Civil War

Civil War (政変, seihen) may refer to the recent Sovereignty power struggle and subsequent political purge (粛清, shukusei), which resulted in the reign of the current king and a critical mana shortage in Yurgenschmidt.

Prior to the conflict, the second prince had been established as the heir and had already finished making his own copy of the Grutrissheit. When the previous king died, however, the second prince also died even before he could be coronated.

In the resulting power vacuum, the first and third prince's competition for the throne escalated into open conflict, plunging large parts of the country into open war.

Although the first prince was ultimately defeated and killed by his younger brother the third prince, in turn the third prince and his entire family were murdered by an assassin, who was sent out by the first prince before his demise, who poisoned their food. The only survivor was the prince's unbaptized daughter Eglantine, who was later adopted as an archduke candidate of Klassenberg for her protection. Because she was adopted before her baptism, few are aware of her heritage.

Because Klassenberg was the home of the third prince's wife, the duchy put its support behind the fifth prince. Meanwhile, those who had supported the first prince moved to support the fourth prince. The conflict dramatically intensified between the fourth and fifth princes.

The fifth prince Trauerqual won the struggle and became the current Zent. His first and second sons, Sigiswald and Anastasius, became heirs to the throne, while the son of his third wife Hildebrand was raised to became a vassal of whichever of his older brothers would eventually ascend to the throne.

Embittered by the long struggle and the losses, many of the nobles of the victorious faction clamoured for harsh punishment of the defeated. One of the most vocal supporters of mass executions was Aub Klassenberg, who had lost a daughter and several grandchildren to the war. However mindful of how devastating such a mass purge would be, the newly coronated King Trauerqual refused to take such drastic action for some time. Even the fourth prince was imprisoned in the Ivory Tower, but kept alive.

This mercy emboldened the nobles of the duchy of Werkerstock and led to them conspiring to assassinate the new king, thinking that, if Trauerqual was dead, there would be no choice but to release the fourth prince and make him king. When Klassenberg found out about this, they were furious and demanded drastic actions more forcefully than ever.

At some point, a group of rebels also kidnapped King Trauerqual's daughter and tried to blackmail him into abdicating and leaving the crown to his older brother.

This made the king relent to the pressure of his allies, and thus the fourth prince was executed, several of the defeated duchies were dissolved, and mass executions were launched. Without a Grutrissheit of his own, King Trauerqual was not able to redraw the borders of the duchies, so border-barriers remained unchanged even though the respective duchies were effectively eliminated and their territories put under the management of either the Sovereignty or neighboring duchies loyal to the king.

Due to the fury of victorious nobles and Klassenberg in particular, the purge did not remain limited to those proven guilty, but also claimed many lives of those merely suspected of disloyalty or who were unlucky enough to be related with such "criminals." Even people who fell into neither group became targets, for "questioning the king" if they spoke out against the purge out of a concern for the immense damage it did to the country and appealed to reason. It was also made criminal to shelter any noble from a dissolved duchy or pass any intelligence on to them.

At some point, an unidentified noble passed documents housed inside the Royal Academy Library on to a Werkerstock noble. Despite there being no evidence of their involvement, the three archnoble librarians working there were sentenced to death. The three individuals in question did not try to resist or plead for their lives, but only asked for a few days to settle their affairs, which was granted. In these days, they worked desperately to hide documents and books that might be destroyed by the purge faction away in a hidden archive to preserve the contained knowledge until the insanity would eventually die down. They also drank as many rejuvenation potions as they could stomach, to pour every last bit of mana they could into the library magic tools Schwartz and Weiss, so they would keep functioning until new archnoble librarians were appointed as their replacements. With their fates already sealed, they did not hold anything back and put their lives on the line, albeit none of them actually died from the manatransfer. When the time came, they went without resistance and were executed.

