Sorcerer wields a wide arsenal of combat invocations and unit and domain enchantments. Sorcerer's domains tend to be loaded with protections such as anti magic domes and guarding glyphs, while they cast corrupting magic on their enemies. Needless to say, Sorcerers favor mana over gold and rely on spells instead of brute force. With their arcane knowledge, they strive to restore the dominance once held by the Wizard Kings.

—Gifted Lords of the Third Age, by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

Sorcerer may not have the most powerful armies, but they make up for it with powerful spells and summoned creatures. They rely on their Casting Points and high reserve of mana to take advantage of their spells.

Units: Wisp, Apprentice, Phantasm Warrior, Summon Fantastic Creature units ^note, Node Serpent, Eldritch Horror

The Apprentice: The Apprentice unit. They are Sorcerers in training, they can heal summoned units and steal buffs and debuffs.
The Archmage: In case the name didn't make it clear enough, the Sorcerer is the most magic-focused class in the game. This is particularly true if their ultimate enchantment, Age of Magic, is up. This is one of the highest-priority Disjunction targets in the game, as it grants the Sorcerer 50 additional casting points while halving the mana and casting point cost of all their spells. Want to take the seemingly poorly defended city with your army? Oops, that city now has an Eldritch Horror protecting it! Want to disjunct the Static Electricity that keeps stunning your units, or the Chaos Rift decimating your army? Go ahead, waste your turns and casting points. The Sorcerer will laugh at you and cast them all over again.
Crippling Overspecialization: High Elf Sorcerers are largely restricted to physical and shock damage, which becomes a problem against, ironically, magical creatures that are resistant to those damage types, like Wisps and Phantasm Warriors. In a Mirror Match against another Sorcerer of a different race, the Elves may have problem dealing with an army of Phantasm Warriors.
Cycle of Hurting: One of the empire upgrades of the Sorcerer gives all their support units the ability to stun. This, combined with Static Electricity (which gives all allied units Static Shield and all enemies weakness to electricity) makes a Sorcerer with an army full of supports almost impossible to contend with without sky-high electric resistance, otherwise your armies will spend their time getting flanked and being unable to attack.
Eldritch Abomination: The Eldritch Horror, the Sorcerer's strongest summoned units, is this. In addition, they can Dominate and have Fearsome, which causes enemies to likely panic if they directly attack it.
Immune to Mind Control: The Eldritch Horror has Mind Control Immunity.
Gravity Screw: The Double Gravity spell, which causes all flying units to be forced into the ground.
Shock and Awe: Chain Lightning, Static Sphere, Lightning Storm, they use a lot of Shock-themed spells and damage. In addition, many of their units deal shock damage.
Summon Magic: With the exception of Apprentice, most of their units are all summoned in the strategic map.

Arch Druid

Arch Druids lead from natural sanctuaries in remote locales. Their cities are natural self-sufficient places founded on the bedrock of natural balance. Their lands burst with life, sweet springs overflow bringing lush wilderness to arid wastelands. Their domains are well guarded by hunters, shamans, and wild beasts. Even the trees appear to bend to the Arch Druid's will. The Arch Druid Lords I encountered ruled with unquestioned power that at times seemed cruel, but upon reflection is justified by their need for constant balance. To master the forces of nature, they do not blindly protect life, for death is the natural consequence of life.

—Gifted Lords of the Third Age, by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler.

Arch Druid uses the might of nature to inflict damage on their enemies. They use nature-themed spells and powerful animals to fight alongside them.

Units: Wild Animals ^note, Hunter, Eldritch Animals ^note, Shaman, Gargantuan Animals ^note, Horned God, Erymanthian Boar, Ancestral Spirits

The Beastmaster: Much of their units are summoned animals, in addition, they can buff and debuff animals and mounts.
Druid: Yeah it's kind of in the name.
Forest Ranger:
- The Hunters are their class archer unit, who have the ability to traverse tough terrain, swim, and deal bonus damage against animals.
- Arch Druid's empire upgrades benefit archer units, including their own Hunters. These upgrades include Hunter's Finesse^note, Favored Enemies^note, and Long Strider^note.
Gaia's Vengeance: Many of their spells uses vines and nature to defeat their enemies. In addition, they can summon The Horned God.
Geo Effects: One with the Element is cast to give the empire a connection to nature. It gives an increase in happiness bonus and lessened happiness penalty to the race's disliked and hated terrain and climates.
Green Thumb: Most of their spells that don't summon animals involve commanding plants instead, such as impaling an enemy with sharp roots or crushing city walls with vines. Their Shamans get the ability to trap enemy units in roots, and The Horned God inflicts the same effect with its melee attacks.
Immune to Mind Control: Shaman has the Mind Control Immunity and, if you researched Beast Mastery, all of your animals and monsters receive Mind Control Immunity and 2 bonus resistance.
Nature Is Not Nice: Druids may be protectors of nature, but that won't stop them, their forces, the animals under their command and even the plants they control from wrecking your army in many horrific ways. Just like other classes, they are in no way bound to any alignment, so a druid can range anywhere from a Pure Good tree-hugging hippie to a Pure Evil walking natural disaster.
Nature Lover: In a darker way than usual, as shown by the above quote.
Poisonous Person: Their spells and units inflict much blight damage as it is part of nature.
Power of the Sun: The Sunburst spell calls a burning ray that would deal fire damage to an enemy army on a map. In addition, it inflicts unhappiness bonuses and population loss to a city that is targeted.
Shock and Awe: The Horned God can use the ability Call Lightning to summon a lightning bolt that strikes the target and adjacent hexes and has a chance of inflicting stun. Arch Druid heroes can learn "Call Lightning".
Summon Magic:
- Arch Druid leaders can summon animals and the Horned God on the strategic map. Elite-ranked Horned Gods can summon an animal companion of their own, the Erymanthian Boar.
- During combat, Arch Druid heroes can use the combat spells Call Ancestral Spirits and Call Beast Horde to summon an Ancestral Spirit and a horde of beasts, respectively, that last until the end of combat. In addition, Call Beast Horde can summon beasts at the start of the opponent's round.
War Elephants: Arch Druids can befriend or summon Elephants and Mammoths. Both are similar in stats and abilities, down to even learning Killing Momentum upon reaching Elite rank. Befriending an elephant grants the player the achievement "Elephant Whisperer."
The Wild Hunt: The Arch Druid's ultimate Strategic Spell, The Wild Hunt, grants all of their units (except for Sea Monsters and Machine units) Floating and Strong Will.

