Ostrobor II, Neritsy Emperor

꧁ⰑⰔⰕⰓⰑⰁⰑⰓⰟ ⰂⰟⰔⰅⰂⰎⰀⰄⰟ꧂ Ostrobor II, Viswald
Universal Prophet and Emperor of the Vesnites
Reign	1572–1581 (9 years)
Period	Great Neritsia
Election	3 Ediface 1572
Born	1 Dominy 1544(1544-07-01)
Died	12 Estion 1581 (age 37)
Predecessor	Ostrobor I
Successor	Borovest I
Dynasty	Neritsovid (Spytidarovid)
Father	Sobiedar Bytigilev

Ostrobor II Viswald (High Secote: ꧁ⰑⰔⰕⰓⰑⰁⰑⰓⰟ ⰂⰟⰔⰅⰂⰎⰀⰄⰟ꧂, Ostroborŭ Vŭsevladŭ; ⰑⰔⰕⰓⰑⰁⰑⰓⰟ Ⰱ, Ostroborŭ II), given the nickname 'Trobor the Beardless (Rashimic: ⰕⰓⰣⰁⰑⰓ ⰀⰑⰔⰓⰠⰔⰍⰠⰏⰋ Trubor Hosrěskěmi), was Prophet-Emperor of Vaestdom from 1572 to 1581. The first Emperor not to be a direct descendant of Nerits, the founder of Great Neritsia, his tumultuous reign saw a steady deterioration of domestic politics within the western part of the Empire, and his death ushered in the long and bloody crisis known as the Errancy Era.

Born Yarodar Bytigilev in 1554, Ostrobor was the great grandson of Nerits's brother, Spytidar, making him a distant cousin of his predecessor Ostrobor I; his father, Sobiedar, had held a series of minor positions within the Commandery, while his mother was a member of the Duodecimvir House of Yazimov. Despite his relatively inauspicious beginnings, he was tipped as a possible heir early in life by his uncle Yaroslav Yazimov and a collection of other Commanders frustrated by his predecessor's refusal to clarify the succession. His somewhat dubious Neritsovid credentials were reinforced immediately after his accession by the highly unusual step of giving him a regnal name different from that he took at his naming ceremony. He was also quickly married off to Mira, Ostrobor I's daughter, in the Emperor's last weeks of life. When his father-in-law died, the conspirators moved quickly to acclaim him, organising a military parade of the Pièche regiments of Great Pestul led by Primate Dragomir Inevsky. His succession was announced several months before formal Debates confirmed him in the prophetic position.

Ostrobor's policy was made by and for the Commanders, and his reign marked a distinct break with the coalition of western Scholarchate, Prophet-Emperor and aristocracy that had characterised the tenures of earlier Emperors. His accession was immediately followed by an extraordinary payment to the troops and an overall increase in military wages, strengthening the Commanders' position among their men. The popular anti-Sirian feeling that had been kept in check during the last two decades, but which had occasionally given rise to violent disorder even under Ostrobor the Pious, was allowed to run riot in Great Pestul and the other cities of the Empire; in High Lacre and the Upper Dekoral Sirian communities began to experience a protracted wave of disenfranchisement and property appropriation, a process which intensified intercommunal tensions in those areas and culminated with the Sirian Revolt of 1598-1599 and the Old Heretic Revolt after Ostrobor's death. A central effort was made to reassert the traditional dues owed to the Great Houses by their ostensible vassals (Ožidomy), primarily targeting Branch Houses in remote parts of the Empire. Other objects of High Noble resentment were also targeted, including Rasheem Combinations, whose ceremonial privileges granted under the reign of Ostrobor's predecessor were revoked and their members subjected to humiliating sumptuary laws. As if this was not bad enough, the first signs of an unsustainable fiscal crisis in the form of major budgetary shortfalls – a problem which was to dog the Neritsovid state until its collapse in 1701 – began to appear, and after a failed attempt to impose land taxes on Gergotea led to the Great Gergote Emeute early in the reign, the Leagues were subjected to their third and largest forced loan in a decade, the Great Impost of 1579.

Many of these measures were deeply unpopular, aligning Sirians, the Trade Leagues and much of the lower nobility against an increasingly isolated group of High Nobles; the exclusion of the Scholars from political circles, and the general lack of concern for the more ideological areas of policy, also served to alienate much of the Scholarchate. All this made for an increasingly febrile climate as the decade drew to a close, and in the late 1570s cracks were beginning to show in the previously solid alliance of Commanders around the Emperor. Commanders stationed in other cities, including those in Axopol, the western Empire's 'second city', had in any case begun to complain about the dominance of the Pestul regiments over imperial policy and the alleged favourable treatment given to soldiers there. The coalition was held together by Ostrobor's uncle Yaroslav Yazimov, by now also proclaimed his Lyubim. But the death of Dragomir Inevsky in 1580 and an acrimonious dispute over who should replace him as leader of the Pestul garrison sealed Ostrobor's fate. In 1581 Ostrobor was murdered by the anti-Yazimov faction and his cousin Yaromir Neritsy proclaimed the next day in Axopol, beginning the so-called Errancy Era.