Augustus Eliphas
| Office | Interim Prime Minister of Hamland |
| Predecessor | Donat Ravaillac |
| Successor | Alcides Hall |
| Other offices | Leader of the National Provisional Authority |
| Military rank | General |
| Died | New Kirrie, days before the Declaration of Zalae |
| Signature |  |
Augustus Eliphas was a Hammish general and military ruler who governed the remnant of the Commonwealth of Hamland as Interim Prime Minister and leader of the National Provisional Authority through the closing years of the Hammish Civil War. Installed by the ruling junta, the Council of State for the Salvation of Hamland (CSSH), after the assassination of his predecessor, Donat Ravaillac, he ruled from Pratchett Hall in New Kirrie at the head of a military regime marked by purges, the suppression of dissent, and the biological weapons program that produced the Alexandrian Flu; by the war's final years the united opposition had made his removal from power a condition of peace. He died in his sleep days before the Declaration of Zalae, leaving a will that asked for the war to end and invited Regina Ravaillac, his predecessor's daughter and the future Queen Elizabeth I, to march on New Kirrie and reunify the country.
Rise to power
Nothing is recorded of Eliphas's life before the civil war beyond his rank of general in the Hammish armed forces. During the war he emerged as the leading figure of the hardline faction within the CSSH, which governed what remained of the Commonwealth from New Kirrie. Over the objections of moderates, the hardliners under Eliphas pressed for military action against the opposition factions and for the postponement of elections.
His path to power opened when Interim Prime Minister Donat Ravaillac was shot dead by a sniper at a military review in New Kirrie. The CSSH declared Eliphas the new Interim Prime Minister and leader of the National Provisional Authority (NPA), the military government it directed, and he answered the assassination by ordering a massive crackdown across NPA territory. As Interim Prime Minister he presided at Pratchett Hall, the seat of the NPA executive.
Rule and civil war
Under Eliphas the civil war reached its most destructive phase. The opposition rallied around Ravaillac's daughter Regina, leader of the faction known as the Ravaillac Loyalists, and the fighting between her allies and his forces killed more than one million people. A failed countercoup, mounted after the officer Joseph Abib publicly demanded that Eliphas resign in favor of Regina Ravaillac, ended in the execution of some 300 commanders, and purges of suspected disloyalty drove a steady stream of officers and officials into defection, depleting the NPA's own ranks. A series of laws and regulations enacted under his rule, known as El Silencio, suppressed dissent throughout NPA territory.
His conduct of the war drew international attention, and was discussed as early as 1645 AN at a joint conference of Shireroth and Natopia at Ardashirshahr. Shirerithian support had reached the Authority through the Sxiro-Hammish Agricultural Mission, which fought as the Authority's 2nd Army Corps before switching its allegiance to the opposition; Eliphas himself complained that Shireroth had abandoned his cause when he most needed its support.
The war was transformed by the Alexandrian Flu, a lethal viral disease developed by the Authority's Bureau of Research and Defense Technology at Iron Point Base and intended to end the conflict decisively in Eliphas's favor. A transport accident at a weapons facility in Porapa released the disease across the country, killing an estimated 30 to 60 percent of the population of the eastern regions and forcing the withdrawal of a foreign peacekeeping mission.
In the war's final years the opposition, with support from Natopia and Shireroth, advanced to the outskirts of New Kirrie, where the fighting settled into a prolonged siege. After a ceasefire was brokered at Maison Verneuil, outside Geneva in Alexandria, the united opposition held that the constitutional convention planned at Zalae could not proceed without Eliphas's removal from power.
Death
Eliphas died in his sleep at New Kirrie. A broadcast from Pratchett Hall announced at 8:25 in the evening that he had "entered immortality" and made public his last will, which ordered the civil war ended, invited Regina Ravaillac, whom it styled "the Queen-in-Zalae", to march upon New Kirrie with her forces to reunify the country, directed that the National Provisional Authority be dismantled, and instructed its forces to withdraw to New Kirrie. A delegation of the Authority delivered a verified copy of the will, together with a signed statement of surrender and allegiance, to Ravaillac at Bellesea Palace before her march. Days after his death she proclaimed the Kingdom of the Union of Caputia in the Declaration of Zalae, and General Alcides Hall served as the Authority's interim prime minister through its dissolution. Caputian tradition counted Eliphas's sudden death among the signs from the goddess Melusine that accompanied the war's end.
Legacy
The new kingdom defined itself against his rule. A royal speech early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I dissolved the corporate vehicles of the NPA and the CSSH, froze their assets, and ordered the vetting of officials for affiliation with what it called "the despised and brutal regime of General Augustus Eliphas". His confiscated property at 27 Avenue Lewis in Zalae, which he never occupied, was later offered to Stormark for its embassy. The kingdom that succeeded his regime hosted the negotiation of the Zalae Convention on Biological Weapons at the Non-Aligned Movement for Peace and Prosperity Summit in Zalae in 1657 AN, and its armed forces retained the tri-service structure inherited from the National Provisional Authority.
