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The Red High Athelingric of Valoptia

“Strength through Iron and Fire”

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

The Red High Athelingric of Valoptia is a massive, cultured nation, ruled by Leofric Frost with an iron fist, and remarkable for its rum-swilling pirates, frequent executions, and avowedly heterosexual populace. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 4.272 billion Valoptians 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 large, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government is primarily concerned with Defense, although Education, Law & Order, and Administration are also considered important, while International Aid isn't funded at all. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Osearwynn. The average income tax rate is 99.9%.

The frighteningly efficient Valoptian economy, worth a remarkable 2,082 trillion pounds a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is an enormous, deeply entrenched, fairly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Information Technology, and Book Publishing. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an amazing 487,535 pounds, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 1,669,768 per year while the poor average 104,568, a ratio of 16.0 to 1.

Maxtopian tourists make expensive pilgrimages to Osearwynn to enjoy their national art, elementary school students are required to master Bach's Chaconne in D before graduation, in a desperate bid for cheap airfare Valoptians can be seen jogging in a rubber suit just before flying, and the mining industry is making inroads into environmentally sensitive areas. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Valoptia's national animal is the red panda, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Gnosticism.

Valoptia is ranked 104,653^rd in the world and 126^th in The Communist Bloc for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring 1,634.05 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.

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