Yurgenschmidt/History and Story

Legend has it that the first king of Yurgenschmidt was chosen by the gods themselves to rule the country and act as their representative in the mortal realm. He was allowed to transcribe Mestionora's original Grutrissheit.

As such he was not only the head of the country, but also the highest religious authority. With the first king also acting as the head of the temple, his children often participated in religious ceremonies. At some point in history, the positions of political and religious leaders were split, with the former being held by the king and the latter being held by the newly instituted position of High Bishop, who was chosen from among the king's children. This also extended to the duchies, with the local High Bishop being one of the Aub's children.

Over the centuries, the practice of appointing the king's and aub's children to be the high bishops fell out of practice. Regardless of whether this was the cause or the consequence, the temple lost much of its influence, power, and respect. In living memory, the temples have been regarded as a filthy place, populated by those who were either unwanted or unqualified to become true nobles, barely above commoners, as well as a place to hide illegitimate children.

At some point in the distant past, Yurgenschmidt went into an arrangement with their neighboring country Lanzenave, that allowed a princess of the country to stay in Yurgenschmit's Sovereignty. The name of the first princess to come to Yurgenschmidt due to this engagement was Princess Adalgisa, and from that point onward, all the children a princess of Lanzenave gave birth to in Yurgenschmidt were called the "Seeds of Adalgisa", even to this day centuries after the death of Adalgisa herself.

The daughters of such princesses are all raised to become princesses themselves, and presumably sent to Lanzenave upon coming of age. Of her sons, however, only a single one is sent back home, with the others being disposed of. If the father is willing to take the child in, they can do so, but if the father is unwilling, the boys will be killed. Most Yurgenschmidt nobles in the situation to be a father of a male Seed of Adalgisa are unwilling to take the child because they can't be absolutely sure the child is really theirs and due to the problems this might cause with their wives. One of the rare exceptions was the Sixth Aub Ehrenfest, who chose to take his son Ferdinand back to Ehrenfest.

In its long history, Yurgenschmidt fell into country-wide civil war at least twice.

The first mentioned civil war happened a long time ago, and its resulting mana shortage led many duchies to invade weaker neighbors to steal their mana with black weapons, which led to the banning of teaching this spell at the Royal Academy.

The second known civil war happened only a relatively short time ago. For the details see Civil War.

A drastic consequence for the country was the loss of the Grutrissheit of the true heir - the second prince - and the former fifth prince being unaware of the location of the original transcription made by the first king and thus being unable to create a copy of his own. Apart from the resistance of the bible fundamentalists, this also left the new king with other problems, like being incapable of redrawing duchy borders.

Despite the purges, some nobles loyal to the defeated duchies remained. In Rozemyne's second year at the Royal Academy, those rebels launch an assault on Zent Trauerqual and his family at the Interduchy Tournament using ternisbefallen to sow chaos among the gathered students and their families. The attackers even go so far as to launch suicide attacks, either blowing themselves up or feeding themselves to the mana-absorbing feybeasts to make them stronger. Despite these desperate tactics, not a single member of the royal family is harmed. However, several of the students are killed by the rampaging feybeasts. Immerdink and Neuehausen are hit particularly hard, since ternisbefallen appeared at their spots of the proceedings.

As a result of the attack, the king decides to put all the territories of the duchies abolished after the civil war under the control of the Sovereignty, rather than leaving some of them under the control of neighboring duchies, though this has yet to be announced at the coming Archduke Conference.

During the Interduchy Tournament of Rozemyne's third year, Detlinde causes a fuss at the Dedication Whirl. In an attempt to make herself shine with light, she ends up pumping mana into feystones fastened to her clothing, which is unexpectedly sucked away into the stage. Rather than stopping her attempts, the girl keeps pumping more and more mana into the stones until she passes out. When she hits the floor, a magic circle briefly flashes into visibility. Later that day, the Sovereign High Bishop declared that the appearance of the magic circle marks Detlinde out as a Zent candidate.

The actual truth is that in the distant past, the archduke candidates performing the dedication whirl poured mana into their sincere prayers, which activated magic circles for all of them. To be considered a Zent candidate, however, it was necessary to pour in enough mana to make a pillar of light appear, while merely having the circle itself visible marked a failure to quality. Unfortunately, this knowledge has been lost to the general noble population and is only written down in parts of the bible that can only be seen by someone qualified to become a Zent candidate themselves, as such the finer details were lost to the modern temple, leaving them reliant on incomplete transcriptions made in the past and thus open for this kind of misunderstanding.