The United Kingdom of Blackfriars is a massive, genial nation, ruled by Cardinal Dominic with an even hand, and remarkable for its triple-decker prams, ubiquitous missile silos, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, devout population of 1.256 billion Blackfriars are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Whitecloak. The average income tax rate is 79.2%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but inefficient Blackfriar economy, worth 43.8 trillion Gold Bars a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is highly specialized, is mostly made up of the Basket Weaving industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Retail. Average income is 34,859 Gold Bars, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Burnt-out forty-foot-tall wicker men dot the countryside, research into 'designer babies' is banned, senior executives have become freelance basket-weavers in search of less stress and better work-life balance, and the practice of capital punishment proves divisive. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Blackfriars's national animal is the Corgi, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Catholicism.

Blackfriars is ranked 37,382^nd in the world and 2^nd in Knights Hospitaller for Nicest Citizens, with 18.96 average smiles per day.