Prysostaic School

Prysostaic School ⰏⰑⰍⰫⰍⰟⰎⰑⰔⰟ ⰒⰓⰉⰔⰨⰞⰕⰉⰧ Mokụkŭlosŭ Prisǫštiję
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: ⰒⰓⰑⰓⰅⰝⰉ Ⰹ ⰂⰅⰓⰉⰐⰋⰉ ⰈⰀⰒⰑⰂⰅ (Tr.: Proreči i verǐnyi zapove) "Let him speak and command the faithful"
Capital	Prysostaic Citadel
Largest city	Otrešveimještas
Official languages	High Secote, Argote
Religion	Vaestism
• Banner	Prophetic
Demonym	Prysostine
Government	Prysostaic Council
• Interrex	Pilamen Aksys
Establishment
• Holy Storm	1428
• Wall of Pirish begun	1467
• Pacific Investiture	1856
• Last Universal Prophet dies	1926
Area
• Total	28,943 km2 (11,175 sq mi) (108th)
Population
• 2008 census	7,352,390
• Density	254.03/km2 (657.9/sq mi)
Currency	Prysostaic Slatto (PPS)
Driving side	right

The Prysostaic School or Prysostea (High Secote: ⰏⰑⰍⰫⰍⰟⰎⰑⰔⰟ ⰒⰓⰉⰔⰨⰞⰕⰉⰧ, Mokụkŭlosŭ Prisǫštiję, 'Prysostaic Schools') is an extended mokykla complex and state in the Outer Joriscian lowlands, bordering on Argah, Zemay, Littorea and Azophin. The institutions of the School are descended directly from the greatest centres of learning established by the Prophet; they were the scene of the Holy Storm and the Prophet's transcension, and became the seat of his successors the Universal Prophets and the heart of the Sacred Prophecy. The Prophetic throne has been empty since 1926, a situation often called the Desecration of the Prophecy. The Prysostaic Council governs the state in the Prophets' absence, led by an honorary president titled the Interrex. Typically, the term Prysostaia refers to the Scholarly institutions of the School in general, while Prysostea refers specifically to their temporal jurisdiction.

Etymology

The term 'Prysostaic School' is derived from the High Secote Mokụkŭlosŭ Prisǫštiję (ⰏⰑⰍⰫⰍⰟⰎⰑⰔⰟ ⰒⰓⰉⰔⰨⰞⰕⰉⰧ) designating mokyklos directly subject to the Prophetic Banner. In fact this term is plural and properly translated 'the Prysostaic Schools': there is no single 'Prysostaic School' as such, and the conventional singular in Western usage derives from a confounding of the 'Prysostaic Schools' with the Prysostaic Citadel, itself a complex that comprises many different formal Schools. 'Prysostaic' originally designates the 'joining together' signified by the Classical Argote name for the Prysostaic Rock where the Prophet's apotheosis took place, Υολα Απϝιενοϊυσιες, Uola Apvienojusies. In Vaestic hierology, the Rock marks the point at which the material world and the fundamental realms of Light and Dark are joined most closely together, the site of the breaking of the World-Gates.

In early Vaestism the term 'Prysostaic' came into use metonymically to designate the Scholars gathered around the Universal Prophets in institutions near the Prysostaic Rock, especially the Prysostaic Citadel upon the Rock itself. After the fall of Great Neritsia and especially the separation of the Prophetic Banner from the imperial office in 1756, 'Prysostaic' was used more specifically to refer to anything subject directly to the Prophet. In the East, the chief institutions of the Prysostaia are usually referred to by circumlocutions signifying either the Sacred Prophecy or the 'Prysostaic Place'.

History

This section contains information that has been retconned by more recent development, and will be updated in future.

Early Vaestism

Vaestism first appears on the historical record in 1392 as a sizeable cult already led by the Prophet and headquartered already at the base of the Prysostaic Rock, which was gradually transformed into a fortress in its own right over the course of the School's growth. Despite the existence of a settlement on the site of the modern Prysostaic School itself prior to the emergence of Vaestism, this is very little acknowledged in the Vesnite sources themselves, which present the foundation of the School as an attempt to create a pious community ex nihilo. The earliest Vesnites were all Argote speakers and almost exclusively from today's Prysostea, and during the Prophet's lifetime the extent of the territory controlled by the Vesnites did not expand much beyond Prysostea's borders. The rapid expansion of the sect, however, ultimately led to a confrontation with the Vladivoy the Mindaugid, a southern Gergote prince. The Vesnites' victory over Vladivoy at the Battle of the Holy Storm, however, was followed by a string of dramatic conquests and an apparent acceleration in conversion that soon placed the Prysostaic School itself at the heart of a small territorial entity ruled over first by the Prophetic Marshals and then, after a brief internal struggle during the Conciliar War (1434-1436), by the Universal Prophet, elected by Debates in a manner familiar to Argote custom.

