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{{ infobox
{{Info Lineage
| bodystyle = width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin: auto; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; background-color: #EBEBEB;
|name = Isldar
| headerstyle = background: #D0D3D1; width: 100%; text-align: center; vertical-align:middle; font: 15px georgia; font-weight: bolder; font-variant: small-caps; padding-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px;
|test = Yseldaar (in Altalar)
| datastyle  = text-align: left; font-size: 0.95em;
|test2 = [[File:Grayflag1.png|80px]] [[File:Grayflag3.png|80px]]
| header1    = Ethical usage of Ai/Machine Learning/Algorithm Generated Art Disclaimer
|test3 = '''Motto:''' "Truth Abides no Weakness."
| data2      =  
This page makes use of "Ai-Art". MassiveCraft is managed by, played by, and supported by a diverse and varied community of artists. We strive for Human-Art on all pages, though finance/time constraints may require temporary use of Ai-Art for visual themes. MassiveCraft has an "Ethical-Ai-Use" policy, defined as: A. Not claiming Copyright B. No for-profit benefit C. Clearly marking Ai-Art when used D. Long-term replacement with Human-Art. Please support human artists, or refrain from using Ai-Art if you cannot safeguard ethical constraints.
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{{Info races
|image = Isldarpslasho.png
|image = Isldarpslasho.png
|pronunciation = Ysel-dar
|state = Life and Death Isldar States
|classification = [[Nelfin]]
|ruler = Tower Councils
|subraces = None
|suzerain = Varied
|nicknames =
|languages = [[Altalar]]
*Frostlings (derogatory)
|religion = Varied
*Frozen People (derogatory)
|first_recorded = 100 BC
*Frost Horrors (derogatory)
|demonym = Isldar
|languages = [[Sulvaley]]
|naming = Fantasy Elven (but not Tolkien Elven)
 
|distinction = Snow Elves who guard the cycle of life and death and the memory of [[Dragons]]
|maxage = 500 years
|height = Tall
|eye = Any shade of purple if Life Isldar, any shade of green if Death Isldar
|hair = Black or White, regardless of which cult they belong to
|skin =
[[File:Skin1.png]]
|}}
|}}
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 roguish adventurers from 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 they must contend with the [[Dwarves]], [[Ailor]], and [[Vampire]]s who also live on Ellador for land and power: yet the Isldar of the Cult of Life and Cult of Death alike pray that they will one day win. 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.
[[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.]]


==Core Concept==
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.
[[File:Medinkikf.png|260px|thumb|right|Icy elemental invocations allow the Isldar to become one with the ice that they are so defined and themed by.]]
Isldar are really one culture, but religious warfare between the Cult of Life and Cult of Death that make up their society leads to them being commonly divided into two cultures, or sometimes even two distinct Races. Much of Isldar history was spent under the protection of the Dragon Frisit, who was recently slain by other Dragons and revealed to be an imposter Death-God from another dimension, with her real self having perished long ago. While some Isldar started a rebellion to return to the true ways of the Dragons, becoming the Cult of Life, other Isldar simply accepted things as they were and maintained the status quo, becoming the Cult of Death. These two cultures are explained below.
===History===
This is an abridged version of Isldar history, with a more nuanced, complex explanation on the [[Elven History]] page. 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. While most civilizations begin with some form of Draconism, they are usually abandoned, because Dragons dislike giving blessings, suggesting that they be worshiped, or even acknowledging that there are people worshiping them. 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. The Dragon worshiping Allorn citizens, a secret society called the Cult of Dregodar, soon became enemies of the Allorn Empress’ inner court and the over-powerful clerics of the state religion, [[Estelley]].  


A breaking point came when their faith was outlawed around 1000 BC, leading to a long guerilla war and slow retreat of both Aurora and her Cult to the north of the Allorn Empire, from where eventually they would be driven across the ocean to 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 replaced by a Death-God called the Glacial, one of their number who had gotten lost in the land of the dead and plotted to usurp it from the inside, who had been the true source of the [[Magic]].
==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.


