@zwabbit closer to circa 1500

@kurosov idk while again i'm with you and think charlotte would make a better aub the reason i said that was because of dunkelfelgr's aub and how he is seemingly led by his wife.
while willfred isn't very good with politics, he is charismatic and seems to rally the boys around him, couple that with his mana capacity and while yes he's sub optimal he's still usable so long as you give him a first wife that can hold him on a short leash

@kuali said in Raublut's Loyalty:

@DaveHowe said in Raublut's Loyalty:

P5V1 reenforces that, saying via Raublut that the act of tearing Ferdinand away from Rozemyne was the deliberate goal and that the marrage was just a convenient way of doing so.

In keeping with the nature of this thread, I will point out here that we're only sure that this was the objective for Raublut.

Hence me pointing out it is Raublut saying this - we don't have a POV from the king himself, so Raublut may be filtering this via his own beliefs, or outright lying.

@DaveHowe said in Raublut's Loyalty:

How much of the "shadow puppet" myth around Rozemyne stems directly from Raublut is still a question though. With the benefit of hindsight, you can see how Ferdinand is actively working to promote this false impression. Looking back at the border wedding, you can see he controlled the narrative to make it consistent with this, even going so far as to get Rozemyne to use a feystone with his own mana in it for the blessings, rather than her just using her own. Similarly, when the Ternisbefallen inquiry rolled around, Rozemyne had been primed to single out Ferdinand as the reason behind, well, everything, and when that evolved into the bible comparison meeting, Ferdinand actively controlled the flow of that discussion while Rozemyne deferred to him at every possibility.

Oh, it goes back way earlier than that. And not just through Ferdinand's efforts, either.

Sure. But Ferdinand WAS playing to the crowd on this one, and I am not sure why. The FVF were obviously going to dunk on the "commoner shrine maiden" whenever possible, so the only real way to frame that would be that a Noble did it, and is just pretending the commoner did. Georgine claimed she heard it at the Archdukal conference, although she could have been lying and she actually heard it via the FVF.

It would be odd for there to be multiple, independent places this started though, given its a very specific rumour.

Voice messages must be horrifying beyond measure…

@GeorgeMTO / @15-Redstones-776rtbk Fair point, I did miss that mention!

Edit: So, after re-reading that passage myself: Yup, Ferdinand definitely knew of the darkness prayer in the bible before that point. Whether or not he'd ever used it is more of an open question. Going by his response in the subsequent meeting, I still think he hadn't tried it out himself. Though its unclear whether that's because he'd learned it but not experimented with it yet, or because he merely knew of it and hadn't thought it worth learning until it turned out to have a hidden benefit.

@b-scot-morgan Magic contracts could be used to solidify the agreement, something like "Aub ehrenfest agrees to adopt any children with Rozemyne as the baptismal mother." or something similar. Then Sylvester would sign as Aub ehrenfest and as himself. That would guarantee that any of Rozemyne's children would be in the immediate line of succession without having to place WIlfried on the throne of Aub. Or any even stricter contract like "one of Geibe leisegang emeritus' great great grandchildren will be Aub Ehrenfest within n generations"

@Yolech According to the fanbooks, yes, she is vulnerable to being dyed.

What effect that would have on her we don't know. We know more or less none of the details of dyeing other people. Just that it's a thing, and there's a potion that helps you do it.

Rozemyne, Age 12 / Myne, Age 13 / Physical Age 11 (Part 5) Winter Chapter Name POV P5V1 Prologue Hildebrand P5V1C1 The Children of the Former Veronica Faction P5V1C2 The Fellowship Gatherings

@zwabbit said in Bookworm Part 5 Vol. 1 Discussion!:

If we are to assume that Ferdinand employed the most optimal strategy while leading Ehrenfest,

I assume he used the most optimal strategy that also didn't have him turn his back on people in his own duchy he didn't trust, which would have been most of them.

The best of Bookworm’s best when it comes to color inserts has been determined: P4V9! I’m amazed that You Shiina could do two renditions of the same scene and give them such different vibes between the cover and color insert. There’s a solemness and quietness in this one that is just lovely, it really feels like a farewell. But surely we’ll see you again someday, Ferdie! Look forward to whatever our dear bookworm gremlin does while you’re away!

To all of you who voted: thank you! Whether you only dropped in every now and again or voted every single week, without you, “Best of Bookworm” would have been a string of posts where I just list off my favorite bits of Bookworm, and that would be far less interesting than what we got here.

