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The Secret Society of Bowker

“Nie'se schlect sim'wa”

Overview • Policies • People • Government • Economy • Rank • Trend • Cards

The Secret Society of Bowker is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Andrion with an iron fist, and remarkable for its avant-garde cinema, smutty television, and ban on automobiles. The hard-nosed, cynical, cheerful population of 27.337 billion Bowkerians are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The medium-sized, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The Sister Cities. The average income tax rate is 48.7%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The all-consuming Bowkerian economy, worth a remarkable 2,892 trillion Triganic Pus 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 Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Beef-Based Agriculture and Trout Farming. Average income is an impressive 105,806 Triganic Pus, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Worried-looking neonatal nurses are being deployed in place of SWAT teams during dangerous drug busts, commuters are denied boarding for attempting to bring packed lunches onto trains, the government has officially clarified that "wee on your hands to save time" does not count as proper hygiene, and Brancaland has gifted over nine thousand putrid moose carcasses to Bowker as a reminder of their "special relationship". Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Bowker's national animal is the small apple worm, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Bowker is ranked 1,149^th in the world and 1^st in The Cursed Continent of Lodoss for Largest Publishing Industry, scoring 37,607.22 on the Bella Potter Productivity e-Index.

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