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The Isldar are perhaps Aloria’s most elusive and chilly inhabitants who go to great lengths not to be found. Hailing from the colder continent of Ellador, the Isldar are faithful to their common names: Frost Weavers and Wyrm Riders, in that they enforce their isolation with high-level Ice Magic and the ferocity of their Frost Wyverns. The Isldar guard and protect the last assumed remaining breed of the Dragons and their great Dragon matriarch, Frostweaver, thought to be the source of all Ice magic and cold climate in Ellador. Many in the world can go a full lifetime without ever seeing an Isldar, but that does not mean they do not exist. They venture out into the world to spy on the other races, to gather information, and to ensure their hideaways and existence in the world remains as obscure as they want it to be, for the future survival of the endangered Dragons and Wyverns.
| Isldar | |
|---|---|
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| Race | |
| Pronunciation | Ysel-dar |
| Classification | Nelfin |
| Subraces | None |
| Common Nicknames | Frostlings, Frozen People, Frost Horrors |
| Languages | Isldarin Elven |
| Naming Customs | Isldarin Elven |
| Racial Traits | |
| Distinctions | A race of ice-dwelling Nelfin shrouded in mystery and Dragon Worship |
| Maximum Age | 200 years |
| Body Types | Often Lanky or Skinny, yet never above Athletic |
| Height | 6’ - 6’10” |
| Weight | 120 - 200 lbs |
| Eye Colors | Light blue |
| Hair Colors | Pure white |
| Skin Tones | Sickly white |
Physical Characteristics
Isldar are a uniquely homogenous race, meaning they all look very similar in physical characteristics. The most obvious features about an Isldar is the color of their hair, being white, as well as their pale skin, no matter the amount of sunlight they are exposed to. They also exclusively have bright, almost icy blue eyes. Their bodily proportions are very similar to those of the other Elven species, though their faces and tallness often sets them apart from the other Elves. Their face is exceptionally angular, while their ears often bend slightly inwards around their skull. Their eyebrows always appear much stricter, generally giving Isldar a very frigid neutral expression while their whole face looks gaunt. They are often slightly taller than an average Altalar, but only by a few inches.
Frostweaver’s Gift
Isldar have greater protection against the cold, and in fact, they are completely immune to the effects of frost. Isldar can walk in the middle of winter, barefooted or even bare-chested and their internal body temperature will not suffer from the cold wind on their skin. Isldar cannot freeze, nor will their stamina drain in even the heaviest of blizzard storms. Scholars suspect these traits have come about because of the unique relation the Isldar have with the Ice Dragons, terrifying beasts who have control over a mysterious type of magic that is not entirely understood. Another unusual ability that Isldar have is that they can speak Wyrm tongue, the language of Dragons, despite never spending any time practicing and learning it. Even an Isldar who has spent their entire life in Regalia, will upon hearing Wyrm tongue, immediately understand it. This Wyrm tongue allows them to interpret Dragon speech up to two miles away, as Dragons themselves can sing into the wind where their words are carried far and wide. When attempting to teach a not-Isldar the basics of this language, however, the Isldar struggles greatly to translate words. The language has a magical base in Primal Magic, which is only granted to the Isldar by the Frostweaver.
Mental Characteristics
Isldar are known to be brutally dogmatic, putting them in the same category as the Drowdar. Isldar are highly intelligent, often considered the most intelligent of the Elven subspecies. This intelligence often showcases itself in their knowledge of tactics and strategy, especially their ability to overpower or surprise their enemies with cleverly hidden traps and ruses that are utilized to gain the upper hand. It should be noted however that this intelligence is not necessarily because of their race, but rather because of their precognitive abilities, where they are shown pivotal events in time which relate to the future of the Dragons. Further explanations on this subject will follow below. In their intelligence, or perhaps in spite of it, the Isldar are untrusting of all other races, including their own Elven cousins. This remnant of their old thinking has protected them over the centuries as well as kept their exact home location a secret to the world. The Isldar Dregodar Council is thought to have a much finer understanding of the mechanics of the Cataclysm, the Void and Exist and all forces that surround these curious dimensions, though they keep their knowledge close to themselves. As such, Isldar can also be considered enigmatic keepers of knowledge and lore. They deem other races to be too infantile and petty in their childish desires for conquest and competition. Arrogance among Isldar is thus paramount, much like their Altalar cousin, though one could say it is often more justified. Isldar tend to be people of little words often. They speak volumes with their stares of disapproval or anger and communicate few words towards others. As such, Isldar are probably also the hardest to emotionally read. They give off very few non-verbal signals and barely any body language is used in their communication aside from their stares. Isldar are as such also the hardest to become friends with or to gain the trust with. The famous saying goes “Gana will freeze over before an Ice Elf thaws.” Despite their harsh and cold demeanor, the Isldar are also attributed with pure goodness, in that they seem to act with good intent, especially towards Dragons. This intent should not be mistaken for pure coincidence, however. If the Bone Horror Crisis could have caused the final demise of the Dragons, saving Ailors and Dwarves was only a side effect of their actual goal of preserving the Dragons.