Rogue

Rogue Lords are masters of propaganda. Any foolish citizen who refuses to accept their lies disappears without a whisper of protest in the middle of the night. Rogues employ political scandal, poison, assassinations, theft, blackmail, and bribery to appease their subjects and manipulate rival lords. Rogues often have two faces: one they show the public, the other is a ruthless schemer directing their secret police force to brutalize his enemies. Rogue troops rely on stealth and speed, patiently waiting in shadow for the perfect moment to strike.

—Gifted Lords of the Third Age, by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

Rogue are cunning and manipulative, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. Good at disorienting their enemies and uses a lot of abilities that buff your units and debuff your enemies.

Units: Grimbeak Crows, Scoundrel, Bard, Assassin, Succubus, Lesser Shadow Stalker, Shadow Stalker

Armor-Piercing Attack: Rogue heroes can learn Armor Piercing to deal additional damage against armored units. In addition, they can learn Stronger than Steel, which gives Armor Piercing to the Rogue hero's army.
Back Stab: Rogue heroes, Assassins, and Shadow Stalkers (and their lesser form) have the Backstab ability, which allows their flanking attacks to deal additional damage. The Cruel Backstab empire upgrade grants the ability to irregular and infantry units.
Casting a Shadow: Rogues are associated with magic that allows them to shroud their domains in shadows, summon elementals of cold darkness, and turn an ally into a living shadow.
Combat Pragmatist: Uses a lot of dirty tactics to give them the edge, such as blinding, backstabbing, sabotage, inducing panic, infiltration, etc.
Creepy Crows: Rogues can summon Grimbeak Crows that can be deployed as spies.
Dark Is Not Evil: Rogues use a lot of sinister ploys to win battles, but they can be good or evil depending on their alignment. In fact, the ability Courtesan Ambassadors, which can be researched very early and improves relationships with independent cities (leading to a good synergy with the good-inclined Keeper of Peace specialization), encourages playing a Lovable Rogue archetype, despite the dark and creepy flavor of some of their abilities such as Corrupted Killers.
Deal with the Devil: The Rogue can train Succubi, and one of their empire upgrades is described as forging "a Dark Pact with forgotten gods".
Hero Killer: Rogues can learn the Assassins of Kings upgrade, which grants their party the Hero Slayer ability.
Invisibility: The Rogue's ultimate Strategic Spell, Age of Deception, renders all of their armies invisible.
Poisonous Person/Poisoned Weapons: Rogues specialize in blight damage. Moreover, Rogue can gain blight resistance. This can used in ways, such as either enhancing Goblins' already high blight damage and resistance or giving High Elves blight damage and removing their blight weakness.
Smoke Out: The Smoke Screen spell which could be cast into the battlefield. While it doesn't allow your units to escape (as it is already covered with Cunning Escape), it boosts your units' defense against ranged attack.
Storm of Blades: Rogue heroes can cast Rain of Poison Blades to deal both physical and blight damage to a single target.
Succubi and Incubi: The Succubus unit. They are beautiful Winged Humanoid female demons clad in Stripperific armor that can seduce enemy units.
Summon Magic: Rogues can summon Grimbeak Crows into the strategic map.
Weak, but Skilled: They focus mostly on Irregular units, which tend to be weaker and squishier in direct combat than other units. They are also the only class that can neither summon nor produce a tier 4 unit, with the tier 3 Shadow Stalker serving as their ultimate unit instead unless their leader chooses one of the Eternal Lords specializations. Finally, they have almost no means to heal their units. They make up for it with tricky tactics and units that can pop out of nowhere and deal tons of damage without taking much in return.

Warlord

Warlords see safety in war. One warlord told me that a nation at peace was a nation breeding cowards to be enslaved. Warlords rule by the Law of the Sword, establishing leadership based upon annual bloody tournaments of battle. Many warlords are clever tacticians, while others are legendary warriors unto themselves. Though they tend to trust the power of their well-trained arms over supernatural powers, Warlords will sacrifice everything to protect their homelands. They train in strong armor, with an assortment of weapons, and view scars as badges of honor.

—Gifted Lords of the Third Age, by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

Warlords strive on warfare. They uses strong units and... well, strong units. Much of their spells help them do war efficiently like buffing units and debuffing enemies.

Units: Scout, Berserker, Monster Hunter, Mounted Archer, Phalanx, Warbreed, Manticore Rider

Army Scout: The Scouts. In the map, they can traverse water and mountains as if they could fly, but they have low HP and stats, meaning that they are not meant to be direct combat units.
The Berserker:
- Berserkers, they do a lot of damage and when in a higher level, can inflict bleeding and not spend action points when retaliating.
- The Steadfast Ward spell also give the unit 2 turns to keep fighting, even when he is at 1 HP, making them fight 'til their last breath.
Blood Knight: As shown by the above quote, warlords tend to be quite bloodthirsty.
Boring, but Practical: Warlords don't get many fancy spells and have no summons outside of specializations, but they make up for it with powerful conventional armies. The spells and hero skills they do get are also geared more towards empowering their own troops, rather than affecting or damaging the enemy directly.
Born in the Saddle: The Thoroughbred Mounts empire upgrade increases their mounted units' health, which improves the survivability of their racial mounted units and their class mounted units, like the Mounted Archer and Manticore Rider.
Fatal Forced March: Their Death March strategic spell allows an army to double their normal movement at a cost of half of their current health. While it will make a Warlord's army mobile, it also puts them at risk of ambush from enemy armies that catch them in a weakened state.
Fragile Speedster: The Scout unit. They're unsuited to direct combat, but they can Sprint to avoid attacks of opportunity while moving near enemy units. Combined with the Backstab trait they gain at rank 4, this makes Scouts useful for harassing the enemy's flanks and tying up support/archer units.
Gladiator Games: Their second tier Class building is called the Gladiator Pit which produces Phalanx and Warbreeds, as well as give happiness to the city that produced the building.
Half-Human Hybrid: The Warbreeds are giant creatures born from an ogre and your chosen race. They retain traits of your race while possessing monstrous traits like Wall Crushing and Regrowth.
Hero Killer: Invoked with the Hero Slaying strategic spell, which grants the caster's unit the Hero Slayer ability.
Horse Archer: The Mounted Archer unit. They also resemble Mongolian horsemen.
Hunter of Monsters: The Monster Hunter unit. They have the Slayer trait against monsters, animals, dragons, giants, elementals and fey, and gain Slayer for undead and summons as they rank up. Their protective gear also affords them 20% resistance to fire, cold and shock damage, which magical creatures are likely to utilize.
Immune to Mind Control: The Berserker and the Manticore Rider, which are ridden by Berserkers, have Mind Control Immunity so they cannot be stolen from you.
Instant Militia: Raise Militia summons irregular units based on the Warlord's race at the cost of population.
Our Manticores Are Spinier: The Manticore Rider. It is a cavalry unit with Flying that are very powerful with their high attack damage, immune to mind control, and capable of inflicting Cripple to enemies.
Proud Warrior Race Guys: They live and breathe on warfare. Their Warrior Culture empire upgrade removes the "enemy in domain" and "enemy at the gate" morale penalty, allowing to fight to the bitter end.
Uncle Sam Wants You: The Draft strategic spell invokes the imagery with a bald man pointing toward the player. It grants happiness and they cannot desert if their happiness is too low.
War Is Glorious: Many warlords enjoy fighting and becoming very strong.

