The Cortezians

The Cortezians took their name from a Spanish Conquistador whose bigotry, greed and villiany were unrrivaled. In a Genocide, he had destroyed an entire civilization for the sake of power and wealth.  Just as the Dragonians were born of the essence of Swashbuckling lore, The Cortezians were born of the essence of Evil itself.  They are to a letter, the very incarnation of Evil.  All that drives them, is to cause agony, and suffering.  For Every villian, every darkness that any land has ever known, When its tale is brought to the Web of Worlds, the darkness drifts away to become the Cortezians.

They are known by other names too. By other civilizations of the In between.  But the Dragonians, call them Cortezians, after the conquistador Hernan Cortez who they saw as the ultimate evil, the man who's greed prompted things they despised, torture, slavery, bigotry, and genocide. The Cortezians draw their power from darkness and suffering, and the dark energies of the Web of Worlds and Inbetween, and do anything they can to strengthen it, also being energy beings who are not balanced, their magic is naturally corrupted.  No one knows the true nature of the Cortezians hiararchy.  I speak in this case of their leader. Some believe they are commanded by the devil himself, he being the ultimate evil. The fact is, They possess a hivemind with no clear hierarchy, but a council instead.  

The hivemind of the Cortezians is unique in the fact that they all possess certain things which are absolute, but may have certain differentiation. In fact, The Differentiation sets them apart, and devides them into a Caste system, with rank within being determined by individual free will, and a penchant for the Cortezian ways.  The exceptional ones become their commanders on a higher level of the caste system.  Those above, are always trying to crush those below who develope their free will, both from rising, and also to weed out the weak.

When going to war, the Cortezians always send something that will evoke terror and disgust from their intended targets.  In the Dragonian's case,  The Dragonians fancy art and culture, even in weapons of war like their massive Commandship the Sovereign of the Seas.  The Sovereign of the Seas being gilded from Stem to stern with ornate carvings, and also their most powerful ship, modeled after an English ship built by King Charles I. Naturally, to oppose other ships of artistic tastes, they send warships pure in their functionality and with no beauty anywhere whatsoever.  This is more to annoy the Dragonians than anything else, but any negative effect is a boon to them.

The Cortezians are constantly at war.  To them, War has but one purpose.  It is not expanding their borders, it is not for wealth, it is not to gain power, it is to cause suffering.  It is to inflict pain.  Their entire being is made up of cruelty and hatred.  The Dragonians learned a long time ago, that directing hatred at the Cortezians only makes them more powerful, and the Cortezians hate anything indiscriminately, They were even once consumed in a Great Civil War which almost destroyed them where fighting lasted literally nonstop for decades merely out of a notion that occured in their hivemind about hating each other.  The war ended when the blood shed by their own people turned to glee and they decided to direct their fury elsewhere on a whim.

Happiness, is in their capacity, but never in a good form.  Only ever in the form of Sadism.  They is no physochological root of their joy of others suffering, only in their limitless capacity for evil.  if their is a Crime against the innocent, or even the guilty, a Cortezian will commit it, merely because it is their way.  They will show no mercy, and have no regrets.  Death or conquest is the only way to escape them, as they prefer to build their empire on slave labor, slaves being all the civilizations they have conquered.  The Dragonians never fly anything but the Bloody Banner against a Cortezian ship, fighting to the death, and even in victory, the Dragonians normal benevolence evaporates, and they take no prisoners.

They live in a constantly dark series of worlds, shrouded by shadows and black magic and dark energy. They fallow no religion, for they see religion as hope and light, and look instead to build temples of suffering, sacrificing slaves and innocent people to a different form of agony.  There is no art in their culture, except for statues of history's greatest villians.  To them, they have no heros, but examples and standards to exceed and fallow. Cortez, Hitler, Stalin, Vlad the Impaler, The Spanish Inquisition, Only the Worst of the Worst become idols in the minds of the Cortezians.  Their arcitechure is a combination of dozens of forms built in a labyrinth. Their cities are mazes with no ryme or reason intended for one to become lost and lose hope in.

Anatomically, the Cortezians are ethereal beings like the Dragonians, but take whatever form suits their purpose.  Though their natural form is a seething mass of negative and putrid energy.  Like the Dragonians, they are shapeshifters, some take human forms, while others prefer forms that are more demonic.  As far as powers and abilities, they use weapons intended to kill slowly, to shoot lightning and bleed life in a painful fashion, but also weapons to cause instant death where time isn't a luxuery, Cortezians are also famous for using, 'Cortezian Steel' one of the Great Elements found naturally in the inbetween that is capable of cutting ethereal beings in their natural state of energy and causing damage.  They also cast any and all dark magic spells.  

An interesting fact about them, is their power plants, and energy sources. in keeping with their perverse philosphy, a powerplant does not serve its purpose unless it puts out a form of pollution and poisen.  For them, this means a dark smog that causes madness, depression and other negative effects, or simpler toxins that would rot an entire jungle and poisen rivers.  one notable powerpalnt frequently targeted by dragonians because of its energy source is "The Root of Evil" powerplants, so named, because they operate and were built on the principal that "Money is the root of all Evil".  The Root of Evil powerplants are designed to pull from any form of currency, their potential to cause suffering.  They can both draw the greed and madness the gold creates in all races, or the funding for expeditions of war, and turn it into a seething mass of dark energy.  The Dragonians sack these powerplants quite regularly for the gold within, their Swashbuckling nature invites them to do so, and once deactivated, the gold or silver or valuables reabsorb the energy that has been put out from them in a massive aura around the powerplant. Then the Dragonians take them for their own purposes.

The Cortezians are in a constant state of War, targeting all races indiscriminately, and innocent races even more brutally.  After The First Great War against them, where the Dragonians were evicted and became raiders, They declared open season on the Cortezians.  During their First War against them, and their Glorious Age of Conquest the Dragonians could've wiped the Cortezians out, they refused to on the principle that then they would become the dark beings they had fought so hard to stop. Hypocrites, who commited genocide to stop the Hellspawn Cortezians commiting genocide. Even after, they continued plundering them. The Cortezians regargarded this neither as luck, or or took any knowlege, but instead, continued in their old ways as though nothing had happened. After all, Evil will be Evil... .... ..... ...... ....... ... .... ..... ...... ....... ...