Frostweaver’s Visions
Isldar have a strange precognitive ability that allows them to see events in the near or distant future related to the fate of the Dragons. Rather than triggering the visions themselves, the Isldar all receive the same doomsday vision at the same time, with insights on how to attempt to avoid it. Many Isldar are plagued with minor visions, sometimes with little to no clear meaning that come when they sleep, as Isldar never dream. They witness a world collapsing, order decaying and chaos all around them, and above all, the final death of Dragons, accompanied with the voice of Frostweaver commanding them to deny fruition to these visions. When a great vision is passed, events can clearly be seen in a cause and consequence fashion, thus allowing the Isldar to attempt to alter the course of presumed history by eliminating the source events. (When great visions are passed, these are mentioned in World Progression Posts on the Forum which are canon for all Isldar). Some Isldar go mad due to these visions, the constant dreaming of calamity making them fearful of the night and rejecting Frostweaver’s command. These Isldar that turn away from the Dragon’s call gradually lose their frost resistance and then their visions, while even their hair dulls to a more light gray or light brown tone. These Isldar are referred to as Fallen Isldar, which are highlighted in the Society section.
History
The actual history of the Isldar dates back much further than the cataclysm and the other major Elven fracture periods. The ancestors of the Isldar were the first to truly break away from Estel worship around 230 BC through the cult known as the Cult of Dregodar. Around this third century before Cataclysm, Dragons were still seen around Daendroc, but the Great Elven Hunt had seriously diminished their numbers to the point where the Water Dragon and Green Dragon had already gone extinct. The Black Scale Mountain Dragon was the last Dragonkin left in the entire supercontinent of Daendroc, and some unknown event caused a large population of Elves to abandon the traditional Estel worship and switch over to worship of Dragon Dogma. Rumor has it that the leaders of the so-called Cult of Dregodar could speak to the Dragons in Wyrm tongue and that the Dragons spoke back, speaking prophecies of the future and calamities to befall the Elves. The Elven Empire did not take kindly to the Cult of Dregodar denouncing Estel worship, declaring them heathens, which in itself is ironic because the Elven Empire’s top class was barely even loyal to the faith of Estel anymore. Around 211 BC, the Cult of Dregodar, with the government on their tail, fled across Jorrhildr to Ellador with the assistance of the Black Scale Mountain Dragons. The Black Scale Mountain Dragons assisted the cult of Dregodar in their flight across Jorrhildr to Ellador around 211 BC.
In Ellador, the Dregodar thrived due to the long distance from the Elven Empire. The continent was a fair one during the second century before the Cataclysm, a far cry from the modern frozen tundras and mountains. The Dregodar made little contact with the Dwarves, though lived dangerously close to them as the Temples of Drogon, the traditional religious structures of the Dregodar, were built on top of the tallest mountains which usually housed the Dwarven holds. Their tranquility was not to last, however, as the Elves from the Empire had taken note of their peaceful existence and sent envoys to the Dwarves. With subterfuge, bribes, and blackmail the Elves managed to strike a deal with the Dwarves to form a coalition against the Dregodar under the auspices of them gearing for war to take over the Dwarven holds. This once in a millennia event of Dwarven and Elven cooperation against the Dregodar meant massive destruction and tragedy for the Dregodar. Their temples were torn down and blasted off the mountains, and the Dragons were shot from the sky with iron bolt and magical arrow. The Dregodar were losing badly though the conflict dragged on for nearly a hundred years due to their resilience. The war lasted until around 56 BC when the alliance between the Dwarves and the Elves broke apart due to the Dwarven mistrust of the Elven ulterior motives. It is often theorized that this event caused the Dwarves to completely ignore the void invasion that followed roughly half a century later when the Elves called upon their assistance.