Theocrat

Because theocrats tend not to wield many offensive powers, it is tempting to believe that territories ruled by theocrats are easy to conquer. History has proven this to be foolishness. Theocrats lead the masses by the heart. They heal, persuade, minister and convert. Their zealots are fiercely loyal, convinced to the core that any action they perform will earn them a greater reward in the afterlife. Theocrats bestow power upon their most faithful from two theological sources: the Mandate of Heaven or the terror of the Underworld.

—Gifted Lords of the Third Age, by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

Do not underestimate Theocrats just because they are not as offensive as a Warlord. They have strong healers, great buffs, religious fanatics, and divine retribution to fight for the light.

Units: Cherub, Martyr, Crusader, Evangelist, Exalted, Shrine of Smiting

Anti-Magical Faction: The strategic enchantment The Great Purge, which "channels divine power to cleanse the land of supernatural beings" and provides all infantry and cavalry units with Dragon Slayer, Fey Slayer, Monster Slayer, Summon Slayer and Undead Slayer.
Our Angels Are Different:
- The Exalted is one of their strongest units, with their ability to fly, strong attack and Spirit damage, immune to Spirit damage and Mind Control, and the Resurgence ability which resurrects them should the Theocrat be victorious and they fell in battle.
- The Cherubs are weak but effective scouts for the Theocrat. Unlike the other class units, cherubs need to be summoned with a strategic spell.
Arch-Enemy: Necromancers, which Theocrats suffer Mutual Disadvantage with. On the one hand, Theocrats rely heavily on Spirit and sometimes Fire damage, which undead are naturally weak against, and they can give their party buffs such as Holy Champion and Undead Slayer, and their Evangelists can spam Turn Undead. On the other hand, Necromancers possess a spell that drops the resistance of Devout units while boosting that of undead, and can give their units Devout Slayer and Support Slayer, tearing through Theocrat armies that rely heavily on units with those tags.
Back from the Dead: Their main schtick is their ability to come back from the dead. The Theocrat hero can cast the spell Rebirth on a single target to gain Resurgence, which resurrects the unit if they are killed in battle. In addition, the Theocrat hero can learn Divine Justicar, which grants their entire party Resurgence. Lastly, the Exalted starts with Resurgence, which allows them to serve as vanguard against fortified cities and defensive line.
Church Militant: Uses holy warriors as their main method of warfare.
Combat Medic: Theocrat heroes and Evangelist are great healers, but they can still fight.
Combined Energy Attack: The Prayer Bolts of the Shrine of Smiting are empowered by the faith of every Devout unit on the battlefield controlled by the Theocrat. Used within an army consisting entirely of Devout units, a Shrine of Smiting effectively has twice its stated power. In a massive battle involving several armies, it can easily be three or four times as powerful, felling even powerful units in one blow, especially if Armageddon is active.
Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Theocrat religion, complete with robed evangelists, knightly crusaders and feather-winged angels.
Easy Evangelism: Theocrat heroes and Evangelist can Convert enemy units.
The Heretic: Theocrats use Mark of the Heretic and Denounce City spells to give the Heretic debuff, which Devoted units deal more damage against.
Heroic Sacrifice: Martyr has the Absorb Pain ability which takes in damage that would have been inflicted on the unit they use the ability on. They can be damaged and even killed from this, but they'll die for you. Exalted can get this ability if they are evolved from Martyr. So can Theocrat heroes.
Holy Burns Evil: Theocrats have many ways of countering undead and "Dedicated to Evil" units, like Spirit damage, Holy Champion, and Turn Undead.
Holy Hand Grenade: Uses a lot of Spirit damage. The Shrine of Smiting gets more powerful, the more devoted units are in the army it is in.
Immune to Mind Control: The Cherub and Evangelist have Mind Control Immunity. Though the Exalted and Crusader do not strictly possess the Mind Control Immunity, they have 100% base Spirit Resistance which, given that all conversion abilities are spirit-element checks, grants effective immunity to mind control unless generous debuffs are applied.
Light 'em Up: A lot of their abilities focus on Spirit damage in the form of bright yellow/white holy magic.
Light Is Not Good: Theocrats may be worshippers and church officials, but their alignment can make the difference between the Good Shepherd and the Sinister Minister. The Cherub's description implies that the unnamed Theocrat religion may be a Path of Inspiration.
The Paladin: The Crusaders are their infantry class units. They are immune to Spirit damage and mind control, increase the effect of Guard, and deal Fire damage against Undead, monsters, and evil units through the Holy Champion trait.
Stone Wall: Crusaders are heavily-armored infantry with shields and a trait that boosts their physical and nonphysical defenses by 20% while guarding — While capable on the offense (as they deal bonus damage against certain unit types), you're incentivized to park them in guard mode to serve as roadblocks against the enemy advance. For the best results, pair them with a Martyr to absorb what little damage they do take.
Summon Magic: Theocrats can summon a Cherub in the strategic map.
The End Is Nigh: The Theocrat's ultimate Strategic Spell Armageddon "foretells the end of the world". The caster's Empire gains Strong Will and ignores some morale penalties (secure in the knowledge that they're going to be rewarded in the afterlife), while enemies have their will undermined, becoming unable to naturally recover health and gaining a massive weakness to Spirit (given that almost all of the Theocrat's nastiest moves involve Spirit damage or a Spirit resistance check, this is bad news).
The Medic: Theocrats has a large access of healing abilities and health regeneration. Evangelists can heal adjacent units as an ability, and they grant bonus healing to living units in their stack.
The Paladin: Crusaders. Immune to spirit damage and mind control, highly defensive when guarding, and they deal extra fire damage when attacking undead, monsters, or evil beings.
Turn Undead: Evangelist and Theocrat heroes can get this ability to cause an undead unit to panic.
Useless Useful Spell: Theocrat heroes can learn the ability Absorb Pain, which transfers damage done to the target on the user. This is great on a low-tier, weak, and easily replaceable unit like the Martyr. Slightly less great on a hero, which, most of the time, is the most valuable thing in the party while having only mediocre health compared to a high-tier unit. Mildly less useless if the leader has ample casting points and Resurrect Hero researched (it's possible to resurrect a hero for only 80 mana and casting points, while a high-end unit could take 2 or 3 turns to build and far longer still to train to its full potential), but still usually not the best use of a powerful hero unit.

