Zohyr I, Universal Prophet

Zohyr I
Universal Prophet
Reign	1 Conservene 1844 – 6 Empery 1858
Period	Post-Neritsovid
Election	1 Conservene 1844
Born	2 Fabricad 1786
Birthplace	Horon, Sixth Chotarian Empire
Died	6 Empery 1858
Place of death	Prysostaic Citadel
Predecessor	Kavylat
Successor	Irshamoul

Zohyr I, born Zohyr ShelYaron, was the Universal Prophet of Vaestism from his election in 1844 to his death in 1858. He is most famous for his role in the drafting and promulgation of the Treaty of Tharamann which ended the Great Peninsular War and for overseeing the Purity Council, which taken together established much of the basic framework of interordinate politics in contemporary Vaestdom. Building on the work of his predecessor Mezveim, he further developed the prestige and influence of the Prysostaia and of the Prophetic position itself, acting for the first time as a major diplomat and mediator in interordinate disputes.

A Lacrean Rasheem, Zohyr was born in a High Lacrean village close to Horon in 1786, the younger son of the famous grammarian Imhomeim ShelYaron and his concubine. Although his first few years were largely spent in Kozrat, his father's political leanings saw him forced into early retirement after the accession of Katapan in 1790, and he relocated to his estates in High Lacre. In 1796, apparently despairing of any chance of restoring his fortunes, Imhomeim secured a position teaching at the Prysostaia, which under Hanzar was experiencing something of a renaissance as a centre of learning. As a result, Zohyr was to spend his teenage years and most of his education in Argotea, where he was taught by a series of major names, including his predecessor as Prophet, Kavylat. In 1809, he was enscholated and became nominal Vocation Scholar of a village close to the border with Zemay. In these years there is little evidence that he was particularly drawn to any specific current within the fractious politics of the Prysostaic School. Like many young and ambitious Scholars, he secured a position within the newly established Offices of the Prysostaia following Mezveim's reforms of the governance of Prysostea. But while his rise was certainly steady, it was also gradual, and he continued to labour in relative obscurity throughout Mezveim's tenure. Even the accession of his former teacher in 1833 resulted only in a relatively minor promotion to a position in the Office of the Prophetic Purse.

Zohyr's emergence as a major powerbroker in the Prysostaia only really began with Kavylat's death and the chaotic election process that followed it. Thanks to the Grand Debates Utterance of 1835, the group that convened for the first time in 1837 was almost five times the size of any previous post-Neritsovid electorate and represented a far more diverse range of views. While Zohyr was not senior enough to be involved in the earliest rounds of these apparently interminable debates, the unexpected death of his superior at the Office of the Purse in 1839 gave him access to the highest councils of the Prysostaia. Although not a talented public speaker or a particularly notable intellect – one Zepnish figure who met him by chance later that year would describe him as 'possessed of a most ridiculous voice, whichever of his five languages he spoke' – the fact that he was a relatively unknown quantity in factional terms allowed him to carve out a role as mediator at the Debates, in some respects foreshadowing the later function of the Interrex. In early 1840, when there was a serious chance that Terophatic forces under Krasimir would enter Prysostea, he led the delegation sent to convince him against the idea. The following year, he met with Katapan's generals and secured an elaborate compromise allowing them to pass through Argah while preserving the myth of Prysostaic neutrality in the ongoing conflict.

The connections that Zohyr had made during this period, not to mention his complete lack of Cathedralist inclinations, made him a possible candidate for the Prophecy. Nonetheless, in the short term there seemed to be no solution to the general paralysis of the Debates, and other serious candidates remained in the field, including the Terophite Yorsephor ShelAramand and the charismatic Agar Pyry Hetenyi (who would subsequently return to his homeland and set himself up as de facto dictator under Radomir II). It was only in late 1844, with the negotiations to end the War well under way and the three empires convinced that Prophetic legitimacy was needed to seal the peace, that it became clear that a successful election was near. Even then, ShelAramand remained Terophan's favoured candidate, and it was only after the Lacrean attempt to restore central authority in Zemay definitively failed later that year – making it clear that Lacre would be suffering far more than either of the other two combatants – that Zohyr was duly elected on 1 Nollonger 1844, in part as a sop to Lacrean opinion.

Almost from his election, however, Zohyr proved a more effective political operator than expected. Within weeks he had begun to align himself with the Cathedralist current within the Prysostaia. He took a very active role in the negotiations that led up to the Treaty of Tharamann, publicly casting the Treaty as an Edict modelled on the Majestic Peace. Although he accepted the proposed territorial and political changes without objection, he insisted on the inclusion of several lengthy essays setting out the legal-theoretical underpinnings of the new Vaestic order, and refused to put his name to any treaty that did not explicitly name the Prophet as 'the promulgator of all true pacts and treaties'. He also spun out a Terophatic proposal that the Prysostaia should host the interordinate bodies set up under the Treaty – intended as a convenient legal fiction – into something far more symbolically grand, positioning the Prysostaia as a 'new Pestul' that inherited the remaining machinery of Neritsovid government (although in fact it was to have only the most limited influence over institutions like the Consortium of Measures).

Having made so much of the Treaty of Tharamann, much of Zohyr's subsequent tenure was absorbed by attempts to ensure the survival of the order which it had created. This was not at all clear in the second half of the 1840s, when the grinding economic depression of the Unhappy Peace and silver shortages made far more serious by the Tharamann monetary system threatened civil peace across Outer Joriscia, and even less clear in the early 1850s, when Katapan's successor Oktar II launched a disastrous war against Lefdim in an attempt to assert his privileges there (the Circuit War) and Mirokrai belatedly set out its own claim to imperial status. Zohyr pursued an energetic diplomacy throughout these years, particularly as the continent edged back towards military confrontation, making lengthy visits to the Lacrean, Terophatic and Azophine courts and even becoming the first post-Neritsovid Prophet to visit Agamar. Although his ability to act against the great courts remained limited, by the mid-1850s the threat of a broader conflagration in the Starroz Krai and the east convinced the western powers that they needed to revise the Treaty, and with their backing he convened the Purity Council of 1855, which granted imperial dignities to all the remaining sovereign states of Outer Joriscia: Mirokrai-Agamar, Zemay, Lefdim and the Lutoborsk.

The relentless activity that Zohyr had kept up over the previous years, however, meant that the Purity Council was to be his last great triumph. Now entering his eighth decade, he was already visibly frail in 1855, and after the promulgation ceremony he was never again to leave the Prysostaia. He made fewer and fewer public appearances, and from late 1856 did not appear at all before his eventual death in 1858.