Anu
Anu, the Judge of the Dead, stands as the somber arbiter of fate in the corrupted pantheon of Har’Akir. Once revered as a noble force of cosmic balance and righteous order, Anu has become a cold and implacable god of judgment, shaped by the decay of his worship and the cruel echo of the Dark Powers’ influence. His justice endures—but stripped of compassion, mercy, or context.
Anu is depicted as a towering figure with the skeletal body of a man and the head of a jackal, evoking the ancient iconography of death and the grave. His empty eye sockets seem to see through time and memory, and his withered hands always clutch a set of perfectly balanced scales, said to weigh the soul’s worth against the weight of sin, truth, or perhaps some unknowable metric. These scales never tip unless he wills it—and he seldom wills it.
Where once Anu may have guided the souls of the dead with wisdom, he now waits beyond the veil in silence, unmoved by pleas or circumstance. He passes sentence on the dead with unforgiving certainty, and it is whispered that even a blameless heart may find no redemption beneath his stare. His is a courtroom without appeal, a judgment without warmth.
Temples to Anu are stark, solemn structures often found at the gates of necropolises, carved into cliffs, or hidden beneath the sands. Their halls are lined with funerary masks and murals depicting trials of the soul. Offerings of silence, coins, and tokens of personal guilt are left at his altars.
Divine Symbols & Sigils
A scale balanced over a tombstone, representing the permanence of judgment and the finality of death.
Tenets of Faith
His priests serve as masked, robed judges, speaking with ritual authority during funerals, oaths, and trials. In both life and death, they serve Anu’s unwavering standards. They are expected to set aside emotion and identity, becoming extensions of the god’s will. To speak falsely before a priest of Anu is to risk spiritual damnation; to lie in his temple is said to turn the liar’s soul to dust.
Anu’s teachings warn that truth is eternal, guilt is inescapable, and no soul may hide from judgment. In Har’Akir’s harsh and lawbound vision of the afterlife, his presence brings dread as often as reverence. The dead must walk their path to his scales—and none, not even kings or saints, may turn away.
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