Standard-Bearer of the Greater West
The Standard-Bearer of the Greater West (High Secote: ⰂⰅⰎⰉⰍⰟⰉⰋⰧ ⰈⰀⰒⰀⰄⰀ ⰔⰕⰤⰃⰑⰐⰑⰔⰉⰕⰅⰎⰠ, Velikyję zapada stęgonositel’ĭ), in early Vaestism, was the highest-ranking Scholar in the western regions of Vaestdom. This area was largely coextensive with the Tirfatsevid Empire, although some Schools in the Anabbine Empire were also considered to fall under his authority. The Standard-Bearer was at the height of his power in the late Tirfatsevid and very early Neritsovid periods. The position's importance diminished sharply under Sobiebor I and Sobiebor II, becoming largely symbolic before falling into total disuse in the late 16th century. The title was revived by Spytihnev Rozoevsky in the Great Imperial Restoration, and is currently held by the Emperor of Terophan; in this context, the Banner of the Greater West is more commonly known as the Terophatic Banner.
History
Tirfatsia
The Banner of the Greater West was first created by Universal Prophet Cirran I in 1448, replacing the defunct Banner of the West which had been carried by missionaries to the Axiovy of the Azophine Uplands in the previous decade. The first Standard-Bearer was Pērkons, one of the earliest major Vesnite missionaries to the territories of the Tirfatsevid Empire. Although there were already significant numbers of Vesnites within Tirfatsia, Pērkons is usually credited with founding the first official School on the model of those in the east, which he set up in Axopol under the protection of Izyaslav III after being rebuffed by the northern emperor. Although Schools spread quickly under Pērkons's tenure, relations with the leaders of the existing Vesnite community were occasionally fraught, and when Pērkons died in 1456 it was a local Rasheem charismatic named Movar who succeeded him; the Banner-Shrine was moved away from the imperial capital to the newly refounded Rasheem settlement of Reonir in the same year.
From around 1460 the southern Emperor Ostromir II began attempting to court the Vesnites, who by now represented a significant portion of the urban population and a potential counterweight against the all-powerful High Nobility. Despite some successes, however, Movar was a strong-willed and independent man unwilling to be co-opted by the imperial court. When he was murdered in 1472, triggering the schismatic election of Sedikprorka by elements on the eastern fringe of Tirfatsia, Ostromir intervened on the side of the Prysostaia and helped crush the rebels in exchange for the right to appoint the Standard-Bearer himself. His appointee Ihuvuprorka, confirmed in late 1473, would survive him and play an increasingly dominant role in southern Tirfatsia over the next two decades.
Despite being appointed by Ostromir, Ihuvuprorka proved himself to be no puppet of the emperor, continuing to influence affairs in north and south and maintaining a largely autonomous sphere of influence despite Yaroslav the Black's adoption of a similar pro-Vesnite policy after 1480 and his interference in Vesnite affairs in the north. Yaroslav alienated many of the Vesnites in northern Tirfatsia by 1490 with his attempts to balance a superficially pro-Vesnite policy with the interests of the Sirian voivodes, which resulted in support for Vaestic heresies and a rejection of the authority of the Prysostaia. Ostromir's successor in the south, Mstislav III, was another matter: under the growing influence of Ihuvuprorka at Axopol, Mstislav formally converted to Vaestism in 1482. This was not enough to save him from the conquests of Nerits, who procured a decision from the Prysostaia rendering Mstislav a heretic in 1494. The death of Ihuvuprorka while Axopol was under siege in 1495 allowed the Banner of the Greater West to be preserved largely intact after the conquest under pro-Neritsovid leadership. The memory of Mstislav, however, left a deep imprint in the south that would last, in effect, until the Great Imperial Restoration of 1701.
Neritsia
The first years of Neritsovid rule were mixed ones for the Standard-Bearer. On the one hand, the dissolution of Kunentsydom enriched the existing Schools enormously almost overnight as well as granting them far-reaching new powers and influence over society. The old High Nobility were no longer a threat, and the Banner had returned to Axopol with a new Vesnite Emperor. On the other hand, this gave the larger Schools – already willing to throw their weight around – a new independent source of influence. If this wasn't enough, those Schools which had backed the Tirfatsevids were confiscated by the Neritsovids and set up under the direct authority of the Emperor, effectively removing them from the Standard-Bearer's control. The venerable Ihuvuprorka died during the siege of Axopol and did not live to see Neritsovid rule extend over all of Tirfatsia. His successor, Hishorutul enjoyed only a few years of relative autonomy under Nerits before Sobiebor I ascended to the throne.
Whilst Nerits had generally adopted a policy of benign neglect with regard to religious policy, Sobiebor began energetically intervening in the affairs of the Schools. His disinterest in the Prysostaia's apparent return to the chaos of the Wars of Heresy, his attempts to interfere on fiercely debated questions of doctrine and the failure of his expedition to wipe out the heretics of the Kingdom of Thawar brought him into regular conflict with the Scholars of the Banner, and from 1509 he began a deliberate campaign to weaken the authority of the Standard-Bearer, primarily by strengthening the positions of the other prominent Scholars of the Empire through the creation of the Scholars' Council. In 1516 however this policy was dramatically reversed when Hishorutul died, allowing Sobiebor to effectively appoint his own interim candidate Zafuvniprorka. Although he succeeded in undermining and then replacing the Standard-Bearer, however, he did little to improve relations with the Scholars of the Banner as a whole, and they largely refused to support him when he was overthrown by Sobiebor II in 1517.
As Universal Prophet as well as Emperor, Sobiebor II's authority over the Schools was much greater than his predecessor. Where his uncle had only succeeded in weakening the Standard-Bearer, he effectively bypassed him entirely during his governmental reforms. Four new Protologues were appointed, ostensibly under the authority of the Standard-Bearer but in fact largely independent of him. Zafuvniprorka retained his symbolic position, now confirmed by the Prophet, but the Banner structure now more or less disintegrated in practice and the Protologues established their own independent spheres of influence. The Elector Scholar of Axopol continued to include 'Standard-Bearer of the Greater West' among his titles until the 1603 Sack of that city during the Errancy Era, when the Banner mysteriously disappeared. The last Elector Scholar to claim the title was Arouv II (1605–1611).
Revival and contemporary status
The events of the Great Imperial Restoration of 1701 centred symbolically upon the revival of the Banner of the Greater West and its unification with the resurrected crown of the Tirfatsevid Empire in the person of Spytihnev Rozoevsky, creating the Terophatic Banner and – after the frustration of Spytihnev's designs on Vaestdom as a whole – the core structure of the modern Terophatic Empire. Subsequent Terophatic Emperors have maintained the office of Standard-Bearer of the Greater West as an honorary title pertaining to their crown, and it is granted ceremonially upon the accession of each new emperor; its awarding is nominally the prerogative of the Terophatic Debates, but this institution has historically practiced little effective power. A short-lived attempt was made to restore the independence of the Banner of the Greater West from the Neo-Tirfatsevid crown by the Terophite Scholar Prorkamen during the Monsoon Revolution of 1888, but this experiment failed with Prorkamen's military defeat by 1891 in the ensuing Consistence War.