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{{Info races
{{Info Lineage
|image = Isldarrin.png
|name = Isldar
|pronunciation = Ysel-dar
|test = Yseldaar (in Altalar)
|classification = [[Nelfin]]
|test2 = [[File:Grayflag1.png|80px]] [[File:Grayflag3.png|80px]]  
|subraces = None
|test3 = '''Motto:''' "Truth Abides no Weakness."
|nicknames = Frostlings, Frozen People, Frost Horrors
|image = Isldarpslasho.png
|languages = [[Sulvaley Elven]]
|state = Life and Death Isldar States
|naming = [[Fantasy Elven (but not Tolkien Elven)]]
|ruler = Tower Councils
 
|suzerain = Varied
|distinction = Snow Elves who guard the cycle of life and death and the memory of [[Dragons]]
|languages = [[Altalar]]
|maxage = 400 years (up to 150 for non-Permission holders)
|religion = Varied
|height = 5’8 - 6’10”
|first_recorded = 100 BC
|eye = Baby blue, Sky blue, Gray, Teal, Turquoise, Cyan
|demonym = Isldar
|hair = Snow white, with variation depending on Isl Zeal
|skin = Pale pink
|}}
|}}
Mysterious, seclusive, elusive with hint traces of [[Altalar]] high-class and a nationalistic pride that sets them even further apart than the other [[Nelfin]] species. The Isldar from the frozen wastes of [[Ellador]] are all these things and more, protecting their homelands from unwanted intruders since the days of the [[Allorn Empire]], but also venturing in the world to tend to the lost souls left behind by millennia of tragedy. Isldar are a barely understood subrace of Nelfin who once formed out of the [[Dragon]] worshiping [[Drogon Cult]], leaving the Allorn Empire for seclusion in Ellador’s mountains. Through intrigue, the Isldar were brought from the brink of doom, from where their Dragon matron Frisit used the last of her living [[Magic]] to save their kind, turning into Frostweaver the Undead Dragon that continues to guide her people. The Isldar now venture into the world, both to gather information for their frozen holds in Ellador but also to guide the wayward souls to the afterlife and tend to the rivers of [[Soul Essence]] that flow all over [[Aloria]], keeping balance in life and death.
[[File:Medinkikf.png|294px|thumb|right|Priest Isldar used to turn themselves icy pale blue with Magic to show their dedication. The practice has largely died out, but some still do it.]]
[[File:Deathcool.png|294px|thumb|right|The Rexit have very skilled warriors, this one clad in black metal armor shaped to still mimic Draconic claws and scales.]]
[[File:Isldorihdhdhft.png|294px|thumb|right|Even if Life Isldar are just as closed off as Death Isldar are, they tend to look somewhat more inviting and benevolent.]]
[[File:Vultalarv.png|294px|thumb|right|This Isldar with purple Dragonscale also applied moon-themed war paint before going to battle.]]
[[File:Isldork.png|294px|thumb|right|Vixit do not have an extravagant dressing style, usually preferring muted or simple tones with little skin showing.]]
[[File:Lookatheaddress.png|294px|thumb|right|Rexit death priest head dresses and clothing are some of the most extravagant and alien designed in the world.]]
[[File:Benegesseret.png|294px|thumb|right|Death Isldar always know what they want and that they can get it, and dress to impress.]]
[[File:Darkpriesti.png|294px|thumb|right|The Rexit have a large number of powerful Ordial Mages at their service.]]
[[File:Magicalstorm.png|294px|thumb|right|The Isldar spire towers sit high and pierce the clouds above the distant peaks of Ellador.]]


==Physical Characteristics==
Silent watchers of the frozen mountain peaks, the Isldar are a [[Race]] of Snow-Elves who dwell in the distant continent of [[Ellador]] and guard its endless, icy valleys. With humble origins as a minor religious cult in the [[Allorn Empire]] of old, the struggle of their history drove the Isldar to eventually become their own people and their own nation. Seen as mysterious, reclusive, and barely understood by the outside world, the Isldar are often travelers from their home in one of [[Aloria]]’s few remaining unexplored corners. In recent years their society has been cruelly divided by a religious schism that has boiled into war, and with the road to peace impossible to see, the Life and Death Isldar - now bitter enemies - both pray that they will one day triumph. Though they appear in many of the world’s courts as precious advisors and historians, home and family are always close to an Isldar’s heart, for the roads of all their choices eventually lead back to the glimmering spires of Ellador.
Isldar are a uniquely homogeneous [[Race]], meaning they all look very similar in physical characteristics, though there is some variation there-in. The most obvious features about an Isldar is the color of their hair, being naturally white, as well as their pale skin, no matter the amount of sunlight they are exposed to. They also exclusively have bright, almost icy bright eyes, in colors ranging from baby blue, sky blue, gray, teal, turquoise and cyan. Their bodily proportions are very similar to those of the other Nelfin species, though their faces and ears often set them apart from the other Nelfin. Their face is exceptionally angular, while their ears often bend slightly inwards around their skull, while also being more pointy and longer than that of the others. Their eyebrows always appear much stricter, generally giving Isldar a very frigid neutral expression while their whole face looks slim. Isldar have a slender bone structure and delicate hands, with a skin that is surprisingly resistant to any form of scarring or imperfections, remaining as clean and pristine as a morning’s freshly fallen snow.  
===Frisit’s Weave===
Isldar have a number of special traits that set them apart from the other Nelfin species, most if not all of which were created when Frisit cast her spells and saved the Isldar from destruction, but also irreversibly changing them into something new at the same time. Firstly, Isldar are completely immune to any cold damage, or adverse effects of the cold. Being drenched in freezing cold water does not shut down their body like it would any other Race, and they do not feel the biting cold wind howling on their skin. Isldar are even known to fare well during a blizzard, not needing additional protection and being able to see quite well despite the flurry of snow. When moving through a heavy snowstorm, it is almost as if the snow simply bends around them, avoiding any sort of push against their body, allowing them to move and act as if the heavy winds and snowfall weren’t even there. Furthermore, all Isldar can also speak [[Wyrm Tongue]], the Dragon language, which is a language so complex that it sounds like gibberish to anyone who does not have the [[Primal Magic]] inclined learning capability of it. This language allows the Isldar to hear the words of Frisit carried by the winds, but also to communicate in words with Dragons and Wyverns, though not with each other, as this language only works when spoken to or from a Dragon or Wyvern.


Frisit’s Weave, as Frisit’s blessings to the Isldar are called, furthermore also allow the Isldar near-unrivaled capacity to see and interact with the Soul Rivers of Aloria. The Soul Rivers of Aloria are natural congregations of Soul Essence, the stuff that souls are made out of, that flow across the world. When a person dies, their Soul Essence is added to this River and it flows through the world like a network of currents in the skies. Normal people and even most Mages cannot see these rivers of Primal Magic, but Isldar are constantly aware of them and can see them flow in all their majesty. Some of these Rivers flow high above the buildings, some of them flow low through the streets and even through houses. Isldar can watch people just walk straight through, never even noticing the glittering white ethereal flows, never being aware of the circle of life around them. They can also see these Rivers get tapped into when a child is born, when a sliver of essence leaks away and transfers into the mother just as childbirth commences, giving birth to the soul. This is also why Isldar can make predictions what a child is going to be like when they are born, as their ability to see this Soul Essence and understand its nature allows them to predict the personality and purpose of a child before it has even said a word. Additionally, they can detect any [[Soul Sharding]] or other [[Soul Mutations]] like [[Silvenism]], though only at birth. They can no longer detect this when the baby has grown up beyond being a child.  
==Design==
The Isldar are patient and prudent Snow Elves, taught from birth to keep their feelings and intentions closely guarded. They are die-hard stoics, sometimes seen by others as emotionless for their disdain of vulnerability and the absent coldness written on their faces: much like their homeland, Ellador, which is cast into a perilous and permanent winter. Most Isldar are incredibly religious, with a schism down the middle based on if the Isldar worships Dragons (and is considered a Life Isldar, "Vixit" in their language) or worships the ice Goddess called the Glacial (and is considered a Death Isldar, "Rexit" in their language). They have a deep, sincere, and poetic culture which struggles with any sort of crudeness or sarcasm. The Isldar are just as famous for their beautiful verses as for their inability to laugh at jokes or smile. Physically, Isldar can have any body shape, but tend towards sharp, narrow facial features and angular frames, often lacking the broadness more common in Human descent. They tend to be tall, with an average height around six foot. Isldar usually style themselves in a traditional Elven way, with robes and long hair.
* '''Eye Colors:''' Isldar eyes must be purple if Life Isldar, green if Death Isldar, and blue if Neutral Isldar. Their sclera can be either white or black.
* '''Hair Colors:''' Isldar have very desaturated natural hair colors. Any white, black, or gray tone, or a pale tone like platinum or strawberry blonde, occurs naturally.
* '''Appearance:''' Isldar are mostly pale, but sometimes have a northern tan (see real life Inuit or Tibetans for examples). They can have any Caucasian or Asian features.
* '''Patron Traits:''' Life Isldar can have Dragonscale patches on their bodies, and Death Isldar can have black metal Dragonscale-like patches on their bodies.


Furthermore, this ability to see the Soul Rivers of Aloria grants them additional abilities. When Isldar sing the Song of the Damned, the Soul Rivers within a few dozen feet of them become visible to non-Isldar, even the mundane people, and the Soul Essence of those who are passing peacefully transcends to the Rivers. Isldar do this to alleviate pain and suffering in the moment of death, taking away all sorrows and allowing a soul to properly pass on to the afterlife, with no chance of becoming Undead. Those who are in the moment of dying have been described as being in a state of perfect euphoria and peace with their demise, peacefully letting go, after which the sliver of Soul Essence that entered their body at birth returns to the Rivers, all for spectators to see. Isldar also use this ability when corrupted or destroyed Soul Essence still lingers in an area, for example when dealing with a Poltergheist or when Mages have destroyed Soul Essence to cast their magics and rituals. Isldar as such frequently tend to the necropolises and graveyards of the other Races, ensuring that the dead remain dead, and helping those wandering souls reach a state of peace.
===Isldar in Regalia===
A century ago, Isldar were so rare that they were frequently confused for the more numerous Elven races. Nowadays, however, the schism and civil war in Ellador has led to a massive departure of Isldar from their homeland. Though there are more in some places than others, there are now enough Isldar abroad that most people have heard of them and their culture, with little pockets scattered around the known world. Here are some concepts for player use:
* The Life and Death Isldar are currently under a truce. Some members of both factions have taken advantage of this to come to Regalia to lobby for the homeland.
* The Life Isldar have a refugee colony in [[Anglia]] under the high priestess of the Dragon Regulus, who frequently sends her people to Regalia.
* The Death Isldar understand that there is no better place to cause death than Regalia, the center of the world. It is an excellent place for their work.
* Isldar are famous musicians, poets and court performers. Irrespective of their side in the war, some of them come to Regalia just to perform.


This ability to send the dying on to the afterlife also applies in a limited way to the [[Undead]] themselves. While Isldar have no great control or ability to fight with an Undead, they can Soul-Lathe an Undead person’s soul, thus preventing further decay and storing their soul safely into a so-called Isldar Glyphstone, a special inscribed stone with Dragon Glyphs from the Isldar homeland that can only be used to absorb the soul of a willing Undead. This Soul-Lathed Glypstone can then be inserted into an [[Isldar Aysur]], a stone-like body made out of white crystallized and concentrated Soul Essence that resembles an elegant looking carapace or skeleton, with the Isldar Glyph Stone inserted into its chest that functions much like a real body. While Lathed into an Aysur, Undead are technically no longer Undead, and have become something else, obeying a new set of rules and mechanics (which can be read about on the Isldar Aysur page). The creation of these Aysur is also a cultural tradition of the Isldar, that is referred to as the Art of the Dead. Most Isldar tend to have a single Aysur stored somewhere in a workshop or private place, where they sing to the Soul Rivers and add to their design, meaning each Aysur looks different from the skeletal structure and is custom-made by an Isldar. Building an Aysur takes several years, meaning if an Aysur is used to turn an Undead, the Isldar who the Aysur belonged to will have to make a new one.  
==Heritage Traits==
Heritage Traits are free Packs and Mechanics. Free Packs never raise Proficiency Points, just giving the Pack, and obey lock-outs (if something would prevent you from buying the normal version of the Pack, you can't have the free Pack, either). A Character born from two parents with different Traits get the free Packs of one parent, but can mix and match from both parents' Mechanics. Isldar get their two general Mechanics, plus three more depending on what subtype of Isldar they are: Life, Death, or Neutral.


