Interduchy Tournament

The Interduchy Tournament (領地対抗戦, ryouchi taikou-sen) is an annual event held at each school term at the Royal Academy. Its main event is a tournament of ditter matches between apprentice knights; however, it also includes other events such as socializing and research presented by apprentice scholars.

The Interduchy Tournament takes place the day before the Royal Academy's graduation ceremony, so it is considered a celebratory event. Rozemyne reflects that it feels like a "sports festival or a cultural festival".

It is the only time adults (besides attendants) are allowed to visit the Royal Academy during the school term, and a rare instance where many powerful nobles gather outside the Archduke Conference. The Aubs of each territory, as well as the ruler of Yurgenschmidt, are all in attendance. Other nobles may visit if they are the relative or escort partner of a graduating student.

The area surrounding the training field on which the ditter matches are taking place is used not only for spectating the matches, but also for the socializing and research presentations. The available space is divided up between the duchies and marked out with red lines on the floor. Each duchy will then decorate their respective spots with cloth in their duchy colour and bring in furnishing to accomodate their guests. The size and placements of the spots depends on the duchy rankings, with higher-ranking duchies being granted areas both bigger in size and positioned so that they grant the best view of the ditter field.

In previous years, the ditter matches at the tournament were played using treasure-stealing ditter rules. However, due to the loss of manpower following the Sovereignty civil war, students began playing the faster and simpler version of speed ditter. While treasure-stealing ditter was played outside the buildings over the entirety of the royal academy grounds, with the duchies' gathering spots acting as the home-bases, the speed ditter tournament takes place on the largest of the knight's building's biggest training grounds.

Performance in the Interduchy Tournament has a huge influence on whether a student is chosen to join the Sovereignty, as well as their position in their home duchy after coming of age. Lesser duchies and those with fewer nobles are at a disadvantage, since they have no choice but to use all their players rather than their best players.

Unlike the treasure stealing ditter of the past, at speed ditter only a single duchy at a time enters the field to fight a single feybeast while the time to the beast's defeat is measured. The matches are split in two cours, with a pause in the middle to allow the visiting nobles and students to eat dinner.

Unlike most other affairs, the order in which the duchies compete is not determined by duchy rank, but rather by the rankings the duchies' students achived in a series of mock-battles held during their classes. The order goes from lowest scoring duchy to highest.

The feybeasts to be fought are summoned by a professor determined by drawing lots. To minimize the chance of unfair meddling, it is made sure that no duchy supervisor will be chosen to summon the feybeast for their own duchy. However if the luck of the draw is on their side, professors are still able to slightly interfere with the competition by summoning particularly difficult to or time-consuming to defeat feybeasts if they happen to be selected to summon the beast of a rival duchy. This is however limited, since there is only a select list of feybeasts that can be summoned at the tournament. Furthermore the professor is clearly visible while summoning the beast, which further limits the options of subterfuge.


 * In Rozemyne's first year at the Royal Academy, Ehrenfest finished in eleventh place at the ditter section of the Interduchy Tournament. (Historically, it ranked around fourteenth.)
 * In Rozemyne's second year, Ehrenfest managed to come in sixth at the pre-tournament mockbattles, ahead of the greater duchy of Ahrensbach despite being four places behind them in duchy ranking. However they had the bad luck of Professor Fraularm - the dormitory supervisor of Ahrensbach - winning the lot-drawing for their ditter match and she summoned a Hundertteilung. Despite the admirable performance of the students, the nature of the summoned feybeast meant that Ehrenfest scored below their actual capabilities due to Fraularms meddling.

During the tournament, Professors, scholars and apprentice scholars showcase their research from the past year. Since Rozemyne's entry into the Royal Academy, Ehrenfest's research topics have included:


 * Rozemyne's first year
 * A model of a drivable highbeast (shumil design).
 * Professor Hirschur's and Ferdinand's research into the magic circles on Schwartz and Weiss.
 * Research on crest-adorned schtappes
 * Rozemyne's second year
 * Joint research of Rozemyne, Ferdinand and Hartmut into the mechanics of blessing-granting prayers from the Bible, presented under Hartmut's name.

