Yurgenschmidt/History and Story

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This Article is based on the Official Translations of the Light Novel series! The Light Novel series is the source material for the adaptation of the Anime and Manga series. The information and terminology on the article will be based on the source material rather than the adaptions.

Info History and Story

History

Founding and ancient past

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 and the Aubs likewise replicating this on a smaller scale in their duchies. At some point in history, the positions of political and religious leaders were split, with the former being held by the Zent and Aubs and the latter being held by the newly instituted position of Sovereign High Bishop, who was chosen from among the king's children. This also extended to the duchies, with the local High Bishops 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.

Grutrissheit and Succession

At the beginning of the kingdom, Zents all needed to obtain a true book of Mestionora, in what they called the Holy Land. There also existed a physical magic tool, serving as a failsafe, installed in a room behind the underground archive should all candidates of a generation only obtain incomplete Grutrissheits, which worked as a reference, containing the imperative parts to keep the country running, to fill in the missing gaps of grave importance.

At an unspecified point of the distant past, a man named Garansorg was failed the test of virtue by the golden shumil, guarding the path to Erwaermen, for his love of conflict and war. Despite this rejection, pouring mana into the statue of Mestionora by itself had already put the shape of the Book of Mestionora into his mind, albeit in an empty state. He found out that this and the knowledge in the failsafe magic tool were sufficient to become Zent. Yurgenschmidt therefore was ruled by a Zent Garansorg who loved conflict and war and did not respect the wisdom of the gods. The news of being moral and pious was no longer necessary to become Zent, spread across the nobility.

Since this drastically lowered the prerequisites to become Zent, by allowing candidates who would lacked the necessary mana capacity to fill all the large shrines or who would have been rejected by the golden shumil, to keep competing, which increased the frequency of conflict over the position of successor. Candidates who still tried to circle the shrines were often mocked as inferior, on the assumption or deliberate falsehood of them needing to do so, due to not being born omni-elemental.

Zent Rauchelstra, a true Zent, who obtained her Book of Mestionora from Erwaermen, believed that the cause for the many violent fights of succession, to be that anyone could become Zent and thus created a magic barrier in the corridor leading to the room of the failsafe magic tool, that would only allow those through, who are registered with the royal family. Her reasoning was that since her house was vehemently opposed to warfare, only allowing members of her family and their descendants access to the means to become Zent, would end the fights over succession permanently.

To further ensure the safety of this new system, she created Schwartz and Weiss as guardians, but disguised them as library magic tools, so they could keep an eye on potential Zent Candidates. That they call their master milady, goes back to Zent Rauchelstra, in an age when the concept of a princess hadn't existed yet. She also moved the holy land to within the royal palace and made it, so it could only be accessed via teleportation doors, thus making it near impossible for rebels to gain access to the failsafe magic tool, without the permission of the ruling Zent. With only members of the same house as the current Zent having access to the means to become Zent, this was the birth of the concepts of a royal family, as well as princesses and princes.

Initially these actions were harshly criticized, but when the number of conflicts really did drop, those critics quieted down and many nobles even came to praise Rauchelstra's actions. Yurgenschmidt entered an era of peace and for a while the quality of Zents remained high, with them still participating in religious ceremonies, but this changed soon. With access to the holy land so highly restricted, the royal family had to carry out large scale ceremonies completely on their own, leading them first to scale down the size of the ceremonies and over time abandon some of them entirely. Likewise without a chance to become a Zent candidate, the nobles from the duchies had less of a reason to participate in any religious ceremonies and thus the door opened for religious services to be looked down on. Over time Zent Rauchelstra's faith in her descendants also proved somewhat naive, with conflicts within the royal family over succession rights still flaring up from time to time.

One such conflict claimed the lives of the two leading candidates, leaving their sickly younger brother Schubankheit left to rule as Zent. In order to perform religious ceremonies, despite his poor health, he had the Sovereign Temple constructed near his residence. When his son became the Zent, he only knew of ceremonies being performed in the Temple, and thus kept doing so, rather than moving them back to the holy land, leading to the holy land to be reduced to just a place were nobles were educated and obtained their schtappe, which eventually resulted in it being called the Royal Academy.

Founding of Lanzenave and Adalgisa

The country of Lanzenave came into being about 400 years ago.

