The Empire of Artarum is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Emperor Berengar VII with an even hand, and renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape, sprawling nuclear power plants, and compulsory military service. The compassionate, hard-working, devout population of 9.441 billion Artarumen are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The large government juggles the competing demands of Spirituality, Industry, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Liudan. The average income tax rate is 43.8%.

The powerhouse Artarumen economy, worth 597 trillion pound sterlings a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Retail, Uranium Mining, and Cheese Exports. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 63,257 pound sterlings, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.6 times as much as the poorest.

Women who leak pus from infected wounds are told to suck it up, elected officials often serve for decades in a single term, Harry Potter books are banned, and Artarumen Christianity has been named as Artarum's national religion. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Artarum's national animal is the Artarumen eagle, which can occasionally be seen dodging aircraft in the nation's cities, and its national religion is Artarumen Christianity.

Artarum is ranked 207,932^nd in the world and 5^th in Aeterna for Most Primitive, scoring -87.4 on the Scary Big Number Scale.