Today, they say there is but one Sajiya left: Laith, the Archdruid of Osirion, in service to the Keleshites. But I say, there is one other, Rasha, the last surviving True Osiriani Nature Spirit. Forced into hiding and hunted by the Keleshites, they also say there are no True Osiriani druids left, but I believe Rasha survives, and if they're out there somewhere, I'd bet against Bastet that there's more True Osiriani druids with them.
Sajiya are immortal spirits of nature called into physical bodies through primal rituals. Called Leshies by Riojans.
History
The First Sajiya were created in the first few centuries of
Osirion through the joint efforts of mortal
Nethys and
Old-Mage Jetembe by calling spirits of nature from somewhere between the
Ethereal and
First World.
The Sajiya were called here initially for their knowledge. With no common language the first challenge was to find means of communication, Nethys and Jetembe had between them deciphered numerous ancient languages, and Osirion had Thoth, the world's greatest linguist who had already successfully learnt most of the world's languages and decipehred half of them himself. The next challenge they encountered was that they found the Sajiya retained no memories. The spirits did however have a strong intuition and formed emotional positions on a variety of topics and. They were at once childlike and ancient, they were often shy, emotionally sensative and viewed the world with a childlike wonder and curiosity, relishing the chance to experience the world with fresh eyes once again, yet having acting with the intuition, wisdom and experience of a creature they suspected to be ancient beyond comparison to even the immortal Osiriani.
To learn from these ancient yet memoryless spirits, they had to coax them to travel with them, to experience the world, see how they responded and then work together, to determine what that might mean of the spirit's past experiences. Some were simple, they didn't like it when harm came to nature, others were more complicated or bizarre, like why specifically harming trees was so exceedingly abhorrent. The largest oddity came from the spirit's complete lack of a fear of death. This isn't to say they were brave or brazen, a loud noise, large creature or something with teeth were generally enough to frighten them, but when something wasn't inherently scary, but knowedly deadly, the Sajiya were unphased. It was after this experience that Nethys and Old Mage Jetembe decided to describe mortality to the Sajiya, and found that the concept did not match their intuition. They theorised, that in their natural form, the Sajiya could not be killed. Nethys found this at once a wonderous discovery, especially if this power of invulnerability beyond immortality could be achieved for a mortal, and a great concern, that lieing in the great beyond they may one day find creatures that can not be killed, or worse, one finds its way onto the mortal plane and can not be stopped.
Explaining their quest to reach the
First World, and form a bridge to the land of the fey, they enlisted the Nature Spirit's help. This took decades, and they came to learn that the Sajiya's memories from their time as a mortal become clouded and lost over the years. Jetembe taught many of the spirits druidism and they excelled, while
Osiris taught them
wizardry, they approached it with their usual childlike enthusiasm as they found it a marvelous curiosity, though they did not excel, managing to get a handle on the basics their inability to retain detailed memories accross the years meant that they could never progress far.
It took until Nethys made first contact with the First World and could speak to the Fey that they came to understand the source of many of the spirits feelings. When one cuts a tree down on the Material plane, it damages the first world, potentially permenantly killing creatures there or despoiling regions, and when a fey dies a death as a mortal does, they just come back the next day.
After First Contact
Nethys and Jetembe continued to make Sajiya, to help guard natural places, oases and the fertility of the Sphinx River, however once Nethys went mad and Jetembe was gone, the ability to create further Sajiya was lost. The immortal beings lasted a long time, but over the centuries their numbers dwindeled as they lost their lives to violance or mishap, exploding into verdant bursts that nourished the live around them. It is said that some oases in the desert are the result of the death of a Sajiya. By the time of the Pharaoh of Spirits, there had been no Sajiya for centuries.
The Pharaoh of Spirits
It was the
Pharaoh of Spirits, who reigned not too long before the Qadiran Invasion, who was the only one since Nethys and Jetembe capable of performing the primal rituals to call the nature spirits into physical bodies again. A burst of Sajiya were made in their reign, with numbers again dwindling after their death.
Qadiran Invasion
At the time of the Qadiran invasion, there were Four Sajiya remaining from the time of the Pharaoh of Spirits. All eigth grade Druids. One died in the war. One, Laith, sided 'with nature' and is still alive, seeing the futility of the resistance continuing, and wishing to continue to preserve nature, they aligned with the Keleshite Druids. Two sided with Osirion and have since been killed.
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