Aeridin

It started as a solution, a dumping ground for neighboring ruler’s unwanted individuals, criminals largely. Crimes not bad enough to warrant capital punishment, but bad enough to want to individuals separated forever from society. Eyes turned south to the empty Arid Plan, and so, the wall was built, the unwanted filtered to the other side, and the gates locked shut behind them.
Uncaring what the desert was doing to the people, life continued, carving its way through the harsh land. Of course, beings already lived there; tribes of all races, through predominantly Tieflings, Orcs, Dragonborn, and a unique strain of Dwarven folk roamed the lands. But as foreign blood, knowledge, and culture was introduced, albeit largely through criminals, a culture all its own grew, into a society, into a nation.
Aeridin’s founding was, as it’s ruling powers have remained, bloody. Yet a thousand years after the wall’s erection, settlements were seen across the nation and tribes moved together, four solid cities even emerging, a whole life springing from an area written off as dead and dangerous.
Since the land is largely empty, all manner of strange magics run across it.

Assets

Exports of salt, glass, precious stones, gold, black powder, and Flowering Light

History

For generations, there was no king, no emperor, no leader. The people didn’t need one, they didn’t want one. In a harsh land, power spoke loudest and those who had it managed to survive while those who did not were not often as lucky.
It wasn’t until Amark Steelsout found the first diamond lode in the southwest part of the nation in 150 OE that things began to change. In its years, the nation found resources and the people thrived, but they’d never known excess. Suddenly, the Steelstouts became the richest tribe in the land by a massive margin. They wanted to throw open the gates of the wall (which both the Empire and Aeridinians claimed was erected to keep the other out) and seek fortune in trade with the rest of the continent.
The first council of leaders was called, the strongest tribe or settlement leaders coming together in the land’s only major city at the time, known only as The Low Place, the city sitting in the middle of a massive crater. Many didn’t arrive, apathy and anarchy being a part of the fabric of being Aeridinian. However those who did agreed, money would be nice, and nobody in their nation could afford diamonds nor had much use for them.
Thus, the nation experienced its first boom. The Steelstout’s financed much of the initial building, sending representatives to meet with the Empire and establish ties across the mountains to Silvercliff. Silvercliff opened them with surprisingly open arms, establishing early bonds between the two. The Empire was a different story. They first had to be convinced that the nation was an actual nation, old assumptions running deep, and then had to earn respect from the country. It wasn’t until the trade routes between Aeridin and Silvercliff had been established for a solid 50 years that the empire cracked, largely under the weight of trade in Flowering Light-- an herb grown, dried, and smoked on the plain the aristocracy of Avannis went WILD for.
And slowly, trade beget wealth, beget cities, beget the need for more leadership. 
Several families fell into and out of power, but one always found their way to the top time and again; the powerful and old Tiefling clan, the Rowsters. The Rowsters boast holding the two longest uninterrupted times of one family ruling with the Rowsters on the throne from 167 OE to 291 OE and again from 415 OE to 600 OE. There were smaller rules by the family as well, but nothing as impressive. In comparison, the next longest rule by a single family that is not the Rowsters, was the Thane's rule from 291 OE to 343 OE.
The Rowsters managed to stay in power for so long because they didn’t try to change the nation. They let the tribes go where they want, they let whoever was bullheaded enough to build a settlement build a settlement. Property meant nothing to them, and power still spoke loudest. Under the Rowsters, either you were strong enough to keep what you have or take what you want-- they wanted no part in deciding who got what.
The only prickle of government the average Aeridinian felt under them was the toll tax levied along the trade routes. If one chose to travel on the established roads across the plain, one would pay, but nobody made anyone, and most families only did so when the extra protection was desired, or if one was a merchant on business.
In modern Aeridin, after the fall of the Rowserts from power, much of this is long gone. Largely, most of the nation is still nomadic, but with trade becoming an ever increasing part of what the nation engages in, four major cities exist; 

• Dibelo, the capital and where the nation’s seat of power has always been. Located nearly in the middle of the country, it is the nation’s most fortified city and it’s most populous.
• Parsus, a border town directly across a deep canyon from the Imperial Border city of Lysoria. In modernity, it has become home to the nation’s only formal magic school, and is often scoffed at by the rest of the nation as being far too imperial.
• Newtport, a port city  on the southeast coast of Aeridin. It is by far and away the richest city, hosting the nation’s merchant families who are the closest thing to an aristocracy that nation knows.
• Angpin, a forest town in the southwest border. 

