Lanzenave

Lanzenave is a neighboring country of Yurgenschmidt. Until recently they were ruled by King Chiaffredo.

The current ruler is King Gervasio, of house Loweleier.

One of Lanzenave's premiere export goods to Yurgenschmidt is sugar.

Lanzenave maintains maritime trade with Ahrensbach.

The country gate that allows traders to pass through Yurgenschmidt's country barrier is situated in the ocean between the two countries and is big enough for entire ships to pass through.

To be able to both fit through the country gate, and carry a large volume of cargo, the ships are quite long and sleek. While they sail through the gate, their outer hull is black, but prior to pulling into harbour, they flip the tiles on the outside, making the ships shine in bright silver.

Due to their close trade relations, it is common to see representatives of Lanzenave staying in Ahrensbach from spring to autumn each year. The duchy even has a villa set aside for them as a de-facto embassy, which is generally refered to as the Lanzenave Estate.

The general population of Lanzenave is dark skinned. Due to the Adalgisa arrangement however, this isn't the case for the royal family. With every king of Lanzenave for centuries being the child of a Lanzenave princess and a Yurgenschmidt royal or noble, the royal family shares most of their appearance with people from their neighboring country, which makes them stand out quite starkly among their countrymen.

Cuisine from Lanzenave tends to be sour and intensely spicey, even compared to Rozemyne's recipes, much less the considerably blander traditional Yurgenschmidt cuisine. As such Ahrensbach opted to avoid serving food seasoned with imported spices, in dishes served at the Interduchy Tournament and Archduke Conference, despite how common they have become in Ahensbach itself.

The country of Lanzenave came into being about 400 years ago.

Shortly before it's founding, Yurgenschmidt was ruled by Zent Ausbaur and three of his sons managed to obtain a Grutrissheit. Ultimately Ausbaur chose his son Heiland as his successor. Unable to accept being passed over, his brother Tollkühnheit took his magic tool and went looking for a new land to settle. Accompanied by his wife and retainers, he sailed through the southern country gate and eventually happened accross an inhabitated land, with a comparetively poor population, unable to use any magic. While the area didn't appear to be rich in any valuable natural ressources, it was able to sustain the local population, which was good enough for Tollkühnheit. He used his Grutrissheit to create a duchy foundation and raise an entire ivory city before the eyes of the stunned locals. Having never seen any magic of this scale, or potentially any magic at all, this awed the locals so much that many of them took to worshipping Tollkühnheit as an emisary from the land of gods, making it easy for him to crown himself the king of this new land and crism it Lanzenave.

Due to the mana disparity of the newly arrived nobles and the indigenous people, interbreeding was essentially impossible. Furthermore, since his Grutrissheit was only a duplicate, which he created with his Schtappe, rather than a physical transcription, he couldn't hope to pass it down to any of his children and it would disappear along with him upon his death. To make matters even worse, without a schtappe, no one could fully maintain the city's foundation magic either, once he was gone, meaning that not just the Grutrissheit, but the entire city would be lost, if he couldn't find a solution.

He petitioned his brother, now the Zent of Yurgenschmidt, to give one of his children a schtappe, but due to it being impossible for people not registered as Yurgenschmidt nobles to receive one, the Zent had to decline. Instead the two monarchs hammered out an agreement to sent a princess of Lanzenave to Yurgenschmidt, where she would conceive children from the local nobility, who would then be raised as Yurgenschmidt nobles, including going to the Royal Academy and obtaining a schtappe. However Zent Heiland was concerned that, if all the children were allowed to leave the country after their coming-of-age, their neighbor might become too powerful and threaten his own country one day, so he only agreed to send a single child - regardles of gender - each generation to Lanzenave. Due to practical reasons, primarily involving the effects of pregnancy, the first couple of children thus chosen, were all male, until it became tradition to always receive a male heir.

Because the fathers can never be entirely certain the child is truly theirs and the potential troubles this might cause with their wives, few nobles are willing to take in such a son. One of the few exceptions to this was the Sixth Aub Ehrenfest, who brought Ferdinand back to Ehrenfest to raise him as his own.

The first princess chosen to become the mother of the next king was Adalgisa, and over time the villa in which the Lanzenave princesses stay and the entire arrangement, took up her name. The princesses' children are also called the "Seeds of Adalgisa" even centuries after the actual person died.

About ten years ago, there was an incident involving a shipment of feystones between the two countries, which caused Zent Trauerqual to restrict how much his country would trade with their neighbor, straining the diplomatic relations of the countries.

More recently Zent Trauerqual also rejected Lanzenave's request to sent a princess to Yurgenschmidt, as part of the Adalgisa arrangement, futher souring their relationship. This doesn't seem to cause any deterioration in the relationship between Lanzenave and Ahrensbach, since representatives of the countries still visit each other as usual and even members of the Lanzenave royal family attended the funeral of the recently deceased Aub Ahrensbach.

The grandson of the current king seems to have developed quite the infatuation with Lady Detlinde and the two spend a rather scandalous amount of time together, considering that she is already engaged with another man.

To plead for Ahrensbach help in rectifying these two issues, Leonzio, the grand-son of the former king Chiaffredo, joined this year's Lanzenave delegation. While Lord Ferdinand seems very resistant to granting this request, Leonzio had an easy time manipulating Lady Detlinde, with a combination of compliments far more direct than what any Yurgenschmidt noble would say, a sob story about how unjust Zent Trauerqual's actions are and a sweet smell emmenating from him, that seems to rob Detlinde of what little inhibitions she had to begin with, suggesting the use of some kind of narcotic.

He also claims to know the location fo the Grutrissheit and will tell Detlinde, if she promises to marry him, a promise Detlinde is only too happy to give. It is currently unknown, whether Leonzio is acting on behalf of his king, or of his own initiative.