Finally, all Isldar can also call upon the Soul Rivers of Aloria to aid them in battle. Since Soul Rivers are everywhere, and Isldar have some limited control on using the ethereal essence to bend in directions and pass over, they can also give more physical shape to it in the form of a weapon, which becomes useful when they are not armed with any weapon. Isldar can materialize a bow of condensed Soul Essence out of the Soul Rivers, which forms like an Altalar Longbow in their hand, made out of pure light. This bow, much like the [[Qadir]] Shardbow, shoots arrows made out of Soul Essence, though instead of wielding the Soul Essence of the user, it creates arrows out of Soul Essence from the Soul Rivers. These arrows can be used in one of two ways, either the Isldar shoots regular arrows made of Soul Essence, which pierce a foe’s armor and skin and cause a high amount of stinging pain and fatigue, after which the arrow slowly fades away. The other way to use this bow is to shoot an entrapping shot, which causes an arrow to fly out more like a short spherical projectile with a spiralling trail, latching onto a foe’s legs or feet and pinning them to the ground, or hitting their arms and pinning them to the walls they are standing close to, requiring a few dozen seconds to fade away, leaving no wounds behind. Isldar can fire this bow as long as they want to, as the Soul Essence used to shoot the arrows comes from the Soul Rivers and returns to them when they fade. The bow is however unwieldy and non-physical. It cannot be used to hit people, nor can it be used while moving since it takes some time to give form and some time again to dissolve. The bow also remains a longbow, meaning that drawing the bow takes more time than say a short bow, and should only be used as a last resort, or if the Isldar has been given enough distance from their target by allies.  
===Free Packs===
* Isldar can choose one [[Athletic_Point_Buy| Athletic]] or [[Magic_Point_Buy | Magic]] Pack for free.
* Isldar can choose one pack from [[Roguery Point Buy]] for free.


==Mental Characteristics==
===Mechanics===
Isldar are known to be people of few words and to intelligently think before speaking, using gentle wording and phrasing to get a point across. Few Isldar have the temper to yell, and even fewer Isldar lose their nerve in any tense situation, preferring to remain calm and recollected. The Isldar are generally considered the more intelligent of the Nelfin species, refraining from excessive self-indulgence like the Altalar and also restraining their emotions unlike the [[Avanthar]]. Their views of the world remain brutally pragmatic, unlike the childish views of the [[Cielothar]], and most of their work is done in service of the dead and Frisit, unlike the self-pleasuring [[Kathar]]. In many ways, the Isldar are the polar opposites of the other Nelfin species, though they are still prone to the same arrogance and self-grandeur that affects the other Nelfin. Isldar are also notoriously difficult to crack when it comes to showing their emotions or even intimacy. There is a running game particularly among the [[Daendroque]] of [[Daenshore]] to try and seduce an Isldar, considered the most difficult task in the whole wide world. There is a reason why the local saying goes: “Gana will freeze over before the heart of an Isldar lets another in”, Gana referring to the molten lava tunnels from where the [[Dakkar]] hail. Finally, Isldar are also known to have the most terrible sense of humor of all Races, not understanding sarcasm or passive aggression in the slightest, and perceiving all jokes with literal wording. Isldar society is a high-class one and most Isldar simply grow up never knowing the concept of humor since it is considered a vile and barbaric activity for the [[Ailor]] Race, whereas most Isldar children are taught the arts of singing, Soul River dancing and Essence reading as entertainment.  
====All Isldar Mechanics====
* Isldar are immune to harm from frost or cold sources (unless they are Magical), and do not suffer decreased visibility or choking hazard in a blizzard/snow-storm.
* Isldar can see things from incredibly far away if they focus, able to spot an eagle landing a kilometer away or a coin being flipped across a town. Ask DM for Event use.
====Life Isldar Only Mechanics====
* Life Isldar can perform the Life Song on a recently deceased person of any heritage or culture, ensuring they pass into the afterlife (with OOC consent).
* Life Isldar can use Farsight to receive vague visions of things happening and existing in faraway lands. (this may require communication with Event DM's or Tickets).
* Life Isldar can see the Soul Rivers of Aloria where the dead pass through, and are able to tap into it, to feel random memories, emotions, or feelings from long ago.
====Death Isldar Only Mechanics====
* Death Isldar can perform the Death Song on a recently deceased person of any heritage or culture, forcibly turning them into an Undead (with OOC Consent).
* Death Isldar can steal non-Player Spirits from other Characters, and force them to be servants. They can only be taken back if the Death Isldar is KO'd.
* Death Isldar can Transform into the Bone Horror Shift, a hulking monster made of bones and rotting flesh, which counts as a Disguise but is obviously a Death Isldar, and a Monstrous Transformation.


===Isl Zeal===
====Neutral Isldar Only Mechanics====
Isl Zeal is a concept that expresses the zeal or support of an individual Isldar to the great designs of Frisit, the Undead Frost Dragon, or any other Dragon. Isldar morality and loyalty to the designs of the Isldar Holds aren’t binary; that is to say, an Isldar is never only just supporting or working against the Hold’s grand plan. Isldar have varying degrees of internalized loyalty towards Frisit that would confuse an Ailor too much to even think about, as generally Humans are only capable of seeing loyalty in black and white. Furthermore, Zeal has nothing to do with religion. An Isldar can still be loyal to a Dragon and for example follow Unionism, or be Atheist. Only when a faith goes directly against Dragons, like Void Worship, does Zeal default to Disloyalty. Each Isldar has a small glowing band glyph at the base of the back of their neck, which shows a rough Isl Zeal degree. An Isldar who has High zeal has a three part glyph with claws in the middle, and two sets of wings spanning out from that central glyph. Those who are Neutral zeal still have those claws, but only a single set of wings, while the Disloyal zeal only have one set of wings. Additionally, these glyphs are colored based on what Dragon they support. Frisit's glyph is blue, the Imperial Dragon's is purple, the Dread Dragon is red, and general Dragon Dogma is green. Isl Zeal is a racial power and cannot be interrupted, cancelled or blocked by any other Power besides Maraya Race-Weave.
* A Neutral Isldar can choose any three mechanics from the [[Teledden]] or [[Fin'ullen]] they want.


{| class="wikitable"
===Life and Death===
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#c0c0c0;" | Disloyal Zeal (Character does not obey any Dragons or Dragon Rules, or actively goes against them)
The Isldar descend from a cult of Dragon Worshipers, forced to flee from the Elven Empire they lived in for religious heresy. After a Magical event bathed their new homeland of Ellador in frost and killed the armies sent to hunt them down, they settled down in isolation, not knowing that their Dragon patron had been replaced, her body possessed by a great Demon of a Death God. Recently, other Dragons returned and exposed the Death God's scheme, resurrecting the true Dragon and sending Isldar society into a spiral. This pitted the city people (who stayed loyal to the Death God who had saved them, even if they had lied) against the rural tower people from the spire observatories (who took up the cause of Dragons again and started a rebellion), creating the division between Death and Life Isldar. The Life Isldar would have lost and been driven off or killed if not for the Regalian Empire's intervention, which was enough to bring the two sides to a truce and allow them to focus on fighting off the dark Vampire kingdom of Dorkarth, which borders both of them.
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#c0c0c0;" | Type
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#c0c0c0;" | Neutral Zeal (Retains 50-50 obedience to Dragons or Dragon Rules)
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#c0c0c0;" | High Zeal (Follows all Dragons or Dragon Rules)
|-
| rowspan="4" | All forms of Dragon Disloyalty are the same. Disloyal Zeal Isldar cannot hear or know about Dragon speech. Additionally, their hair turns to a more Platina or Strawberry Blonde. For those who fight against the Dragons specifically, their hair turns raven black.
| style="background-color:#dae8fc;" | Frisit, the Isldar Dragon
| style="background-color:#dae8fc; color:#000000;" | The Character can "know" when a Dragon has spoken, but not which one, or what they said. They can see the Soul Rivers around them, and make them visible, but cannot affect them. They can form any type of weapon from the soul Rivers and gain +5 Proficiency while wielding said weapon, formed out of white ghostly form. They can finally also turn liquids into glittery miniscule ice crystals and swirl them around themselves aesthetically.
| style="background-color:#dae8fc; color:#000000;" | The Character can hear Dragon voide carried from hundreds of miles on the wind. They can additionally speak Fluent Dragon speech to their Dragon, and others who are High Zeal to the same Dragon. They can see the Soul Rivers, make them visible to others, and bend them around, changing their direction with their hands. Finally, they cannot feel cold temperatures, or be hurt by them, or constrained by any type of Ice be it magical or normal.
|-
| style="background-color:#cbcefb;" | The Imperial Regalian Dragon
| style="background-color:#cbcefb;" | Can use the same Powers as Frisit Neutral, except the ice crystal control. Additionally however, they can strike two pieces of metal together (including weapons) to produce a static spark, then aim one of the two pieces at someone to give them a static shock (max range emote distance), which does no permanent damage, but is very painful. Cannot be used repeatedly.
| style="background-color:#cbcefb;" | Can use the same Powers as Frisit High Zeal, bar from the Cold Resistance. Additionally however, they cannot feel Electricity, Lightning or Static Power be it normal or Magical, and cannot be paralyzed by Electric Magic.
|-
| style="background-color:#ffccc9;" | Rikkira, the Dread Dragon
| style="background-color:#ffccc9;" | Can use the same Powers as Frisit Neutral, except the ice crystal control. They can additionally produce a purple torch-size fire in their hand that is cold fire and does not burn, but does produce heat and a lot of light.
| style="background-color:#ffccc9;" | Can use the same Powers as Frisit High Zeal, bar from the Cold Resistance. Additionally, they cannot feel heat, burn, or be hurt by Magical fire. Natural fire still burns and does damage, but they are immune to the radiating heat, or the suffocation of its smoke.
|-
| style="background-color:#d1ecd1;" | The Dragon Dogma
| style="background-color:#d1ecd1;" | Can use the same Powers as Dogma Neutral, except the ice crystal control. They can additionally produce dragon-scale armor on their hands, forearms and upper arms (like sleeves and gauntlets) that become immune to weapon penetration (but still take blunt damage and hurt), while gaining +5 Unarmed Combat Skill wielding these Dragon Gauntlets.
| style="background-color:#d1ecd1;" | Can use the same Powers as Frisit High Zeal, bar from the Cold Resistance. Additionally, they cannot be grappled, gripped, constrained or otherwise tied down by Eldritch, Death or Bone types of Magic, or be affected by any Magic that would do damage to their Soul or Bones inside their body.
|}


None of the Isl Zeal, Frisit’s Weave or other racial gifts are inherited by half-Isldar. Once a non-Isldar has been incorporated into the lineage of an Isldar family, no children that come afterwards no matter how many times they mix with Isldar will produce a pure Isldar with Frisit’s Weave. Isldar visual traits can however be mix-inherited by half-Isldar.  
At the moment of the Death God's exposure, every Isldar was forced to choose between staying loyal to the Death God, the Glacial, or returning to Dragons. A Death Isldar cannot change into a Life Isldar and vice versa, unless they kneel before the patron God of the opposing side (the Glacial or any Dragon, respectively), and admit that they were wrong (spend a God-summoning token for an offscreen conversion). However, if any Isldar converts away from their patron religion or declares that they will have no part in the war, they become a Neutral Isldar instead, and re-gain some of the biology of their Elven ancestors before they became Isldar. A Neutral Isldar cannot go back to either side. It is considered treason for a Life Isldar to associate with a Death Isldar, or a Death Isldar to associate with a Life Isldar, even though they are under a state of truce. Neutral Isldar can be received by both sides, but are sneered down on for cowardice by fanatics, or those who have lost a lot in the war.