With the coalition between the Elves and the Dwarves over, the Dregodar weren’t quite in the clear yet. The Dwarves continued the conflict on their own, pushing the Dregodar into a grassland basin called Udilin’s Foot. A major pivotal battle took place there where the Dregodar scrambled to save the last of the Black Scale Mountain Dragons, Sharpwing. Sharpwing was vast and formidable, a Dragon matriarch in her own right and many Dwarves fell to the Dragon’s claws and fiery breath. Ultimately however, the Dwarves used large siege engines to bring the Dragon down to the ground, where once pinned, they assailed her in the hundreds with pickaxes, chipping away at her dark scales. The Dragon’s screams of pain and terror caused the Dregodar to commit to a massive magical spell of which the origin is still unclear to this day. Sharpwing died on that battlefield, but somehow the Dragon turned neither dead nor alive, but not quite undead either. She was reborn as Frostweaver, the great Ice Dragon. With one fell clap of her wings, the restraints blew away, and the Dragon soared to the skies where she channeled a massive spell that caused a huge blizzard. Hundreds of Dwarves caught close were instantly frozen to death as the land around them also started freezing and dying. Snow rolled down the mountains and water froze in a flash as the temperature dropped in the grassland basin. The countryside around it was suddenly struck with a snowstorm that made seeing further than two feet through the swirling ice and the gusting wind impossible. The Dwarves quickly retreated, those that could anyway, and shut the massive gates of their holds down while the climate above ground changed to a frozen hellscape. Thousands of animals, trees, and plants died as the soil became infertile and even the water in the air flash froze. The event was felt all the way to the first Human villages on the southern coastline who suddenly experienced an extreme drop in temperature.
The Dregodar disappeared from the world’s stage after that event. It was not until ten years after the Cataclysm that the first Isldar reappeared, though they were incorrectly assumed to be snow wraiths or undead at the time. The basin that was once Udilin’s Foot was now the Howling Waste, a long stretch of tundra caught in a permanent blizzard that made entry practically impossible. Every so often a band of Isldar would venture out to scout the terrain and disappear with the wind as soon as they met any Dwarf or Human, but not without killing them first. Ellador remained trapped in a tundra climate for the next three centuries, and even in present times, the weather doesn’t seem like it’s going to change anytime soon. Isldar would continue to be seen for the next three centuries as well occasionally, though often in small numbers and hardly ever without causing death wherever they went. Explorers attempting to perilous crossing through the Dragon’s Gorge or Claw Mountains might run into frozen and unfortunate Dwarves caught in by Isldar patrol, their bodies frozen in the snow and the ice spikes used to kill them perfectly preserved through their body.
Recent events have alluded to the idea that the Isldar have an understanding of what is going on around the world. The Isldar are known to have attempted to stop the global Bone Horror invasion, though due to Human ignorance were denied the ability to prevent this catastrophe from occurring. Since that event, the Isldar have not come forward to contact any nation or people and have seemingly retreated into the frozen wastes of Ellador with not a single clear reason why. Isldar still roam around the world but are rarely seen. Some are the product of long-term espionage on regional countries; others were unfortunate enough to get somehow separated from the Isldar Frost Spires.
Society
Isldar society is perhaps one of the most rigid societies on Aloria, stricter even than the Drowdar and the Regalian Empire because none of the Isldar get any say in the decisions taking of their species. Their society maintains a very rigid structure which never allows for deviations or abandonment, especially when it concerns direct decrees from Frostweaver.
Politics
Isldar politics is entirely controlled by two groups, primarily Frostweaver and the Dragon priests and on a more local level, the Ice Councils. Frostweaver and the Dragon priests do not directly rule, rather by the Isldar precognitive ability, Frostweaver sends out warnings of impending doom for the Dragons and the Isldar for her followers to interpret and through it directs the Isldar on a path where they might survive the odds. The Dragon Priests often more concisely understand what visions Frostweaver grants them, as they are unnaturally attuned to the precognitive ability of the Isldar and receive far more visions than any average Isldar. On average only one in a thousand Isldar born is suitable to become a Dragon priest, and so this priesthood has few members, as the mean birth rate of Isldar is relatively small. On a more local level, the Ice Councils rule so-called Wraith holds Isldar castles which contain a mostly military population. Ice Councils function like Human General counterparts, leading the Isldar locally to enact military movements by the will of the Dragon Priests.