The period between 1436 and 1472, during which a series of Marshals held the Prophetic position, was one of dramatic territorial expansion in which a series of city-communes fell to Vaestdom by force or converted, aligning themselves with what appeared to be a rising force. At the same time, independent missions spread Vaestism as an idea - if not as a system of political rule - to the furthest corners of Outer Joriscia. The broad participatory opportunities offered by the Debates and the system of Banners connected all of the far flung Vesnite communities to the Prophet in the Prysostaic School, which itself grew steadily. The remittances made to the Prysostaia by growing Vesnite communities helped to enrich the School and the surrounding area: the earliest surviving structures outside the Prysostaic Citadel itself mostly date from this period. While the prestige and inherited charisma of the Marshals was able to hold together all Vesnites under one authority, the more or less inevitable diversity of doctrine that such rapid and autonomous missionary efforts produced did not present a significant problem, and indeed was more or less tolerated in practice if not in theory. After the death of the last Marshal, the venerable Viswald I, however, this fragile pluralism rapidly collapsed into an increasingly bloody struggle over the Prophecy and Vaestic orthodoxy itself.

Wars of Heresy

Main article: Wars of Heresy

In 1485, the then Universal Prophet Siluve III, besieged by Dagomists in the Prysostaic citadel, sent missives pleading for help from the Vesnite warlord Nerits. Nerits, who had seen some success in carving out a small Vesnite principality for himself in northern Lacre, leapt to the assistance of the Prophetic School and marched north. The siege was broken in 1490 and Nerits marched into the Prysostaia victorious. A few days later, Siluve crowned him Emperor of the Vesnites, bringing to an end the Wars of Heresy and beginning a new period in the history of Vaestism.

Neritsovid period

Main article: Great Neritsia

In the very early Neritsovid period life in the Prysostaia continued much as before. Opposition to Nerits soon coalesced in the form of the Orthodoxist Heresy, and Nerits' successor Sobiebor I was initially distracted by conquests elsewhere. A weakening of the Prophet's authority also served the interests of the emperor, who was busy asserting his authority over all of Vaestdom. However, following a series of murdered Prophets culminating in the violence of the Bloody Vacancy, in 1515 Sobiebor dispatched his nephew at the head of an army to restore order. This nephew - Sobiebor II - besieged the School and took it by assault in early 1516, marking the last time the Prysostaia's defences were successfully overpowered. Sobiebor II had himself elected Universal Prophet by the Debates in the same year and overthrew his uncle, unifying the positions of Emperor and Prophet. He made his capital, however, at Great Pestul, and when he left the Prysostaia he took the centre of Vaestism with him.

For the rest of the Neritsovid period the School underwent something of a decline, sidelined within Vaestdom in favour of the imperial capital. Many of its key institutions - including the Debates and the Prophet - were now resident in Great Pestul. The great doctrinal reforms of Sobiebor's reign took place in Pestul and not in the Prysostaia, as did the election of new Prophet-Emperors. Nonetheless, the School retained its significance as the spiritual heart of Vaestism and a primary destination of pilgrimage, as well as a centre of more ascetic scholarship. The famous Wall of Nerits to the north of the School was built during the Neritsovid period, and many Emperors - in particularly the Ratiborevids - engaged in huge prestige construction projects within the School, including the Princes' School and the Blue Palace.

From Sobiebor's administrative reforms onwards the Prysostaia was governed as a special Province under the Grand Commander. Under Lyudodar the Grand Commander was replaced with a High Captain and a force of pièches, the Company of the Two Palaces, who had military and basic administrative responsibility for the territories of the School.