Necromancer

Life and Death, separate as night and day,
Only a Necromancer could realize the true power found in the twilight between the two.
Only a Necromancer could push a man to the brink of death, and hold him there forever, a ghoulish shadow of his former self.
Only a Necromancer could pierce the veil and drag out the shadow creatures that lurk in the darkness, to be his slaves in the light.
Only a Necromancer could stand as lord of a lifeless land, hollowed out and filled with dark power, and laugh when you called him evil.
For what use has a man of good and evil, when he's standing in the gateway to Eternity?

—Shadow Puppets, by Grimber Ambule, Necromancer

The Necromancers was first introduced in the Eternal Lords expansion. Master of dark arts and death, any of their units and spells themed around undead warriors and inflicting debuffs against the living.

Units: Cadaver, Lost Soul, Reanimator, Banshee, Bone Collector, Death Bringer, Dread Reaper

Above Good and Evil: As shown by the above quote, Grimber Ambule, who serves as the writer or the subject of the flavor text for many units, holds this view.
Achilles' Heel: Spirit damage is highly effective when battling Necromancer armies, particularly against their rank-and-file ghoul troops, who suffer from a whopping 60% weakness to the element (due to the Ghoul and Undead traits stacking) by default. A savvy necromancer player will do everything they can to mitigate this flaw when theocrats come calling, such as fielding heroes with the "Protection from Light" leadership trait, or by fielding spirit-resistant tigran ghouls.
Animate Dead: Their main shtick, and with multiple varieties. They can even use a spell called Animate Ruins to resurrect the entire populace of a ruin into a ghoul city.
The Apprentice: Reanimators, Necromancers in training. They can heal undead units and resurrect dead units as either Cadavers or ghoul units under Tier 2.
Arch-Enemy: Necromancers have skills geared towards battling Theocrats - the combat spell Desecration slaps a resistance debuff on all units with the Devout trait, while the strategic spell Enemy of the Faith grants the Necromancer's armies Devout Slayer and Support Slayer. Necromancer armies in turn are highly vulnerable to spirit damage and abilities that counter the undead, which Theocrats specialize in.
Our Banshees Are Louder: The Banshee units. They play a more support role as their ability Wail of Despair would inflict Despair debuffs to enemies within its range, eroding morale and making them vulnerable to units with Exploit Suffering.
Chill of Undeath: Cold damage is a frequent secondary effect in Necromancer attacks and spells, and undead troops boast an inherent 40% resistance to cold damage.
The Corruption: One of their Strategic spells, "Corrupt the Source," allows them to turn Great Farm or Spring of Life into Corrupted Farm and Corrupted Spring, respecitvely, in order to allow undead cities to gain population.
Dark Is Evil: A lot more than Rogue, considering that they can summon and raise the dead and cause trouble for the living.
- A Necromancer player is incentivized to plunder captured settlements for money (considered to be a particularly evil act by the Karma Meter), since they can quickly recolonize the settlement with Animate Ruins, and they won't suffer from any Race Happiness penalties in their empire due to ghoul city populations lacking Happiness.
- Additionally, Necromancers benefit greatly from the Destruction specialization, which favors evil acts. Hasty Plunder and Scorched Earth both favor necromancers due to the aforementioned Animate Ruins strategy. Blight Empire turns the terrain of the domain to Blight (which most other races dislike at least, but Undead are indifferent towards, meaning that anyone trying to attack your cities will be at a morale disadvantage). Finally, Wreck can make the difference in a battle against another necromancer or a dreadnought thanks to its ability to render undead and machines vulnerable to blight damage.
Deceased and Diseased: Necromancer attacks and spells frequently feature blight damage, and one strategic spell takes the form of a Mystical Plague. Another strategic spell, Rotten Wall, surrounds a city's walls in a miasma of poisonous corpse gases during siege battles.
Dem Bones: Cadavers and Bone Collectors. Cadavers are cannon-fodder skeletons that necromancer heroes can spawn once-per-battle from a dead unit via a special ability. They can heal themselves by devouring corpses in battle, but slowly decay outside of battle unless a necromancer or domain structure grants them healing. The Bone Collector is a Body of Bodies in the shape of a Giant Enemy Crab that can be strengthened by sacrificing Cadavers to it.
Fearless Undead: Undead troops are immune to most morale modifiers, and ghoul cities entirely lack happiness.
Grim Reaper: The Dread Reaper, one of the Necromancer's strongest units. It has the ability Invoke Death which either reduces the enemy's maximum health by 40 or inflict instant death.
Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Somewhat distinct from regular undead, ghoul units are Palette Swaps of regular units, with stat modifications to represent their undead status. Ghouls are mainly created from dead cities, but can be acquired through other means, like having stacks of living units drink from a Well of Souls, or through certain battle effects.
I'm a Humanitarian: Cadavers can devour corpses to replenish its health. Necromancer heroes can also cannibalize corpses through an upgrade.
Our Liches Are Different: Your heroes, once you research Harbingers of Death, become archliches, which grants bonuses to units in their army and turn all living units into ghouls. In addition, the leader can get the Phylactery upgrade, which enables them to continue spellcasting and research even while recovering from injury.
Life Drain: While some units have this ability, all Necromancer heroes and Infantry, Irregulars, and Pikeman units gain this ability through the Vampiric Hunger empire upgrade. The Dread Reaper gains a stronger version of life drain.
- The Syphon Life spell deal blight and spirit damage to a target and heal any adjacent friendly units.
Magikarp Power: A lot more than Dreadnoughts. Necromancer has a very bad early game since they don't have a good economy and requires killing enemy units to gain population and no regeneration. Eventually, by the late game, they are nearly unstoppable.
Mechanically Unusual Class:
- Necromancer empires cannot directly control non-dwelling cities without transforming their populations into ghouls. Ghoul cities completely lack Happiness, which means their production output is fixed; however, this also means that Necromancers can settle any ghouled race they own in any terrain or climate with no penalties. Outside a particular building chain, they cannot gain population naturally, but after every battle the player's nearest ghoul city will absorb the casualties as new population, and certain spells allow Necromancers to siphon population from enemy cities.
- Ghoul troops are immune to most morale modifiers, making them difficult to demoralize yet also unlikely to score critical hits. Since they have the Undead trait, they cannot heal or regenerate without assistance from Necromancer heroes, Reanimators or certain spells and structures. They also gain weaknesses to spirit and fire damage, in exchange for cold resistance and complete immunity to blight.
Mystical Plague: One of their Strategic Spells is "Undead Plague". It lowers the target city's happiness and siphons their population to boost your nearest ghoul city.
The Necrocracy: Necromancers (who themselves are living, until the right empire upgrade is researched) exclusively rule cities that are populated by undead creatures called ghouls — they cannot absorb any living cities, and the relevant option is replaced by a ritual to transform captured populations into more ghouls.
Necromancer: Naturally.
No-Sell: Undead units such as ghouls enjoy 100% resistance to blight damage.
Not the Intended Use: The Reanimate Undead hero abilities are primarily used to raise the army's own fallen undead. You can't use them on the living to turn them to undead... but you can totally use them on the enemy's undead units to raise them as your servants. And if you happen to have the Greater version, you can do this to tier 4 Archon Titans and Bone Dragons.
The Plague: The Undead Plague spell, in which a targeted living city loses happiness and constantly loses population for each turn. The lost population is converted into undead population for the nearest ghoul city you own.
Sinister Scythe: The Necromancer hero's weapon is the scythe.
Soul Jar: The Phylactery empire upgrade makes leader resurrect in 1 turn after their death instead of the usual 3 turns as long as the throne city is still active. In addition, research and spells are still active while the leader is in the void.
Summon Magic: The Lost Souls, Banshees, and Dread Reapers can only be summoned in the strategic map and cannot be produced in your cities.
The Undead: All of your units except for heroes, summoned units and machines. Heroes can become liches through the "Harbingers of Death" empire upgrade.
The Virus: Death Bringers and high-leveled Necromancer heroes have a chance of inflicting the ghoul curse upon living units they attack - should a cursed unit die in the same battle, they will reanimate the next turn as a ghoul unit under the Necromancer's control. Fortunately, if the unit successfully resists the curse, they'll be immune to it for the rest of the battle.
Walking Ossuary: Bone Collectors are gigantic heaps of bones in the form of a fiddler crab (with a dragon's skull serving as the claw) that can consume corpses n the battlefield for healing and a stacking buff to health, resistance and attack.
Zombie Apocalypse: The Necromancer's ultimate strategic spell, Age of Death, creates one of these - For as long as the spell remains in place, the casualties of any battle in the world have a 35% chance of reanimating as a stack of ghoul units under the Necromancer's control.
Zombify the Living: Necromancers cannot own cities with living populations — when capturing a city, the "absorb city" option is replaced with "ghoul city", a dark ritual that transforms the populace into undead. Heroes with the arch-lich trait will also ghoul-ify any living units that start the turn in their stack.