==History==
Though they share a culture page, Life and Death Isldar are bitter enemies with very different beliefs. The sections below will make it clear what lore refers to what group.
The starting point of Isldar history can be placed somewhere in the early stages of the Altalar Grandening period, around 1100 BC according to most Nelfin historical scholars, at the first formal party held by the fledgeling Cult of Drogon. This infant form of the Cult was composed of noble-backed draconic scholars who took to recording detailed information on the lives of Dragons, alongside collecting and preserving the remains of deceased Dragons, forming the basis of many Dragonbone collections in the present day. While some of these draconic scholars limited themselves to purely academic observation and cataloguing of the Dragons, others took to them much differently and treated the Dragons and their remains with a reverence that would grow to encompass their religion. Over the next 400 years, the Cult of Drogon would shift to this same viewpoint on the Dragons, and those who researched them on a purely scholarly basis soon became the minority, before being outright expelled from the Cult itself. While this shift occurred, the Cult also took on numerous Altalar noble benefactors who, initially, only became involved for the sake of political power; as with the first members of the Cult, they soon revered the Dragons, or left. Many of these benefactors were based in modern-day [[Ithania]], which, by the end of the period, would become the home of the Cult of Drogon, driven north by pressure from other Altalar nobles and [[Estellian]] fanatics who sought to wipe non-Estellian heresies from the lands of the Allorn Empire.  


In spite of their retreat to Ithania, however, they would soon have to flee further north. The first 250 years of the Blossoming period were spent shoring up their funds and resources, securing what little support was still available in preparation for further movement into Ellador; to the Cult of Drogon, the unsettled, green lands of the north were by far the most appealing, offering a physical sea barrier between themselves and Estellian crusaders, as well as space and materials to rebuild, with natural protection from Ellador’s mountainous terrain. As they had prepared for, the Cult of Drogon fled north in 450 BC at the outbreak of the [[Mage Wars]], leaving behind their slaves and evading the wrath of the Altalar archmages who sought to express their power and dominate the political world, setting up outposts on the southern coasts of Ellador and moving inwards. To their own surprise, they stumbled upon the [[Violet Night Dragons]]; a populous living species of Dragon hidden in Ellador’s forests, away from the prying eyes of the Altalar. The Cult of Drogon wasted no time in dedicating themselves to these Dragons, offering themselves up as servants and guardians, establishing the Frisit Protectorate, named for Frisit, the head of the Violet Night Dragons. In doing so, they caught the eye of the northern Altalar archmages, whose power hunger drove them to attempt to kill the Dragons that the Cult had openly announced its protection of.  
==Language and Naming==
The Isldar speak the Elven common language [[Altalar]], but have an incredibly strong dialect called Sulvaley. Sort of like a midpoint between Altalar and the Suvial language Agasi, it has much harsher sounds and different word choice in places that makes it very difficult for most other Elves to understand. Though they are still Elves, the accent of the Isldar gives them an almost Arabic feeling when they talk. Sulvaley additionally has a unique script. Though modern Altalar is written with an alphabet, ancient Altalar had characters for syllables. The Isldar held onto this style and write vertically in a flowing hand, making their lettering appear almost similar to real-world Mongolian writing.


The First Dragon War was the shortest and least remarkable, lasting only four years, from 346 to 342 BC, but opening the floodgates for further harassment of the Protectorate by the Allorn principalities and their allies. The First War saw the least bloodshed and the loss of no Violet Night Dragons, owing in the main to the mountain ranges and dense forests of Ellador. While the archmages commanded significant and considerable power politically and militarily, they had not prepared for troop movements through such problematic terrain, and were easily repelled by as-yet unprepared for guerilla ambushes by the Cult of Drogon, and aerial attacks by the Violet Dragons that highlighted the lack of preparation of the archmages. The archmages retreated fully by 342 BC, but did not remove their eyes from Ellador and the Protectorate, taking three decades to muster up the military might and strategic minds to stage a much more significant invasion of Ellador; one that would be far more devastating than the first.
* '''Example Male Isldar Names:''' Asrel, Henqaan, Nayaal, Novyaan, Anshaar, Ravlan, Marcaror, Sonraal, Narvael, Alrifar.
* '''Example Female Isldar Names:''' Samala, Isavaila, Saaliya, Silyana, Fismeya, Savraela, Veana, Naerassa, Eyfa.
* '''Example Unisex Isldar Names:''' Sil, Aleyras, Asir, Esmeya, Asamey, Manyaar, Qiaan, Feynral, Savaa, Qirnar.  


The Second Dragon War was waged not only by the Allorn archmages, but also by the [[Dwarves]]; trading partners of the Allorn Empire, the Dwarves were drawn into the conflict through Altalar political intrigue, convincing them to assist the Altalar in invading Ellador to wipe out the Cult of Drogon and the Violet Night Dragons. Many Dwarves were convinced that the Violet Dragons had hidden significant hoards of gold and jewels in the caves of Ellador; even then, knowledge existed to indicate the opposite, but the Dwarves ignored such talk. The second invasion of Ellador in 312 BC saw ecological devastation on a scale as yet unseen; immediately upon landing on Ellador’s shores, the Altalar employed mages to fell vast swathes of trees, carving a path through to Ellador’s mountains. Here, the Dwarves got to work tunnelling through the mountains to create yet more pathways into Ellador, and enable full-scale assaults on Drogon settlements and strongholds. Thousands of Drogon followers died in the initial waves of Dwarven and Allorn attacks, and dozens of Violet Night Dragons followed suit, shot from the skies by Dwarven contraptions and summarily executed by battalions of Altalar spearmen and Dwarven axemen. The Cult of Drogon was slow to respond; while the mountains of Ellador had been their shield so far, they proved difficult in allowing Cultists to escape the valleys and creeks, and meant that news of the attacks moved like molasses, and kept the Protectorate from responding until as long as three months into the attack.  
Like other Elves, Isldar usually have quite a few names. First, middle, last, and sometimes their more important parent's name prefixed by "ul-" to show who they are descended from. Clan names are important to the Isldar, as different Isldar houses were always famous for different crafts and skills. Now that their society has been divided by a civil war, some Clans have been destroyed by the division, but the stable and large ones have stayed together and chosen their path almost unanimously. An Isldar named Novyaan A'sil Lorqaar, the son of Anshaar and from a clan called Meyraal, would be called Novyaan A'sil Lorqaar ul-Anshaar Meyraal. Ticket in the Roleplay Discord if you would like help with naming.


The Protectorate counterattack was enough to make the combined Dwarven-Allorn armies stagger, but could only go so far in holding them off, given the far greater numbers and access to unknown technology that offered the attackers the advantage. Instead, the Protectorate drew its people in to a few select strongholds and established policies of stalemate and vicious guerilla attacks on Dwarven-Allorn encampments to disable their technology and mining efforts. Though this tactic worked for the Protectorate on a technicality, its success was somewhat pyrrhic. With the attackers constantly bearing down on them, it was all that they could do to hold them in place. When resources grew thin for the invaders, the war would fall into lulls, allowing the Protectorate time to breathe and recuperate, before another wave would begin. Due to this, many scholars dispute the status of the Second Dragon War, describing it as a series of sustained conflicts, though the title remains for convenience’s sake. These conflicts continued for around five decades, tearing through the Cultist and Violet Dragon populations alike, until the Allorn Empire began a slow withdrawal. Citing a lack of success in sight, the Allorn Empire was becoming ever more aware of the losses and expenses of sustaining such a war in Ellador, while the Mage Wars continued to rage on in the Allorn homelands, and would for another decade following. The Dwarves withdrew soon after, losing much of the driving power of the war without the riches and nigh-unending manpower of the Altalar.  
==Brief History==
Over the course of the Allorn (Elven) Empire’s existence, it imported new ideas from abroad as well as developing its own, creating diversity of opinion and religion in its formerly single-minded population. One of these diversities was [[Draconism]], or the act of showing favor to Dragons, the oldest beings on Aloria. Draconism in the Allorn Empire rallied around the Creation Dragon Aurora, a patron of craftsmen and living things who forged life into the world’s many creatures within her Craters of Creation. It originated when an innocent archaeological society began to dig up Dragon ruins scattered around the Allorn Empire, learning that Elves had worshiped Dragons before the Empire's creation and the arrival of new prophets. Converting one by one, the society soon became the Dragon-worshiping so-called Cult of Dregodar, earning the enmity of the Allorn Empress’ inner court and the over-powerful clerics of the state religion, [[Estelley]].  


The so-called Inter-Dragon War period saw the rise of many traditions and social standards held by present-day Isldar. They became paranoid of further wars; their populations already severely, near-irreparably damaged by constant barrages of attacks in the Second War, the Cult of Drogon had become emotionally cold, opposed to emotional attachments when, in their eyes, war could come at any point and tear away what they had established between them. At the same time, however, they recognised that acts of anger and aggression to each other were counterproductive when their time alive was seemingly on an hourglass they could not see; this gave birth to their aversion to losing their temper, and their preference for a few meaningful words as opposed to many meaningless ones. The Protectorate shored up their defenses and brought their people into strongholds specifically, preparing for imminent attacks, while the elders of the Cult communed with the Violet Dragons in preparation for what was to come. Although later, far later, than they had expected, the Third Dragon War broke out in 114 BC, and changed the fate of the Protectorate entirely.  
Persuaded by manipulative advisors and secret Cultists of yet other religions who hated Dragons, an Allorn Empress outlawed the Cult and Dragon Worship around 1000 BC. This ignited a large-scale Dragon worshiper uprising across the Empire. It might have been kept to a local rebellion had the Dregodar not chosen to both aid the [[Eronidas]], Dragon-worshiping Orcs who had invaded the Allorn Empire in its north-west, and rapidly free and then arm all of the [[Asha]] slaves they had formerly kept to join their side in the war. These escalations eventually led to the Allorn army being mobilized against the Dregodar, beginning a hopeless war they could not survive. Though the Eronidas won and kept their state, in the end the Dregodar lost and were forced to cross the water to another continent with Aurora in tow, while any Dragon worshipers left in the Allorn Empire had to go into hiding and the Asha they had armed disappeared into the Asha resistance.


The Third Dragon War was witness to the heights of Dwarven “innovation”; spurred on by the anger and violence of new generations of Dwarves, they launched a third, and final invasion of Ellador. The Dwarves elected to attack in different ways, using brand new siege machines to devastate stronghold walls, or experimental drilling devices to bore holes into keeps to swarm their inhabitants and burn Violet Dragon roosts, with the Dragons still inside. The Protectorate fell into panic; their walls were compromised, and their allies, the Dragons, were being slaughtered wholesale. Many Dwarves made attempts to insult the Protectorate by using the corpses of the dead Dragons to try to build flying machines, but to no avail; these Dwarves would only kill themselves in trying, falling from great heights to their doom, and further desecrating the bodies of the Dragons in doing so. The Third War, lasting twenty years, drew to a stalemate as the Second had, though only in its final five years, as the Protectorate sought to conserve its dwindling people and ever-shrinking population of Dragons. By 95 BC, only six Violet Night Dragons remained; Pyndrynt, Lovnarr, Eideriss, Seheissi, Fyyrm, and Frisit herself. Seeing no outcome in sight where the Protectorate would come out alive, the elders and Dragons released their order to draw all of their remaining forces into a single stronghold, at the bottom of a valley; the last stand of the Cult of Drogon and the Violet Night Dragons would occur here, at the Battle of Udillin’s Foot.
They arrived in the lush and vast continent of Ellador, where they would meet the locals, the Dwarves. Though they began on good terms, Allorn ambassadors soon followed the fleeing Cult and manipulated the Dwarves into declaring war on them. A hundred-year series of wars followed in which Allorn Archmages and Dwarven mechanical ingenuity together brought the Cult of Dregodar to its knees. Yet, at the final battle beneath the mountain of Udillin’s Foot, Aurora supposedly cast a great spell in revenge, turning the once green Ellador into a frozen wasteland and slaughtering the Allorn and Dwarven armies where they stood, but transforming her Cult into the Race now known as Isldar. Casting the spell changed her, turning her withered and bloated, Undead in appearance. Unbeknownst to the Isldar, she had fallen to her fear and been possessed by a a great Demon of the Death-God called the Glacial.


The final battle that would bring a close to the Third Dragon War between the Dwarves and the Cult of Drogon took place in 94 BC in an valley area previously called Udillin’s Foot by the Dwarves. This last pivotal battle was intended as the last stand by the Cult of Drogon which had been wittled down by centuries of warfare and prosecution by the Altalar. While they had resisted the Altalar in the previous wars, the Dwarves were both numerous and using technology far beyond the Drogon means, using their tunnels to rapidly move around the Drogon positions and even using mysterious weapons to cause mountain tremors to tear down Drogon strongholds. The Isldar had effectively become so lacking in numbers that a final stand, with a planned flight to [[Jorrhildr]] should their plan succeed, was approved by the elders. Frisit also committed the few Violet Night Dragons that remained to the battle, presiding herself also as the Drogon threw every last thing they had at the Dwarves who had them cornered.
Still believing they served Aurora (now visibly turned Undead, and renamed to Frisit), the Isldar took advantage of their newfound immunity to the cold to take control of most of Ellador. Mostly ignoring the [[Cataclysm]] which wracked the wider world, the Isldar soon came into conflict with the Vampire state of [[Dorkarth]] which came to exist in the north of Ellador, along with parties of [[Velheim]] Ailor colonists and Dwarves looking to reclaim lost Holds that had been destroyed by the Glacial’s scheme. Brutal ambushers who could melt into the snows and reappear at any moment, the Isldar acquired a fearful reputation, becoming hated by the rest of Ellador’s people over centuries of war. This would continue until very recently, when two powerful Dragons appeared above the Isldar capital and slew Frisit where she stood, revealing the Glacial’s trickery and reviving the true Aurora, who immediately left the Isldar to return to one of her Craters of Creation instead.


