Lore · Legendary Figures
Aten Ha Ra & the Akhevan Civil War
At the end of the long Vex Thal key line waited Aten Ha Ra, one of the hardest targets of the Luclin era. Her story is about a twin, a language, and a storm that never stopped.
Twins of shadow
The 2004 sourcebook Monsters of Luclin tells it this way. Luclin sent an avatar, an Akheva-like being called Akelha’Ra, to rule her people as high priestess. Akelha’Ra loved her goddess but wanted to do more, so with the Akheva’s help she made a twin of herself out of the living shadows of the moon’s dark side. That twin was Aten Ha Ra.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Aten Ha Ra (Monsters of Luclin, 2004)
The Fleshless Tongue
For years the twins ruled together. Then the dark twin changed. The Akheva had started speaking the languages of the moon’s lesser races instead of their sacred Fleshless Tongue, and Akelha’Ra saw no harm in it, since it helped them rule. Aten Ha Ra called it heresy and demanded that only the Fleshless Tongue be spoken, on pain of death. The Akheva split, and the civil war lasted untold years.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Aten Ha Ra (Monsters of Luclin, 2004)
The Maiden’s Scar
In the end Aten Ha Ra and her followers summoned a storm called the Maiden’s Scar. It smashed the cities of Akelha’Ra’s faction, and Ka Vethan, the Akheva’s first great living citadel, became heaps of dead shadow and stone. Akelha’Ra died, her essence and even her name reduced to wisps. The storm still lies dormant across the twilight sky.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Aten Ha Ra (Into the Depths of: The Akheva Ruins, 2008)
Vex Thal
Victory nearly emptied the moon of Akheva. Aten Ha Ra withdrew to Vex Thal, “Heart of Shadow,” the last Akheva city, with her few living followers and the shades of the war dead, and she plots a return to power. She stands well over thirty feet tall, four-armed and pale, almost as beautiful as Luclin and just as frightening. Akelha’Ra’s outcast loyalists still haunt the ruins of Ka Vethan, guarded by the shadow-tegi Centi, and no one knows what they are waiting for.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Aten Ha Ra (Monsters of Luclin; Into the Depths of: The Akheva Ruins)
The prisoner speaks
In EverQuest itself, the spirit of Akelha’Ra tells adventurers in the Akheva Ruins that the Akheva are immortal and are reborn even in death through their mistress, and that she was imprisoned when Aten Ha Ra cut her off from Luclin’s power.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Aten Ha Ra (The Spirit of Akelha-Ra, NPC dialogue)
What she is
Monsters of Luclin says she and her twin were made in the goddess’s image, so they differ from the androgynous Akheva around them. Atenha’Ra stands well over 30 feet tall, a four-armed female figure with pale skin and a fierce expression, “nearly as beautiful as the goddess Luclin herself,” and she won’t tolerate lesser beings in her fortress. Her power “rivals that of the most ancient dragons and even of certain demigods.” In battle she lets her Akheva take the physical blows while she casts spells and keeps enemies confused, then joins the fight when their morale starts to fail.
The outcasts of Ka Vethan
An official 2008 article says the war never really ended. One side is loyal to the presiding priestess in Vex Thal, the other is cast out as heretics for loyalty to “the treacherous and deceased Akelha`Ra,” and “both sides continue to uphold a fierce rivalry.” The outcasts stay in the ruins for reasons kept “beneath an impenetrable umbra of mystery,” guarded by the Centi, a band of shadow tegi.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Aten Ha Ra (Into the Depths of: The Akheva Ruins)
A scholar from Sanctus Seru
In EverQuest II, Notes on the Akheva of Maiden’s Eye is written by Fassleth Buzild of Sanctus Seru, who was allowed among the Akheva. He found that the survivors of Ka Vethan blame Aten Ha Ra for the storm that still rages, saying she “sent it as a weapon to slay their previous leader,” after which she became High Priestess. His thought: “Perhaps there is a schism here to be exploited?”
Sources: Library of Erudin: Aten Ha Ra (Notes on the Akheva of Maiden’s Eye)
Her shadow
The bestiary also describes Va Xi Atenha’Ra, “Shadow of Atenha’Ra,” a lesser clone of the mistress of Vex Thal and a terrifying opponent in her own right. It warns that naïve adventurers may think they are fighting the real Atenha’Ra.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Monsters of Luclin — Va Xi Atenha’Ra
Where the sources disagree
- The RPG says Akelha’Ra created Aten Ha Ra as her twin. The 2008 official article only calls them two priestesses who vied for power.
- The 2008 article calls the Akheva androgynous; wave 1’s sources describe their society as matriarchal. The RPG explains that the two priestesses were made in Luclin’s image and differ from their androgynous kin.
- The names appear as Aten Ha Ra or Atenha’Ra, and Akelha’Ra, Akelha`Ra or Akelha’ra, depending on the source.
Keep reading
Retold in our own words from the sources linked under each chapter; short quotes are marked and sourced. The illustration is an original AI-generated painting made for this page alone, not from the game.