And to round things off, here's some fun (statistical) facts about the polls :D

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The best of Bookworm’s best when it comes to covers has been determined: P4V9! Truly a gorgeous piece of art from You Shiina – though I wonder, how would it have fared against P5V1 now that we’ve seen it? Hmm, maybe I should do another round of polls when we finish the series… But that’s a long ways away. Regardless, I look forward to seeing all of the covers still to come!

To all of you who voted: thank you! Whether you only dropped in every now and again or voted every single week, without you, “Best of Bookworm” would have been a string of posts where I just list off my favorite bits of Bookworm, and that would be far less interesting than what we got here.

And to round things off, here's some fun (statistical) facts about the polls :D

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The best of Bookworm's best when it comes to volumes has been determined: P4V2! This volume's results surprised me the most, winning the volume poll and even getting to the finals in the cover poll - it seems to be a very beloved volume. There's always something to enjoy in a volume of Bookworm, but it was our first ditter fight over fluffy goodness that took the cake! Perhaps there are some Rauffen's and Lieseleta's out there among the Bookworm forum-goers...

To all of you who voted: thank you! Whether you only dropped in every now and again or voted every single week, without you, “Best of Bookworm” would have been a string of posts where I just list off my favorite bits of Bookworm, and that would be far less interesting than what we got here.

And to round things off, here's some fun (statistical) facts about the polls :D

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If you don't want to heavily get spoiled about the events of P5V10, forget this even exists.

@unknownmat said in Bookworm Royal Academy Stories - First Year:

Thanks for confirming. Do you happen to know (a rough English rendition of) their titles?

Literally Short Story Collection (1 and 2). We're due for Fanbook 3 before either of them.

@15-Redstones-776rtbk Rozemyne also advised Damuel that if he wanted to really crank up his mana level, he would have to take off all his tools and survive while compressing mana to the absolute limit. Whether he went quite that far is unknown, but he seems to have been highly motivated and some fairly spectacular results were achieved.

@15-Redstones-776rtbk
Sure; just thinking out loud - if blood is acceptable because it contains their mana, then presumably any fluid that contains their mana (maybe even potions?) would do.

Thinking however that most fluids made using mana don't actually contain mana as such - mana ink is an obvious exception, and is what nobles use instead of blood in contracts normally.

Most nobles wouldn't have a supply of mana-saturated ink just lying around though - they usually make it (using stylo) as they need it, and then immediately use it.

by implication though - that could make filling a feystone with mana and giving that to someone incredibly dangerous - they just need to push that mana out into a liquid, and they can then "sign" that contract using any old pen... and it will be binding on the person whose mana it is.

@15-Redstones-776rtbk said in Your security is kinda bad:

@DaveHowe which is exactly why I'd prefer to have a more complex system where everyone can only open the doors they're supposed to. There is no reason why Egmont and his attendants should be able to open the servant doors to Rozemyne's chambers.
Think of a unix file system where certain files can only be accessed by specific groups of users.
Different key cards for each user is something the merchant guild system already has, although they use it for transactions rather than to control door access.

It's not impossible; it would require significant work and expense to set up... but wouldn't require any cards.

Instead, like the bible, the magic tool protecting each room could allow its owner to grant or remove permission to/from named individuals thus selecting who can or can't open the doors when they are closed. They would require mana of course, but that's not a big deal as the owners would invariably be at least blue priests.

Leaving aside the complexity and expense for now, it wouldn't have helped in the Count Bindewald case; the attacker had been escorted to the HB's chambers quite legitimately, and was being walked back to the exit when they encountered Myne.

In the case of Egmont, then the bookroom incident would still have happened (he was authorized there) but for the bible incident, they would have needed to find some way to prevent the door being closed properly while her attendants were delivering divine gifts, trick/force someone authorized into opening the door for them, or override the system. The middle one there would have been the most obvious - while they didn't expect anyone to miss the grey priests from the gate, one of Rozemyne's own attendants going missing would have been a different story.

This is all overkill though. Just having the main doors to the chambers bolt shut from the inside, plus a heavy metal physical lock on the attendant's entrance (only locked when the chambers are going to be empty) would be good enough for almost all circumstances, and I suspect the former already exists (or Eckhart wouldn't have had to chop down Egmont's door to gain entry)

Given the Temple can't even manage magic tools to bring water for bathing, I don't think a complex magic solution is going to be the way to go here.

I really liked the the ninth volume cover in this part and who was hiding behind the title card plus how stunning it was. Took me awhile to realize Ferdinand was actually still kneeling from the insert color image from this volume. Below is an item that arrived today and I'd say it makes me adore this cover more than most. Plus I like how P4V9 is complimented by Drama CD4's artwork (No Title Card).

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