Haldenzel

Haldenzel (ハルデンツェル, Harudentseru) is a province in the duchy of Ehrenfest in the kingdom of Yurgenschmidt.

Haldenzel is a province located in the far north of Ehrenfest. It is governed by the archnoble Haldenzel family, a Leisegang-aligned noble house. Characterized by harsh, inhospitable winters and short summers, the region suffered from extremely poor harvests in recent years due to Veronica's persecution.

The current Count Haldenzel is Claudio. His younger sister, Elvira, left the province when she married Karstedt, the current Knight's Order Commander of Ehrenfest.


 * Province of Asmann to the south.
 * Province of Khune to the southeast.
 * Province of Herzfeld to the east.
 * Duchy of Klassenberg to the north.
 * Former duchy of Zausengas to the West (currently under Klassenberg management).

Between the lack of trade in the past and the unforgiving terrain, the border gate between Klassenberg and Ehrenfest has been permanently closed and does not even have any guards from either duchy stationed there at the moment.

With the recent trade agreements, this could potentially change, but it is more likely that merchants will instead be diverted toward the former Zausengas gate or encouraged to go through Frenbeltag, for their own safety.

Being the northernmost province of Ehrenfest, Haldenzel is also the coldest, with the harshest and longest winters of the entire duchy. Unlike the southern provinces like Illgner, all of Haldenzel's rivers stay frozen throughout most of the cold season, making it less suitable for paper-making than the warmer areas from the climate alone, since the production can't continue until the rivers thaw out again in spring.

Haldenzel has comparatively few trees suitable to make paper from, leading Lutz to the conclusion that it is not well suited to paper production. Combined with the long and harsh winters, this leads him to estimate that it would be more effective for Haldenzel to concentrate solely on printing and import the paper from other provinces, rather than trying to make their own.

Due to the cold climate and large and sparsely populated tracks of land, Haldenzel has a much higher chance of being the place where the Lord of Winter appears than any other part of Ehrenfest.

During the summer, Haldenzel's knights put a lot of time and effort into hunting as many feybeasts as they can to deprive the next Lord of Winter of potential food and thus keep him from growing too strong.

Much of the southern parts of the province are covered by forest, with conifers being the most common tree. In the icy and wind-swept northern parts, the main plants are smaller species of trees similar in size to dwarf pine found on Earth's mountains and taigas.

Haldenzel is also home to a rare species of feyplant, the Blenrus, which produces leaves that can be brewed into a naturally sweet tea and highly valuable fruits that are rich in mana. Unlike regular trees, new Blenrus trees do not grow from the fruits, but from sprouts that appear near a parent-tree by means unknown to men. Such a sprouting is exceptionally rare. Due to this and the great value of the fruits, past Giebe Haldenzels, as well as the current one, have installed magic tools to protect every single Blenrus tree in the province with a magical barrier that only allows access to people with a seal given by the Giebe, to prevent damage to the precious trees by human and animal alike. Furthermore, anyone not of Heldenzel is strictly forbidden from even touching a Blenrus without the Giebe's permission. Anyone caught trying to poach from a Blenrus - including nobles - will be executed on the spot.

Due to the harsh environment, the people of Haldenzel have formed strong bonds with each other. The harsh, decades-long mistreatment they had to endure because of Veronica and those in her favour lead to them becoming suspicious of outsiders and resistant to innovation, though once someone manages to prove themselves and their methods to them, they eagerly embrace opportunities to make the lives in the province better. According to Giebe Haldenzel, the people of his province aren't easy to bring around, but once someone manages to bring them to their side, you can't wish for more loyal friends.

While the territory of this province is vast, it is comparatively sparsely populated, with most of the population of Haldenzel living concentrated in the more habitable southern regions. The northern parts are barely inhabited at all due to the harsh climate.

During the winter, the entire population of the province lives together in the winter mansion. In the summer, the farmers spread over the southern parts of the province to tend to their fields, while hunters and their families travel the north as nomadic tribes as long as the climate allows.

Due to how Haldenzel's economy works, they treat printing as winter-work, with the workforce for printing consisting of those that either farm or hunt during the summer.

Due to the large number of feybeasts in the northern parts and how important slaying them is to weaken the next Lord of Winter, Haldenzel produces more knights than any other province in Ehrenfest. Even the commoners are far more adept at dealing with feybeasts then most other people.

In Haldenzel, nobles and commoners have far more interactions with each other than in most provinces of Ehrenfest.

The mansion serves both as the permanent home of the Giebe and his family and the winter mansion to house the entire population of the province during the winter.