Under the Glacial’s protection, but still believing they served Aurora (though called Frisit in her Undead form), 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 and an obstacle to all their efforts. 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.
===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.


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 accepted the Cult of Life as the lesser evil (while not entirely forgiving them), and supported them against the stronger Cult of Death. With the two sides locked in a truce behind a complex network of enclaves and exclaves even as they cooperate to keep up the war with Dorkarth together so that Ellador does not fall to the Vampire curse, it remains unclear what the future holds for either side, and doubtful that the Isldar will ever truly reunify.
==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.


===Isldar Cultures===
<table style="width: 100%;"><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; width: 50%;">
{|
|[[File:Vixitculture.png|170px|thumb|left]]
|
<span style="font-size:130%;><center>'''Bene Vixit'''</center></span>
The Bene Vixit, the Cult of Life, are the Isldar who re-pledged to the old way of Dragon Worship and the teachings of the Dragon Aurora. They emerged mostly from the ranger class of the old Isldar state, the merchants and drifters who moved from city to city, as well as from the guards of the Moon Vault banks at the center of spires and the court scholars. To be Bene Vixit is to embrace Aurora’s teachings of observance, to be the watcher on the wall who records history and every so often reaches a long finger down to nudge it in the right direction. The Bene Vixit are common as international advisors on the Dragons and their schemes, employed in noble courts to explain Dragon-lore to the uninformed and navigate Draconic related issues with minimal loss of life. Seen as stoic and dispassionate, the Bene Vixit are famously hard to read. There is also a Bene Vixit diaspora in the Regalian province of Anglia, where the high priestess of the Dragon Regulus has made her camp and set up spires of her own resembling the ones in Ellador to call home.
|}
</td><td style="vertical-align: top; width: 50%;">
{|
|[[File:Rexitculture.png|170px|thumb|left]]
|
<span style="font-size:130%;><center>'''Bene Rexit'''</center></span>
The Bene Rexit, the Cult of Death, are the Isldar who accepted reality for what it was and pledged to openly serve the Glacial. They emerged mostly from Frisit’s priesthood, who refused to be re-admitted into Dragon Worship, and the large Isldar soldier rank and file who suffered on the front line. To be Bene Rexit is to embrace the Glacial as one’s true savior in the centuries the Dragons abandoned the Isldar to their fate, to embrace Death Worship while secretly siphoning the power of other Death Gods for the Glacial instead, so that one day she can break free and become the true queen of hell. The Bene Rexit are a passionate and deeply emotional people, sometimes characterized as unstable, who yet retain a veneer of high-class and honor that leads to their employment as advisors on the mysterious death realm, the Beyond. While there are not established Bene Rexit communities, a few of them can be found everywhere, creating Undead in the shadows, binding Spirits to their will, and raging against the light.
|}
</center>
</tr></table>
===Physical & Mental Characteristics===
[[File:Isldorihdhdhft.png|260px|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|260px|thumb|right|This Isldar with purple Dragonscale also applied moon-themed war paint before going to battle.]]
Isldar are similar to Teledden (the High Elves). Like all Elves, they are more slender and tall than Humans. Isldar specifically have pale skin and long, pointy ears, longer than those of other Nelfin Races. Death and Life Isldar can have natural black or white hair, though many dye it other colors. The only real way to tell Death and Life Isldar apart is that Life Isldar have purple irises with blue specks in them, while Death Isldar have green irises with blue specks in them. Both kinds may also have blue, green, or black sclera. Visually speaking, Isldar have a range of appearances from Caucasian to Asian, with different regions appearing differently. Isldar are ageless: they look young forever, even into old age, but can choose to look older inside of adult age ranges. The Isldar who used to tend to the Wyvern roosts, called Voltalëy, can have a unique physical appearance where their limbs taper off into violet Dragonscale (if Vixit) or Dragonscale-like black metal plates (if Rexit). Mentally speaking, Isldar are stereotyped as stoic and pensive. Their language and its literary works are full of beautiful metaphors and analogies, but completely lack any kind of comedy or sarcasm, leading to Isldar fresh from Ellador missing every single joke made in their direction. Moreover, Isldar culture does not encourage smiling, meaning that smiling without a reason is usually seen as an insult or a smug invitation to fight, which has resulted in quite a few mistaken cross words. It is possible for Isldar to have children with other Races, resulting in Half-Isldar who have the same Racial Traits.
==Racial Traits==
When designing a Character, [[Proficiency]] Points allow for a limited Ability selection with Point Buy Packs. Racial Traits adds free Packs and Mechanics on top of that to help with cultural themes. Free Packs grant Abilities usually, while Mechanics change the way a Race functions in Roleplay through subtle, and usually out of Combat ways. In essence, Mechanics just add aesthetic flair that invest in the niche of each Race. Free Packs never cause a Character to become Occult, nor do they raise Proficiency Points. Note, because this page represents both the Life Isldar and Death Isldar, some differentiation in Racial Traits is necessary. The Life and Death Isldar both share the same Free Packs, but have separate Mechanics.
===Free Packs===
===Free Packs===
* Isldar can choose one [[Athletic_Point_Buy| Athletic]], or [[Radiant_Point_Buy| Radiant]], or [[Sinistral_Point_Buy| Sinistral]] Pack for free, either as Mundane, Ordial (Death) Magic, or Dragon (Life) Magic Alignment.
* Isldar can choose one [[Athletic_Point_Buy| Athletic]] or [[Magic_Point_Buy | Magic]] Pack for free.
* Isldar gain the [[Roguery_Point_Buy#Soft_Landing_Pack| Soft Landing Pack]] for free.
* Isldar can choose one pack from [[Roguery Point Buy]] for free.