The battle went about as well as one would expect to a severely fatigued and torn-up people, the Dwarves using all manner of explosive devices and contraptions to wipe out whole formations in one go. Dwarven artillery was in fact so effective that it was able to kill the Violet Night Dragons at an alarming rate, as well as the creatures that these Dragons produced to help them in their combat. One by one, the legendary Violet Night Dragons fell, who had tended the craters of life since the beginning of time. With each death, Frisit grew more desperate, as she watched Pyndrynt, Lovnarr, Eideriss, Seheissi and Fyyrm fall, eventually entering the fray herself and destroying many Dwarven catapults and devices. The battle was however too much. The Drogon cult was cornered and the Dwarves were about to unleash the final assault to end the battle. In her final desperation as the last Violet Night Dragon left alive, Frisit mustered the last remnants of her own Magic but also that of the other Violet Night Dragons who were slain in battle to unleash a massive spell that caused such a blinding light that observers as far as [[Essalonia]] and the [[North Skags]] were able to see it.  
Since then, Ellador has been wracked not just by war between the Isldar and their Dorkarthi, Velheim, and Dwarven enemies, but also between the pro-Dragon Life Cult rebellion and the pro-Glacial Death Cult regime. The Velheim and Dwarves, as well as the Regalian Empire, have grudgingly decided to forgive and side with the Cult of Life, shipping [[Urlan]] shock troopers to Ellador to help them fight off the Death Cult. This worked well enough that the Death Cult was forced to accept a truce with the Life Cult, and turn to fight Dorkarth together for the time being. Both of them would like to re-ignite the war, but cannot do it so long as Dorkarth poses a mortal threat.


In her spell, Frisit died, yet turned undead. Her scales turned white while her bat-like wings withered and tore into a skeletal structure of bones tightly spun with skin. Her eyes turned white and her whole body became mangy and old, losing the ability to fly as she came down and had essentially changed from a glorious matron Dragon to a withering creature. The spell’s effects on the Dwarves and Cult of Drogon was even more severe however. The Dwarves were all wiped out instantly, records indicating that over a hundred thousand Dwarves died in that single spell, a loss so severe for the Dwarves that it was cited as the main reason why theyshut their gates when the [[Void Invasion]] began and were unable to defend the outside of their holds from the demonic invasion. The Dwarves caught in the initial blast were simply wiped to dust in one final agonizing cry, while those further away were quickly caught by the extreme cold snap that turned even water to ice instantly and then shattered it with great force. These caught Dwarves froze solid instantly and then cracked, falling to pieces, while the Drogon Nelfin remained unharmed.  
==Conflicts & Alliances==
A lot of MassiveCraft's lore is constructed around religious, historical, or societal grievances. This section sets out conflict and alliance points for the Isldar.
* '''Allorn Elves:''' Most Isldar hate Allorn Elves, considering their Empire a tyrant state of debauchery. Confusing an Isldar for a Teledden will start a fight.
* '''Asha:''' The Dregodar freed and armed an immense number of Asha slaves, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. The resultant feelings are complex.
* '''Eronidas:''' The Life Isldar remember how much the Dregodar did for the Eronidas, but the Eronidas do not remember or care at all, which saddens them a bit.
* '''Urlan:''' As the Urlan show veneration to Dragons, and even aggressive Ellador Urlan still cooperate with the Life Isldar, they are friendly.
* '''Velheim, Dwarves:''' Isldar have a long history of war with the Velheim, who usually do not trust them. However, there are cases of Isldar converting to Fornoss and integrating.
* '''Vampires:''' Isldar despise Vampires, since they are locked in war with the Vampire state of Dorkarth in western Ellador with its nightmare legions and flying castles.  
* '''Each Other:''' The main conflict focus of the Isldar is the civil war. They are at once the same people, and one another's most bitter enemies in every meaningful way.


In the blast of this spell, those Drogon Nelfin present had their skins lose color and their hair turned white. They were immune to the cold that killed all the Dwarves, watching in both horror and amazement as Frisit sacrificed herself and the remaining Violet Night Dragon magics to inflict a horrible toll on the living, something the Dragon had never wanted to do, but was forced to, to save her Nelfin followers. The cold snap continued to flow from that valley, eventually enveloping the whole of Ellador and killing tens of thousands of Ailor who had also settled the southern coast. The cold snap then continued across the ocean, affecting Jorrhildr which became even colder, and the North Skags as well as [[Cain]] to the southeast, casting them into a frozen tundra from which they would not recover. Ellador remained since then a frozen continent plagued with blizzards and snowstorms, with the interior of the landmass especially hard-hit with frequent sub-zero temperatures. The time period saw the cult of Dragon-loving Altalar stop being Altalar and became Isldar instead, and the time when they were first seen on a larger scale by the rest of the world remains a mystery.  
==Religions==
* '''[[Draconism]]''': All Life Isldar by default must worship Draconism to be considered Life Isldar. They usually favor Aurora, but are found in every Dragon circle: Regulus and Caius both have important Isldar servants.
* '''[[Evolism]]''': All Death Isldar by default must worship the Glacial, part of the broader Evolist pantheon, to be considered Death Isldar. They prioritize her over the others, but still give favors where they can.
* '''[[Fornoss]]''': Some Isldar, both Life and Death, turn to Neutral Isldar by converting to Fornoss and living with the Velheim or Dwarves. There are not that many, but the number is not unnotable, especially in Hedryll.
* '''[[Baskarr]], [[Estelley]], [[Unionism]]''': There are few Isldar who worship any of these religions, because Baskarr is a homogeneous Asha ethno-religion, Estelley is the religion of the Allorn oppressors that they suffered for converting away from, and Unionism is simply very foreign, far away, and very alien to the Isldar historical narrative. Some Isldar convert away to these religions and become Neutral, but need strong justification.


It is said by the Isldar themselves, as well as the scholars who looked into it, that the Isldar retreated further inland and built the first of their holds, palatial complexes shielded by a large ring of snow blizzards yet clear and sunny albeit still frozen in the eye of the storm. Here the Isldar numbers would replenish their losses and live for at least 200 years in absolute isolation, not even acknowledging the Void Invasion or interacting with any outside forces. The Dwarves assumed for the longest time that the Drogon cultists had been wiped out as no sign of life came from the surface, until some scouts went missing in 124 AC, and further investigations found Altalar arrows in their corpses. It took the Isldar many more decades after this first encounter to learn Frisit’s Weave, and all the accompanying abilities that came with it. Frisit herself had become sluggish and weak, blind, deaf and unable to leave the Crown Hold of Assalya, from she continues to guide the Isldar to this day.
==Isldar Civil War==
The Isldar Civil War is so immensely important that it deserves its own section. Before the Civil War, the Isldar were ruled by an entity that called itself Frisit, the Undead Frost Dragon. Frisit was really a Demon of the Death God called the Glacial in a Dragon's body, but was pretending very carefully to be a genuine Dragon, and so operated for the most part within the bounds of Dragon Worship. Other than being oddly Death-obsessed and fighting in the wars across Ellador, the Isldar did not have an unusual society for Dragon Worshipers. Magic was relatively rare but still present and un-persecuted since Aurora lacked other Dragons' zeal for their war against Magic, with just a few Dragon-empowered Archon born from older lineages that dated back to Aurora's actual lifetime scattered through the library towers in the countryside. Although the Death Isldar in the modern day are fierce necromancers and Death Magic spellcasters who fight with legions of the damned, this is an incredibly modern change that only happened once the Glacial was clearly revealed. Even though they are zealous enemies of Dragons and Dragon Worship, the Death Isldar were basically raised Dragon Worshipers of Frisit until the schism, with their expression of belief only changing as the visible nature of their Goddess did. That the Glacial's deceit could not be discovered for so long was not due to the absence of other Dragons, or supposed naive behavior on the part of the Isldar, but because the Demon Frisit was very, very good at pretending to be a Dragon, and did nothing to betray that belief until she was exposed.


Frisit started communicating to the Isldar through visions and song in the wind, where her Wyrm Tongue could reach their ears even if she could no longer speak the mortal tongues. The Isldar then continued to work towards her designs for the coming century, up until around 201 AC when the first Isldar ventured out into the world as the singers of the Song of the Damned to restore balance to the cycle of life and death. For centuries, the tearing of the [[Veil]] and the Void Invasion had corrupted the flow of Soul Essence in Aloria, and disrupted the natural order of things. It was by Frisit’s orders that the Isldar ventured forth to repair the damage, allowing damaged Soul Essence to move on and restoring it wherever they could to tend to the Soul Rivers of Aloria. The Isldar later on developed more political aims also, engaging in espionage for the elders still left in their holds, to aid in their global plans for world protectionism, not domination. World domination was never part of the Isldar’s grand plan, they merely wished to guide and protect the balance of life and death in the world, but as the world quickly moves to a more modern and interconnected one, the Isldar too needed to adapt to the increased threat of realms like the [[Regalian Empire]] which inflicted so much death that the Rivers started bending, as well as the [[Dread Empire]] which started using all kinds of vile powers to damage the Rivers. Isldar continue to roam the world, seeking out information relevant to their strategists and tacticians, but also tending to the Soul Rivers wherever they go, dispensing aid to those who seek comforts in their final hours and others who wish to cleanse a ghostly terror from their lives.  
Almost all Death Isldar come from the gigantic Isldar moon spire metropole cities built atop the mountains, and almost all Life Isldar come from the rural observatory towers and shacks scattered out in the middle of nowhere. The Isldar Civil War has as much of an economic motivation as a religious one, although the Isldar consider any suggestion to that effect a crude form of insult, and would gladly start a fight over it. The fact is, however, that the more powerful Isldar clans in the cities had a lot of political power because of their closeness to the priesthood of Frisit. Joining the Life Isldar rebellion would have meant giving that all up to live in caves and fight on the run against overwhelming force, on behalf of Dragons they had never met, dying for a cause they were not even sure if they believed in anymore. As such, a sizeable majority of the Isldar population (70-30) belongs to the Death Isldar, even if the Regalian popular imagination would depict it the other way around. The Life Isldar, meanwhile, number so strongly from the spire record-keeping towers and empty provinces because these lineages were settled well before the Battle at Udillin's Foot and the end of the War, having been so socially isolated that the entire transformation of Aurora into Frisit went completely over their heads, and their oral and written custom preserved direct proper Dragon Worship as held before without interference.


==Society==
If the Life Isldar were to win, it would be their goal to achieve the old ideal from when the Isldar first set out to Ellador. The mountaintops to the Isldar, the mountain depths to the Dwarves, and the valleys to be split between the Urlan and Ailor humans depending on historical custom. If the Death Isldar were to win, they would likely turn any remaining non-Isldar prisoners into Shades or Undead and kill, convert, or expel the Life Isldar, then ruling Ellador as an Empire in the Glacial's image until the day of her prophesied return to greet her worshipers in the world of the living. The Death Isldar like to say that the Life Isldar are complacent cowards who are destroying their own nation with treachery for the sake of Gods who do not care about them and never will, and the Life Isldar like to say that the Death Isldar are mindless agents of a cruel, murderous Death Beast who would drown the world for the sake of their own petty selfishness. Even though the Death Isldar are discriminated in Regalia and the Life Isldar are not, both sides have a point to be made. The Glacial did protect and empower the Isldar for centuries, at the same time as she is a Death God, and her followers are murderers.
Isldar Society is fairly flat in comparison to other societies around the world, with very little in terms of a structural hierarchy. While Frisit remains undoubtedly at the top of Isldar society, Frisit is also deaf and blind and unable to properly communicate with those around her aside from Wyrm Tongue gospel and visions which aren’t always clear to those who see them. Isldar society is technically controlled by the Elders, but the Elders exert very little day to day influence over the lives of those in Isldar Society. Isldar society uses the construct of “pillars of life” to dictate where people belong to, and where certain services are taken from. The pillar of Faith is administered by the Dragon Priests who preach the salvation of the Dragons to the faithful and administer the social services like care for orphans and the sick. There is no form of charity or shelter, since Isldar society is far more communcal than other societies, lacking also a currency. The pillar of the Lands is commonly also referred to as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when referenced by outsiders, because it handles dealing with foreigners as well as gathering information on everything that happens outside of the Isldar Holds to strategize their global planning.


