Ixul

Ixul is only true god of the Amiae pantheon, standing above a long series of many demigods, many of whom are his spawns.

## The god

Many years of study and research by the scholars, philosophers and astronomers of Amiae could not uncover the true nature of their divine lord, Ixul. Yet, with the revelation given by many prophets among the fishfolks, who could hear the voice of the god, its nature became known only to a few chosen priests. These self proclaimed prophets were however proved to be nothing more than insane megalomaniacs thanks to the experiments conducted during the 250-300 AS, where the true nature of the god was finally witnessed by one unfortunate Amias.

Ixul is no planet, nor is it simply an hive mind. The deity is composed of many planes of existence, each deeper in the fabric of reality and less understandable to mortal creatures than the last one. A gaping abyss craving to swallow all of reality and become one with it as he possibily made with many other ones. Every sacrifice, every soul the Amiae were feeding to the monster not only became part of it, but also damaged the veil of reality just enough that a piece of the god could slide into it, making the provinces the fishfolks were inhabiting appear darker and colder.

Those that know its true nature have theorized that, before achieving its divine status, Ixul once was an advanced civilization living on a planet not different from the one the Amiae live on. But even this theory was questioned after the events of the 250-300 AS. Many of the scholars that were allowed to know the true nature of Ixul started to wonder if that ancient civilization they belived was the origin of Ixul, was nothing more than a victim of the latter, being devourerd and absorbed by it, transformin in what now is the Amiae afterlife.

This deity is violent, macabre and it craves blood so as to increase the number of souls that compose its hive mind and the size of its material self. Differently to what the Amiae think, it doesn’t love any of its creations and it only wants them to survive so that they can spread its negative and dark influence through the universe, engulfing planet after planet into a cold and humid darkness.

### The known planes

#### Material Ixul

In the mortal world, where those creatures that roam the earth consider to be their normality, Ixul lurks within the shadows. Every dusty corner, every unilluminated cavern and pitch black night, it watches, as it can only see trough darkness. Ixul requires Lives to be sacrificed to its abyss, because it's the only way that it can slip trough the little cracks of reality and bring its shadows to the mortal ream, sinking the provinces of the Amiae Domain in a never ending darkness, smothering their forests in thick fog.

#### The Amiae Afterlife

Plains of neverending fish carcasses, where two suns in the sky emanate a sickening light and scorching heat. Here the terrible eternal sight and the unbroken stench torment the damned of the cult of Ixul, which soul did not left the body when it was transported here, forcing them to wander and rot eternally.

#### The depths of existence

Nothing can be seen and everything can be heard in the depths of existence. Here all of the souls the god takes must overcome one final trial, making it across the never ending ocean floor to reach their god. An infinite plain of sand submerged in freezing water. One of the demigods of Amiae is thought to wander trough this plane of darkness. Crus, the infinite-legged monstrosity. A crustacean that drags himself across the ocean floor with a shape so horribly enormous that his mere size would shatter the mind of a mortal.

#### Elemental nothingness

Where the elements can be found in their purest form, nothingness is among them, and traversing its pure darkness one can reach the true body of the Amiae god, that lies beyond, in the realms of pure magic.

#### The Ascibile

Reality here is no more, nor is any law of physic that was previously known. This is the real body of the god, residing a place beyond, it's made of pure magic and energy, shattering the minds of those bold enough to dare to witness his true form.

#### The core

The core of the deity, nobody knows what it could be like. Some theoryze it to be a humongus abyss that sinks into realities parrallel to our own, while other simply think that the core isn't an end to the abyss of the god, and that is only another uncomprehensible layer, waiting for the Ascibile to be pearced by some bold eyes, only to unleash a horror so grat that it would actually kill the observer on the spot.

## The cult

Despite its true nature, Ixul is seen in a different way by the population of Amiae, of whom, after centuries of censorship by the church of the rotting god, only a very limited number knows the truth. Therefore, the deity is worshiped as a good, forgiving and generous entity, who promised salvation to all those Amiae whose body was returned to the sea.

It is, however, true, that if death was to occur to an Amias and his body wasn’t thrown into the ocean with a long and intricate funeral rite, his soul wouldn’t be able to reach the hive mind, being bound to his body on the planet, forced to wander in the light and heat of an alien sun.

Worshipers of Ixul venerate him through many sacrificial rituals and daily prayers. His temples are built in the most elevated position of a city, where all citizens can see it at any time of the day. They usually feature four sides of colonnades and an open-air altar at their center on which all the major rituals are performed. These building are usually made of a smooth and black stone, much similar to marble, and are decorated with idols and statues of the various demigods worshiped by the Amiae.

Sacrifices of different importance are made on different occasions. In less important rites few blood of a priest should be enough to plese Ixul, while in more important situations the sacrifice of a sentient being could be necessary

## History

All of the informations that the Amiae posses regarding the god come from ancient books that preceed their own species and that were presumably written by other sentients or by the same demigods, spawns of the deity.

In an era before time, when the world was still pure chaos and the first gods were coming to life, Ixul popped into existence, presumably banished from another reality by he to whom he still refers today as the "Winged God". The cosmic entity, at his birth in this universe, was but a small leak in the fabric of reality, a little hole that stretched into nothingness. With the passing of time, it grew to become ever larger, swallowing up more and more magic energy, becoming an enormous rupture in the fabric of reality. And as the mortal world took shape, he started to crave it, as it is still his desire to become fully material and swallow up all of the living. As he decided to invade the material world, he startarted to give birth to a number of demigods via parthenogenesis, whom will become the ones worshipped in the pantheon of the fishfolks, and gave them the order to take over the mortal world and the Magic Realms. Many of his spawns, however, didn't listen to their creator's will and fled where his inlfuence could not reach them.

It was only when the demigod Tun, one of the few loyal to his creator, fell in love with a human, that the Amiae species was born. Ixul saw the potential in having creatures worshipping him, and helped the newly born fishfolks to grow, making their society rise in about 600 years. And when those same fishfolks fed him enough souls, during the Amiae civil war, he could finally open a small hole in the mortal realm from which his immaaterial self could peek, watching even where his shadows could not reach.