The Gouge Overview

Few places in all the world are quite as hostile as the Gouge, a decimated wasteland of volcanic ash and rogue magic. Once a prosperous and fertile land supporting one of the greatest civilizations the western lands have ever known, the Gouge is little more than an expanse of grey, dotted by blasted ruins and peopled by the desperate descendants of once-proud peoples.
  Even now, the Gouge finds itself on the brink, locked in an ideological struggle between autonomy and safety, identity and security, freedom and tyranny. The end is not yet come to pass, but none can say if the Gougeborn will retain their ancient traditions, or if they will be just one more figment lost to the ash.