Common motif of the Death Cult
Cheshosh is the local god of death, and is said to be the personification of the Ruin of Aelantir (also known as the Day of Ashen Skies) which destroyed the entire continent.
Mythos[]
It appears that the god after whom the Cheshoshi name themselves is a retributive god that rose to punish the people of ancient Aelantir for the sinful and decadent nature. The Cheshoshi make many sacrifices, including living people, to emulate this god, so that a semblance of his fury may keep terrorizing the continent today.
Cheshosh and the Dragon[]
- "From sin and anger, Cheshosh was born – divine retribution against the sinful people who came before in the land that was, now submerged beneath the sea. He roared to life in a halo of blinding fury, and all those who stood before his wrath were snuffed out. His truth and justice grew and grew, hungrily devouring those sinners who could not comprehend his truth, his arrows striking the cities of the land as lightning bolts and balls of flame. But as Cheshosh’s roar shook the world and devoured the people and broke the land, it woke a slumbering foe. For streaking down from the cloud came a great beast, all silvery scale and rending claw. It roared, an answer to Cheshosh’s fury, and Death answered the Titan’s cry. For 40 days and 40 nights they fought, Cheshosh’s arrows a storm against the flame and thunder of the Dragon, and neither could best the other.
On the 41st Dawn, both exhausted combatants rose again to fight – and this would be their last day of combat. Cheshosh drew back his bow once more, but his fury was subsiding, drained away by their days of fighting, and he was sluggish and tired. The dragon, sensing weakness, dove to kill our God, but it too was slowed from fatigue. Cheshosh’s arrow flew, streaking as a bolt of lightning towards the Silver Beast, and rending off the limbs of its left flank. But though the blow would kill, the dragon’s course sent it crashing into Cheshosh, its jaws closing around his throat as it perished, the two falling into the sea carved by their battle. The cold waters quenched his fury, and Cheshosh fell sleeping to the bottom of the ocean, the corpse of his fallen foe his eternal companion. But though Cheshosh lies at the bottom of the sea, his lies dreaming and not dead. Dreaming of sin and punishment, of fire and lightning. Of the day he will be roused to such anger again be the perfidy of mortals, and once again cleanse our world." - ―As related to the chronicler Karlov of Nathalaire, by a Cheshoshi Elder