The third pillar is the Pillar of War, in which Isldar self-conscript into the army and become Frost Watchers, those who protect the Holds, or Wind Watchers, those who leave the holds and fight for Frisit away from Ellador. Military individuals can switch between these tasks frequently or leave military service whenever they want to and rejoin at a later time. The fourth pillar is the Pillar of Sustenance, which governs the acquisition of materials needed for the Isldar as well as ensuring there is always enough food available by governing the plantations and crops either from underground agriculture or the special frost-resistant fruits that grow around the palatial Holds. The final pillar it the Pillar of the Dead, which governs the Song of the Damned, the singing, music, traditions and festivals, as well as acting as a central contact point for all those Isldar that roam the world to repair damage made to the Soul Rivers.  
==Culture==
===Politics===
===Families and Romance===
Within the five Pillars, there is a concept of leadership, however only strictly for those who work within the pillars. Every Isldar is a member of one of these five pillars, which can both be in the Holds in Ellador, as well as away from Ellador, since all pillars have both domestic and foreign tasks and duties to maintain. Within the Pillars there is general an Elder who advises and is looked up to as a great and venerable leader, but there is no official hierarchy nor are there middle men, task leaders or commanders in any way shape or form. Isldar tend to self-organize, and more Isldar belonging to different Pillars can self-unify under a single leader called the Lessay. A Lessay can have as few as three followers and as many as a hundred, where their personal charisma and leadership is what draws in the Isldar, never pressure or coercion. Isldar give authority and control to their Lessay voluntarily as a sign of respect, and promise to obey their orders as long as they feel those orders properly represent them and have their best interests at heart. Powerful Lessays could be considered warlords or strike-commandos in their own right when taken in context to the Isldar Holds, but they rarely actually use this control over other Isldar as a means to make a power-play or engage in politics. Because of how flat and un-hierarchal Isldar society is, even soft power for being a Lessay is practically pointless when even Lessays rely on the Pillar of Sustenance to be fed, due to the communal nature of their society. In short, there is no Politics in Isldar society. Even justice and law are arbitrated by Frisit alone, and Isldar cannot exert influence or power over one another unless it is voluntarily given away.  
Family is incredibly important to the Isldar, whose broader society remains somewhat tribal, strung together by clans. When living in a place as large and inhospitable as Ellador, clans become an easy way to establish relations with someone else: with each clan usually having a trade, a social standing, and a vague place of origin, just learning a name can communicate a lot of information. Unlike the other Elven peoples who keep very small and slow to grow families, Isldar often have many siblings, first cousins, and even more second cousins. While there is not a pre-written list of Isldar families or great clans, it is encouraged for players to think about their Characters' and use them for easy backstory ties with one another. While some Isldar families and traditional clan bonds were destroyed by the religious schism, the more powerful or stable clans were mostly able to stick together. A situation where an entire great clan of thousands of people went Vixit or Rexit together and a situation where a family of four split halfway down the middle are equally possible, depending on the desired story. The Isldar have a very deep but slightly prudish culture around romance. While they are not as conservative as the Lanlath, for example, the usual ideal demands long sheafs of sappy poetry penned in the honor of one's lover. Another common cultural theme is to sacrifice for love: there are many heroes in the Isldar poems and epics, who were forced to lay down their lives for a spouse or forbidden lover, immortalized after death. Needless to say, the Isldar make for very passionate partners under their frigid, emotionless exteriors, if one is able to survive their love for the dramatic and the occasional moonlight saber duel fought with a competitor for a darling's hand.
===Clothing===
Isldar fashion is more pragmatic than most Elven styles, made for Ellador's sub-zero environment. It tends to mix a combination of tighter, simpler underclothes with traditional Elven robes that can be quickly shed if a fight breaks out. While the Isldar still wear embroidery and jewelry, they are considered more on the austere side, with muted dulled colors. Isldar inside wear and underclothes tend to be darker and more vivid, while the opposite is true of their cloaks and shrouds, which are overwhelmingly plain, designed with the empty white tundra of Ellador in mind. Moon symbolism is very common with the Isldar because the pale moon was one of the first emblems of the Cult of Dregodar back in the Allorn days, but the Rexit have mostly discarded this and other traditional Elven symbolism for a macabre focus on bone motifs. Dark skeletal mock armor, black metal plates arranged like scales, giant nails and elaborate headdresses: the Rexit have a head for the ostentatious and sleek, dressing to draw eyes from every room they walk into. The Vixit, meanwhile, have a persistent sort of "ranger" look about them due to their origin in the rural provinces. With belts for field equipment and hidden knives, even their upper class, such as it is, looks ready for a week lost in the snow-covered wilderness. There are a few unique Isldar fabrics, such as Starshimmer fabric that looks like a thin translucent dark purple gauze with white star speckles across its surface, that are quite prized and hard to get in Regalia. Additionally, Isldar are skillful tattoo artists: many show religious devotion, while some others are just stylistic. Most Isldar, at least, have Magical glyphs tattooed at the base of their necks in honor of their patron Gods, that are supposed to ward away the eyes of those who would want to harm them.
===Art===
The Isldar are famous for two forms of visual art: calligraphy, and wall carvings. Their intricate and alien etched designs laid into the permafrost of the deepest Hold interiors can spiral up around the viewer for so high and long that they cannot see the end of them from the ground. Isldar wall carvings are usually renditions of the poetic epics to put them into memory, or more relevantly, religious texts. Many of the countryside Isldar who would later become the Vixit built their crystal towers of observation atop old obelisks and hidden chambers of the gospel of Dragons from the Allorn day. Though some have been destroyed, most yet remain. Isldar calligraphy is prized mostly because of their unique flowing script. While still decidedly Elven, other Elves like to use it in artwork from time to time to make text illegible to the common eye or evoke the distant air of snowy Ellador, while non-Elven cultures see beauty in the twisting, looping shapes, much the same. Otherwise, their poetry and choral song are prized for their intensity, especially the romances. Isldar poetry is often very tragic, dreary, and emotionally heavy: they believe that an honest story must include lows as deep as the highs are tall. Even the Isldar Song of Life and Song of Death, the magical cants that pass the dead on or damn them to Undeath, have been described as a love song to a life and a hate song to a death respectively, begging the listener in swirling verse to accept the beauty of the time they have had, or rage against what was taken from them.  
===Other Cultural Habits===
* Isldar cannot stand spicy food, but they have the inverse: very, very strong minty substances that can get so strong as to numb the mouths of those without appropriate tolerance. A common Isldar response to being made fun of for not being able to handle a pepper is offering the offender a sprig of Ellador Blizzardmint.
* Isldar have a very strong tea culture. It is a critical element of any and all Isldar hospitality to offer a guest some tea. Some Isldar even barter with tea bricks. Most famous of all is their black tea steeped for a very long time to be incredibly strong, and then muddled with butter from Ellador mountain yaks, so that it has a buttery and warming feeling to it.
* Isldar alcohol is very sweet and fruity, with bright peach and pear and apple notes. They drink it in shots served in engraved steel cups inlaid with silver. Sometimes Isldar alcohol is flavored with the mint mentioned in the previous bullet point, which gives it a chilling kick in the back of the throat.
* Isldar are [[Wyvern]] riders, both Vixit and Rexit, and fancied to be the best in Aloria. Even though they are excellent riders who form lifetime bonds with their mounts, there is an Isldar saying that "only a southlander would fly a wyvern for everyone to see." Just like one can be ambushed on the land, one can also be ambushed in the sky by those who take offense to one's presence.
* Isldar are not just singers. They also have a long tradition of harp and lyre music, and very deep, wistful flutes carved from the reeds that used to grow on the banks of southern Ellador before it froze over. All the same, it is their choirs that remain the most famous both at home and abroad, usually as a medium for their poetic tradition.
* Isldar enjoy accuracy-based sports like rifle, archery, javelin, and dart competitions with the best shot being rewarded. These take precedence over any kind of organized team sports. On the intellectual side, they are also fond of symposiums, debates, and other kinds of verbal sparring. Anything with a duel theme is bound to be popular.
* Isldar have a very strong concept of guest right and hospitality. If one is enemies with an Isldar, the safest place to be is at their doorstep begging sanctuary. The most common way guest right is given is by offering a glass of ice water. If an Isldar offers one among five captives a drink, then that one should breathe easy, and the other four should start sweating.
* Isldar prize their ornamented, inscribed dueling sabers, which are passed down their family line as an object of honor and dignity. These swords are only intended to be ceremonially used for honor duels, and are so richly decorated that they would not long survive the beating that a tour of use on the battlefield would mark on them.
* Isldar camping and woodcutting blades are short, curved forward at the tip (refer to real-life Nepalese khukuri). In a pinch, it can be a useful sidearm.
* Isldar are one of the cultures of Aloria that sometimes uses gunpowder weapons. They have no native gunpowder artillery, or sidearms like pistols, but make very long metal-banded rifles they call 'jazalya,' for sniping into valleys.
* Isldar do not see honor in standing and fighting. They are relentless ambush warriors who attack their enemies unseen, cover them in a hail of javelin fire, dive in with their moon-glaives, and then turn around and escape back onto their Wyverns and leave. The Isldar saying on this goes, "the men who call you cowards will die."
* Isldar love hunting and wilderness pursuits. They are stealthy and silent hunters, the calculated and chilling opposite of the nature-attuned Urlan. If Isldar and Urlan are hunting together, it is doom for their target.
* Isldar also love parkour and roof climbing and running in urban settings. Rooftops also make space to sit privately and talk about personal feelings without a looming crowd, making them an Isldar favorite.
* Isldar are very adept observers and astronomers, especially with their brilliant eyesight. Their Crystal Spire observatories hidden around Aloria also double as places to chart the stars.
* Isldar are fond of moon and lunar symbolism. In the early days, the Dragon Worshipers disguised themselves as worshipers of Leyon by using a slightly different moon, and this stuck.


It should come as no surprise that Isldar have trouble following orders when they don’t expressly believe they have given said authority away voluntarily in for example [[Regalia]]. An Isldar who joins the City Guard has given their authority away to the Lord Commander, but might have extreme difficulty adhering to the commands of their captains and officers, since these middle men were never given authority to command them, in their eyes. Isldar often have trouble adapting to the rigid command structures of foreign nations, and retain a level of rebelliousness and individualism that puts them at odds with aristocratic societies like Regalia. Isldar will often also operate on their own auspices or deviate from a plan even if it has already been agreed upon beforehand, just because they conclude in the field that the situation is different as predicted or believed, and that they know better how to solve the problem at hand.  
==Recommended Playstyle==
===Culture===
The Recommended Playstyle section explains some easy-to-enter niches that these people of Aloria function well in.
Isldar culture is strongly defined by their individualism taken away from Altalar history. While many of the other Nelfin species maintain some sort of observation of their Altalar history, the Isldar have chosen to violently end that connection because they consider their pre-Isldar history to be a taint on their purity and value to the world. This begun early on when the Cult of Drogon adopted [[Sulvaley Elven]], a language which has its basis in [[Middle Altalar]] but diverged so quickly and aggressively that is essentially became a language of its own and could no longer be understood in the slightest even to those who still speak Middle Altalar. Sulvaley Elven sounds far more exotic heavy on double vowels, causing them to sound akin to real-world Farsi and also having a real-world Arabic accent when speaking Common. Unlike Arabic however, Sulvaley Elven is a nominal language, meaning when they speak common, they don’t just drop verbs when translating to English. Isldar law is extremely lacking, because of how communal their society behaves, and because of how calm and recollected most Isldar are. The desire for Crime is completely absent in the Isldarrin Holds, while externally, Isldar tend to fall under the jurisdiction of foreign entities. Isldar have a concept of transgression forgiveness if crimes are committed in ignorance or mistake, however proper crimes of those who have been led astray or lost their way are resolved by Frisit passing judgement. Even these judgements are usually very lacking, resulting in banishment over execution. In general, life is a precious thing to the Isldar, so unless it risks the future existence of their Holds, they try to preserve it as well as possible or at least let it pass over quickly and peacefully.  
* '''Isldar Rangers''' are some of the best in the world, investing in [[Ranger Point Buy]] or [[Deadeye Point Buy]].
* '''Isldar Adventurers''' are quick on their feet and good with knives, investing in [[Cutthroat Point Buy]].
* '''Isldar Lifesingers''' are the talented Archon healer clerics and sages, investing in [[Magic Point Buy]] and [[Cleric Point Buy]] as [[Archon]].
* '''Isldar Deathsingers''' are the powerful and corrupt Death Priests of the Glacial, investing in [[Magic Point Buy]], sometimes as [[Geist]]s.
* '''Isldar Glaive Ambushers''' are the larger and stronger frontline troops, investing in [[Bruiser Point Buy]] and [[Magic Point Buy]].


