Vertixico the sacrificed

Very long ago, Vertixico was a spiritual being. It was one of the many embodiments spirits that roamed the world of Aardheim. In the pagan cult of the Ondins, after his death, Vertixico became the spirit of water.

Gods war

In many pagan mythologies, before men, Eldars and any other mortal beings roamed Aardheim, many many gods existed.
For the Ondins, those gods were divided into four tribes, the divines, the celestials, the daemons and the spirits. Each tribe was at war with the others. Vertixico was one of the spirits, he was involved in a battle against the celestials which happened on the shores of lake Huatehuhei.

During the battle, Vertixico was fighting in the sky on the back of his wyvern against a celestial bird. In the midst of the battle, the bird successfully pecked Vertixico eyes, blinding him. Unable to effectively control his mount and trying to land, Verti and his mount were spiralling into the ground until the bird cut the saddle straps. Verti was sent flying into the lake. He hit the water and started drowning in it. He had foothold but he could not stand up due to the heaviness of his armor. He could have certainly crawl to the shore holding his breath as it was only three meters away, but due to his blindness, he could not find its way. The shore, was in front of him the whole time. But he died...

As his last breath left his lungs and the bubbles reached the surface of the lake, it started boiling, inflated and then burst. The lake overflowed and the battle on its shores stopped. Celestials and spirits alike watched the lake becoming bigger and bigger, they first fled the shores, then the area and then they started reaching for the mountains as the lake did not stop overflowing. When it finally began to cease, the lake had no end, it was still visible on the horizon. Lake Huatehuhei had become the ocean.

The Prophecy

Since time immemorial, the .ondins have celebrated the birth of the ocean, but they also fear its disappearance. An Ondin prophecy says that the ocean began to slowly die after it was born. The sun, with its scorching fire, is always peeling some water. Sometimes, the peeled water comes back with the rain, sometimes it does not and the ocean slowly dries out.
The prophecy states that when mortals will have killed the gods and magic will long be forgotten, when men will be riding the black blood beasts of metal and when the stars will be in reach, then the ocean will die and become a barren and desertic landscape and it will be the end of all.

The Sacrifice

To prevent the end of Aardheim, the Ondins believe that the Ocean must be fed a spirit of water. Since the end of the god war and the defeat of the spirits, they have all left Aardheim to another world. Each year, the Ondins try to summon the dead Vertixico who is believed to be a spirit of water. The ritual takes places on the shores where a sacrificed Ondin is dressed as the supposed Vertixico from the battle of Lake Huatehuhei. They then proceed to puncture his eyes, call upon the great spirit of Vertixico to join with the poor soul to save them all and then Ondins priests drown him in the ocean, praying that it renew its life.

This barbaric ritual, forgotten by many but still practised by some, hold no proof that the spirit of Vertixico is still on Aardheim and answer to the summoning of the priests. In fact, scientific and magic scholars who have studied the ritual all agree that no spirit has ever come to fuse with the sacrificed and that this tradition is only a ritualized murder.[