This was my gift for RealSurrealSir, using an image provided and used with the permission of MaliceAforethought. Thanks both to him for providing the image and to Tyumen and Gawain for reviewing the piece to ensure its quality.
In the old Mexica religion, a tzompantli is a rack made from the severed skulls of people who have been sacrificed to the gods. To the Mexica and many other Mesoamerican peoples, human sacrifice was not something abhorrent, but a natural and sacred process to thank the teotl — the deities who made the world — for their own sacrifices and continued blessings. Xipe Totec, whose name means "Our Lord the Flayed One", is the god of seasons, of crops and fertility. His flayed skin represents how the dry, sterile season gives way to times of fertility. He is older than most other gods, and his cult was one of the most important ones in Mesoamerica, being worshipped all the way from the peoples of the Huasteca to the Mayans in the Yucatán Peninsula. I am thankful for the opportunity I got to dip my toes into his mythology and mix it with one of my favorite GOI, the often misunderstood Nälkä.