Isldar gender roles in society are completely equal with no differences whatsoever on a Pillar level. That being said, family units can sometimes be very matriarchal with women running the local household and acting as household representative to the outside world. Mothers are often held in higher esteem, especially when they have many children, and venerable elders who have many children are seen as wise figures to look up to, even outside of the family unit. Children are raised in a very utilitarian and often spartan manner, with early lessons in military conduct to control Frisit Weave’s military applications for self-protection. Children don’t play a lot in their early childhood which Regalian scholars often cite as a reason for Isldar being so self-contained and restrained when it comes to showing their emotions and inner feelings to others.  
==Trivia==
* The Isldar like to play checkers. Not because it is considered mentally challenging, but because the white pieces are a metaphor for the Life Isldar and the black pieces are a metaphor for the Death Isldar.
* The elaborate acrobatic games of the Isldar, like throwing darts and backflipping, have achieved some renown around the world as evidence of the unrivaled dexterity of these mysterious Snow Elves.
* Now that the Glacial does not rule all of Ellador, some parts of the continent in the south near the coast are defrosting and turning green again, albeit very, very slowly, valley by valley.


Isldar art is usually related to creating Isldar Aysur, which can start at a young age, around 10 even. Isldar learn to express themselves and their thoughts and emotions in art instead of to each other, which is why the art produced by Isldar can usually have an exceptionally vivid emotional charge. Isldar enjoy working with glass, crystallized Soul Essence, marble and pure stone, but avoid in most if not all cases color. Color in art to the Isldar is distracting, which is why they find most art that uses colors like red, blue, and green distracting or vulgar, preferring art that is purely white, or a combination of white, gray, and black, with accents of silver or gold. Isldar clothing on the other hand is extremely vibrant in color, though usually more ranging onto the colder colors like green, white, blue and yellow, and any combination in between. The Isldar prefer Nelfin Silk which in their homeland is spun from the Deep Cave Spider’s silk and dyed with Crystal Moss. Isldar are also very fond of jewelry. Although they do not have an Altalar’s sense of vanity, jewelry in many ways is seen as an expression of personal identity and personality, relating to the shapes of the Isldar Zeal glyph on the back of their neck.
{{Peoples}}
 
Privacy is extremely important to the Isldar, more so in fact referring to said Isldar Zeal. While an Isldar can control what they tell the world about themselves in their choice of jewelry, they cannot do so with the Glyph at the base of the back of their neck. It is seen as a great violation of trust and privacy for an Isldar to force another Isldar to show their Glyph, and most Isldar will not show their Glyph or attempt to resist a forceful reveal with much vigor. Isldar tend to also keep personal records which they guard closely, and tend to always have at least one room or place close to where they live which they consider their Haven’s Retreat, kind of like a space in the world they do not own but unofficially claim as their safe haven, and become upset if anyone but them is inside of it, considering it a great honor for those who are invited into the area by them. Isldar cuisine is almost entirely fruit based, eating the highly nutritious fruits that grow frost-resistant in the area around their holds. When Isldar move to Regalia for example, they tend to have trouble adapting to a bread and dairy based diet, lacking certain plant nutrients that they would normally have in their homeland. Isldar as such tend to gravitate to the Yanar a lot who, despite being unable to grow the Isldar’s favorite fruits in Regalia, are able to produce something like it.
 
Leisure for the Isldar is almost entirely related to song or dance. Isldar know primarily the Song of the Damned, but have many other songs which are sung to the Soul Rivers of Aloria as homage or praisal, or to calm the flow. Most of these songs do not actually do anything, but they set the Isldar on a path of musical learning from an early age, and surprisingly, nearly all Isldar seem proficient to some degree in singing, not a single one of them sounding awful. That being said, some of them excel with exceptional degrees, to such degrees in fact that some world-wise musicians know Isldar to be the most skilled singers in the world with the most dramatic ranges and most natural tone-accurate ladders. These exceptional singers are called Frisit’s Gifted, and are usually put in a high position of visibility to the rest of Isldar Society as they lead more communal singing choirs called the Choirs of Gaalley. Dance is another great leisure activity, but in a far more muted and slow manner than one might come to expect in Ailor society. The Dance of the Rivers is a commonly performed dance that uses the Soul Rivers as a stage item, and long silk ribbons that are thrown around and moved with arm gestures in such manners that they imitate flowing rivers. This dance is however extremely slow, featuring dance moves that take several seconds to complete and then pause for a dozen more, with very slow harp music in between.
 
Because of their philosophy towards the recycling, balancing and proper use of the Soul Rivers of Aloria, the Isldar have an understandable hatred for Qadir and their clockwork tech. Unlike the Isldar, the Qadir use Soul Essence in a way that uses it up, destroys it, and never allows it to return. They actively diminish the Soul Rivers of Aloria and most of it aren’t even aware of it, and the ones that do simply don’t care, considering the need for clockwork to be above the practically unprovable beliefs of the Isldar that if the Soul Rivers of Aloria are disrupted too much, that the world will come to a crashing end and all life will become extinct. While Isldar remain stoic and hard to anger in the face of a Qadir, if given the opportunity, any Isldar will gladly destroy a piece of clockwork engineering when given the chance to release the trapped Soul Essence back to the Soul Rivers.
===Religion===
Isldar religion follows the trendlines of [[Dragon Dogma]], in that Dragons are divine beings who are the grandfathers of all creation, thus believing in most of their tenants, but not in the salvation theory. While Dragon Dogma preaches the return of the Dragons to rule over all, Isldarrin Faith has a more nuanced view in believing that the mortal Races of Aloria sinned against the Dragons and murdered them all, and now have the job of tending to the world as they once did in atonement. Isldar observe Dragon worship through invoking the name of dead Dragons in prayer, and wishing upon their presence in the Soul Rivers of Aloria, where they unfortunately never appear. Isldar do not believe in the concept of divine intervention, meaning that they do not actually perceive these prayers or wishes to be reasonably realistic. The Isldar do not expect the Dragons to ever fully return, and believe firmly that these wishes fall upon deaf ears, merely perpetuating them out of habit and tradition.
 
The arrival of Dragons in Regalia, particularly the resurgence of the Imperial Dragon has however caused a rift among the Isldar. While the Ailor-based Imperial Dragon is likely not even aware of it, many Isldar have started struggling among themselves about the Imperial Dragon’s (and indeed other Dragons’s) role in Isldarrin Faith, and how their sudden reappearance on the global stage causes implications in Dragon Dogma. Some believe that the rebirth of Dragons is possible now, switching from fervent support of the Undead Frisit to the Imperial Dragon. Others believe that, because the Imperial Dragons and the other Dragon Souls are Soul Shards, that they are imitations of the genuine thing and are as such heretical. Others yet believe that Frisit herself is an abomination, being undead, while preaching the cleaning and repairing of the Soul Rivers yet also being a massive flaw in the River flow herself. Needless to say, the discovery of the Imperial Dragon in recent years has caused some severe fissures in Isldar religious psyche, not so severe to cause a civil war or serious religious crisis, but certainly to such a degree that most Isldar are uncertain what the Imperial Dragon means to them, and that every individual Isldar has a different view or opinion of the situation that doesn’t always fall in line with what the Pillar of Faith tells them.
 
==Trivia==
*In modern times, those who are ignorant of the history of the Isldar or their general kind assume they are a rare kind of Altalar. In reality, Isldar aren’t rare because there are few of them left, in fact they are some of the most numerous Nelfin species left in the world. The only reason why they are seen as rare, is because they are good at hiding and not drawing too much attention to themselves.
*Isldar sometimes dye their hair, even if they are zealous towards the wills of Frisit. Isldar have immense arrogance and nationalistic pride, but this doesn’t extend to physical vanity. Isldar are not above dying their hair if it makes dealing with non-Isldar easier.
*Isldar have a surprisingly open view of racial interbreeding, allowing the practice to take place with little to no social stigma. That being said, when Isldar engage in relations with non-Isldar that could result in a half-breed being born, the Isldar remain poignantly aware that even if there is no social stigma, a half breed can never travel to the Isldar Holds in Ellador, and will forever not be a part of Isldar society.
{{Races}}
{{Accreditation
{{Accreditation
|Artists = MonMarty
|Artists = MonMarty
|Writers = MonMarty, Scribbe
|Writers = Okadoka
|Processors = HydraLana, MantaRey, LumosJared
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[[Category:Races]] [[category:Magus Races]]
 
[[Category:People of Aloria]] [[category:races]] [[category:Magus Races]]

Revision as of 09:02, 11 May 2024

Isldar
Yseldaar (in Altalar)
Motto: "Truth Abides no Weakness."
Nation StateLife and Death Isldar States
RulerTower Councils
Other PresentVaried
LanguagesAltalar
ReligionVaried
First Recorded100 BC
Demonym(s)Isldar
Priest Isldar used to turn themselves icy pale blue with Magic to show their dedication. The practice has largely died out, but some still do it.
The Rexit have very skilled warriors, this one clad in black metal armor shaped to still mimic Draconic claws and scales.
Even if Life Isldar are just as closed off as Death Isldar are, they tend to look somewhat more inviting and benevolent.
This Isldar with purple Dragonscale also applied moon-themed war paint before going to battle.
Vixit do not have an extravagant dressing style, usually preferring muted or simple tones with little skin showing.
Rexit death priest head dresses and clothing are some of the most extravagant and alien designed in the world.
Death Isldar always know what they want and that they can get it, and dress to impress.
The Rexit have a large number of powerful Ordial Mages at their service.
The Isldar spire towers sit high and pierce the clouds above the distant peaks of Ellador.

Silent watchers of the frozen mountain peaks, the Isldar are a Race of Snow-Elves who dwell in the distant continent of Ellador and guard its endless, icy valleys. With humble origins as a minor religious cult in the Allorn Empire of old, the struggle of their history drove the Isldar to eventually become their own people and their own nation. Seen as mysterious, reclusive, and barely understood by the outside world, the Isldar are often travelers from their home in one of Aloria’s few remaining unexplored corners. In recent years their society has been cruelly divided by a religious schism that has boiled into war, and with the road to peace impossible to see, the Life and Death Isldar - now bitter enemies - both pray that they will one day triumph. Though they appear in many of the world’s courts as precious advisors and historians, home and family are always close to an Isldar’s heart, for the roads of all their choices eventually lead back to the glimmering spires of Ellador.

Design

The Isldar are patient and prudent Snow Elves, taught from birth to keep their feelings and intentions closely guarded. They are die-hard stoics, sometimes seen by others as emotionless for their disdain of vulnerability and the absent coldness written on their faces: much like their homeland, Ellador, which is cast into a perilous and permanent winter. Most Isldar are incredibly religious, with a schism down the middle based on if the Isldar worships Dragons (and is considered a Life Isldar, "Vixit" in their language) or worships the ice Goddess called the Glacial (and is considered a Death Isldar, "Rexit" in their language). They have a deep, sincere, and poetic culture which struggles with any sort of crudeness or sarcasm. The Isldar are just as famous for their beautiful verses as for their inability to laugh at jokes or smile. Physically, Isldar can have any body shape, but tend towards sharp, narrow facial features and angular frames, often lacking the broadness more common in Human descent. They tend to be tall, with an average height around six foot. Isldar usually style themselves in a traditional Elven way, with robes and long hair.

