The Rogue Nation of ERAM MARE is a large, environmentally stunning nation, remarkable for its ritual sacrifices, frequent executions, and punitive income tax rates. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 170 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, Administration, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 73.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish a Shadow Mantle Holder economy, worth 5.56 trillion 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 Arms Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, and Retail. Average income is 32,684 Shadow Crystals, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Government workers are more efficient and more unhappy than ever, men are enrolling into lady etiquette courses, the might of the entire a Shadow Mantle Holder Navy is focused on fifty bemused spear-throwing islanders, and thousands of picky mothers-in-law have been recruited to serve as even pickier cookery instructors. 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 298,267^th in the world and 585^th in The UMNS for Largest Cheese Export Sector, scoring -6.93 on the Mozzarella Productivity Index.