The Democratic Republic of Ortalis is a titanic, genial nation, ruled by Etienne Jackson with an even hand, and notable for its infamous sell-swords, irreverence towards religion, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate, cheerful population of 20.481 billion Ortalians 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 Sanctuary. The average income tax rate is 97.0%.

The frighteningly efficient Ortalisian economy, worth a remarkable 2,706 trillion dollars a year, is highly specialized and mostly made up of the Tourism industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Information Technology. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an impressive 132,123 dollars, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The nation's generous tax credits have brought all the film studios to the yard, starving citizens are offered nuclear pasta, art is not complete without a touch of alizarin blood and titanium sweat, and the most notorious criminals are given the Consequences of Your Actions Award. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ortalis's national animal is the dog, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Ortalis is ranked 322,108^th in the world and 2,573^rd in the West Pacific for Largest Trout Fishing Sector, scoring -11.35 on the Nemo Depletion Efficiency Index.