Drewanchel

The **Duchy of Drewanchel** is a region on the western side of the kingdom of Yurgenschmidt, rated as a greater duchy.

# Overview

The territory is bordered by the following other territories:

* The Sovereignty to the East
* The duchy of Lehmbruck to the Northeast
* The duchy of Gilessenmeyer to the North
* The duchy of Immerdink to the West
* The duchy of Hauchletzte to the Southwest
* The duchy of Kirschnereit to the South
* The duchy of Lindenthal to the Southeast

Drewanchel's duchy colour is emerald green.

The symbol of the archducal family is a divine beast with the appearance of a snake.

## Other Nobles

Other Nobles

The scholars of Drewanchel are renown as Yurgenschmidt's foremost researchers.

# History

In the distant past, an Aub Drewanchel came to believe that the lessons about governing lands taught in the Archduke Candidate Course would not be useful only to the future archdukes, but also to giebes. To grant the future giebes access to those lessons, he temporarily adopted the children of the current giebes for the duration of their Royal Academy education. Over time, that practice evolved into a tradition, where the archduke would adopt all children of a sufficiently high mana capacity.

While those children were only adopted to allow them access to the Archduke Candidate Course, they were still technically eligible to compete for the position as the archduke's successor, if they proved themselves worthy. While it is possible for them to achieve this ambition, they certainly have a handicap compared to the archduke's own children. Nevertheless, this led to not just an unusually large number of archduke candidates, but also a much fiercer competition for succession than in most other duchies, which in turn lead to children of the same mother often forming very tight defensive alliances.

This kind of succession is also present on the province level. Like the archduke seat itself, the title of giebe is far less hereditary in Drewanchel than in any other duchy. While generally the giebe's own children are prioritized among those qualified to succeed them, only those that were adopted by the archduke and consequently graduated the Archduke Candidate Course are eligible as successors to begin with.

As a result of this tradition and competition, Drewanchel is a place where archduke candidates can never afford to be complacent to the point where some of them choose to be adopted by archnobles following their graduation, to gain a more relaxing environment in which they can dedicate themselves to their research without having to worry about the cut-throat politics and struggle for the archduke's seat. An example of such a noble is the uncle of the current Aub Drewanchel, Professor Gundolf.

The tradition also turned out to inadvertently set Drewanchel on its path as a home of academics and inventors. To have a chance at the archduke's seat, an archduke candidate of Drewanchel must stand out among their peers. Most choose to attempt this by earning exceptional grades and by the invention of new magic tools, which caused the duchy to become renowned for its academics, established it as the leader in magic tool development, and earned it its current moniker of "The duchy that uses knowledge as its weapon."

About 80 years ago, it was nobles from Drewanchel, who invented a magic tool that consumed human waste and that took the shape of a slime. In addition to this slime itself, they also drew up plans on how to use it as part of toilets and sewer systems and presented all that at the Interduchy Tournament. After establishing these systems in their own duchy and testing them for the rest of the year, they presented the results to the king, and these measures were established at the Royal Academy and Royal Castle shortly after.

From there, this new invention spread all throughout Yurgenschmidt, trickling down from the highest ranking to the lowest duchies, bringing Drewanchel much prestige and earning them large amounts of money.

When in the wake of Prince Waldifried's murder at the hands of his older brother, the country descended into Civil War, Drewanchel sided with the ultimately victorious faction, supporting first the third prince and upon his assassination, the then fifth prince and future king Trauerqual.

The other victorious greater duchies Dunkelfelger and Klassenberg were called upon to manage the territory of the defeated duchies, putting a considerable burden on them. With no defeated duchy at their borders, Drewanchel was spared this, however they were expected to send many achnobles to the Sovereignty to support the country in a like manner. Due to their practice of adopting so many of their strongest and brightest nobles into the archnoble families, this resulted in Drewanchel having an unusually low number of archnobles.

# Story

Drewanchel is currently third highest ranked duchy in the country.

It currently has two archduke candidates attending the Royal Academy, the fifteen year old Lady Adolphine and her ten year old brother Ortwin.

The invention of the sanitary slime was not a fluke or one time affair. The scholars of Drewanchel are highly regarded throughout the land and always among the forefront of magic tool innovations. For this reason, the duchy is very interested in Rozemyne and her inventions. In particular, the Verification Paper has piqued their interest.

Lady Adolphine also has shown great interest in Rozemyne. At the Archduke Conference, Aub Drewanchel stated that Aldophine adored Rozemyne like a little sister. Though in light of the two girls only having interacted once, it isn't clear how much of this is truth and how much political maneuvering.

At the fellowship gathering in the following term at the Royal Academy, Adolphine appears to have treated her hair with something similar, but not quite of the same quality as rinsham, leading Rozemyne to suspect that she handed the sample that she received the year before over to the researchers of her home duchy and that they deduced, at least in part, how to make their own. Judging by the appearance of Adolphine's hair, though, they have yet to match Ehrenfest rinsham in quality.

The scholars of Drewanchel have also shown great interest in Ehrenfest's Verification Paper. When Adolphine inquires about it to Rozemyne, she refers to it as a magic tool usable even by commoners, making it very likely that even the renown scholars of Drewanchel have so far been unable to deduce what it is made from, since the people of Ehrenfest who are familiar with the production process do not even consider it a magic tool. To avoid giving away even the tiniest bit of information by mistake, Rozemyne deflects by claiming she believes it was not presented at the Archduke Conference because Aub Ehrenfest didn't consider it significant or noteworthy enough for such attention.

Both those instances only served to further reinforce Rozemyne's opinion of Drewanchel as the duchy of mad scientists.

Up to and including Rozemyne's first year at the Royal Academy, Drewanchel managed to win the best combined grades of all students each year for a consecutive 20 years.

At a tea party in Adolphine's final year at the Royal Academy, she confirmed to Rozemyne that their duchy had indeed managed to analyze rinsham, but only had partial success in making their own. While their product brought out the glossiness of hair almost on par with the original rinsham, their version is not kind to the scalp, making it far less pleasant to use.

# References

1. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 5. Epilogue
2. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Royal Academy Stories - First Year. Chapter 6: Hannelore - Cursed with Such Bad Timing
3. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Royal Academy Stories - First Year. Chapter 15: Ortwin - The Drewanchel Siblings
4. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 4. Chapter 3: Life in the Temple
5. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 6. Chapter 1: Report on the Archduke Conference (Third Year)
6. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 3. Chapter 11: The Tea Party for All Duchies
7. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 4. Chapter 16: A More Private Meeting
8. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 5. Chapter 18: The Second-Year Fellowship Gathering
9. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 6. Chapter 1: The Beginning of Classes
10. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 7. Chapter 10: Tea Party with Drewanchel