Darius Shano

According to myth, Darius Shano was a Breton writer living in Daenia sometime in the Third Era. He was the subject of a wager between Sheogorath and Vaermina on who could make Darius be more hated by the populace. For ten years, starting at age nineteen, his dreams were imbued by Vaermina with nightmarish horrors and he went on to write about those dreams, causing disgust and sensation in many of his contemporaries. For the next ten years, Sheogorath sealed his link to Vaermina, putting an end to his source of inspiration. As time went by, he began to think Vaermina was never there to supplement his dreams, which led him to question the existence of gods in general. Darius, in turn, started to write extensively on the foolishness of Tamriel's faithful, serfs and nobility alike. Naturally, this produced actual hatred for Darius, unrivaled by that made from his previous works. This culminated, ten years later, with his final work – "The Noblest Fool" – in which he ridiculed Tiber Septim's status as the Ninth Divine. The King of Daenia, himself a victim of ridicule by Darius' philosophical works, used this as a pretext to have Darius executed, causing Vaermina to lose her wager with Sheogorath.

Mentions
Sixteen Accords of Madness, Book IX