The Rogue Nation of ERAM MARE is a tiny, orderly nation, remarkable for its ritual sacrifices, restrictive gun laws, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 16 million Shadow Mantle Holders are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The enormous, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Administration. The average income tax rate is 71.7%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The fragile a Shadow Mantle Holder economy, worth 463 billion Shadow Crystals a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is dominated by the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Uranium Mining, Arms Manufacturing, and Retail. Average income is 28,957 Shadow Crystals, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Hairdressers are forced to use all the tricks of the trade after citizens became required to wear helmets at all times, theatre may or may not be changing for the better but it is being changed for good, all facts are created equal, and no-one can foil the ambitions of Big Aluminium. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. ERAM MARE's national animal is the FRIEND, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

ERAM MARE is ranked 304,628^th in the world and 595^th in The UMNS for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring -13.54 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.