If the spirit of revolution has taken hold among the usually traditional Averlanders, it is in the town of Streissen. A town with a small university and medical school, Streissen has always been ready to take in new ideas from elsewhere, such that Averlanders often refer to someone from Streissen as "not quite right in the head," or "too much under the influence of Nulners and Stirlanders." Streissen's middle and upper classes take pride in their relative openness to new ideas and think of themselves as Averland's intellectual elite.
Thus it was that, over the course of the last century, and under the influence of new political ideas from Nuln, Streissen's rulers managed events to force the Elector Countess, a young Ludmilla Alptraum, to grant Streissen a town charter, granting it rights— including the right to elect its own rulers—and freeing it from many duties and taxes to the crown in Averheim. For decades, the people of Streissen looked optimistically toward a bright future, but then, in 2502, riots broke out when crop disease produced a shortage of food. The authorities, who had neglected building anything more than a minimal watch, were helpless when agitators took control of the mob and declared a commune.
The town council appealed to a now-elderly Grand Countess Ludmilla for troops to suppress the revolution, but she would do so only if the councillors agreed to return the town's charter and give up all its hard-won privileges. In desperation, they did so, and Ludmilla's forces restored order in a blood bath that has made "Streissen" a byword for "atrocity" to this day.
