Eternal Treaty of Nardash

The Eternal Treaty of Nardash was the Neritsovid treaty and Prophetic Utterance of 1617 that formally concluded the War of the Pact of Osan, imposing massive penalties on the rebellious cities and trade leagues. Under the terms of the Treaty, the Trade Leagues were dissolved and cities that had hitherto been self-governing surrendered all institutional autonomy, yielding to direct control by representatives of the Emperor of the Vesnites. In addition to the imposition of tributary taxation, a harsh punitive fine was levied on all the cities that had risen against the Emperor. Beyond the War of the Pact itself, the Treaty brought to an end the Errancy Era of 1581–1617, in which the Neritsovid state had been threatened by spiralling succession disputes, civil conflicts, doctrinal dissent, and violent religious warfare.

Although representatives of the defeated Pact of Osan were invited to a congress with imperial officials that was held on 1 Conservene 1617, this conference was largely ceremonial. The Treaty itself was promulgated directly as an Utterance by Emperor Lyudodar, officiating in apportation as Universal Prophet at the Sacred Seat of Nardash, on Conservene 9.

The Treaty was concluded in perpetuity, and its strident phrasing was perhaps the most direct employment of the enormous authority theoretically invested in the Sacred Prophecy by any Neritsovid Emperor, providing a model for Prophets such as Yorsephor who sought to make similarly conclusive determinations in later periods. Its final item read:

Under the full sanction of the plenitude of human Knowledge invested in the Throne That Ends Only with the World, which is poised high between the Light and the Darkness on the straight path of righteousness, it is decreed that this final Utterance of the Prophet and of the Emperor shall bind all mankind unto the Condemnation of the World at the limit of absolute eternity, and shall by no man ever be revised. It is decreed and understood, through the great Knowledge of the cosmos forever vouchsafed in the Prysostaic Holiness, that no abrogation of this proclamation can ever be accepted; that no legitimate authority can ever presume to err and rebel against the Perpetual Throne in revising this great decision; that all endeavour to revise it, indeed, shall be loathed as repugnant heresy, a horror that disgusts the mind that has clear sight of the gates of transcendence. The Heresy of Faction is therefore rightly considered, decided, promulgated, and uttered to be destroyed for all eternity.

As part of the perpetual deposit of the Sacred Prophecy, the Treaty remains the law of the Prophetic Banner, and through First Prostration it notionally remains in effect across all of Vaestdom. In Terophan, a government agency, the Contrafactional Board, has since 1891 been specifically charged with enforcing the Treaty's ban on faction, and in general the Treaty is routinely invoked by every Vaestic Power in their accustomed suppression of unauthorised associations. The ban on the 'Heresy of Faction' is a central assumption of Eastern understandings of Vaestopolitics. The urban tax created by the Treaty also continues to be levied, though in modern currency its value has become negligible.