===Life Isldar Mechanics===
===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 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 the [[Songaskia#Sofawaati_Form|Sofawaati Form]] like the Songaskians, but with aesthetics of the moon, starry night sky, dark blue, and ice/crystal.
* 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.
* 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.
* Life 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.
====Death Isldar Only Mechanics====
* 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).
===Death Isldar 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 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 Transform into the Bone Horror Shift, a large hulking monster made of bones and rotting flesh, which does not count as a Disguise.
* 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 manifest non-Magic aspects of Dark Metal Frisit Behemoth, such as Dragon-like appearance traits but made of Black Metal and/or Dark Ice.
* 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.
* 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 Knocked Down.
====Neutral Isldar Only Mechanics====
* Death Isldar can use an infiltration Disguise that changes their appearance to that of a random dead Life Isldar who died in the Isldar Civil War.  
* A Neutral Isldar can choose any three mechanics from the [[Teledden]] or [[Fin'ullen]] they want.
==Society==
===Language===
[[File:Deathcool.png|260px|thumb|right|The Bene Rexit employs some of the most skilled Isldar warriors, this one clad in Summoned black metal armor shaped to still mimic draconic claws and scales.]]
[[File:Isldork.png|260px|thumb|right|Bene Vixit do not have an extravagant dressing style, usually preferring muted or simple tones with little skin showing.]]
The Isldarrin language, Sulvaley, shares a family with other Nelfin languages. It has diverged somewhat over the centuries the Isldar have spent in Ellador since their departure from the Allorn Empire. Sulvaley has Arabic phonetics, with glottal stops and harsh consonants not found in most other Nelfin vocabularies.


Example Isldar male coded names: Arfa, Eriannan, Irifa, Ursal, Arqaam, Arslan, Aryaan, Irsaley, Ercaror, Henqaan. Most Isldarrin male names start with vowels, and double As are common.
===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.


Example Isldar female coded names: Almeya, Cuadhïra, Erthira, Kharaera, Isra. They can also be made by modifying male coded names. For example, Erianna, Ursaela, Arslanna, Irsaleya, Ercantha, Henqaena.
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.


