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Afeya
Classification: High Will
Known As: The Watcher, Mother of Afaseya, The Silent Will
Domain: Afaseya and its people
Current Status: Unknown
Confirmed Sightings: None
Afeya is the ancient High Will of Afaseya, believed to have watched over the continent since before the first recorded human dynasties.
Unlike rulers, gods of conquest, or beings who openly interfere with history, Afeya is said to exercise her authority through observation.
She watches.
She remembers.
And, on very rare occasions, she acts.
No surviving account explains where Afeya came from, and even the oldest Afaseyan scriptures speak of her as though she had already existed long before their authors.
Some traditions go further, claiming that Afaseya was named for her, rather than Afeya being named for the land.
Afeya is believed to be inseparably connected to Afaseya.
The oldest teachings do not describe her as its creator. Instead, they describe something stranger:
Afeya is the Will of the land made conscious.
Where Afaseya endures, so does Afeya.
Ancient rulers could divide territory, raise kingdoms and wage wars across the continent, but religious scholars maintained that none of them truly possessed the land.
They merely lived upon what belonged to the High Will.
An old Afaseyan teaching summarizes this belief:
“A king may rule the people. The High Will rules what remains when the king is gone.”
Afeya rarely reveals herself.
This is perhaps the defining feature of her worship.
There are no reliable descriptions of her appearance. Surviving accounts disagree on her age, clothing, voice and even whether she appears entirely human.
Most claimed encounters describe nothing more than a distant woman watching from somewhere she should not have been.
A mountainside.
The edge of a forest.
An empty road.
The ruins of a home.
When approached, she disappears.
Because of this, belief in Afeya has never been universal.
Even during the height of Afaseyan civilization, scholars questioned whether the High Will physically existed.
Some believed Afeya was only a religious personification of the continent.
Others argued that ancient kings invented her as a means of controlling their people.
A few surviving writings even suggest that Afeya prefers this uncertainty.
Faith demanded through proof, they argued, would not be faith at all.
Afeya was never believed to govern the daily lives of mortals.
She gave no known laws.
She appointed no confirmed kings.
She demanded no taxes, sacrifices or armies.
Her rule was instead understood as a higher authority over the fate of Afaseya itself.
This created an unusual relationship between Afeya and the Great Afaseyan Dynasties.
Kings ruled beneath her.
Empires rose beneath her.
Wars were fought beneath her.
Yet the High Will remained silent.
For this reason, old Afaseyan rulers supposedly avoided declaring themselves absolute owners of the continent. Doing so was considered an act of extraordinary arrogance.
Everything a dynasty possessed could eventually be taken from it.
Everything except the land.
The land belonged to Afeya.
Several damaged scriptures refer to something translated by modern Lorekeepers as the Covenant of Sight.
Almost nothing of the original text survives.
From the remaining fragments, it appears that the covenant was not an agreement requiring worship.
Instead, humanity asked only one thing of Afeya:
That she continue to watch them.
In return, mankind was expected to care for the land entrusted to them.
Some scholars believe this may explain why certain ancient Afaseyan monastic traditions opposed unnecessary destruction of nature, including excessive mining and excavation.
Whether those teachings truly originated from Afeya cannot be proven.
The most complete surviving line reads:
“…for so long as Her eyes remain upon us, Afaseya shall never be without witness.”
The remaining portion of the tablet is missing.
The destruction of Afaseya created a problem that followers of Afeya have never successfully answered.
Why did the High Will allow her people to fall?
Some believe she could not stop the catastrophe.
Others claim she was forbidden from interfering directly in mortal events.
One tradition claims that Afeya attempted to warn the old dynasties but was ignored.
Another claims that the disaster itself was the consequence of mankind violating the Covenant of Sight.
There is, however, another interpretation.
Afeya may have intervened.
Not by saving Afaseya.
By saving its people.
Refugees escaped the continent carrying their children, animals, crops, histories and traditions into Varchia. Humanity survived even when its homeland did not.
Followers of the High Will therefore sometimes argue that Afeya fulfilled her purpose exactly as she always had.
She did not preserve kingdoms.
She preserved what remained after kingdoms were gone.
There is no proof of this.
No confirmed appearance of Afeya has been recorded since the fall of the old continent.
Yet reports have never completely stopped.
Explorers occasionally tell of a woman seen standing among Afaseyan ruins.
Travellers speak of paths appearing where none had existed before.
Some who became lost claim to have awakened beside fresh water without knowing how they reached it.
Others report the uncomfortable sensation of being watched despite travelling alone.
Lorekeepers consider these accounts impossible to verify.
Among descendants of Afaseyan refugees, this uncertainty has produced two opposing beliefs.
One claims that Afeya died when Afaseya fell.
The other claims that she never left.
Modern worship of Afeya is rare.
There are few surviving temples and no known central priesthood.
Her name survives instead through family sayings, old prayers and traditions whose original meanings have often been forgotten.
The most common prayer is remarkably short:
“High Will, see me.”
It is not a request for salvation.
It is a request not to be forgotten.
And among those who still believe, one ancient saying remains:
“You may never see Afeya. Afeya sees you.”
