#duchess_jarcounce

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Worsties

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A popular cartoon featuring the Duchess Jarcounce suffering by her barber's comb. It is widely quoted by both upper and lower society, sometimes referencing Jarcounce, other times a non-sequitur.

It was printed from a nameless journal following her exile. Jarcounce's barber likely doodled it to vent frustrations but it is now considered entertaining rather than blasphemous.

Learn more about dendie barbers and their importance in Society below the cut:

The Barbery-Maid (Barber) is a specialized valet (nun) also tasked with grooming a Duchess' mane each morning. The process involves preening away dead quills, avoiding those new, and styling the mane to be presentable. They may also polish shoes, accessories, and fangs.

Handling quills is a sacred duty given to only doctors or those of similar station. Barbers study medicine and theology, but prefer working with their hands to the rigor of becoming full doctors. They begin work as ordinary valets, watching other barbers until they assert they are ready. The apprentice must then prove her skills to the employer if she wishes to rank up.

Knowledge of anatomy is crucial. Each Duchess has a specific pattern of quills to memorize. Within those, sensitive areas to leave well alone. Brushing carelessly can tear away new growths, which is bloody and unpleasant. This may happen occasionally. Doing so often is death of one's career.

Some Duchesses distrust barbers and accuse them of thieving their quills. Rumors circulate that quills may be used as home remedies or black market currency. However, doing so is risky and barbers know this. (Much theft is committed by the higher ranking clergy the Duchesses seem to like.)

The etiquette states a barber leaves the bag outside the room and lays all her tools visibly on the table. Her uniform is a standard headscarf and a modified fencer's outfit with all buttonholes facing inward, including her gloves. She wears a white top sewn into black dress with no pockets, cut before the ankles to avoid hazards.

Grooming the mane is one of the first tasks of the morning, right after tea served in bed. It may take 30 minutes or up to 2 hours. A Duchess wakes earlier depending on the difficulty of her mane.

Some are tired and sit quietly, others enjoy it and chat, and still others squirm and complain they would rather do other things. A bored Duchess that trusts her barber may attempt reading but it's usually not too fruitful with all the moving around.

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Jargoon Jarcounce III, 1st Duchess Jarcounce

A rare portrait of a controversial thinker, Jarcounce (Jar-counts), best known for her theory of the ‘elevated mind’. Her hatred of physical existence led her to study theoretical places, where one might live without a form.

The Lady Jarcounce was born, or resurrected, from a quill preserved in a sword. Desperate to repopulate a dwindling upper-class, religious leaders borrowed remains from old knights’ artifacts and made hundreds of new titles.

Jarcounce was raised in a monastery, well-educated to fit in with her peers. Curious and driven, she dreaded the day she would become Duchess. Not only was she made to rule, but to be governed herself by a harsh expectations, and a terrible, biological process known as ‘ascension’. To cultivate one’s self into a fleshy, venomous being, many-eyed, full of spines, was an inevitable fate for her class. Such matriarchs must exist to maintain the dendie species.

There seemed no Duchess more miserable than Jarcounce. Her attempts to impress others with ‘tact and fact’ often backfired, as she nearly always defaulted to her ‘zealous fixations’. She talked only of her research, so frequently, so inappropriately, she was exiled by her peers under the claim of heresy.

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Rare portrait of the Duchess Jarcounce... and more information about her contributions to philosophy.