Among the deities the Aeldari once worshipped, Vaul was the great artificer, the crippled smith who laboured at his cosmic forge while the other gods warred and revelled. It was his hands that shaped the finest weapons and wonders of the ancient race, and his patience that endured where his kin knew only pride. Yet even a god of craft could be bound by his own creations, and Vaul's genius made him a debtor as often as a maker.
The most enduring myth tells of his bargain with Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God. To ransom the captured Isha and Kurnous, Vaul swore to forge a hundred blades of surpassing quality. He completed but ninety-nine, and in his desperation crafted a mortal-made sword to conceal the deficit. When the deception was uncovered, Khaine's wrath fell upon him, and the smith was chained to his own anvil to be beaten in perpetuity, a sorrow that echoes through Aeldari legend.
In the grim aftermath of the Fall, Vaul is a ghost among gods, remembered chiefly in the wraithbone artistry of the craftworlds and in the darker workshops of the Drukhari, who mock his servitude even as they covet his skill. Where his people fashion soulstones and singing spears, the smith's patient shadow lingers, a reminder that the mightiest craft cannot forge escape from destiny.
The pantheon continues
