"We elected to secede, and call our new nationette The Republic of Talossa.

This decision answered one question and spawned a dozen. Which provinces and territories should we claim? Vuode,

Ben’s own stomping grounds and the location of the smelly Vuode Beach (near a wastewater treatment plant or somesuch),

was out of the question. We nixed Mussolini, even with Muth’s 99-year lease on leadership, as strong “Benite” country.

Atatürk was unrealistic because it contained the city of Abbavilla (aka the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), it being the

national capital and about as Kingdom-esque as a place could be outside of Vuode. It was also a hotbed of pro-

Ben/neutrality sentiment. In the end, we chose the provinces where we either had a majority of the citizenry (as in

Maritiimi-Maxhestic), had people in provincial leadership or representation, or both. We ended up with Maritiimi-

Maxhestic, Maricopa and Florenciâ. Just because we liked the place—and with an eye toward the return of Ián Anglatzarâ

and other Europeans—we made Cézembre the fourth."