Sassa

God of Travel, Vistas, Wonder, and Hope

The dawn you see is made for your eyes alone.

Morningbringer, Motionless Wanderer, the Already-Arrived, Keeper of the Next Horizon, the Watcher on the Far Shore, the Cairn-God, Stone-at-the-Summit, Patron of They Still Walking

Sassa is not a god who walks; the god of travel has never taken a single step. The god of hope is found only where hope has been abandoned; the god of vistas gazes outward from eyes of stone and will never see what lies beyond the next ridge. He is a spirit, singular and indivisible, who inhabits statues bearing the head of an eagle and the body of a turtle, grown swollen with might from travellers who, on the brink of collapse, found themselves leaning against a strange statue of a beast none had yet seen. They are squat, ancient-looking things, wind-scoured and lichen-dark, found at the edges of high passes, on promontories overlooking great distances, at the last bend in the road before the wilderness opens its throat. No one has ever seen one erected. No mason has ever claimed the work. They are simply there, and have always been there; and surely their stone eyes, facing onwards beyond the ridge, gaze towards a sight that no one but you will ever see.

When climbing a mountain, a mortal has a choice: they can continue to climb, or quit and return. In this choice mortals can find meaning. But when they summit the peak and there is no way to go but down again, many feel a strange sense of despair, as if suddenly realising the futility of the entire affair. There are those who, overwhelmed by their melancholy, refuse to descend the peak. But then they may find themselves leaning against a statue with the head of an eagle and body of a turtle, and there find the courage to move on nonetheless, for tomorrow does not wait. This is Sassa’s only ministry: not to carry the traveller, but to be the thing they lean against when they have forgotten how to stand.