Among those targeted in the purge were:
 * All men with a claim to the throne.
 * A princess of the previous generation reputed to have many affairs.
 * The three archnoble librarians at the Royal Academy Library.
 * The previous Aub Frenbeltag, Florencia's father.
 * Aub Werkestock and his immediate family, including Aub Ahrensbach's second wife.

With so many nobles dead, the survivors began working to fill the gap that they left behind. They began adopting noble children who were high in mana, marrying more, and reaching out to estranged family members, including those in the temple.

Because of the lack of nobles in general, the archnoble librarians were never replaced, leaving the Royal Academy Library solely in the care of the mednoble Solange. Naturally, Solange alone could not provide Schwartz and Weiss with anywhere near the amount of mana they required to function, and thus they eventually ran out and became dormant.

In order to ameliorate the critical mana shortage, many of the blue priests and shrine maidens young enough to enter the Royal Academy were recalled to their noble families. Among these were Christine and Shikikoza in Ehrenfest. They were able to obtain schtappes and begin lives as full-status nobles, a privilege which would usually be unheard of.

After that, many blue shrine maidens too old to go to the Royal Academy, but young enough to get married, were also called home, where they were placed in political marriages and had children.

Eventually, there was order to send all remaining priests and shrine maidens with significant mana to the Sovereignty's temple to address the mana shortage there. As a result, many middle and lesser duchies suffered a near-total loss of all clergy with any degree of mana. Only those with the bare minimum of mana remained.

In Ehrenfest, the temple lost about half of its blue priests, leaving the only those with the least amount of mana. As a result, Ferdinand became the High Priest not long after he entered the temple. Despite having very little seniority, his education and mana capacity made him the only qualified candidate.

With drastically fewer donations from the noble families of the priests, the temple began operating in the red. Grey priests were sent back to the orphanage due to lacking blue priests to serve, and the orphans suffered from a dwindling supply of food.

The High Bishop sold about thirty grey robes to reduce expenses and earn extra income. Most of those sold were shrine maidens, in hopes of limiting the number of new births in the orphanage. He also began executing any grey shrine maidens who became pregnant. As a result, the youngest children were left largely unattended. The youngest ones soon died.

The critical lack of mana, money, and personnel were the main reasons Rozemyne was accepted as a blue shrine maiden about a year and a half later.

After the civil war and purge, the subsequent mana shortage caused serious problems throughout Yurgenschmidt.

In duchies like Frenbeltag and Ehrenfest, the lack of mana caused poor harvests in local provinces and made life extremely difficult. To overcome the shortage, Ehrenfest began sending its archduke candidates on Spring Prayer. While initially criticized for this decision, the practice was picked up by other duchies, including Frenbeltag.

In the Sovereignty, many magic tools became defunct due to not being supplied with mana, including the Royal Academy Library magic tools Schwartz and Weiss.

Many members of Ehrenfest's Knight's Order were summoned to the Sovereignty, causing nobles with far less mana than usual to be accepted as knights (such as Shikikoza.) As a result, Ferdinand was allowed to continue serving as a knight when needed, despite being a blue priest.

The civil war gave rise to a faction called the Biblical Fundamentalists that believe the bible to be the ultimate authority over everything and that even the kings should adhere to its teachings. It is not clear just how powerful and wide-spread this faction is, but since few nobles in Ehrenfest - including the Ehrenfest temple - even heard of them before, their spread is apparently somewhat limited at least in the outermost duchies. The only people who have so far been confirmed to have any knowledge of the movement are Rihyarda and the now deceased former High Bishop Bezewanst, who briefly suspected Myne to be one of them, based on her immense reverence to the bible, before discarding the thought again.

Following the announcement of Sigiswald's confirmation as the definite successor, the biblical fundamentalists have been causing some kind of trouble, though this appears to be almost entirely limited to the temples in the opinion of Rozemyne's music teachers.


 * Judging from Eglantine's age when Rozemyne entered the Royal Academy, the Civil War happened around 9-12 years ago, which is roughly the time when Myne and Tuuli were born.