Shortly before it's founding, Yurgenschmidt was ruled by Zent Ausbaur and three of his sons managed to obtain a Grutrissheit. Ultimately Ausbaur chose his son Heiland as his successor. Unable to accept being passed over, his brother Tollkühnheit took his magic tool and went looking for a new land to settle. Accompanied by his wife and retainers, he sailed through the southern country gate and eventually happened across an inhabited land, with a comparatively poor population, unable to use any magic. While the area didn't appear to be rich in any valuable natural resources, it was able to sustain the local population, which was good enough for Tollkühnheit. He used his Grutrissheit to create a duchy foundation and raise an entire ivory city before the eyes of the stunned locals. Having never seen any magic of this scale, or potentially any magic at all, this awed the locals so much that many of them took to worshipping Tollkühnheit as an emissary from the land of gods, making it easy for him to crown himself the king of this new land and crism it Lanzenave.

Due to the mana disparity of the newly arrived nobles and the indigenous people, interbreeding was essentially impossible. Furthermore, since his Grutrissheit was only a duplicate, which he created with his schtappe, rather than a physical transcription, he couldn't hope to pass it down to any of his children and it would disappear along with him upon his death. To make matters even worse, without a schtappe, no one could fully maintain the city's foundation magic either, once he was gone, meaning that not just the Grutrissheit, but the entire city would be lost, if he couldn't find a solution.

He petitioned his brother, now the Zent of Yurgenschmidt, to give one of his children a schtappe, but due to it being impossible for people not registered as Yurgenschmidt nobles to receive one, the Zent had to decline. Instead the two monarchs hammered out an agreement to sent a princess of Lanzenave to Yurgenschmidt, where she would conceive children from the local nobility, who would then be raised as Yurgenschmidt nobles, including going to the Royal Academy and obtaining a schtappe. However, Zent Heiland was concerned that, if all the children were allowed to leave the country after their coming-of-age, their neighbor might become too powerful and threaten his own country one day, so he only agreed to send a single child - regardles of gender - each generation to Lanzenave. Due to practical reasons, primarily involving the effects of pregnancy, the first couple of children thus chosen, were all male, until it became tradition to always receive a male heir.

The first princess chosen to become the mother of the next Zent was Adalgisa and over time the villa in which the Lanzenave princesses stay and the entire arrangement, took up her name. The princesses' children are also called the "Seeds of Adalgisa" even centuries after the actual person died.

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.

Loss of the true path to the Grutrissheit

At an unknown point later, Zent Albsenti, who was an expert in the creation of magic tools, had many children, but doted on a single son in particular. This son, Neigenheit, lacked one element and the drive to obtain it via prayer, yet his mother was still determined to make him her successor. For this purpose, she created physical magic tool version of the Grutrissheit, that even someone not omni-elemental could use. With this book and her all her political power behind the move, the nobility had no choice but to accept Neigenheit as the next Zent. Seeing this magic tool as the crystallization of his mother's love, Neigenheit chose to bestow it upon his own son Rundsein, rather than have him obtain his own Grutrissheit through proper means, despite Rundsein being omni-elemental. He also neglected to tell his son about the book teleporting to the room, should the owner die.

Not knowing any better, Runsein assumed that passing this book from Zent to successor was the way the Grutrissheit had been passed down from the beginning, and thus this became the only known way. But due the exact way of transfer being generally kept between the Zent and their successor, many nobles and even some members of the royal families came to assume that each successor would transcribe their parent's Grutrissheit, rather than the book itself being passed from generation to generation.

Eisenreich's Insurrection

Over 200 years ago, Eisenreich was one of the richest, most powerful and most influencial duchies in the country. In his hubris, the Aub at the time allowed himself to be convinced to try to usurp the crown by people from the neighboring country Bosgeiz.

To facilitate the rebellion, the Bosgeiz government sent many people and supplies to their ally, while Aub Eisenreich brought his political weight to bear, to establish as many of his loyal subjects as he could among the Sovereign nobility. In preparation for the strike he also infiltrated many of his knights into the Royal Academy's dormitory.

