The Stories of The Bard is a colossal, efficient nation, renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape and compulsory military service. The hard-nosed, hard-working, devout population of 3.078 billion Bards are free to succeed or fail in life on their own merits; the successful tend to enjoy an opulent (but moralistic) lifestyle, while the failures can be seen crowding out most jails.

The tiny, moralistic, pro-business government is primarily concerned with Spirituality, although Law & Order and Defense are also considered important, while International Aid and Environment are ignored. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 6.0%.

The very strong Bardic economy, worth 226 trillion words a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Automobile Manufacturing industry, with major contributions from Retail, Information Technology, and Uranium Mining. Average income is 73,619 words, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 245,033 per year while the poor average 16,482, a ratio of 14.9 to 1.

Voting is compulsory, citizens are enjoying a recent large cut in taxes, and the government is seen to favor Catholics. Crime is moderate, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. The Bard's national animal is the stories, which can occasionally be seen sifting through garbage in the nation's cities.

The Bard is ranked 210,999^th in the world and 89^th in Equilism for Most Corrupt Governments, with 2.28 kickbacks per hour.