Illgner



Illgner is located at the far south-western edge of the duchy of Ehrenfest.


 * Province of Forst to the North
 * Province of Buers to the East
 * Province of Griebel to the Southeast


 * Duchy of Frenbeltag to the West
 * Duchy of Ahrensbach to the South

Illgner is a mountainous region with an abundance of forestry of various species of tree, including several feyplants. Due to being so far south they have a comparetively mild climate despite the elevation. Even in winter many of their rivers remain unfrozen, making them a good spot for making paper, since they can keep production going almost through the entire year.

Illgner is home to flora like Rinfin and Schireis as well as degrova. It also holds feyplants that can be used for plant paper making such as effon and nanseb.

Illgner is sparcely populated. The locals generally don't use money, prefering to barter among each other for the things they can't make or gather for themselves. Traveling merchants visiting Illgner generally deal only with the giebe, who will then distribute the goods among the people who require them.

Unlike in most of Ehrenfest, there is barely any difference between nobles and commoners, leading them to eat together all at the same time and even the giebe's children run freely through the mountains with the other children. It is also not customary among the citizens of Illgner to bow or kneel to nobles when among themselves, though at Rozemyne's advice and with the help of some of her priests the people of Illgner have learned how to properly treat visiting nobles.

The current giebe is Giebe Illgner, who had to step up to the position at an unusually young age due to the death of his father.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 5 Just like Ehrenfest's lower city before it's remodeling, Illgner's main settlement is rather filthy and foul-smelling compared to the noble's quarter or the current state of the lower city. However due to the much lower population base and at least part of the waste being gathered to fertilize the fields, the smell is not nearly as bad as the lower city used to be.

Unlike the homes of most other provinces in Ehrenfest, the mansion of the leaders of Illgner has no wall seperating the noble and commoner sections of the town.

Illgner never had any unique products to export and thus remained a backwater for most of it's history.

When the previous giebe died young, his son had to take over the post. His lack of experience and poor negotiation abilities led to other nobles being able to take advantage of him.

Chief among them was the family of Hassheit, his sister Brigitte's fiance. When Brigitte uncovered their plot to assassinate her brother and use her to take over the province, she unceremoniously ended the engagement. Since she didn't follow the social norms, this caused a great scandal that led the majority of Illgner's nobles to abondon the province and move to other parts of the duchy.

When Brigitte accepts the position of Lady Rozemyne's guard knight, it brings the province of Illgner and it's vast forests to the girl's attention. One year later Rozemyne brings several of her grey priests and some people of the Plantin Company to Illgner to build a paper-making workshop and research the local fauna for materials usable in paper-making. That several rivers stay unfrozen through most of the winter also enables the province to make paper all year long, unlike most other regions, which have to pause production during the winter.

They find out that paper made with the local trauperle fruit shows unusual qualities that make it ideally suited as a material for playing cards and covers, thus giving Illgner a unique export product and bringing the province into a much more prosperous future.

With the Illgner workshop being the first paper-making workshop going into operation outside of the temple, which almost all nobles would never set foot into, it is expected that nobles from other provinces will soon come to visit Illgner to see the workshop. To avoid troubles with those nobles grey priests from the temple teach the local population how to properly interact with nobles.