WIP - chapter 21

world/locations/drenwick.md

@@ -45,6 +45,13 @@ Drenwick is the titular seat of the **Duchy of Sudermere**, ruled by **Duke Rode
 - Magical sensors for detecting intruders
 - Communication relays between districts
 
+### The Drenwick Court House (Crown Registry)
+- Guild Quarter, near the civic administrative cluster
+- Where crown-registered contracts are filed for the Duchy of Sudermere: property deeds, guild charters, inheritance claims, and civil partnerships (marriages)
+- Functional, bureaucratic, unceremonial — a counter clerk, a ledger, a seal, a fee
+- Marriage filing is a non-religious civil process by default; religious ceremonies exist but are optional and run separately from the registry. Most Drenwick residents file first and ceremonialise later (or not at all)
+- Because Drenwick is the duchy seat, residents do not travel for registry business — it's a short walk from most of the city
+
 ### The Thresholds
 - Magical liminal spaces throughout the city
 - Doorways and passages that lead to other places or times

world/locations/kingdom-of-corvel.md

@@ -129,6 +129,14 @@ Every named place established in Books 1 and 2, plus the new duchy seats introdu
 
 ---
 
+## Civil Contracts (Marriage, Deeds, Inheritance)
+
+Corvel runs its civil contract law through the crown registry, one office per duchy seat. Property deeds, guild charters, inheritance claims, and marriages are all filed at the same counter under the same crown seal. **Marriage is a civil contract first.** Religious ceremonies exist and vary by faith, but they are optional and legally irrelevant — the registry filing is what the crown recognises. Commoners and middle-class citizens generally file only; nobility often pair the filing with a ceremony for political or dynastic display.
+
+For Drenwick residents, the filing counter is the **Drenwick court house** in the Guild Quarter. See `world/locations/drenwick.md`.
+
+---
+
 ## The Crown and the Compact
 
 Formally, the Arcane Compact operates under crown charter and pays tribute to Varenhold. In practice the Compact has grown powerful enough that the crown picks its battles. The crown's mechanism for pushback is the duchies: noble estates retain **advisory jurisdiction over Compact regulatory matters on their own territory**. A duke who chooses to exercise this jurisdiction can deflect Compact delegations without contradicting the Compact's charter. Most dukes don't bother. Duchess Pamira does, and that is the entire political axis of Book 3.