The Interduchy Tournament is seen as a time to socialize and gather information on new trends and fashions. Because it takes place at the end of winter, shortly before the Archduke Conference in spring, nobles can gauge interest and form the foundation for business deals that will be solidified later.

The primary duty of apprentice attendants is to serve visitors who visit their home duchy's representatives, push trends and "lavish guests with excellent hospitality". However, lesser duchies rarely have visitors, making it harder for their attendants to demonstrate their skills.


 * In Rozemyne's first year at the Royal Academy, Ehrenfest's apprentice attendants recieved a "middling but respectable" appraisal for their hosting skills.

Another important part of the interduchy tournament is the presentation of honour students and the first-in-class. The latter are even personally congratulated by the king himself.

This is done directly after the end of the ditter matches on the field of the same arena.

As a tradition, female graduates are to be escorted by a male, whereas male graduates are to escort a female. Graduates could also be escorted by younger students or older adults. Since this is a de-facto open declaration of relationship, the pairs are usually engaged or at least romantically involved with each other. Nobles who are either unwilling or unable to find such partner for their graduation are often accompanied by a member of their family that far exceeds their age. Non-romantic acquaintances or relatives of similar age are seldom chosen, to avoid giving wrong impressions that the two being involved with each other, which could deter prospective marriage partners.

The proceedings of the second day take place in the main auditorium. For this occasion the partition walls usually in place during classes are removed to reveal platforms with an inward slope for the audience to watch. At the center of the room a large, circular ivory stage and a shrine are erected.

Unlike commoners, who have their commoner's coming of age ceremony either in their respective birth season or at the Harvest Festival, nobles all have their Coming of Age Ceremony at the Royal Academy in winter, as part of the Interduchy Tournament. Here in the presence of the King himself, the Sovereign High Bishop welcomes the graduates into adulthood.

The first to enter are the King, followed by the Sovereign High Bishop. After them the graduating students and their escorts are admitted into the room. After the graduates are lined up and the escorts who are not graduating themselves have left for the spectator area, the Sovereign High Bishop conducts a ceremony that is very reminiscent to the commoner's coming of age ceremony, with the high bishop first telling tales from the bible, then leading the graduates in a prayer to the god of their respective birth seasons and ending the ceremony with a blessing.

The current Sovereign High Bishop only gives only a verbal blessing, rather than a true blessing

Once the ceremony comes to a close, a select number of graduating students - singers and musicians alike - gather on the stage to perform a prayer song. Unlike with many other noble performances, here musicians are playing flutes and drums in addition to the harspiels. Once the song concludes, the students step down from the stage and take up positions around it to provide the music for the Sword Dance and Dedication Whirl.

The 20 best sword dancer from among the graduating students are chosen to perform before the gathered audience under the eyes of the royal family, all the Aubs and the relatives of the graduating students.

After the conclusion of the sword dance, the seven hand-picked students perform the Dedication Whirl.

The students for dedication whirl are chosen from among the archduke candidates. Only if there aren't enough archduke candidates graduating in a given year are archnobles chosen to fill the open roles. Sword-dancers are almost exclusively archnobles since it requires significant mana capacity and skills, though mednobles might also earn the honor to perform in very rare special cases. In Angelica's case, she is able to perform thanks to her exceptional skill, mana capacity and a personal endorsement by Professor Rauffen.

During the dance a magic circle visually similar to the one hidden in the High Bishop's Bible and visible only to those qualified to become the king rises above the performing students. Judging how the circle was not visible in a recording made with a magic tool and how there are no audience reactions it appears that just like it's counterpart in the bible, this circle is only visible to a very small number of people.

After a lunch-break the Graduation Ceremony takes place.