Ajqyod and Horphyod

The myth of Ajqyod and Horphyod is an etiological myth explaining the unique properties of Mount Ruaj.

Birth of Horphyod

In the latter stages of the battle between the gods and their father Tychos the Hundred Former Gods were greatly depleted in number and fled into the dark and remote places of the world. Among their number, Horph and Ochyan fled to a dark undersea cave somewhere in the Sea of Jars. There, refusing to accept the outcome of the battle, they began conceiving a new force of monsters and demons with which to continue the war against the gods. Many of their offspring tore each other to pieces in Ochyan's womb, however, and they were only able to generate these children one at a time, which greatly delayed their plans for a counter-attack. In the fullness of time their spite and frustration gave rise to Horphyod, a fire demon of prodigious size and malice.

The debate of the gods

Horphyod made the sea boil and ate sharks, which angered his mother. She taught him how to exercise his fins and grow them into wings, the better to break the surface and trouble the world above. He emerged from the sea, flew north to scour the wastelands with his fiery breath, and then flew south to menace the green lands of the Alluvial plain.
The gods, learning what was happening, the gods met to decide how to respond to the threat. Dahan opened the discussion, stating that the plant life of the plain sustained the living universe but that he could not prevent them from burning. Ynglyas spoke next, promising that the demon would be defeated, but not by her. Maryas explained the secret of Horphyod's birth, which had been passed to her by a diving cormorant, but states that her skills will not avail against a being that exists for the sole purpose of doing harm. Discussion thus passed to Zargyod, who stated that, having left the sea, the demon was beyond his power; Krezzan might have availed against such a foe, but he was poisoned by his father and trapped, for the moment, in the unseen realms.
In some versions of the story the gods at this point debate the creation of an entity specifically to protect the world against harm, a line of thinking that eventually leads them to communally create Hayan, but Horphyod flies to swiftly for them to conduct that work here.
All these delays frustrate Ajqyod, who announces his intention to go out onto the plain and fight the demon himself. At this point Pergyad speaks. Great hunter that he is, he cannot face Horphyod himself, since the demon was a being of fire, a tool he would not face. That fire, furthermore, would melt the metal weapons Zargyod had forged for Ajqyod. Pergyad therefore offered to lend Ajqyod his own hunting spear, the head of which was sharpened stone (or obsidian, in some versions) and therefore invulnerable to heat. Ajqyod accepted the loan enthusiastically and moved to leave the meeting and confront Horphyod, but Pergyad delayed him with a hand on his shoulder and stated there was a skill he would have to learn on his way to battle.

The battle

Pergyad took Ajqyod to the slopes of Mount Ruaj and introduced him to the ospreys that nested there. At his recommendation the birds whispered the secret of flight into Ajqyod's ear, allowing him to take to the air and fight Horphyod on equal terms.
The resulting battle is thought to be the origin of the artistic convention of depicting Ajqyod as winged. Nude and armed with Pergyad's stone spear Ajqyod confronted the demon, ducknig and weaving through the clouds for hours before finally managing to take a clear shot at Horphyod's back, running the creature through. The stricken demon fell to earth, landing on the peak of Mount Ruaj. 
Ajqyod swiftly landed on top of him, tore his wings off, dug an enormous hole, and buried the demon to prevent him from ever flying again. Horphyod is trapped inside Mount Ruaj to this day, raging and in agony from his wounds, which explains the tremors, thermal activity, and occasional eruptions of the volcano.

Cultic aftermath

Although they disagree on the details, pre-Wesmodian source make it very clear that there was a rural Cult centre of Ajqyod at Mount Ruaj. There the god was wsorshiped in ways said to have been very heterodox in comparison to the rites conducted in most other temples. The temple appears to have fallen into disuse after the Wesmodian Reformation, though only slowly - it may have continued operation into the second century AWR. 
Archaeological expeditions to find this location have yielded perplexingly contradictory results, however, with some explorers recording the ruins of a broadly conventional (if large and somewhat idiosyncratic) temple to the god and others either never returning or going spectacularly insane trying to record the results of their findings. For an archaeological site less than two day's travel from modern-day Loros, therefore, this temple is a weird mystery awaiting the investigation of further explorers.