Spytistan II, Neritsy Emperor

꧁ⰔⰒⰟⰉⰕⰉⰔⰕⰀⰐⰟ ⰈⰀⰍⰑⰐⰟ꧂ Spytistan II, Zakon
Universal Prophet and Emperor of the Vesnites
Reign	1682–1697 (15 years)
Period	Neritsovid Empire
Election	3 Sation 1682
Born	19 Metrial 1639(1639-03-19)
Died	2 Floridy 1697 (aged 58)
Predecessor	Ratibor III
Successor	Chistibor
Dynasty	Neritsovid (Ratiborovid)

Spytistan II Zakon (High Secote: ꧁ⰔⰒⰟⰉⰕⰉⰔⰕⰀⰐⰟ ⰈⰀⰍⰑⰐⰟ꧂ Spytistanǔ Zakonǔ; ⰔⰒⰟⰉⰕⰉⰔⰕⰀⰐⰟ Ⰱ, Spytistanǔ II) was Prophet-Emperor of Great Neritsia from his election in 1682 until his death in 1697. An able leader, his reign saw the final conquest of northern Anabbah and the end of the Second Cinnabar War at the so-called 'Glorious Peace' and the completion of the Sublimation of Anabbah almost ninety years after it began under Emperor Lyudodar during the Errancy Era. From the position of strength that this afforded him, he was also able to dramatically extend the fiscal power of the Neritsovid state, with many of the measures that would underpin the relative fiscal security of Neritsia's successor states first instituted under him. In his own time, however, this won him the ire of the branch nobility and other Noble-Profiteers and paved the way to the Great Imperial Restoration and the collapse of Neritsia just a few years later.

Spytistan was the cousin of his predecessor Ratibor III and the son of Ratibor II; a complex agreement on the succession between his father and his uncle Ostrobor III meant that he was always expected to accede to the throne once Ratibor III's reign ended, and he was thus groomed for government from a young age. He was raised between Great Pestul and the Princes' School in the Prysostaia, and was tutored for some time by a young Toris Lorin, with whom he formed a warm friendship. He spent his adult years mostly at court before serving for some years after the Vechetsky Rising – during which he was briefly imprisoned for fear that he was being set up as an alternative candidate – as the Plenipotentiary in Mirokrai, a position which gave him the opportunity to tour other areas of the Empire but was in effect a form of political exile. Allowed to return to Great Pestul in 1680 as his cousin's illness worsened, he was symbolically invested as Lyubim for a time in 1681 before being dismissed from the office in preparation for his own election and acclamation a few months later.

Although the Cinnabar Wars had resumed mere years after the Peace of Lyudodarsk concluded, it was only during Spytistan's reign that they really escalated towards full warfare once more. Beyond underwriting the operations of the Procuratorate, Spytistan played a very limited part in the actual conduct of the war, which had been managed directly and autonomously by the Pièche Fifteen Captains. Nonetheless, the string of hard-earned victories won after the tide began to turn early in his reign – which culminated in the Sealing of the Gates in 1691 and the 'Glorious Peace' which expelled the Zchetkarovid Kingdom and the rest of the Holy Alliance from Anabbah – were easy to take credit for, as was the joint Neritsovid-Mirokrainy victory against the Sirian state of Great Doyotia in the northern Gulf of Joriscia. This latter war also allowed Spytistan to reassert control over Gergotea and its revenues through the complex settlement that resulted in the establishment of the Graviate of Laukuna, whose first Inspector and imperial agent was his childhood friend Toris Lorin.

These victories cost a lot of money, but they also strengthened Spytistan's domestic position enormously, as did the generally cowed climate in Axiov and Dekoral after the Exorcism of the South. This meant that as far as reform of the Empire's finances was concerned, he had not only motive – in that he was no different from his predecessors – but also means. Over the course of his reign he thus pushed through a string of key financial ordinances which extended the limited system of monopolies set up under his father to a dizzying range of luxury and semi-luxury goods, expanded the Rice Regulations, strengthened the customs tax and, most fatefully, resurrected and implemented Alovar Msirti's New Rates (the same reform plan which had brought about the Vechetsky Rising). This was deeply unpopular with the provincial nobility, and there was a great deal of seditious muttering throughout the latter years of his reign, but his personal charisma and prestige were such that opposition remained largely in check until his unexpected death. At that point a faction of the High Nobility around his brother Chistibor effected a de facto palace coup, stepping in to have Chistibor elected in place of Spytistan's likely chosen heir, his son Ratibor.