The Grand Duchy of Merth Docto



"Indivisible and Inseparable"

Civil Rights: Unheard of

Econoy: Good

Political Freedom: Excellent



The Grand Duchy of Merth Docto is a fledgling, safe nation, remarkable for its compulsory military service. The hard-working, democratic, devout population of 5 million Merth Doctans are known throughout the region for their efficiency and work ethic, as well as their general suspicion of leisure.

The medium-sized, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Spirituality, Law & Order, and Defense. The average income tax rate is 38.6%.

The Merth Doctorian economy, worth 270 billion Praetors a year, is led by the Uranium Mining industry, with significant contributions from Furniture Restoration, Arms Manufacturing, and Cheese Exports. Average income is 54,144 Praetors, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.5 times as much as the poorest.

Voting is voluntary, euthanasia is illegal, and Harry Potter books are banned. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Merth Docto's national animal is the penguin, which can occasionally be seen avoiding garbage in the nation's murky oceans.



Overview
Led by the decadent and ineffective Duke Bismarck, the Duchy of Merth Docto is an unincorporated state of the Free Empire with little autonomy and no international recognition as a sovereign country.

The Duchy is marred by a checkered history of ethnic conflicts and divided cultures torn apart by warring kingdoms, the most notable of which being the Merthians and Doctans. Both sworn enemies, the two powers fought for control of the frigid mountain ranges of their shared region for centuries until the Merths scored a decisive victory, uniting the region under one banner in the late 1950s.

The Doctans, however, were not content to remain under the yoke of their conquerors indefinitely, and an armed insurgency resulted in the dawn of the new Docto Republic, splitting the region almost exactly in half once more after the signing of the Treaty of Mortimer. Aurek Bismarck IV, then-Duke of Merth, was all but forced to sign the armistice and enraged by his defeat to the point of immediately preparing for yet another war for supremacy.

Meanwhile, several hundred miles to the north, the seemingly unstoppable armies of Valencia were cutting a savage swath through Sivella, conquering a significant portion of the continent in the latter half of the 20th century. With the Azerbs in the west crushed by the imperial war machine, it seemed the Empire would be on the doorstep of both Merth and Docto in a matter of months.

While increasingly pressured to seek cooperation from his age-old enemies, the Doctans, Duke Bismarck IV instead chose to mount a surprise invasion of Docto in the summer of 1989 to unite the region and prepare for the inevitable Valencian attack. Bismarck was a brilliant tactician and, as expected, nearly led the Merths to victory once more - until he caught pneumonia in winter of that year and passed away.

Aurek Bismarck V, a sickly and lethargic man of just 25, was the Duke's only heir, and was thus immediately called upon to lead; his invasion plans, a far-cry from that of his father's, led to the preventable deaths of millions of Merth soldiers, resulting in a year-long stalemate, most of which the new Duke spent throwing lavish parties with the local aristocracy in Mortimer to "celebrate his recent coronation."

With his seemingly infinite army beginning to tire after decades of conquest in northern Sivella, Supreme Leader Benthamic elected not to stage an invasion of the Merth Docto region, instead sending a cadre of his most trusted ambassadors to meet with the Duke in Mortimer. They were instructed to get as close to Bismarck as possible so as to bolster his opinion of the Empire to the point of allowing them military access in the Merth Duchy; while he could have sided with either faction, he valued the natural resources in Merth and saw the Duke as an easily exploitable puppet. After several alarmingly long weeks, the Valencian diplomats had finally coerced the Duke into pledging loyalty to the Free Empire.

With the war still raging, several thousand Valencian mountaineer troops surrounded the Docto Republic from both fronts - the Azerbs and Merth. Unable to contend with the meager yet well-supplied imperial infantry, the Docto Republic surrendered, immediately being incorporated into the new Grand Duchy of Merth Docto, officially led by Duke Bismarck V, with Benthamic clearly pulling the strings behind the new unified government.

Currently, several Valencian garrisons remain in the Grand Duchy to suppress Doctan partisans, and the government is obligated by treaty to only export its vast reserves of oil and gold to Valencia, effectively resulting in imperial monopolization of resources in north and central Sivella. Duke Aurek Bismarck V is unconcerned with the growing levels of poverty within his nation, content to act as the Supreme Leader's obedient pet as long as his lavish lifestyle is supported.