Many of the local nobles and members of his own family tried to dissuade him from this foolishness, but he would not listen. In her desperation, one of his daughters fled the duchy and flew directly to the Sovereignty, to inform the Zent of the impeding attack. Enraged by the treachery, the Zent immediately teleported to the area to close the country gate and upon his return to the Sovereignty, gathered the Sovereign Knight's Order for a preemptive attack against the would-be usurper, utterly crushing is surprised force. The rebellious Aub himself died in the fighting. As punishment for the insurrection, the duchy was split into three parts. The western areas were turned into a new, middle duchy, given the name Frenbeltag, and the northern, iron-rich areas were handed over to Klassenberg. The less than third that remained was reduced to the rank of a middle duchy. The entire archducal family was executed as traitors, with only the woman who warned the Zent being spared and put in charge of the diminished duchy. The Zent also had all Sovereign nobles formerly of Eisenreich, as well as some of the more powerful, local nobles executed.

With their main sources of income either being given to another duchy or being blocked off due to the closure of the country gate, as burden of the many left behind Bosgeiz citizens stuck in the area and the rest of the country scorning them as a duchy of traitors, Eisenreich and its nobility fell into crisis and without any help from the Zent or anyone else, declined further and further, caught between stories of old glories and a future without prospects. With nearly all foreign sources of food, or the means to pay for them, drying up, the Leisegang family, in charge of the most fertile area of what remained of the duchy, rose to become the most prominent and influential noble house of Eisenreich, near enough overnight.

Over time the country split into two factions, one, enticed by stories of their glorious past, advocated to beg the king to reopen the country gate, so that the stuck Bosgeiz citizens could return home and they could use its riches of the reopened trade-lanes to regain what they considered their rightful place. The other faction wished to keep their heads down and ride out their punishment, and punish the Bosgeiz people, since they blamed them for corrupting their former Aub and causing their duchy's downfall.

When it became time to decide the archduchess' successor, the divide between the duchy's nobility, which also extended to her own children and grandchildren, escalated into open warfare.

Bemoaning her lack of power and ability stop her own father from committing treason and her own offspring from ripping the remnants of the duchy apart, the archduchess gave her position and status back to the Zent and requested someone else to be assigned to rule. The king accepted her resignation, and together with who would soon become the first Aub Ehrenfest, took the Sovereign Knight's Order to Eisenreich to reestablish order. After crushing the nobles, who advocated for the reopening of the country gate, he used his Grutrissheit and moved the location of the duchy's foundation, destroying their former seat of power and thus the constant reminder of their former greatness, so they would never again seek to restore their old glory, and changed the duchy's name to that of the man he appointed as the new archduke - Ehrenfest.

Civil Wars

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.

Very early in Zent Trauerqual's reign, roughly ten years ago, there was some kind of incident involving a shipment of feystones between Yurgenschmidt and Lanzenave, that resulted in the new king imposing restrictions on the trade between the two countries, which are still in place today.

Story

Part 4 Volume 7

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.

Part 5 Volume 3

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.

Part 5 Volume 5

While the next Archduke Conference is held, it comes to the attention of the royal family, that Lady Rozemyne has not only stumbled into becoming a zent candidate, but is very close to obtaining the Grutrissheit.

Zent Trauerqual is of the opinion that should Rozemyne obtain the holy book, she should become the Zent and any further decision should be left up to solely her.

Prince Sigiswald thinks that only holding the Grutrissheit by itself is insufficient to rule the country and thus advocates for making her his third wife.

Prince Anastasius suggests to take the Grutrissheit from Rozemyne, temporarily make her the Sovereign High Biship until she comes of age, at which point they can send her back to her home duchy, since this would cause the least amount of trouble for everyone involved. Should it be impossible to hand over a Grutrissheit, he thinks Rozemyne should only be made the zent in secret, while the rest of the country is made to believe that Sigiswald is the actual king and Rozemyne his third wife, while she is being kept from the public eye. His father considers this so disrespectful to the new zent, that he forbids him from even talking to Rozemyne anymore.

Ultimately the royals come to the decision to try their best to obtain the Grutrissheit by themselves over the remainder of the year, and should they be unsuccessful, Rozemyne will be adopted by the king and will marry Sigiswald, once she comes of age. Since they are not enthusiastic about their chances off success, both they and Ehrenfest begin to prepare for the adoption in secret.

Hannelore's Royal Academy Fifth Year

After her inauguration, Zent Eglantine decided to first concentrate on redrawing the internal borders and stabilizing the country. As such, she intends to only accept requests to re-open any country gates a year later.