I have three theories.

the gods, simply gift mana, according to their whim. the gods, put manna into the earth, and being exposed to those elements, meant that humans imbibed it. Additionally, being born on a certain day, or at a certain time that was more mana rich could affect your memory capacity maybe.. (my most developed theory) Mana was the gods gift to everyone and some random people simply had a sort of "genetic mutation" that increases their amount of mana. Because one could use mana to intimidate mana-poor people, family lines were set up to breed for this increased mana mutation. Eventually the culture became so structured on mana capacity and the families that were bred for it slowly distanced themselves from those poor in mana that the communication between the two groups would diminish and the knowledge of the random occurrence of a mana-rich mutation would be forgotten. And at this point, the trade-secretes that noble families have collected to even further increase, their mana would likely mean that their bred mana-rich capacity would be more than your average mana-rich genetic mutation among the poor population. But there's no way to know because the social stratification basically weeds out the poor people with the devouring (aka the mana-rich mutation) because they will never have access to magic tools and will always die off, keeping the current noble families firmly established (and inbred).

Thanks be to Quof \o/
Praise be to Kier \o\

And a boatload of thanks to everyone else at JNC <3

@TheGrimLich I must admit that the ages of both are not confirmed yet I think, so for me it´s more how different they feel to Rozemyne that creates their ages in my mind.

With some thought: (spoiler cause of irrelevance to the topic)

spoiler

@staylo67 Rozemyne just doesn't make sense according to normal noble common sense. She works insanely hard because she was taught that she'd need to work hard to be accepted as a noble despite being a commoner, and by P5V3 still thinks that she could be discarded. She kinda overshot the goal and works so hard that to everyone else it looks like she's trying to prove that she's better than Wilfried.

Is Stenluke technically the child of Rozemyne and Ferdinand? He was given life (birthed?) When Rozemyne mixed mana with Ferdinand into the blade.
And like Gedulah giving Mestionora to Schutzaria’s protection, Rozemyne granted Stenluke to Angelica.

@kuali I mean, they technically did try but ultimately failed to at least eliminate her when they attacked her family villa in the Sovereignty. But even setting that aside for a moment, the impression I've generally had is that proximity to the royal image isn't much more than a fig leaf, and a very small/thin one at that, for everyone involved. Whoever wins will spout whatever amount of rhetoric and propaganda they feel necessary to justify why their figurehead is legitimate, but how genuinely legitimate said figurehead is matters only to the extent that anyone else has the military strength to challenge that legitimacy. Beyond that, everything is just window dressing. To that end, if Eglantine were to be used as some sort of figurehead by Werkestock, I would expect Werkestock to have already won on the "merit" of their military strength, with Eglantine's lineage having little if any impact on the actual conflict that happened beforehand.

Wilfried acted up in a scheme to avoid political marriage as decided by his parents.

Maybe he and Hannelore can find common ground there, as she betrayed her duchy to decide her future as well, during the bride taking ditter.

@zwabbit A fair point, it would be a rather stifling match. Honestly, Wilfried's biggest problem is that he isn't cut out to be an ADC. It is almost ironic that the dude was born with so much, but is inherently unsuitible for the role he was born into.

@mufloon Maybe it might work out, I don't know. I just would rather Hannelore hook up with somebody who can bring out the best in her, not require her to support him. Of course, we also have no idea what their end career states will be. Wilfried almost certainly won't be an archduke, and Hannelore likely isn't in contention in Dunkelfelger, so politically the match likely won't work either.

@pcj somehow this feels so japanese, shoving responsibility from a to b only to have an ambiguous result in the end. But oh well just lets take it as it comes.

@DMC-Tornado said in Worst ships:

@DaveHowe said in Worst ships:

@DMC-Tornado said in Worst ships:

Wrong topic, this should be “worst ships,” not “funniest ships.”

Is that a shipping warning? :D

Oh Seven I hope Frau doesn't get her own ship with a horn...

Surprised Roz hasn't added a train horn onto lessy - unless she doesn't know how they work? I mean, in Dahlia they would just have wind crystals, but I imagine a wind-type magic circle could substitute for the compressor. Train horns aren't built like whistles though, so it is possible something like a french horn or trumpet would be easier for Roz to visualize?

@LeavesCat said in Economics, Finance and everything in-between:

@Almond-Magnum The economics are a bit different since not all products are the same relative to each other. The Lion-Yen equivalence seems to be true for salaries and food prices, but basically all types of manufactured luxury items are 100 times as expensive as on Earth, if not more.

The economy can't really be directly compared to modern Earth due to the fact that Yurgenschmidt is in the middle of taking its first step towards the industrial revolution whereas Earth is a solid two centuries past the revolution itself. (And like 600-700 past that first step.) Since they have no mass production of any kind other than the very recently-developed printing press, most luxury goods are disproportionately expensive compared to how they'd be perceived in our modern economies.

@NekoInu said in Hypothetical Bookworm Deities:

Recently, forum participants have suggested possible deities (and/or avatars) not officially in the Bookworm pantheon. Sadly, I didn’t start this document until 17 July 2023, but here are the suggestions I’ve found:

Georgine, an avatar of the Goddess of Plausible Deniability (post #4596, @b.scot.morgan, 5.5)

alternate for Georgine: an avatar of the God of Sacrificing Underlings (post #4597, @kuali, 5.5)

Benno, Patron Saint of Pattern Recognition (post #1101, @kuali, 5.6)

Please enter your hypothetical deity/ies, too, so we can learn of these (scarce) omissions in the Official Yurgenschmidt Pantheon! thx

if #1 is true, you will never be able to prove it....

@hiroto I believe it was 2.2.2, the one with the lovely (and perfectly innocent, I assure you)

The number of flowers in my chambers had grown ever since she arrived, and they were becoming increasingly presentable to visitors.

Hello,

We are starting to drift from the initial thread topic. As always if anyone wishes to continue this or any secondary topic line, feel free to open a new topic. Thank you

@Helplesstank The clumps probably formed when she died the first time at 5, but I expect they got worse each time she died and willed herself back to life. In particular, I bet her heart stopped after the firewood book burning, as well as the flare that forced her to use Frieda's magic tool.

@hiroto
Amazon doesn't push updates; you have to go to your online account, look at your digital media and see if it shows an update available and if so instruct it to be queued for download.

@LeavesCat depends. If that contract signing over rights to the printing industry was just duchy wide, Roz could ignore it once she's elsewhere. But realistically she'd negotiate with Ehrenfest giving her home duchy a very good compensation.

I hope we get a chapter from his perspective at some point. We're learning more about his personality and politics through other characters talking about him, but nothing beats hearing it from the horses mouth. Plus, it'd be fun to see how the person at the absolute top of the noble Hierarchy sees Myne.