Cultures (Age of Wonders 4)

Feudal

Feudal Culture in Age of Wonders 4

A hierarchic society where lords ladies and knights reign over peasants. All stand together when their fertile realm is threatened.

Units: Scout, Peasant Pikeman, Archer, Bannerman, Defender, Knight

Blue Blood: Feudal rulers and heroes can gain one of the five "Feudal Lord" skills that grant a decently-sized boost to one particular resource in the city they govern, or in the case of the "Lord of War" skill, a bonus to their army whenever it wins a fight.
Evolution Power-Up: The relatively weak and basic T1 Peasant Pikemen have a trait that lets them earn XP faster, and can eventually become the tough and shielded T2 Defenders upon reaching gold rank.
Jousting Lance: Early cavalry spears/lances are, expectedly, the weapon of choice for their Knights. Rulers can take lances and horses as their starting equipment.
Knight in Shining Armor: Knights are a Tier III mounted shock unit that can deal massive damage with their heavy charge strike, and possess the Inspiring Killer trait to doubles their allies' morale gain when the Knight kills an enemy, as well as Giant Slayer, increasing their damage further against units classified as Large Targets.
Last Chance Hit Point: The Hold the Line spell and "undying loyalty" hero skill makes targeted units 'steadfast', unable to drop below 1 Hit Point for a single combat round.
Medieval European Fantasy: With a slight Scandanavian flavor. Their units resemble early-to-high middle age soldiers with kite shields, longbows and mounted knights.
Team Spirit: Their "Stand Together" perk, which increases the damage of units by 20% so long as they stand adjacent to other units with the same ability (and can be given to non-Feudal units through Singet of Knighthood). Tight formations are further encouraged by the Bannerman, who cast all of their buffs in a small area around them. If you start as a Feudal race, your heroes can pick up "stand together" as a skill, as well as "feudal ruler" which gives adjacent units a further +10% damage and +1 defence.
Torches and Pitchforks: The Peasant Pikemen are somewhat evocative of this aspect, at least the pitchfork part, wielding crude polearms and repurposed farming tools as weapons. Augment them with the Tome of Pyromancy and they get both their torch and pitchfork all in one.

High

High Culture in Age of Wonders 4

A highly developed society whose members strive for harmony. When threatened, however, they wield their guiding light as a weapon.

Units: Lightseeker, Dawn Defender, Dusk Hunter, Sun Priest, Daylight Spear, Awakener