Return to prominence

Following the death of Chistibor the Last in 1700, the Prysostaic Debates were divided between a number of possible candidates. Whilst they continued to deliberate, a southern noble named Spytihnev Rozoevsky had himself proclaimed Emperor in events known as the Great Imperial Restoration. This threw the Debates into disarray; although many dismissed Spytihnev's candidacy as impossible there was a considerable faction which threw its weight behind him. Nonetheless, when the Legitimist Party appointed its own candidate Borovest II at the Council of Irn the Company of the Two Palaces and their High Captain Guran Zoltanfi backed him, arresting those pro-Spytihnev members of the Debates who remained in the Prysostaia. With the ascendancy of Vladimir Inevsky's troika and the sidelining of the pièches, however, the Company was reduced in size and then finally dissolved in its entirety in 1729 and replaced with a locally recruited New Column under a re-established Commander of the Prysostaia. In 1747 Borovest took up permanent residence in the Prysostaia, becoming the first Universal Prophet to do so in generations, and in 1756 - after Borovest's death and the end of the Crown Wars - the Prysostaia became effectively independent under the rule of the first non-Neritsovid prophet since the end of the Wars of Heresy, Zafuvniprourkah (1756–1783).

Although a Commander appointed from Terophan continued to be resident for another 12 years, under Zafuvniprourkah the Prophet's own administration soon took control of affairs in the Prysostaia. A number of major reforms to the governance of the School, perhaps most important among them the creation of the Prysostaic Council, sidelined non-Scholars within its administration and played an important part in attracting some of Vaestdom's more prominent intellectuals. These reforms were made possible by Lacrean patronage secured by Zafuvniprourkah's recognition of the Sixth Chotarian Empire; in return, Lacre provided interordinate backing to the Prophet's efforts to re-establish the Prysostaia as the political and hierological centre of Vaestdom and afforded them much-needed leverage against the Emperor in Axopol.

Lacre's willingness to work closely with the Prysostaia and take its development seriously in a period when other rulers still saw it as a largely irrelevant centre of ascetism reaped their rewards: Zafuvniprourkah was succeeded by Yambor Molodai (1783–1797), who in turn was replaced by his protege Hanzar (1797-1816), both prominent Lacrean Neocratists in favour of neo-Chotarianism. Under these two Prophets, other governments began to engage more seriously with the internal politics of the School, with Terophan in particular beginning to compete in displays of largesse with their Lacrean rivals. The delegations of Scholars dispatched by all of the powers of Outer Joriscia also meant that the Prysostaia began to emerge as an intellectual centre in its own right. By 1815, it was able to compete with the major hubs of Scholarly activity, and was second in prestige only to Great Pestul.

Despite Terophan's long diplomatic efforts to combat Lacrean influence at the Prysostaia, when Hanzar died in 1816 it was resurgent Azophin which provided the next Prophet, Mezveim (1817-1833). Mezveim took a much more explicitly autonomous political tack than his predecessors, extensively restructuring and extending the state apparatus of the Prysostaia in line with imperial norms established elsewhere, modelling his new rationalised Offices of the Prysostaia on the Grand Offices of Great Neritsia. Mezveim was succeeded by Kavylat (1833-1837), a Lopt, whose election was ironically secured by Lefdim's relative powerlessness.

The Thrall

With much of Joriscia in chaos and confusion during the Sea of Flames campaign – and with Terophan and Azophin locked in an apparent fight to the death – at the beginning of Dominy 1958 the Lacrean Emperor Zamor III made a bid to seize control of the Prysostaia and place it under his control. A column of Lacrean troops stormed into Otrešveimještas, putting much of the city to the torch, while a detachment arrowed in towards the Citadel itself. Interrex Shet Sheveti (himself a Lacrean, although resident in the Citadel for more than forty years at this time) and a sizeable part of the Prysostaic Council had had enough warning to flee – eventually finding shelter on the island of Solniai – but most of the remaining councillors and other Citadel functionaries were butchered by the Lacreans.

With the Red Palace secure, Zamor travelled there and, in a ghastly parody of traditional forms, proclaimed himself Universal Prophet on 10 Dominy. The exiled Council responded by annulling Zamor’s imperial title and placing a sentence of death upon him; however, while the war in Joriscia continued, little could be done about the situation until late Ediface, when the Zemayan high command were able to detach a force to retake the Citadel. Zamor attempted to flee, but was captured by the Zemayans and was summarily executed. Sheveti and the Council returned from Solniai shortly afterwards; and retribution against Lacre would continue into 1959, with the Congress of Kethpor in Metrial of that year seeing an unprecedented character analysis of the entire Lacrean state apparatus.

