Committee of Units and Measures

The Committee of Units and Measures are the people whose job it is to go around the Kingdom of Astania and measure and map every single of its features. Sometimes this means performing vital activities such as calculating the average number of ships that comes into a given port at any given month. Too often, however, the job involves far more pointless things, such as counting the number of trees in the forest or measuring the distance between the monarch's official bedroom and the throne room. Past jobs have also included the nearly-always-fatal task of counting the number of bear cubs in the forest, but it was thankfully dropped from the possible pool of activities once the kingdom began to experience a lack of competent and experienced Measurers to perform properly relevant measuring tasks.
Measurers are given a high status in society and have a right to access special privileges while on the job (such as sleeping for free in taverns and getting exactly 2.27 kg of food per day in the local market). The position is also highly respected because few ever manage to love numbers to much as to build their entire lives around them. Those who do are admired almost to the point of celebrities (and often given gifts and food that far exceed the lawful limit of 2.27 kg, which they promptly measure and declare on a separate sheet at their end-of-financial-year-accounting).

Public Agenda

They exist to measure things. Anything. Everything. Their informal motto used to be "Get the Numbers or Die Trying", until too many of them took the saying literally (they're proof that number people can't interpret dramatic subtext) and the kingdom got a shortage of measurers. Their motto has since changed to a much more straightforward "Our Best Friend is a Ruler".

Assets

Rulers, measuring tapes, any and all kinds of equipment that can be used to measure something. They were the people who came up with the standard measurement units now used across the world, such as the metre (named after a great king of particularly short stature) and the kilogram (defined as "the maximum weight that can be placed atop the crown jewels before they began to lose their shape").

History

The Committee of Units and Measures has a long and painstakingly measured history. It is in their nature to know when, how, what, and why something happened, along with how long it took and (more often than they care to admit) how many trees were involved.

Demography and Population

The people who apply to become Measurers are usually the children who seek comfort in numbers and prefer the exact certainty of rulers and measuring tapes to the intimidating unpredictability of talking, thinking, and living things. There is a surprising number of those around Astania.

Type

Governmental, Department

Alternative Names

The abbreviation CUM was once used. However, the evolution of language over the centuries of its history gave the word certain unfortunate connotations, so now most people refer to them as the ComUM (which, admittedly, is not that much better).

Demonym

Measurers

Parent Organization

Kingdom of Astania