Makhtok

Once believed to exist at the eastern end of the world, Makhtok is a center of knowledge and the sciences amongst the dunes.
A nation built around a single river, albeit one sustained by nature and divinity alike, Makhtok knows its strategic position is one that is tenuous at best. As such, while maintaining a cursory military and pantheon of war deities, it tends to stay out of conflicts as best it can. 
Not hard, considering the lack of natural resources at their disposal, and aided by the natural defense of miles of desert between them and the majority of their neighbors. 
To make up for the lack of metals and gems they can dig up and export, the country specializes in the construction and blessing of relics. Some of the most advanced God-Forged weapons and armors have come out of Makhot, and common gifts of state consist of their relics. 
Their gods are mostly of knowledge and the arts, though they tend to foster a....superior outlook, even amongst gods.

Structure

Makhtok is a monarchy, with the ruling line of divinity having been operating unbroken since the nations founding several millennia ago.

Culture

Society is rather stratified in the nation. The lower class mostly pursues simple lives, with a high focus on maintaining ones proper place in society. Not that they don't attempt to raise their status, but instead that there is a rather clearly defined (to those born to the nation) rules for what someone at each level of society is allowed to do, and how they are to act. 
Higher society still follows those rules, but of course power provides an ability to defy expectations to a certain degree.
While second and third children of nobles and the upper class might join the military or the clergy in other nations, scholarly roles are more common places to shuffle your extra children off to in Makhtok. Professors, researchers, and the like. Maybe one of each, if you're particularly....fruitful.

Once you know every grain of sand, all shall yield to you

Type

Geopolitical, Empire

Capital

Hemum

Alternative Names

The Sands of the Hourglass

Demonym

Makhic

Leader

Nefertari the Archivist

Government System

Monarchy, Absolute

Power Structure

Unitary state

Economic System

Market economy

Notable Members

• Sotemeit Sekhet-em-et

Makhic names follow a combined etymology formed from a set of names that go back to before the nation was ever even a thought in someone's eyes. Consists of two parts, one patronimic and one matronimic, each one following down their respective lines.
For example, the explorer that found World's End Meridian; Sotemeit Sekhet-em-et.
The first part of the family name, Sekhet, is from her father's line. While the second name, Et, is from her mothers.
The 'em' of the name, is simply a linker between the two. It's not so much a word, and has no direct translation, but instead provides a general feeling of 'bonded' or 'joined with'