Balsburg

Balsburg was a town in Guntreland, located 30 kilometers from Eustata. It was built in the year 3 before the Republican era, at the request of Arlene Releren, the mistress of King Alphonse III, in the architectural style of Ferdinand I. The permanent population of the city was made up exclusively of actors and servants, and the only reason for its construction was to enable Releren and her entourage to live the lives of protagonists from their favorite Sigislandite novels whenever they wanted. After the Republic emerged from secrecy into the public sphere, for the new residents it received Republican officials and workers from the interior of the country whose presence near the capital was necessary for various reasons. It was destroyed by an angry mob in the days of anticipation of Ferdinand's Armada landing on Guntreland soil.

Naming

It is assumed that Balsburg was named after Balster, the most prominent Sigislandite playright, writer and poet.

Background

The court and nobility of the Kingdom of Guntreland were traditionally enthusiastic about Sigisland's literature, the knowledge of which was considered a matter of good taste. Reenactments of scenes from Sigisland novels and plays often took place at the royal court as well as in the castles of Guntreland nobles. The idea to build an entire town dedicated to this kind of entertainment therefore arose from a combination of this fashion and Arlene Releren's desire for extravagance and fulfilling her own whims.

Architecture

Balsburg was built in the architectural style of Ferdinand I, characteristic of Sigisland. This highly ornate style is characterized by numerous and varied ornaments, often asymmetrical, motifs of angels and mythical animals, extensive use of gilding and great attention to detail. Balsburg had as many as 11 ornate bell towers on its various buildings.

Points of interest

• Municipal hall with an enormous organ (characteristic of Sigislandite settlements) with a hall with several hundred seats.
• Replica of the trading houses of the Ruhiter brothers (from Lockehess' novel Overseas Destiny, about two Hedervenite brothers who compete to make more money in the Sigislandite colonies on Neuland).
• Replica of the labyrinth in Odilia's garden (from Lockehess' novel "Odilia and Lucian").
• Replica of the barracks where Lucian was an officer (from the same part) with an alarm bell tower.
• Replica of the inn from Lockehess' novel "Sober Inn-keeper".
• An artificial lake on which a replica of Admiral Mayblich's ship sailed (from Balster's work about an admiral who survives an encounter with the Kraken by defeating him in a knowledge of naval flags quiz)

Balsburg during the monarchy

During the monarchy, Balsburg was a favorite vacation spot for Arlene Releren and her entourage. It was considered the personal possession of the king's mistress, a gift from the monarch himself. Due to the huge costs of its construction as well as the lives of its guests as well as the actors and servants who constantly inhabited it, it became a symbol of the monarchy's extravagance, and as it drew inspiration from Sigislandite culture, it also became an object of Guntrelandite chauvinism. The usual way for Releren's entourage to spend their time in Balsburg was for her and her friends to occupy certain buildings in Balsburg for a certain period of time, corresponding to the characters whose lives they wanted to reenact in a specific period, while the rest of the buildings and roles that would not be taken over by the guests would be left to the actors.

In accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of Guntreland which forbade the presence of vampires in populated areas, there were no vampires in monarchical era Balsburg, in contrary to the reality of the pre-Ferdinand II classical Sigisland, where vampires were an important part of the population and as such frequent characters in Sigislandite literature.

Balsburg during the Republic

After the Eustate area passed into Republican hands, the actors who inhabited Balsburg replaced their roles from the Sigislandite literature with the roles of heroes of the Republic and animals from moralistic fables, servants were dismissed, and the town itself was used for temporary accommodation of officials and workers from the distant regions needed by the authorities and organizations in the capital. In the days of expectation of the arrival of Ferdinand's Armada (200 CC), an angry mob burned Balsburg to the ground, wishing to deprive the nobility of at least one source of pleasure in the event of its victory. Although all the buildings of Balsburg were, at the time of their destruction, considered state property of Guntreland, so their destruction was a punishable act according to the positive law of the Republic, the National Assembly, on the proposal of the Hrebsist Club, covered the destruction of Balsburg with the amnesty provided for all those acts declared acts of the Revolution.

Henscher's stance on Balsburg

A proponent of architecture and of the rational use of buildings, Hermann Henscher, chairman of the Public Command Committee of the Republic of Guntreland, spoke and voted in the National Assembly against granting amnesty to the burners of Balsburg, instead demanding for them the sanction of annihilation. In his argumentation, Henscher stated that, since it was located on the soil of Guntreland and under the control of the Republic, this town constituted a heritage site of the Guntrelandite people, and that the motives for which it was built as well as the foreign stylistic influence on its architecture were irrelevant to its status as Guntrelandite asset. Outvoted on this issue, Hensher severely resented Hrebs and Ostven, frequently calling them "The Demolishers".

Karolina-Louise's stance on Balsburg

The ruler of Sigisland and a connoisseur of Sigisland literature, Archqueen Karolina-Louise, received the news of the destruction of Balsburg with sadness. On the one hand considering that the construction of such a town for such needs was a completely irrational, irresponsible and completely bad way to spend money, on the other hand she pointed out that its demolition is equally irresponsible and reckless, especially towards those who do not have a roof over their heads. Contrary to Releren, whose idea was primarily focused on the cultural needs of a narrow circle of her friends and favorites, Karolina-Louise has among her far-reaching goals a plan to enable every person in the world to visit Sigisland at least once in their life, where they would be able to see real locations where the plots of the best Sigislandite novels took place.