  • Eye Colors: Isldar eyes must be purple if Life Isldar, green if Death Isldar, and blue if Neutral Isldar. Their sclera can be either white or black.
  • Hair Colors: Isldar have very desaturated natural hair colors. Any white, black, or gray tone, or a pale tone like platinum or strawberry blonde, occurs naturally.
  • Appearance: Isldar are mostly pale, but sometimes have a northern tan (see real life Inuit or Tibetans for examples). They can have any Caucasian or Asian features.
  • Patron Traits: Life Isldar can have Dragonscale patches on their bodies, and Death Isldar can have black metal Dragonscale-like patches on their bodies.

Isldar in Regalia

A century ago, Isldar were so rare that they were frequently confused for the more numerous Elven races. Nowadays, however, the schism and civil war in Ellador has led to a massive departure of Isldar from their homeland. Though there are more in some places than others, there are now enough Isldar abroad that most people have heard of them and their culture, with little pockets scattered around the known world. Here are some concepts for player use:

  • The Life and Death Isldar are currently under a truce. Some members of both factions have taken advantage of this to come to Regalia to lobby for the homeland.
  • The Life Isldar have a refugee colony in Anglia under the high priestess of the Dragon Regulus, who frequently sends her people to Regalia.
  • The Death Isldar understand that there is no better place to cause death than Regalia, the center of the world. It is an excellent place for their work.
  • Isldar are famous musicians, poets and court performers. Irrespective of their side in the war, some of them come to Regalia just to perform.

Heritage Traits

Heritage Traits are free Packs and Mechanics. Free Packs never raise Proficiency Points, just giving the Pack, and obey lock-outs (if something would prevent you from buying the normal version of the Pack, you can't have the free Pack, either). A Character born from two parents with different Traits get the free Packs of one parent, but can mix and match from both parents' Mechanics. Isldar get their two general Mechanics, plus three more depending on what subtype of Isldar they are: Life, Death, or Neutral.

Free Packs

Mechanics

All Isldar Mechanics

  • Isldar are immune to harm from frost or cold sources (unless they are Magical), and do not suffer decreased visibility or choking hazard in a blizzard/snow-storm.
  • Isldar can see things from incredibly far away if they focus, able to spot an eagle landing a kilometer away or a coin being flipped across a town. Ask DM for Event use.

Life Isldar Only Mechanics

  • Life Isldar can perform the Life Song on a recently deceased person of any heritage or culture, ensuring they pass into the afterlife (with OOC consent).
  • Life Isldar can use Farsight to receive vague visions of things happening and existing in faraway lands. (this may require communication with Event DM's or Tickets).
  • Life Isldar can see the Soul Rivers of Aloria where the dead pass through, and are able to tap into it, to feel random memories, emotions, or feelings from long ago.

Death Isldar Only Mechanics

  • Death Isldar can perform the Death Song on a recently deceased person of any heritage or culture, forcibly turning them into an Undead (with OOC Consent).
  • Death Isldar can steal non-Player Spirits from other Characters, and force them to be servants. They can only be taken back if the Death Isldar is KO'd.
  • Death Isldar can Transform into the Bone Horror Shift, a hulking monster made of bones and rotting flesh, which counts as a Disguise but is obviously a Death Isldar, and a Monstrous Transformation.

Neutral Isldar Only Mechanics

  • A Neutral Isldar can choose any three mechanics from the Teledden or Fin'ullen they want.

Life and Death

The Isldar descend from a cult of Dragon Worshipers, forced to flee from the Elven Empire they lived in for religious heresy. After a Magical event bathed their new homeland of Ellador in frost and killed the armies sent to hunt them down, they settled down in isolation, not knowing that their Dragon patron had been replaced, her body possessed by a great Demon of a Death God. Recently, other Dragons returned and exposed the Death God's scheme, resurrecting the true Dragon and sending Isldar society into a spiral. This pitted the city people (who stayed loyal to the Death God who had saved them, even if they had lied) against the rural tower people from the spire observatories (who took up the cause of Dragons again and started a rebellion), creating the division between Death and Life Isldar. The Life Isldar would have lost and been driven off or killed if not for the Regalian Empire's intervention, which was enough to bring the two sides to a truce and allow them to focus on fighting off the dark Vampire kingdom of Dorkarth, which borders both of them.

At the moment of the Death God's exposure, every Isldar was forced to choose between staying loyal to the Death God, the Glacial, or returning to Dragons. A Death Isldar cannot change into a Life Isldar and vice versa, unless they kneel before the patron God of the opposing side (the Glacial or any Dragon, respectively), and admit that they were wrong (spend a God-summoning token for an offscreen conversion). However, if any Isldar converts away from their patron religion or declares that they will have no part in the war, they become a Neutral Isldar instead, and re-gain some of the biology of their Elven ancestors before they became Isldar. A Neutral Isldar cannot go back to either side. It is considered treason for a Life Isldar to associate with a Death Isldar, or a Death Isldar to associate with a Life Isldar, even though they are under a state of truce. Neutral Isldar can be received by both sides, but are sneered down on for cowardice by fanatics, or those who have lost a lot in the war.

Though they share a culture page, Life and Death Isldar are bitter enemies with very different beliefs. The sections below will make it clear what lore refers to what group.

Language and Naming

The Isldar speak the Elven common language Altalar, but have an incredibly strong dialect called Sulvaley. Sort of like a midpoint between Altalar and the Suvial language Agasi, it has much harsher sounds and different word choice in places that makes it very difficult for most other Elves to understand. Though they are still Elves, the accent of the Isldar gives them an almost Arabic feeling when they talk. Sulvaley additionally has a unique script. Though modern Altalar is written with an alphabet, ancient Altalar had characters for syllables. The Isldar held onto this style and write vertically in a flowing hand, making their lettering appear almost similar to real-world Mongolian writing.

  • Example Male Isldar Names: Asrel, Henqaan, Nayaal, Novyaan, Anshaar, Ravlan, Marcaror, Sonraal, Narvael, Alrifar.
  • Example Female Isldar Names: Samala, Isavaila, Saaliya, Silyana, Fismeya, Savraela, Veana, Naerassa, Eyfa.
  • Example Unisex Isldar Names: Sil, Aleyras, Asir, Esmeya, Asamey, Manyaar, Qiaan, Feynral, Savaa, Qirnar.

Like other Elves, Isldar usually have quite a few names. First, middle, last, and sometimes their more important parent's name prefixed by "ul-" to show who they are descended from. Clan names are important to the Isldar, as different Isldar houses were always famous for different crafts and skills. Now that their society has been divided by a civil war, some Clans have been destroyed by the division, but the stable and large ones have stayed together and chosen their path almost unanimously. An Isldar named Novyaan A'sil Lorqaar, the son of Anshaar and from a clan called Meyraal, would be called Novyaan A'sil Lorqaar ul-Anshaar Meyraal. Ticket in the Roleplay Discord if you would like help with naming.

Brief History

Over the course of the Allorn (Elven) Empire’s existence, it imported new ideas from abroad as well as developing its own, creating diversity of opinion and religion in its formerly single-minded population. One of these diversities was Draconism, or the act of showing favor to Dragons, the oldest beings on Aloria. Draconism in the Allorn Empire rallied around the Creation Dragon Aurora, a patron of craftsmen and living things who forged life into the world’s many creatures within her Craters of Creation. It originated when an innocent archaeological society began to dig up Dragon ruins scattered around the Allorn Empire, learning that Elves had worshiped Dragons before the Empire's creation and the arrival of new prophets. Converting one by one, the society soon became the Dragon-worshiping so-called Cult of Dregodar, earning the enmity of the Allorn Empress’ inner court and the over-powerful clerics of the state religion, Estelley.

Persuaded by manipulative advisors and secret Cultists of yet other religions who hated Dragons, an Allorn Empress outlawed the Cult and Dragon Worship around 1000 BC. This ignited a large-scale Dragon worshiper uprising across the Empire. It might have been kept to a local rebellion had the Dregodar not chosen to both aid the Eronidas, Dragon-worshiping Orcs who had invaded the Allorn Empire in its north-west, and rapidly free and then arm all of the Asha slaves they had formerly kept to join their side in the war. These escalations eventually led to the Allorn army being mobilized against the Dregodar, beginning a hopeless war they could not survive. Though the Eronidas won and kept their state, in the end the Dregodar lost and were forced to cross the water to another continent with Aurora in tow, while any Dragon worshipers left in the Allorn Empire had to go into hiding and the Asha they had armed disappeared into the Asha resistance.

They arrived in the lush and vast continent of Ellador, where they would meet the locals, the Dwarves. Though they began on good terms, Allorn ambassadors soon followed the fleeing Cult and manipulated the Dwarves into declaring war on them. A hundred-year series of wars followed in which Allorn Archmages and Dwarven mechanical ingenuity together brought the Cult of Dregodar to its knees. Yet, at the final battle beneath the mountain of Udillin’s Foot, Aurora supposedly cast a great spell in revenge, turning the once green Ellador into a frozen wasteland and slaughtering the Allorn and Dwarven armies where they stood, but transforming her Cult into the Race now known as Isldar. Casting the spell changed her, turning her withered and bloated, Undead in appearance. Unbeknownst to the Isldar, she had fallen to her fear and been possessed by a a great Demon of the Death-God called the Glacial.

Still believing they served Aurora (now visibly turned Undead, and renamed to Frisit), the Isldar took advantage of their newfound immunity to the cold to take control of most of Ellador. Mostly ignoring the Cataclysm which wracked the wider world, the Isldar soon came into conflict with the Vampire state of Dorkarth which came to exist in the north of Ellador, along with parties of Velheim Ailor colonists and Dwarves looking to reclaim lost Holds that had been destroyed by the Glacial’s scheme. Brutal ambushers who could melt into the snows and reappear at any moment, the Isldar acquired a fearful reputation, becoming hated by the rest of Ellador’s people over centuries of war. This would continue until very recently, when two powerful Dragons appeared above the Isldar capital and slew Frisit where she stood, revealing the Glacial’s trickery and reviving the true Aurora, who immediately left the Isldar to return to one of her Craters of Creation instead.

Since then, Ellador has been wracked not just by war between the Isldar and their Dorkarthi, Velheim, and Dwarven enemies, but also between the pro-Dragon Life Cult rebellion and the pro-Glacial Death Cult regime. The Velheim and Dwarves, as well as the Regalian Empire, have grudgingly decided to forgive and side with the Cult of Life, shipping Urlan shock troopers to Ellador to help them fight off the Death Cult. This worked well enough that the Death Cult was forced to accept a truce with the Life Cult, and turn to fight Dorkarth together for the time being. Both of them would like to re-ignite the war, but cannot do it so long as Dorkarth poses a mortal threat.

Conflicts & Alliances

A lot of MassiveCraft's lore is constructed around religious, historical, or societal grievances. This section sets out conflict and alliance points for the Isldar.

  • Allorn Elves: Most Isldar hate Allorn Elves, considering their Empire a tyrant state of debauchery. Confusing an Isldar for a Teledden will start a fight.
  • Asha: The Dregodar freed and armed an immense number of Asha slaves, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. The resultant feelings are complex.
  • Eronidas: The Life Isldar remember how much the Dregodar did for the Eronidas, but the Eronidas do not remember or care at all, which saddens them a bit.
  • Urlan: As the Urlan show veneration to Dragons, and even aggressive Ellador Urlan still cooperate with the Life Isldar, they are friendly.
  • Velheim, Dwarves: Isldar have a long history of war with the Velheim, who usually do not trust them. However, there are cases of Isldar converting to Fornoss and integrating.
  • Vampires: Isldar despise Vampires, since they are locked in war with the Vampire state of Dorkarth in western Ellador with its nightmare legions and flying castles.
  • Each Other: The main conflict focus of the Isldar is the civil war. They are at once the same people, and one another's most bitter enemies in every meaningful way.

Religions

  • Draconism: All Life Isldar by default must worship Draconism to be considered Life Isldar. They usually favor Aurora, but are found in every Dragon circle: Regulus and Caius both have important Isldar servants.
  • Evolism: All Death Isldar by default must worship the Glacial, part of the broader Evolist pantheon, to be considered Death Isldar. They prioritize her over the others, but still give favors where they can.
  • Fornoss: Some Isldar, both Life and Death, turn to Neutral Isldar by converting to Fornoss and living with the Velheim or Dwarves. There are not that many, but the number is not unnotable, especially in Hedryll.
  • Baskarr, Estelley, Unionism: There are few Isldar who worship any of these religions, because Baskarr is a homogeneous Asha ethno-religion, Estelley is the religion of the Allorn oppressors that they suffered for converting away from, and Unionism is simply very foreign, far away, and very alien to the Isldar historical narrative. Some Isldar convert away to these religions and become Neutral, but need strong justification.