Expy: Gameplay and theme-wise, they are very reminiscent of the Archons and the High Elves from the previous games, and High factions related to both groups appear during the story.
Light 'em Up: High units make heavy use of the spirit element, and the awakening buff always provides a bonus +4 spirit damage to attacks regardless if the unit has dormant traits. Of note is "exposing light", an ability of the Awakener battle mage and available to heroes as a skill, which inflicts a penalty to defense and resistance in a 1-hex area. The Sun Priest has "radiant light" as a dormant trait, which causes their spirit bolts to blind targets.
Light Is Good: The most outwardly nice of the cultures, with glittering white towers, shiny armor and light magic. Simply choosing High nets your faction a +10 modifier on the Karma Meter, making you count as Good from turn 1.
- Light Is Not Good: That said, there's nothing stopping the player from amassing negative karma as a High faction, or even taking villainous society traits like Scions of Evil to counteract the culture's inherent positive karma. Notably, the High culture's special "alignment agenda" provides bespoke bonuses for being at "neutral" and "pure evil", as well as "pure good".
Master Archer: High culture's archers have a distinct range advantage over other culture's archers thanks to the specific bonus they get from the Awaken mechanic, which increases their attack range by +1. This can be stacked with the similar increase archer units get from reaching the highest experience rank, as well as the Seeker Arrows enchantment, allowing them to potentially reach range 8 as opposed to the maximum 7 for other cultures.
No Points for Neutrality: A variant. The alignment agenda provides bonuses for being "pure good", "neutral" or "pure evil", but no bonuses for simply being "evil/good" or "very evil/good" — you need to maintain strict neutralty or go whole-hog on being good or evil to benefit from the mechanic.
Super-Empowering: The "Awaken" mechanic: High culture's main tactical specialty, using the special abilities of the Sun Priest and Awakener they can unleash the hidden spiritual power of their units for a few turns, granting bonus spirit damage and activating "Dormant Traits" in units that have them (which the native High units have, and can be granted to other units, except shock, skirmisher or fighter types, via the Dormant Enchantment). For High culture factions that decide to play against type and become pure evil, they start every battle with all their units already Awakened.

Barbarian

Barbarian Culture in Age of Wonders 4

A people who thrive on war and aggression. They value strength and prefer to charge head-on into bloody battles.

Units: Pathfinder, Sunderer, Warrior, Fury, War Shaman, Berserker

Barbarian Tribe: The Barbarian culture is primitive and warlike (giving their ruler mixed nature and chaos affinity) and their units are clad in ramshackle Pelts of the Barbarian.
The Berserker: The name of their T3 shock unit. At low health, they become temporarily unkillable, uncontrollable and ignore the damage penalties from fallen individuals for a turn. The Song of the Reckless spell, exclusive to Barbarian rulers, also bestows berserk and three stacks of strengthen on any friendly unit for three turns.
Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Being a Barbarian Tribe, this culture naturally favors axes, with Berserkers in particular hauling great-axes as broad as their chests.
Horny Vikings: Their broad Barbarian Tribe imagery incorporates horned helmets, berserkers, and metal decorations with Nordic knotwork and dragon motifs. To really drive it home, give them Ruthless Raiders and Experienced Seafarers as society traits.
Horse Archer: Fury archers normally fight on foot, but convert into this trope if their race is given a special mount trait.
Increasingly Lethal Enemy: Furies and Berserkers have the "frenzy" trait, giving them a stack of strengthened every time they perform an attack, increasing the damage of subsequent attacks.
Javelin Thrower: The Sunderer, a basic skirmishing unit that fights with a spear, which they throw as their ranged secondary attack (inflicting sundered defence).
Pelts of the Barbarian: Their dress code is furs, bones, leather and crude fabrics.
The Pioneer: Unlike other Army Scout units, Pathfinders have the ability to found outposts (at double cost) without the presence of a Hero Unit, enabling Barbarian empires to expand very quickly in the early game.
Poisoned Weapons: Barbarian units (and other units if given their enchantment brutal mark) have the passive "savage strike", which grants them bonus blight damage every time they score a critical hit. Additionally, war shamans and heroes/champions with their cultural magic weapons attack using bolts of blight damage.
Shield Bash: Barbarian Warriors can perform a shield bash to try to stun a single enemy unit, while simultaneously entering defence mode.

Industrious

Industrious Culture in Age of Wonders 4

Master builders who value grand cities and strong armor, preferring a defensive attitude over an aggressive one.

Units: Pioneer, Anvil Guard, Arbalest, Halberdier, Steel Shaper, Bastion

Adaptive Ability: The main tactical mechanic of the Industrious culture. Whenever an Industrious unit (or other units with their cultural enchantment, Rune of Industry) gets hit by at least one attack in a turn of combat, they gain a stack of Bolstered Defense/Resistance, adding one point to the respective damage reduction stat, and the Steel Shaper and Bastion are further capable of adding extra Bolstered Defense (and Resistance too with the right Tome enchantments) stacks with their special abilities. Steel Shapers can also use their other special ability to convert these Bolstered stacks into healing and a damage increase, and the Industrious culture gets two spells unique to it that add healing and Bolstered Defense to a unit, or convert all units' Bolstered stacks into a damage increase simultaneously.
Citadel City: The "Bastion's Barricade" building available at tier III, which boosts the city's fortification value by 20 points (enabling Industrial cities to have the highest possible fortification in the game) and gives the defender a pair of free Bastions during siege battles.
Heavily Armored Mook: Played straight with the Anvil Guard and Bastion shield units, who have the appearance with the defense stat to match. Downplayed with the Halberdier, who lacks a helmet and appears to be wearing an outfit that leaves his pectorals uncovered, and has a lower defense in comparison, though he still benefits from Bolstering all the same, and has the same resistance stat as the Bastion.
I Shall Taunt You: Anvil Guard can afflict an adjacent enemy unit with "taunt", forcing the target to ignore orders and spend the next three turns automatically attacking them.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Their main forte, having more native shield units than the other cultures.
Non-Elemental: The Steelshaper support unit's "steel blast" is one of the few magic-tagged attacks in the game that uses the physical damage type, normally reserved for mundane attacks.
Prospector: The Pioneer can prospect provinces with cliffs, mountains, or subterranean stalagmites to obtain gold, production, or an item. This gives Industrious empires an early game advantage in their economy or hero development.
Stone Wall: Industrious units are heavily armored, have two different shield units, and encourage patient, defensive tactics centered around their Adaptive Ability: Building up stacks of Bolstered Defense to weather the enemy assault, before converting it all into healing and Strengthened for a decisive counter-attack.

Dark

Dark Culture in Age of Wonders 4

A dictatorial civilization where the strong and ruthless dominate the weak. They use forbidden magics to maintain control and weaken their enemies.

