The defining idea of my Keeper is also strange. No spoilers though. :P

Anyways, it's about time I finished that nation sheet. I'm also copying and pasting the section from before here, both because I plan to tweak a few things and so that the sheet isn't split in two.

The Ashmarch is hell on earth, a black scar that cuts through the land. To so much as attempt traversing that vast wasteland is death, a grim actuality that nature herself seems to understand. A deep, incessant, and rhythmic rumbling permeates the air, staving off what would otherwise be deathly silence. This din reverberates from the some half dozen active volcanos to the north, each ceaselessly belching out smoke, ash, and the fiery blood of the earth. Leagues upon leagues of land lay trapped in the shadows of those burning mountains, the clouds of black soot rising to shroud the lands below in shadow.

Fire, brimstone, and layer upon layer of ash fall down upon the bleak and dead landscape, choking out life. Clean water is all but nonexistent; what little rain comes is made toxic by volcanic ash and gases before it can so much as touch the ground. Once it does fall, it has been known to moisten loose ash fields, creating something similar to quicksand, although more like liquid cement. What runoff water doesn't seep into the ground leeches even more poisons from the heavier ash on the ground, forming stagnant, putrid cesspools of acid. Where there are not gray plains or rolling hills of ash, there are rivers of lava, rocky crags of basalt and obsidian, and the occasional cooled lavaflow with dagger-like protrusions coming out of the ground, easily sharp and lengthy enough to perforate a careless foot.

One might be inclined to think that nothing would call this wasteland home. In a sense, that is right. No beasts that you will have heard of would dare venture there; even the flies and carrion birds avoid the Ashmarch. There are other, viler monsters that make the entire Ashmarch their lair. Warlocks. They came from across the sea in centuries past, banished from their faraway homeland for their disgusting practices of necromancy, demonology, blood sacrifice, and other forms of black magic. They were spurned by the people here just as they were in their homeland, and so with none willing to so much as tolerate their presence, they ran off into the Ashmarch and claimed that waste for their own. There they and those followers that went with them began to carve out a civilization, swearing vengeance on the rest of the world that had denied them everything and forced them to endure living in such a ghastly land. Whether it comes from the soot that stains everything in their land or as a curse from the gods that they defile, the warlocks and their serfs have skin as black as coal.

Entire settlements near the edge of the Ashmarch have been known to vanish. Armies emerge from the wastes to leave buildings burned, valuables looted, and the denizens taken back to the warlock masters for some nefarious ends. For this reason, most travelers keep a wide berth from the Ashlands in their travels, but a few have entered those wastes and returned to tell the tale. They spoke of the descendants of those that followed the warlocks into the wastes being reduced to serfs, brutally oppressed by their masters. The occasional outpost exists hugging onto a rocky bluff or some other sort of high ground, often no more than a few squat stone buildings coated in ash and soot, blending in to the stark surroundings almost perfectly. These settlements vary in size based mainly on their function, though they usually have a few hundred of serfs with perhaps a dozen warlocks serving as overseers and administrators.

Deep into the wastes and away from prying eyes, the majority of the warlocks make their home. Their towers come up from the land like plague boils, in the form of massive, black spires of rock. They are like estates, with the most powerful warlocks having palatial towers that claw at the sky, with hundreds of other warlock subordinates cohabiting the tower and entire cities of serfs clustered nearby. When their towers can no longer reach up, the warlocks go down; some have sprawling subterranean slave pits, grand chambers to cultivate fungi for food and other purposes, and elaborate underground tunnels to allow safe travel across the wastes. Great wells tap into natural springs and aquifers deep beneath the earth, providing fresh, untainted water to those within the warlocks' towers or cities. In this way, the warlock masters ensure utter loyalty from their slaves and serfs. To escape bondage would mean having no water and dying of thirst, or worse, being hunted down and captured again. Even if they did miraculously survive the Ashmarch and evade their masters' minions, no fugitives would find refuge in the lands beyond the waste, with people who despise and live in fear of the warlocks.

The Ashlanders, as the warlocks and all their subjects are called, function under a loose, almost anarchy of a feudalism. Only strength and cleverness are respected, so those that manage to become powerful leaders and successfully cling onto their power are inevitably the most treacherous, terrifying, and ruthless warlock masters or serf warlords. Each of these leaders have their own lands, laws, and followers, though they all inevitably become vassals of one overlord who seizes power. A complicated web of alliances and grudges exist between these vassals and the overlord can at times fail to suppress infighting; however, the political stability of the Ashlands is barely surpassed even by the kingdom of the Cypriots.

This strange state is owed mainly to the fact that through heinous rituals and blood sacrifices, the rulers and more elite warlocks are able to achieve eternal youth. With lives that can last for centuries, the warlocks are unfathomably patient, with their plotting long and complicated. Their lives are slow paced, and every warlock master of any importance knows the rest like the back of his hand. Succession disputes are almost nonexistent due to immortal rulers, and what inevitable betrayals and power-grabs happen are usually so deviously planned and cleverly acted out that there is simply a smooth, nearly bloodless change of leadership.

Any feedback on this possibly final version of the nation sheet for the Ashlanders? I considered adding a paragraph on the current rulers, but refrained since this description was becoming too long and that information could be revealed IC once we start.