Government

In the Vesnite conception, the Prophetic Banner exercises universal jurisdiction over all people in the world through the principle of First Prostration. Prysostea is the territory that is directly administered by the Banner with no intermediate Standard-Bearer. Its government is invested in the Sacred Prophecy, the perpetual and living office of the Universal Prophet. Individual Prophets are elected by the Prysostaic Debates, which is made up of all orthodox Standard-Bearers. Since 1926, however, no individual Universal Prophet has been elected—the Desecration of the Prophecy—and the formerly advisory Prysostaic Council has served as the territory's highest executive body. Since the 1983 Congress of Molot the Council has consisted of a number of Scholars appointed from within Prysostea, and the representatives of the so-called Ordinary Banners: currently Azophin, Terophan, Cazacasia, Zemay, Agamar, Aushria and the Lutoborsk. Until the Ranian crisis, Rania also had representation on the Prysostaic Council. The Council is chaired by the Interrex (literally, its 'Interim Agent'), who in practice serves as Prysostea's head of state and liturgically as acting Vocation Scholar of the Prophetic Banner-Shrine of the Companions. The Interrex's authority derives entirely from the Council and compared to other heads of state in Vaestdom his powers are markedly limited. The current Interrex is Pilamen Aksys.

The actual business of administration within Prysostea is carried out by the various Offices of the Prysostaia, which are similar in their functioning to Messenian government ministries. The Offices are unique, however, in that they combine the specifically Prysostean infrastructure of government responsible for the management of the territory's internal affairs with broad interordinate functions which extend across all Vaestdom. Historically, these functions derive from the Prysostaia's inheritance of much of the remaining machinery of the government of Great Neritsia following the Universal Empire's collapse. The actual authority of these offices in other sovereign territories varies considerably. The Office of Orthodox Thought and Intellectual Purification, for example, has a wide interordinate legal remit to pursue heretics, whilst the Office of Appointments and Admissions (the successor to the Court of the Cloisters) has only a limited power of recommendation and oversight in Scholarly appointments outside Prysostea itself.

The vocational postings of the Prysostaic Scholars are furnished by the vast number of Schools that exist across Prysostea, each of which is properly a 'Prysostaic School' in that it directly represents the Prophetic Banner. Many of these are nominal Schools, comprising only a small shrine or in some cases a mere single room within the Prysostaic Citadel. A small number are administrative Schools that function as centres of local government in the manner usual for most imperial Banners. The most prestigious Schools are generally those that form part of the Citadel itself, which include the Prophetic Banner-Shrine. The Prysostaic Scholars are arranged in a complex hierarchy that culminates in the Council, and a balance of power is maintained between Scholars native to Prysostea, who form the bulk of the lower bureaucracy but are also well-represented in its upper echelons, and foreign Scholars released to the Prophetic Banner, who make up the majority of higher appointments. The Council itself is presently split precisely in half between seven internal appointments and the seven representatives of the Ordinary Banners, not including the Interrex Pilamen Aksys, who is, for the first time, himself a Prysostean.

Alongside the School's government, the Prysostaia also plays host to a number of important interordinate Vaestic institutions, including the small number of administrative officials attached to the Panarchate, the highest executive body of Vaestdom formed from the four most important Standard-Bearers. The Office of Weights and Measures no longer has any active role in enforcing uniformity of units of measurement, but instead acts primarily as the institutional home of the Consortium of Measures, a banking cartel in practice largely independent of the Prysostaic government.

Ethnology and language

Prysostea's native inhabitants are largely Argotes, native speakers of the Argote language. Native-born Argotes from Prysostean lineages make up approximately 65% of Prysostea's population. In most areas of the country, this percentage is much higher. However, the Prysostaic Citadel itself and the surrounding urban area, Otrešveimještas, are much more cosmopolitan and densely populated than Prysostea more generally, with as much as 65% of permanent residents either foreign-born or born in Prysostea to foreign parents. As elsewhere in Outer Joriscia identifying exact numbers is made impossible by the government's refusal to collect or publish ethnographic statistics. Most of these foreigners are Scholars or Acolytes, either in training or released to the Prophetic Banner and resident at one of the Prysostaia's many School complexes, combines and research centres, although at any given time large numbers of pilgrims will also be temporarily present on the Prysostaia's soil to visit sites of religious significance.

Although Argote is the language of daily life and encounters with the government for the bulk of the native-born population, the Prysostaia's own primary language of government is High Secote, a practice inherited from Great Neritsia. High Secote's position as an oral language used between Scholars of different linguistic backgrounds, once fairly strong, has deteriorated considerably in the last century in favour of Rashimic. The vernacularisation of government language has further contributed to this downward trend. As a written language, however, it remains the sole language of composition for official documents of all kinds.