Culture
Isldar strongly appreciate song and music, especially string instruments. As the Ailor saying goes: “The best way to thaw an Isldarin heart is to soothe it with strings.” Singing is very strongly associated with their religion, though its exact purpose and importance is not understood. The song of winter is an act purely done by the Frost Singers, comprised of upper-class females. This further emphasizes the strongly matrilineal line within the Isldar culture, as only women are assumed to have the brilliance and voice clarity to produce the Song of Winter. While the Drow strictly vowed against the excesses and decadence of the Altalar, the Dregodar never made such a strong stand against it. Despite their strong militaristic society, internally Isldar can be very lavish and entertaining, which often provides a strong contrast to how impersonal they are when they are outside of their homes. Isldar have no known technology or education. They generally cannot read or write, they speak a Nelfin tongue that nobody else understands, and their entire society is dependent on magic. Whatever crafts and uniqueness they have is portrayed by their clothing and accessories, favoring carvings and blue dyed fabrics. Isldar are often decorated with brilliant mountain crystals, white or otherwise blue of color with a radiant shine. Their clothes are made of flowing silks that almost seem to defy gravity, streaming like liquids on smooth surfaces. Isldar cloth is extremely hard to come by and extremely expensive, a highly prized material in Regalia and unfortunately only acquired by killing its owner, none being any the wiser how it is even produced. Isldar cuisine is strictly related to fruit, which is also why Isldar often have a hard time adapting to more meat and grain based societies like Regalia. The Isldar eat a particular nutritious fruit that only grows in their homeland, defying the cold temperatures. Attempts to cultivate this fruit elsewhere have all but failed, leading to the conclusion that its growth has something to do with Frostweaver. Finally, Isldar family units are surprisingly loving. Isldar rarely stray from monogamy and have a strong relation with their children, though arranged marriages are still a thing in their culture due to Altalar lineage crafting.
Religion
The Isldar’s central belief is that of Dragons, the belief that Dragons gave life to the world. They believe in a holy union between Dragon and Elf, the true harmonious existence of Elves being with the Dragons in unison. This religion is their only religion, as their entire existence is bound to it. The religion itself dates back to the early days of the Dregodar, centered around the Elf “Gondolenna the Singer.” She acted as a prophet, being one of the first to tame a dragon with the power of her voice, spreading prophecies of Elf-Dragon union across the land. She was later killed during a Dragon Hunt, her dragon along with her, but her beliefs lived on in her disciples, eventually giving birth to the Dregodar cult. The religion is as much reverence as it is fear. Despite the fact that the Isldar wish to bring about the union between Elf and Dragon, they believe it is impossible during the current era, and that they are the final bastion against the ending of the world. This end is described as the time when Dragon worship has become so few that the Dragons will decide to simply destroy the world with an ice age to start a new. This is largely also the reason why Isldar do not tolerate outside interference, and why those who leave still hold onto their silence on their origins.
Isldar around the World
Because Isldar have such a rigid society, an Isldar living outside of it is always constrained by numerous regulations. Isldar that remain loyal to the Frostweaver always remain secretive of their homeland and refuse to tell outsiders anything about it. More often than not, however, Isldar found in Regalia are the product of outsiders, Isldar that have either been banished from their homeland, fled, or otherwise managed to somehow end up outside of it. Isldar that are born outside of the Isldar homeland no longer have their precognitive abilities, and over time also become Fallen Isldar, as the loyalist Isldar call them, purely because they have lost the connection with Frostweaver. Once this connection is lost, it cannot be regained, which is why Fallen Isldar tend to just blend into an Ailor society where other Nelfin are already present in minuscule numbers. As such, most Isldar found in Regalia are unlikely to be Isldar loyalists and are far more likely to be exiled Isldar, or children born outside of the Frostweaver’s control.
Combat and Warfare
The Isldar use hit and run tactics, though often there is little to run away from as they are deadly accurate. Full battlefield engagements have not been witnessed since the times of the war with the Dwarves, but it is to be assumed that the Isldar make use of the Wyverns in battle and their howling blades, weapons specially made by the Isldar that seem to produce a ghost-like howl when swung around in chilly winds. Due to the existence of the Wyverns, the siege capacity of the Isldar is considered to be tremendous, in fact, the Isldar are assumed to be able to ignore fortifications completely. This is due in large part to their airborne mobility, and also far outclass Regalian airships in that regard, due to the increased mobility and deadly claws of their flying mounts.
Trivia
- An exceptionally strong Frost Singer was once captured by a group of Dwarves who used a ploy to draw her out while they lay hidden in the snow. She eventually broke free and used her high Ice magic to freeze herself in a giant spire of Ice. The Ice spire still stands in northern Ellador to this day, being called “The Frost Wall” as it connects two mountains like a giant wall of ice.
- Isldar don’t have much in the ways of metal production, primarily because they inhabit mountains that were long stripped bare by the Dwarves who lived there for centuries. As such, one may hardly ever find an Isldar Arrow, as they use Ice Magic to strike down enemies from afar.
- Dragon Priests seem to have the unique ability also to detect Dragon Lineage, a rare trait that enables them to detect a person’s close or distant interaction with a Dragon at any point in time or of their heritage.
- There are no known, and cannot be any, Dragon Priests outside of the Isldar Homeland. Dragon Priests must always stay close to the Frostweaver, and would rather die than risk spending too much time away from the Dragon which grants them their powers, as they wane in her absense.
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