After the ousting of the Rowsters, the nation is ruled under one king-- The self-named “Blood King” Ulingaan of Multish. Uligaan, a surprisingly charismatic half-orc but with a legendary level of violence and cruelty, claims to have been the one to cut Hiero Rowsert’s head off while his crown still sat atop it. At that time, Ulingaan was a full adulthood by half-orc standards, yet still under the leadership of his father. His father, Alsmere of Multish, assumed the throne as the first blood king, and has since passed, by means of, as the official report claims, an assassination.
Support against the Rowsters was garnered by The Multish tribe largely through a smear campaign claiming many members of the sprawling dynasty were under a dark fiend's patronage. Following the ousting, a wave of racism towards Tieflings rose all across the country. The Rowsters repeatedly claim the rumors untrue.
The Multish rode the wave of racism, whipping those in the country who cared to fanatical levels against the Tieflings. And then, in the second year of his reign, Alsmere was poisoned at his twin granddaughter and grandson’s tenth birthday party. The scene was public, violent, and soon revealed to have been carried out by none of than three Tieflings, strategically working together all through the evening of the party to ensure the king died. The claimed to have been wearing the violet and gold of the Rowsters upon capture, claiming they did it all under the dynasty’s approval.
Assassination is seen as by and far the worst way one can kill another in the country. To not give you enemy the chance to stand and face you? It is the coward’s way.
Still, fervor grew against Tieflings, yet in those early years, most of Aeridin still not caring too terribly much about what was going on in the capital or who sat on the throne. Yet with Uligaan as blood king, things across the nation began to noticeable change.
Blood Crews, a sort of elite tribe all loyal to the king, being the first and most felt of the changes. The crews consist of six to twelve individuals chosen for their skills and fighting ability. One Crew Chief leads the pack, but is only Chief by right of combat; inherently, the Crew Chief is the strongest, or the smartest who can appear to be strong, in the Crew.
The Crews were giving all impunity to do what they wish through the land. Many were noble and held to what their vows said. Most were not, cheating, raping, and pillaging as they saw fit when the king’s eye was drawn elsewhere. Additionally, Blood Crews morphed largely with the nomadic tribal lifestyle citizens enjoyed for years before the Blood King’s rise to power. Thus the crews or often not the marauding groups intended, but rather massive migrations of family, livestock, and possession.
While the Blood Crews might be corrupted, they served Ulingaan’s purpose of making his name and power known through the land that otherwise hardly turns attention to who is in power as any given moment. For the first time in Aeridin’s history, the common people know they have a leader and they hold opinions about him. When a Blood Crew came and demanded livestock or gold in the king’s name, the commoner felt that, and remembered that.
And on the twenty year anniversary of his father’s murder, another attempt to assassinate the king was made, this time while he slept. Uligaan calims to have caught the tiefling in the act, hearing her whisper dark prayers as she prepared to plunge the knife into his heart.
It was the last thing the king needed. About three years ago the attempt was made, and the genocide began. Uligaan outlawed the act of being Tiefling or consorting with their kind. Aeridinians plunged immediately into a divided war on three sides-- the side agreeing with Uligaan, helping his blood crews find and murder the Tieflings; the side violently against him, trying to secretly and safely ferry the race out of the country or stand against the blood crews when they came; and the majority who just flat didn’t care if they weren’t Tiefling themselves.
Uligaan claims all the Rowsters aside from one, Brance Rowster, grandson of Bastion Rowster, born well after the family was already sent into exile, have been eliminated. He keeps the last Rowster locked in the dungeon at Dibelo, parading the teen around, claiming he’s keeping him alive until every other Tiefling has been murdered and then he will take the boy’s life, and by his hand, at last, the nation will be rid of it’s blight.
In present day, Silver Cliff and Avannis have opened their borders, the Empire more hesitantly so. The Empire has, in the last couple months, even been reported sending Tieflings who don’t have properly notarized papers back to Aeridin, claiming they aren’t the Emperor’s problem to deal with. Silver Cliff has yet to close the border, however the nation does nothing to help the Tieflings once they enter. They have no problem allowing them in, but do little to ensure they find jobs, lands, learn about the culture. As such, the border has become a hot zone of confusion.
As it stands now, Aeridin is a powder keg just waiting to explode, more so than ever before. As the genocide is entering it’s third year, even those apathetic are beginning to feel the loss of so many people. They know who rules him, and they don’t like him too much.
Yet, all who have stepped up to formally challenge the king, as tradition dictates, have fallen. And the blood king’s violent reign rages on.

Military

There is no official standing army for the nation. Kin looks out for Kin, at the end of the day, they're the one's relied upon for safety.

Capital

Dibelo

Demonym

Aeridinians, Folk

Leader

Blood King Ulingaan of Multish

Head of State

Blood King Ulingaan of Multish

Head of Government

Great Families of Aeridin

Government System

Tribalism

Economic System

Mixed economy

Controlled Territories

• Newtport

Neighboring Nations

• The Republic of Silvercliff