Isldar Civil War

The Isldar Civil War is so immensely important that it deserves its own section. Before the Civil War, the Isldar were ruled by an entity that called itself Frisit, the Undead Frost Dragon. Frisit was really a Demon of the Death God called the Glacial in a Dragon's body, but was pretending very carefully to be a genuine Dragon, and so operated for the most part within the bounds of Dragon Worship. Other than being oddly Death-obsessed and fighting in the wars across Ellador, the Isldar did not have an unusual society for Dragon Worshipers. Magic was relatively rare but still present and un-persecuted since Aurora lacked other Dragons' zeal for their war against Magic, with just a few Dragon-empowered Archon born from older lineages that dated back to Aurora's actual lifetime scattered through the library towers in the countryside. Although the Death Isldar in the modern day are fierce necromancers and Death Magic spellcasters who fight with legions of the damned, this is an incredibly modern change that only happened once the Glacial was clearly revealed. Even though they are zealous enemies of Dragons and Dragon Worship, the Death Isldar were basically raised Dragon Worshipers of Frisit until the schism, with their expression of belief only changing as the visible nature of their Goddess did. That the Glacial's deceit could not be discovered for so long was not due to the absence of other Dragons, or supposed naive behavior on the part of the Isldar, but because the Demon Frisit was very, very good at pretending to be a Dragon, and did nothing to betray that belief until she was exposed.

Almost all Death Isldar come from the gigantic Isldar moon spire metropole cities built atop the mountains, and almost all Life Isldar come from the rural observatory towers and shacks scattered out in the middle of nowhere. The Isldar Civil War has as much of an economic motivation as a religious one, although the Isldar consider any suggestion to that effect a crude form of insult, and would gladly start a fight over it. The fact is, however, that the more powerful Isldar clans in the cities had a lot of political power because of their closeness to the priesthood of Frisit. Joining the Life Isldar rebellion would have meant giving that all up to live in caves and fight on the run against overwhelming force, on behalf of Dragons they had never met, dying for a cause they were not even sure if they believed in anymore. As such, a sizeable majority of the Isldar population (70-30) belongs to the Death Isldar, even if the Regalian popular imagination would depict it the other way around. The Life Isldar, meanwhile, number so strongly from the spire record-keeping towers and empty provinces because these lineages were settled well before the Battle at Udillin's Foot and the end of the War, having been so socially isolated that the entire transformation of Aurora into Frisit went completely over their heads, and their oral and written custom preserved direct proper Dragon Worship as held before without interference.

If the Life Isldar were to win, it would be their goal to achieve the old ideal from when the Isldar first set out to Ellador. The mountaintops to the Isldar, the mountain depths to the Dwarves, and the valleys to be split between the Urlan and Ailor humans depending on historical custom. If the Death Isldar were to win, they would likely turn any remaining non-Isldar prisoners into Shades or Undead and kill, convert, or expel the Life Isldar, then ruling Ellador as an Empire in the Glacial's image until the day of her prophesied return to greet her worshipers in the world of the living. The Death Isldar like to say that the Life Isldar are complacent cowards who are destroying their own nation with treachery for the sake of Gods who do not care about them and never will, and the Life Isldar like to say that the Death Isldar are mindless agents of a cruel, murderous Death Beast who would drown the world for the sake of their own petty selfishness. Even though the Death Isldar are discriminated in Regalia and the Life Isldar are not, both sides have a point to be made. The Glacial did protect and empower the Isldar for centuries, at the same time as she is a Death God, and her followers are murderers.

Culture

Families and Romance

Family is incredibly important to the Isldar, whose broader society remains somewhat tribal, strung together by clans. When living in a place as large and inhospitable as Ellador, clans become an easy way to establish relations with someone else: with each clan usually having a trade, a social standing, and a vague place of origin, just learning a name can communicate a lot of information. Unlike the other Elven peoples who keep very small and slow to grow families, Isldar often have many siblings, first cousins, and even more second cousins. While there is not a pre-written list of Isldar families or great clans, it is encouraged for players to think about their Characters' and use them for easy backstory ties with one another. While some Isldar families and traditional clan bonds were destroyed by the religious schism, the more powerful or stable clans were mostly able to stick together. A situation where an entire great clan of thousands of people went Vixit or Rexit together and a situation where a family of four split halfway down the middle are equally possible, depending on the desired story. The Isldar have a very deep but slightly prudish culture around romance. While they are not as conservative as the Lanlath, for example, the usual ideal demands long sheafs of sappy poetry penned in the honor of one's lover. Another common cultural theme is to sacrifice for love: there are many heroes in the Isldar poems and epics, who were forced to lay down their lives for a spouse or forbidden lover, immortalized after death. Needless to say, the Isldar make for very passionate partners under their frigid, emotionless exteriors, if one is able to survive their love for the dramatic and the occasional moonlight saber duel fought with a competitor for a darling's hand.

Clothing

Isldar fashion is more pragmatic than most Elven styles, made for Ellador's sub-zero environment. It tends to mix a combination of tighter, simpler underclothes with traditional Elven robes that can be quickly shed if a fight breaks out. While the Isldar still wear embroidery and jewelry, they are considered more on the austere side, with muted dulled colors. Isldar inside wear and underclothes tend to be darker and more vivid, while the opposite is true of their cloaks and shrouds, which are overwhelmingly plain, designed with the empty white tundra of Ellador in mind. Moon symbolism is very common with the Isldar because the pale moon was one of the first emblems of the Cult of Dregodar back in the Allorn days, but the Rexit have mostly discarded this and other traditional Elven symbolism for a macabre focus on bone motifs. Dark skeletal mock armor, black metal plates arranged like scales, giant nails and elaborate headdresses: the Rexit have a head for the ostentatious and sleek, dressing to draw eyes from every room they walk into. The Vixit, meanwhile, have a persistent sort of "ranger" look about them due to their origin in the rural provinces. With belts for field equipment and hidden knives, even their upper class, such as it is, looks ready for a week lost in the snow-covered wilderness. There are a few unique Isldar fabrics, such as Starshimmer fabric that looks like a thin translucent dark purple gauze with white star speckles across its surface, that are quite prized and hard to get in Regalia. Additionally, Isldar are skillful tattoo artists: many show religious devotion, while some others are just stylistic. Most Isldar, at least, have Magical glyphs tattooed at the base of their necks in honor of their patron Gods, that are supposed to ward away the eyes of those who would want to harm them.

Art

The Isldar are famous for two forms of visual art: calligraphy, and wall carvings. Their intricate and alien etched designs laid into the permafrost of the deepest Hold interiors can spiral up around the viewer for so high and long that they cannot see the end of them from the ground. Isldar wall carvings are usually renditions of the poetic epics to put them into memory, or more relevantly, religious texts. Many of the countryside Isldar who would later become the Vixit built their crystal towers of observation atop old obelisks and hidden chambers of the gospel of Dragons from the Allorn day. Though some have been destroyed, most yet remain. Isldar calligraphy is prized mostly because of their unique flowing script. While still decidedly Elven, other Elves like to use it in artwork from time to time to make text illegible to the common eye or evoke the distant air of snowy Ellador, while non-Elven cultures see beauty in the twisting, looping shapes, much the same. Otherwise, their poetry and choral song are prized for their intensity, especially the romances. Isldar poetry is often very tragic, dreary, and emotionally heavy: they believe that an honest story must include lows as deep as the highs are tall. Even the Isldar Song of Life and Song of Death, the magical cants that pass the dead on or damn them to Undeath, have been described as a love song to a life and a hate song to a death respectively, begging the listener in swirling verse to accept the beauty of the time they have had, or rage against what was taken from them.

Other Cultural Habits

  • Isldar cannot stand spicy food, but they have the inverse: very, very strong minty substances that can get so strong as to numb the mouths of those without appropriate tolerance. A common Isldar response to being made fun of for not being able to handle a pepper is offering the offender a sprig of Ellador Blizzardmint.
  • Isldar have a very strong tea culture. It is a critical element of any and all Isldar hospitality to offer a guest some tea. Some Isldar even barter with tea bricks. Most famous of all is their black tea steeped for a very long time to be incredibly strong, and then muddled with butter from Ellador mountain yaks, so that it has a buttery and warming feeling to it.
  • Isldar alcohol is very sweet and fruity, with bright peach and pear and apple notes. They drink it in shots served in engraved steel cups inlaid with silver. Sometimes Isldar alcohol is flavored with the mint mentioned in the previous bullet point, which gives it a chilling kick in the back of the throat.
  • Isldar are Wyvern riders, both Vixit and Rexit, and fancied to be the best in Aloria. Even though they are excellent riders who form lifetime bonds with their mounts, there is an Isldar saying that "only a southlander would fly a wyvern for everyone to see." Just like one can be ambushed on the land, one can also be ambushed in the sky by those who take offense to one's presence.
  • Isldar are not just singers. They also have a long tradition of harp and lyre music, and very deep, wistful flutes carved from the reeds that used to grow on the banks of southern Ellador before it froze over. All the same, it is their choirs that remain the most famous both at home and abroad, usually as a medium for their poetic tradition.
  • Isldar enjoy accuracy-based sports like rifle, archery, javelin, and dart competitions with the best shot being rewarded. These take precedence over any kind of organized team sports. On the intellectual side, they are also fond of symposiums, debates, and other kinds of verbal sparring. Anything with a duel theme is bound to be popular.
  • Isldar have a very strong concept of guest right and hospitality. If one is enemies with an Isldar, the safest place to be is at their doorstep begging sanctuary. The most common way guest right is given is by offering a glass of ice water. If an Isldar offers one among five captives a drink, then that one should breathe easy, and the other four should start sweating.
  • Isldar prize their ornamented, inscribed dueling sabers, which are passed down their family line as an object of honor and dignity. These swords are only intended to be ceremonially used for honor duels, and are so richly decorated that they would not long survive the beating that a tour of use on the battlefield would mark on them.
  • Isldar camping and woodcutting blades are short, curved forward at the tip (refer to real-life Nepalese khukuri). In a pinch, it can be a useful sidearm.
  • Isldar are one of the cultures of Aloria that sometimes uses gunpowder weapons. They have no native gunpowder artillery, or sidearms like pistols, but make very long metal-banded rifles they call 'jazalya,' for sniping into valleys.
  • Isldar do not see honor in standing and fighting. They are relentless ambush warriors who attack their enemies unseen, cover them in a hail of javelin fire, dive in with their moon-glaives, and then turn around and escape back onto their Wyverns and leave. The Isldar saying on this goes, "the men who call you cowards will die."
  • Isldar love hunting and wilderness pursuits. They are stealthy and silent hunters, the calculated and chilling opposite of the nature-attuned Urlan. If Isldar and Urlan are hunting together, it is doom for their target.
  • Isldar also love parkour and roof climbing and running in urban settings. Rooftops also make space to sit privately and talk about personal feelings without a looming crowd, making them an Isldar favorite.
  • Isldar are very adept observers and astronomers, especially with their brilliant eyesight. Their Crystal Spire observatories hidden around Aloria also double as places to chart the stars.
  • Isldar are fond of moon and lunar symbolism. In the early days, the Dragon Worshipers disguised themselves as worshipers of Leyon by using a slightly different moon, and this stuck.

Recommended Playstyle

The Recommended Playstyle section explains some easy-to-enter niches that these people of Aloria function well in.

Trivia

  • The Isldar like to play checkers. Not because it is considered mentally challenging, but because the white pieces are a metaphor for the Life Isldar and the black pieces are a metaphor for the Death Isldar.
  • The elaborate acrobatic games of the Isldar, like throwing darts and backflipping, have achieved some renown around the world as evidence of the unrivaled dexterity of these mysterious Snow Elves.
  • Now that the Glacial does not rule all of Ellador, some parts of the continent in the south near the coast are defrosting and turning green again, albeit very, very slowly, valley by valley.
Peoples of Aloria
Central Peoples
• Ailor • Narim • Solvaan •
Northern Peoples
• Dwarves • Isldar • Sihndar • Urlan •
Eastern Peoples
• Skyborn • Sihai • Dragonkin •
Southern Peoples
• Allar • Bralona • Maraya • Slizzar •
Western Peoples
• Asha • Eronidas • Fin'ullen • Kathar • Lanlath • Maquixtl • Suvial • Yanar •
Accreditation
WritersOkadoka
ArtistsMonMarty
Last EditorOkaDoka on 05/11/2024.
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