Ajakavades

Ajakavades are a fictional class of memory-keepers used in speculative fiction and role-playing settings to describe specialists who preserve, interpret, and transmit a culture’s collective memory. They function as archivists, ritual leaders, artists, and storytellers who link past and present through performance, inscription, and memory-work.

The term ajakavades is a neologism with no basis in real-world ethnography. It appears across multiple fan-created worlds and tabletop campaigns since the early 21st century, with no single canonical definition. In different works, ajakavades may form a hereditary caste, a scholarly guild, or a wandering order of historians.

Practices attributed to ajakavades typically include memorization of genealogies and chronicles, the creation of memory artifacts (such as embroidered textiles, inscribed tablets, or oral chants), and the conduct of public rites that retell foundational events. They are often depicted as having restricted access to certain knowledge and as mediators between past and present authorities.

In criticism and worldbuilding discussions, ajakavades are used to explore how societies remember, privilege certain narratives, and regulate power through memory. They are not based on a real-world community; readers should treat ajakavades as a fictional construct within the universes in which they appear.