The Community of Ossuary is a mammoth, safe nation, ruled by The Great Apostate with an iron fist, and renowned for its vat-grown people, national health service, and complete lack of prisons. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 5.242 billion penitents 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 large, corrupt, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Defense, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The everlasting contrition. The average income tax rate is 83.9%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient penitent economy, worth 801 trillion concupiscences 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 a slick, highly efficient, broadly diversified black market in Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, Beef-Based Agriculture, 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 impressive 152,773 concupiscences, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Those who investigate UFOs tend to wake up delirious on abandoned roads, tourists outnumber citizens two to one, the majority of the country's traffic wardens have been sacked overnight, and sharks are enjoying their deliveries of canned food. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ossuary's national animal is the Cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is The void.

Ossuary is ranked 14,685^th in the world and 740^th in Balder for Smartest Citizens, with 79 quips per hour.