The Free Citizenry of Val Cathyr is a mammoth, genial nation, ruled by Ashiryn Silvergate with a fair hand, and notable for its punitive income tax rates, devotion to social welfare, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 8.079 billion Val Cathyrians are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Education, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Lym Shaeris. The average income tax rate is 75.9%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The Val Cathyrian economy, worth 518 trillion courts a year, is quite specialized and led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Trout Farming, and Pizza Delivery. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 64,174 courts, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Ashiryn Silvergate panders to nontraditional families, commuters and their desktops both bemoan their hard drives, citizens are less concerned with policy and more concerned with whether politicians "call 'em like they see 'em", and editorials that criticize the government are legally obligated to display the "pants on fire" warning. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Val Cathyr's national animal is the possum, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is the Untraveled Path.

Val Cathyr is ranked 19,162^nd in the world and 3^rd in Arkonos for Most Cultured, scoring 89 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.