Seal of the Anointed One.
The religion of Yannis is a religion, or a way of life, widely practiced in the eponymous Yannis Empire and the surrounding region of the world. The name Yannis derives from the religious text Nis, which translates to "knowledge", with the "Yannis" being the "sacred knowledge", but the religion is also referred to as "the eternal tradition" or the "eternal way".
The Yannian religion believes in a cosmology outside the influence of humanity, with humans tasked with spreading the truth of the religion, and acting in a way deemed divine, for the benefit of the universe. On the mortal plane the highest authority within the religion is the Anointed One, although he is viewed not as a crucial entity, but as an amenity to aid humanity in following the divine path more efficiently.
Chronology[]
Creation[]
Before the beginning of time there is believed to have been nothing in existence. There was a great transaction, as the entirety of the nothingness was traded to form a single being known as Ihtoa. Thus the nothingness now no longer existed and there was only Ihtoa. The being sought to let there exist something in between the nothing and the singular something, so split himself in one-half so spent one-half his being on creating infinite space, essence, and time. The other one-half of him he spent as follows: his right army became the being Coyotaquel, the left breast became Tenauc, the neck became Balyacnal, and the head became Yalihtoan.
The four beings ruled the four corners of the entire universe, and over the course of thousands of years created a multitude of things from the vast space and spiritual matter. Additionally, the existence of time came into being from Ihtoa, and that day became the first day ever to exist. From that moment of time passing the First Age began.
The Ocean Ages[]
First Age[]
According to Yannian belief there is an incredibly small, completely indivisible measure of time that is so short it cannot be described, called the Onb. The four beings were the only things capable of experiencing time in any length or measure, thus possessed the ability to truly feel an Onb, or choose to experience it as a passing moment or a lifetime.
Exactly one Onb after the split of Ihtoa the beings created four oceans. These oceans spread out until they met in the middle and became one, and this vast ocean perpetually drifted, dripped, and morphed around the infinite space of reality.
For an unknown amount of time this was all there was, but eventually Tenauc created earth and rose it to form the sea floor, creating the first boundary of the vast ocean. Each being took a tangible form and walked upon the ocean floor
Second Age[]
The Second Age began when the ocean drifted so far apart that it soon drained into practical nonexistence. Water became intermixed with space, and the four beings drifted too far apart. The universe was deemed destroyed, so the four beings created a new one, and with it a great explosion of beings took place, begotten by the four beings at a personal expense to their power. First they trapped a piece of the universe within a great being known as the Xomon, with a new ocean that could not escape from it.
Each of these new beings existed for some time with the first four in the ocean or around it, and after some time each began the creation of their own beings or items within the universe. In the Xomon they created the earth to walk upon and the many features of the world.
Eighth Age[]
The Eighth Age began when Yalihtoan split his being into eight tangible objects, which were scared around the universe, including within the bounds of Xomon. Because of the covenant between the gods, no spiritual being is capable of crossing the Xomon to obtain the pieces of Yalihtoan, despite being highly sought after for their immense power.
It is said that at the exact one-half point of the era the being Balyacnal split himself in two to search the two ends of the universe, traveling west and east. His west one-half discovered that a piece of Yalihtoan would travel so quickly that it would reach the edge of the universe and cause a great destruction, and so combined this one-half with the piece to create the being Yatasogatec, who was five-eighths the strength of the original four beings due his composition. The other one-half of Balyacnal, known as Ithaquesezoc, returned and reported that no other pieces of Yalihtoan could be found.
Within the mortal world it is said that the seven pieces turned from matter into intangible energy the moment they touched the world; seven spirits were formed, able to travel across the world freely and bridge the gap between the multiple planes of existence.
One spirit became the “Hydra Mother”, or Hecetal’xium, who took the form of an octopus-like creature as large as a city, with a thousand heads sprouting in every direction. Hecetal’xium conquered the underwater lands, bringing the fish and the sea creatures to heel. From this being came all manner of beings of the deep, who terrorized the people of the shores for centuries. The being eventually came to inhabit a deep crevice in the ocean floor, and having grown so large and immense it became content to stay in its place. Mankind paid the being for safe travel and fortune at the seas, and soon peace came between the land and the sea. Hecetal’xium would continue to be honored during the Re-annointing, during which one brief segment includes the payment of souls by chaining men to the sea floor or underwater.