Within the mansion, there are separate areas for nobles and commoners. The living areas for commoners are underground, with the upper levels housing the nobles, as well as rooms to do work for commoners and nobles alike. The most recent addition to these workrooms are those for the printing industry. Currently, Haldenzel has three printing presses, one made by Ingo's workshop, one made by the locals under Ingo's guidance, and the final one made by the locals without outside help or supervision.

When about 200 years ago the Eisenreich family betrayed the king and was subsequently purged and replaced by the Ehrenfest family, the house of Haldenzel was chosen for stewardship over the province. They have held the title ever since.

Due to their rulers being half-siblings of Veronica, the province suffered greatly once the sixth Aub Ehrenfest died and Veronica's faction become the most powerful and numerous in Ehrenfest. For a long time, they were completely cut off from receiving small chalices from the temple for Spring Prayer and were hit with higher taxes than any other province.

Only when the commoner Myne entered the temple did the mana situation improve enough that Veronica and her brother High Bishop Bezewanst could no longer justify denying Haldenzel small chalices.

Under the guidance of the giebe's sister Elvira, Haldenzel became one of the pioneers of the printing industry brought into existence by Lady Rozemyne. After Illgner, it is the second province outside the central district to have a paper-making workshop.

It is also the first area outside the capital to establish a printing workshop.

During Rozemyne's coma, Haldenzel is the second place in the entire world to mass produce books from manuscripts penned by Lady Elvira personally.

Initially, Giebe Haldenzel didn't expect all too much profit from printing books and only goes along with it as a favour to his younger sister Elvira, but the books Elvira penned sell beyond all expectations, bringing in large profits for the ailing province. Following this surprise success, the Giebe is now quite eager to spread printing throughout the entire province and sees Rozemyne as something of a saviour.

When Rozemyne visits Haldenzel to deliver the small chalices for Spring Prayer and to inspect the local printing industry along with her siblings and members of the Plantin Company, she is quickly accepted by the people of Haldenzel as one of their own, due to being the giebe's niece and how much her mana and innovations helped the province.

During the Spring Prayer, Rozemyne participates in an impromptu musical performance of the female nobles, which to everyone's surprise activates an ancient magic circle built into the stage on which they performed their prayer-song, draining all the mana from the small chalices and also affecting the performing women enough to have the laynobles pass out completely and render the mednobles unable to stand. While the archnobles appear to be fine at first glance, even their exhaustion peeks through their facades on closer inspection. Only Rozemyne herself seems to be perfectly fine and does not require a rejuvenation potion.

The following night a severe thunderstorm sweeps across the entire province. In Haldenzel, it is common for such a storm to happen once the last snow has melted, which the locals see as an announcement by the Goddess of Thunder Verdrenna that winter has ended and spring is here. But usually this only happens very late in spring, which some other provinces would already count as early summer. The following day, everyone - local and guest alike - is surprised to see all the snow gone and flowers already blooming as far as the eye can see. This leads Rozemyne to speculate that the purpose of the magic circle they activated by accident the day before had the purpose to bring spring early and suggests that Haldenzel should perform the same kind of prayer-song each year from now on.

When Giebe Haldenzel points out that the province's noble ladies do not have sufficient mana to do so, Rozemyne informs him of how, in the temple, they had used feystones filled with other people's mana, and suggests that the male nobles could do the same and give feystones filled with their mana for the laynobles and mednobles on the stage to pour into the ritual, surprising the giebe once again, since it is very unusual for nobles to share mana in any way. This prompts him to remark that he will have to rethink their usual way of doing things.

Another very surprising consequence of this Spring Prayer was that for the first time in living memory the Blenrus Trees started to sprout.

Fears that with the early coming of spring, the summer would make the summer unbearably hot do not come to pass. Apart from the spring itself lasting longer, the climate for the rest of the year follows its normal course. But the elongated spring still has several consequences, some expected and some very much not. Either as a consequence of the altered season or due to the higher ambient mana on account of the prayer, certain feyplants grew much faster than usual, and several feybeasts became active at unexpected times. Despite these unforeseen issues, the people of Halenzel are still able to deal with these problems with relative ease.

The change that surprised Giebe Haldenzel the most, however, is the massive increase in that year's harvest, which is almost double what the province usually grows, prompting him to state that he never expected that Haldenzel was capable of growing so much food and causing him to kneel down and press his brow to the back of Rozemyne's hand - the greatest gesture of thanks among the nobility - and praise her as the Saint of Ehrenfest, when meeting her again at the start of the following winter socializing.