Units: Outrider, Dark Warrior, Pursuer, Warlock, Night Watch, Dark Knight

BFS: Dark Warriors, the culture's basic T1 melee unit, are shock infantry armed with greatswords.
Black Knight: Dark Knights are the Dark Tier III unit that serves as a mounted shock unit. In addition to their charging attack penetrating through charge resistance, Dark Knights can cast Dark Surge to deal ice damage against multiple enemies in front of them.
Dark Is Evil: The most outwardly sinister of the cultures, themed on bullying the weak and maintaining control over a downtrodden populace. Simply choosing Dark nets your faction a -10 modifier on the Karma Meter, making you count as Evil from turn 1.
- Dark Is Not Evil: That said, there's nothing stopping the player from amassing positive karma as a Dark faction, or even taking positive society traits like Devotees of Good to counteract the culture's inherent negative karma.
Evil Tower of Ominousness: The "overlord's tower" structure, which prevents provinces from breaking away from the city as a consequence of low stability.
Kick Them While They Are Down:
- Dark Warriors, Night Guards, and Dark Knights have the Cull the Weak trait, which increases their damage dealt by 20% against enemies suffering from 'weakened' and grants a stack of regeneration upon striking weakened enemies. The Dark enchantment spell Brand of Wrath gives the Cull the Weak trait to non-Dark units.
- Dark Knights' Dark Surge spell deals double damage against enemies afflicted with any negative status effects.
Proud Scholar Race: Of the evil Mad Scientist variety. Their starting Shadow affinity (as well as later empire skills granted by it) provide knowledge bonuses to cities they govern, and many of their cultural structures are themed around interrogation and unethical experimentation. While any culture can build prisons and crypts to gain knowledge and mana from hero captives and corpses respectively, the Dark culture has some extra buildings that further expand on those bonuses.
Repressive, but Efficient: While Dark can build some structures to increase city stability for the sake of boosting their economy during good times, they have little to fear from the consequences of low stability. The first town hall upgrade, the tier II "dread spire", outright negates the economic penalties of low stability, while an "overlord's tower" building available at tier III prevents provinces from breaking away due to low stability.
Torture Cellar: The "toture dungeon" replaces taverns in Dark cities, providing a bit less stability in return for some knowledge income, as well as a bonus of 2 knowledge for every Hero Unit stored in your faction's prison.

Mystic

Mystic Culture in Age of Wonders 4

A culture of scholars, driven to study every corner of the Astral Sea. They prefer to find answers through research and arcane prowess.

Units: Mystic Projection, Arcane Guard, Arcanist, Soother, Spellshield, Spellbreaker

"Arabian Nights" Days: The overall aesthetic of the Mystic culture.
Astral Projection: The Mystic culture's scout unit. It is the only scout unit that is not mounted, and thus the slowest-moving, but makes up for it with the ability to float across rough terrain and pass through barriers in combat.
Blinded by the Light: The T2 Spellshield has the ability "stunning flash", which deals light Fire, Ice, Lightning damage to all adjacent enemies and has a 60% base chance to stun them.
Deflector Shields: The Mystic cultural spell Magic Shield, which provides two stacks of Bolstered Defence and Bolstered Resistance to a single target.
Dispel Magic: The T3 Spellbreaker unit's secondary "star purge" attack deals splash damage and removes all buffs from enemy units caught in its radius. If the targets are of magical origin (fey, undead, etc.), the damage is doubled.
Fire, Ice, Lightning: Mystic culture's main damage forte. All their cultural shooting units are either supports or battle mages whose base damage is split into three equal amounts of fire, frost and shock damage. All Mystic units (including Champions and Heroes) have the "Attunement: Star Blades" trait, that gives them a random 1-point cumulative bonus (up to three stacks) in one of these three damage channels for their primary attack every time a spell is cast by their side. If you start as a Mystic faction, you can give "Attunement: Star Blades" to Wizard Kings and Dragon Lords as a learnable skill, and to all non-Mystic units with the "Scroll of Attunement" Magic Enhancement.
Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: Mystic is the only culture that has an inherent incompatibility with a society trait, namely the Fabled Hunters trait, because they have no physical ranged units that could benefit from it.
Proud Scholar Race: Practically stated in their description, and they are not too far behind Dark in terms of research bonuses. They're associated with the Astral affinity, which gives skills geared to magic and research.
Squishy Wizard: While capable of raining punishment from a distance and synergizing strongly with a magic-heavy playstyle, the Mystic roster's emphasis on ranged firepower makes them vulnerable to fast-moving enemies that can close the gap and lock down their battle mages.

Reaver

Reaver Culture in Age of Wonders 4: Empire & Ashes

A society of industrial opportunists. Pragmatic and brutal, they combine the material and the arcane, expanding their dominion through conquests and hunts.

Units: Observer, Mercenary, Harrier, Magelock, Overseer, Dragoon, Magelock Cannon

Appeal to Force: Since they start with 0 whispering stones by default, the Reaver culture can instead "intimidate" free cities and vassals to bring them in line, paying a cost of war spoils to advance to the next relations level as well as being able to use war spoils as an alternative to gold or mana to trade with them. In diplomacy with other empires, Reavers can perform the unique "Declaration of Supremacy" pronouncement, spending an upkeep of war spoils to negate the opinion modifier caused by grievances.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Magelock muskets and pistols ignore half of enemy armour by default.
Boom Stick: Downplayed, as they only use them at point-blank, but the Mercenary's halberd has a mini-magelock attached to the end of it which they use to knock back enemy units and then step into the tile they previously occupied.
Do Not Run with a Gun: Most Magelock weapons except for the Dragoon and hero pistols are full-action with longer range than the average physical ranged attack, but unlike the Snipers in Planetfall, lack a single action "snap shot" version, meaning that their users have to absolutely choose between moving or shooting.
Evil Colonialist: Their conquistador aesthetic, alongside starting with a point in Chaos affinity (which has empire development skills that encourage a razing/pillaging-heavy warmonger playstyle) as well as their mechanics (Spoils of War unique resource, the ability to ignore Imperium penalties from waging unjust wars, and starting with 0 Whispering Stones by default) make them lean heavily towards this, but as with good Dark and evil High, it is possible that they can be played against type.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Their fashion, tech level and description are heavily based on 16th century western Europe, particularly the Spanish Empire during their conquest of the Americas. Promotional artwork for Empires & Ashes even depicts reaver troops marching through a tropical jungle.
Fantasy Gun Control: Alongside the accompanying Tome of the Dreadnought in Empires & Ashes, they are the force that finally allows 4 to avert this trope as the previous games have.
Inescapable Net: Their T1 Skirmisher, the Harrier, uses one to immobilize in a manner similar to the River Troll, and can also apply Marked to enemies with it.
Injured Vulnerability: Reavers deal extra damage to Marked enemies (in addition to being able to more accurately hit Marked targets as per its standard effects) thanks to their "Focused Aggression" cultural combat trait. They have a plethora of ways of applying Marked, consisting of a hero skill, a spell exclusive to their culture, the secondary ability of the Harrier and regular Magelock unit, and the primary ability of the Overseer and Observer.
Magitek: They are described as "binding magic to technology" and resemble elaborately designed high-fantasy Spanish conquistadors, with "Magelock" black-powder firearms visibly enhanced by magic and forming magic circles right before they fire.
One-Hit Polykill: The Magelock Cannon, much like its predecessor in 3, is capable of damaging multiple units and walls in a straight line.
Pirate: In addition to the conquistador vibe, the fact that their gun use is paired with Chaos affinity also makes them somewhat pirate-themed, and the fact that their rulers and heroes can be customized with a tricorne hat and eyepatch option also helps in this regard.
Plunder: Reaver empires gain a special resource named "war spoils" whenever they kill units belonging to free cities and other empires. War spoils can be spent to conscript captured units as Slave Mooks or conduct diplomacy through an Appeal to Force.
Slave Mooks: All empires can pay gold and/or mana to press-gang units captured through mind-control or other methods, but Reaver-led empires can use war spoils for the purpose instead, allowing them to bolster their military more easily.
Spikes of Villainy: They mix the Conquistador and 3's Dreadnought aesthetic with these.
Surveillance Drone: The Observer, a retread of the Spy Drone from Age of Wonders 3. Its the only unit in the entire game that is entirely incapable of attacking, being little more than a weather balloon. In combat, however, it can apply 'Marked' to targets so that friendly Reaver units can benefit from their Focused Aggression passive. Due to their completely unarmed nature, if Observers are the only units left standing in a battle, the fight is automatically forfeit for their owner's side.
Sword and Gun: Their cavalry unit, the Dragoon, is armed with these, and their Champions and Heroes can also be equipped in a similar fashion.

