Mahout the Prophet

Mahout was born in a humble family of artisans raised to take over his mother as a potter. This future seemed certain if it weren't for the fact that Mahout harboured a burning hatred for the misuse of Aether that were currently on the rise in the city of splendour(LINK).

Mahout had a vision of sticking to the old way of revering the ancestors and letting the aether of the deceased return to nature through sky-burial(LINK). He wrote down his teachings on claytablets which spread amongst the poor which took no part in the process of aether-crafting and found the practice despicable. Followers flocked to him, eventually leading to the creating of a new organised religion.

The ruling classes and the Emperor initially saw this new movement as a mere nusience but as time went and his following grew this view eventually changed. Prosecutions, pogroms and a ban on ancestor-worship followed which in turn lead to a cataclysmic conflict. The Emperors forces turned out victorious and the followers of Mahout turned westward in a great exodus.