2025 Jul 13: The Heresies of Nitir-Tan

 In almost every civilized place the name Nitir-Tan is a curse, only to be spat out with disgust or whisper fearfully inside, where it's more difficult for the god to hear. His home city of Amar-Itish (whose name had to be changed, and its temples re-sanctified after the full extent of his sin was discovered) holds a festival, where they ritually burn effigies of him. Any books written by him are burned, any tablets ground to dust. Any spells he helped to create are to be forgotten, and any mention of his name in the royal chronicles is erased. His followers, when found are tortured and killed.

Yet people still follow his teachings, cast his spells, and read his writings. He had a certain way with words, and many still find his arguments persuasive. Those who follow him, refer to themselves as Tannites.

During his life, Nitir-Tan copied and wrote many books, but the one that made him so reviled was called Man, and Divine. For this reason his followers are often called Mandies, though they despise this word. In his book Nitir-Tan described his philosophy, according to which the gods and spirits are mad tyrants, keeping mortals enslaved, and laughing at their suffering. He then described certain magical techniques, which either came from demons or, more worryingly, seemingly from the mortal soul itself. After word his book reached the ears of the temples and the nobility he was branded Arch-Heretic, and would have been killed, if not for his strange magic providing him with the means of escape by turning his body almost liquid, and squeezing through a small gap, into which he could not be followed. After this fiasco, he roamed the deserts occasionally emerging to espouse his ideas and to take followers with him on his wanderings. Though many tried to kill him, he died of old age, and according to his followers went on to wage a war on the gods that is still ongoing.