The Republic of La Merced is a massive, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by President Beatriz Espinoza with an even hand, and notable for its museums and concert halls, compulsory vegetarianism, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate, democratic, devout population of 2.82 billion Mercedines are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of La Merced. The average income tax rate is 81.0%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish Mercedine economy, worth 68.2 trillion escudoes a year, is driven almost entirely by government activity. The industrial sector, which is extremely specialized, is mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Cheese Exports. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 24,199 escudoes, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

A child's only Trickster Night scare is the sight of their parents dancing, the police think a properly conducted criminal investigation is a real pain, the education system is being cleansed of all corporate influence, and the study of medicine is popular throughout La Merced. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. La Merced's national animal is the blue pheasant, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

La Merced is ranked 265,608^th in the world and 10,197^th in Balder for Most Corrupt Governments, with 0.71 kickbacks per hour.