Primal

A people who worship powerful animal spirits and channel their fury during battle. They recieve blessings by altering their environment.

Units: Spirit Tracker, Protector, Primal Darter, Animist, Primal Charger, Ancestral Warden.

Animal Motifs: The Primal culture's central gimmick is the selection of an animal totem for their people to worship, which provides a slew of thematic benefits; including their second affinity point, an ethereal animal summon, a designated favorable terrain with added resource bonuses, and variants on the "Rising Fury" mechanic of Primal units. The appearance and secondary damage type of some Primal culture units will change slightly depending on the faction's chosen patron, including support staves carved in the animal's likeness, and shields padded in the hide of the animal. The available spirit animals are the Mire Crocodile (swamp), Storm Crow (grassland), Glacial Mammoth (snow), Ash Sabertooth (ashlands), Dune Serpent (sand), Tunneling Spider (mushroom forest), and Sylvian Wolf (forest).
Blow Gun: Wielded by the tier 1 Darter archer, and available as starting equipment for Primal Champion rulers. They have lower range than other physical ranged units, but ignore the Obscured penalty, and the Darter unit itself has a secondary attack that lets them shoot a point blank shot and disengage from nearby enemy melee units simultaneously.
Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Primal Protectors, Chargers and heroes armed with the melee starting kits all wield axes, much like their Barbarian equivalents do. However, the Primal axes are noticably hewn entirely from raw wood branches, with even the blades made of sharpened wood.
Chain Lightning: The Storm Crow's Limit Break gives units extra shock damage for their attacks, and inflicts some additional shock damage to any enemy units adjacent to their target.
Decade Dissonance: The Primal culture on its own is relatively low tech even compared to the Barbarians, with none of their cultural units using any apparent metal in their gear. However, this doesn't preclude them from taking tomes that concern technological advancements, so a late game Primal faction may well choose to field Ironclad landships and robotic golems.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of Darkest Africa, complete with bowguns, animalist spirituality and the addition of African style body paint to the race creator.
Geo Effects: Each spirit animal gives the Primal culture a favored terrain type, providing bonuses for city provinces and units standing in them. The spirit animal's associated Summon Magic unit also gains bonuses if summoned for battles in the favored terrain. Constructing a spirit temple (after annexing a province with a spirit node) allows a chosen city to spread the favored terrain to all provinces within its domain.
A Handful for an Eye: The Dune Serpent's Limit Break causes all units to inflict the "blind" debuff when attacking.
In Harmony with Nature: The Primal culture's whole premise, being a tribal society that worships animal spirits, with hardly any metalworking or heavy industry to be seen without interference from tomes. Even their axe-wielding shock unit wields a battleaxe hewn entirely from a slab of oak, with a sharpened wooden blade.
Limit Break: All Primal units (and other units, with the culture's unique enchantment) pick up stacks of "rising fury" whenever they perform an attack. When rising fury reaches five stacks, they convert into five stacks of "fury of the (spirit animal)", which gives them extra elemental damage and a bonus attack effect for a few turns. The damage channel and effect in question depend on the faction's chosen animal totem — Fury of the Storm Crow, for instance, provides some shock damage and a weak Chain Lightning effect to all attacks.
Mammoths Mean Ice Age: Primal factions can take the "Glacial Mammoth" as their spirit animal, which is associated with frost damage and snow terrain.
Mirror Character: To the base game's Barbarian culture. Both are primitive tribal societies with an affinity for nature. However, the Barbarian culture emphasizes speed, aggression and rapid expansion on the world map. Primal, by contrast, centers many of its economic and combat bonuses on the exploitation of favored terrain, encouraging the player to fight defensively and expand selectively.
Poisoned Weapons: The Mire Crocodile and Tunneling Spider spirits both provide extra blight damage to units with their Limit Break, and the Mire Crocodile also throws in the "diseased" debuff for good measure.
Sinister Deer Skull: An available headgear for the Primal culture is a deer skull mask with glowing eye-sockets and sweeping antlers.
Snowy Sabertooths: Inverted. The Primal culture can take the "Ash Sabertooth" as their patron, which is associated with fire damage and has volcanic ashlands as its favored terrain.
Summon Magic: Animists and heroes with the Primal support staff weapon can expend their Limit Break to summon their faction's spirit animal to the battlefield.

Characters / Age Of Wonders Races And Classes

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Races Introduced in Age of Wonders

Races introduced in Age of Wonders II

Races introduced in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Races introduced in Age of Wonders III

Racial forms introduced in Age of Wonders 4

Age of Wonders III Dwellings

Classes (Age of Wonders III)

Cultures (Age of Wonders 4)

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Races

Races Introduced in Age of Wonders

Races introduced in Age of Wonders II

Races introduced in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Races introduced in Age of Wonders III

Racial forms introduced in Age of Wonders 4

Age of Wonders III Dwellings

Classes (Age of Wonders III)

Cultures (Age of Wonders 4)

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