Yezdan Nand

Overview

Yezdan Nand was a scholar and author who wrote Humanitas Fabularum (Humanity of Stories), a work examining the nature of stories, their evolution, and their role in post-Confluence Asgarthan society. The preface was written in 372 AC.

Humanitas Fabularum

Yezdan Nand argued that stories are intrinsically changeable, comparing them to shapeshifters that transform through being told—through additions, removals, different morals, and altered endings. He believed stories need to live and breathe: some die while others adapt, and some return after apparent extinction.

He used Little Red Riding Hood as his primary example:

• Original version: The story ended in the wolf’s belly
• First revision: Other authors added a huntsman who freed her
• Post-Confluence interpretation: Survivors reimagined the story as humanity torn apart by The Tumult embodied as the wolf
• Contemporary version (by 372 AC): Red recovered from her injuries and took up arms against the wolf

Yezdan Nand concluded that The Confluence caused a terrible extinction of stories, but even the end of the world had not stopped stories from spreading. Writing twenty years after The Confluence, he observed Asgarthans slowly beginning to tell stories again.

Relationships

• The Confluence: Cataclysmic event whose impact on storytelling he documented
• The Tumult: Phenomenon he identified as represented by the wolf in post-Confluence stories