The being Nyghesecan
Another spirit became Nyghesecan, who took the form of an extremely tall and slender shade, completely black from head to toe, who appeared for brief moments at night to wander the world and guide loose souls he found. It is said that a ravenous, giant bird head could burst from his shrieking mouth if a living person came too close to him. Inspired by Nyghesecan, his priests don several-meter-long wooden stilts, black cloaks that cover from their head to the floor, and long black poles used to hit the ground below. These priests are most often employed in places of mourning or desecration, where they will cover the area in thick, black smoke, circle around the area, and aimlessly prod the land with their sticks for days.
A third spirit became Gudeshequloc, the Bug King, who takes the form of a series of pulsing, floating orbs. From him came the mosquito servants, who plague the lands in search of souls to draw from unsuspecting people.
Ninth Age[]
Time Reversal[]
At this time the god Coyotaquel reversed all time, so that all life flowed backwards, everyone moved backwards, and everything that had happened before happened again in reverse. The world became used to the flow of time this way, dying and being replaced by their parents, and learning to perceive time in this manner. People began to see out the back of their heads (our front), forgetting of the future and the current direction of time. As a result, in time the Ninth Age would return to its beginning and return to the Eighth Age, and so on, meaning humanity would experience the destruction of their world through reliving the creation of it.
It is said that only the Anointed One is capable of seeing the current flow of time, and has generally described what would happen in the future should the world be returned to before, eventually reaching the so called “Tenth Age”. According to this vision, the world in the future would have continued to evolve new “dimensions” to their being. This is based on the belief that the absence of matter is akin to a flat horizon, from which, for example, a shadow might emerge, and from that a ship, and so on. Humanity would have become an indescribable, incomprehensible being, which each human’s “presences” stretching into the sky and into the earth simultaneously.
Likewise, the world would have become so heavily polluted with humanity, energy, and the essences of being. Every sky would have been filled with a million stars, until the sky could no longer become dark, and the earth would have become so full with fire that no place would be left for people to inhabit. Instead the path that humanity it set on by the reversal of time is that of a return to the beginning of the age, when all things became increasingly spread out, and the first state of the world was that of a vast, empty landscape, in which no two things were close enough together to be perceived by the other. Steadily all things arose and sought to come closer together, but via the reversal of time, all things naturally are traveling farther apart as life is undone.
Thus, the true end of the world for life as humans know it was believed to come when all things are too far apart. Gradually the world to humans would grow uncontrollably, all life and energy would disperse, and the last person would disappear. The world would become as it was before the dawn of time; flat, empty, and devoid of life.
According to this model, no human or thing possessed free will, as all things were simply retracing what they had previously done. After an unknown amount of time, known as the Coaht’tican (“Lost Years”), Tenauc changed the world irreversibly to be upon neither path, so that life neither passed forward or backward in the original, chronological time, but in a new universe. Henceforth humanity possessed the ability to change the course of their lives. The First World, which had been originally created and was passing time in reverse, continued to exist, with all its humans still inhabiting it, but a Second World had been created where humans now acted contrary to their original actions.
This was done because the seven pieces of enlightenment had been buried below the earth, a line that Tenauc could not cross, and thus gave humanity the free will to find these pieces for him.
Thousand Worlds[]
This marked the first time that a new world had been created, but in time numerous more were created. It is said that a thousand worlds have been created by Coyotaquel, each a different history or outcome of the world that was created when time was manipulated, and each time Coyotaquel alters reality another world is begotten. As such there is no “true world”, only the one that any conscious being is currently experiencing. There is however a final world, where all actions have been taken exactly as they need to be, so that the world is perfect to Coyotaquel and to humanity. Which world this is, or if humanity consciously experiences it, is unknown.
The Anointed One has stated that the world that humanity is currently inhabiting is the 447th world, but at major turning points in history when humanity falls from their rightful path they may fall to another. The Yannian faith must spread around the world and grower stronger to ensure that humanity is able to ensure that Coyotaquel’s vision is complete, and that humanity successfully experiences it.
One way this tenet can be interpreted is the importance of cause and effect. In theory all actions, whether defeat or victory, are completely necessary to reach the perfect end result, so it cannot be known if a major setback is truly a condemnation of that world, or simply one of the steps in order to work toward the ultimate goal. All these actions cause a certain outcome and a different world’s existence, and it is unknown which the conscious human inhabits. But it is known that every action causes some kind of reaction that is either positive or negative.
Scripture[]
Nis[]
The Nis (“Knowledge”) is a collection of religious texts that form part of the basis of the Yannian religion. The exact origin of the texts is unknown, and is believed to have been passed down for countless generations before being first transcribed. The Yannian Empire considers the texts to be written by a supreme spirit that has no human form. The present name of the empire derives from this text, with Yannis roughly translating to “knowledgeable”.