Isldar names are not very complicated. In addition to their first name, most have a last name, but some Isldar do not bother. When decades are spent in the field, many soldiers abandon the difficulty of a second word to remember.
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.


===Religion===
==Language and Naming==
It is religious differences which sent the Isldar spiraling into civil war, so it should come as no surprise that individual Isldar can have very different religious interpretations. Bene Vixit Isldar usually follow the Dragon Aurora from Draconism and all related tenets of the religion, including its struggle against the encroachment of Magic and Demons and maintaining the cycle of life in the world. However, with an Isldar ascending to become the high priestess of the Dragon Regulus, there are quite a few Bene Vixit Regulus worshipers as well. Even if they have a specific Dragon patron, the Bene Vixit tend towards respect for all Dragons, but notably favor the more moderate and gentle ones, because Isldar society was full of Mages drawing on the Exist dimension until very recently, and the Vixit prefer to slowly convert them to Dragon Mages rather than kill or exile them like more extreme Dragon Worshipers would suggest they do.
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 Bene Rexit, meanwhile, worship the Glacial from [[Ordial Cultism]]. This transcends religion to include a form of self worship, since it is common knowledge that the Glacial herself was once a Dregodar Cultist desperate for more power to fight the Allorn armies, and her descendants still walk the world as [[Godborn]]. While the Bene Rexit are favorable to all forms of Ordial Cultism, this comes on the catch that they secretly siphon power from the other Death Cults to feed the Glacial instead in the hopes that she can overthrow the Death realm’s original creator god, the Malefica, and usurp them. A Bene Rexit always worships the Glacial plus a cover Ordial god who they perform acts in false worship of, all in the Glacial’s name.
* '''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.  


===Families===
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.
Family is incredibly important to the Isldar, whose broader society is very tribal, strung together by clans. When living in a place as large and inhospitable as Ellador, it is important to have an easy way to judge the value of strangers without spending time on knowing them, which for the Isldar is done through their last name and spire city of origin. Unlike the other Elven peoples, the Isldar frequently have large numbers of children such that every Isldar can name a nigh-infinite list of first and second cousins, and families get large enough to become a force in politics and the military just by association to one another. While there is not a pre-written list of Isldar families nor are players obligated to think about their Characters’ in detail, it is encouraged to work little details into Roleplay such as having one’s Character wrinkle their nose upon hearing another’s last name because they had a bad run-in with their third cousin four years ago, and other things to this effect.  


Isldar families and traditional clan bonds were completely ripped apart by the religious schism between the Cult of Life and Cult of Death, with brother turning on sister and mother turning on son. While a few of the most powerful and stable Isldar clans were able to use social pressure to force conformity and make the transition to their new situation, many Isldar are still coping with a new world where you cannot assume anything just by hearing someone's name, and adjusting accordingly. As a result, in Regalia especially, there is usually a lot of hesitation to take a name at face value. There is a silver lining in this that some have pointed out, in that the destruction of over-powerful family ties means freedom for many young Isldar, and the elimination of nepotism caused by the practice of nominating relatives to positions.
==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]].  


Isldar traditional upbringing is considered very spartan, with an emphasis on learning how to fight and survive out in the frigid wilderness of Ellador, and few material comforts. With the stoic public attitude that Isldar are taught to have, it is also usually difficult for Isldar children to express when they are having trouble with something or need an explanation, leading to childhood complexes generally going unresolved. All the same, with free choice of marriage and a lax attitude towards same-sex relationships because there are so many Isldar already, the Isldar believe that they have it rather good. Isldar romance is however famously bloody, because Isldar literature and poetry romanticizes sacrifice made in the name of one’s love, so the road to holding down a courtship is usually full of moonlight saber duels and dramatic challenges made during regiment dinners because two people share wishes to have the same partner.
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.


==World View==
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.
[[File:Lookatheaddress.png|260px|thumb|right|Bene Rexit head dresses and clothing is some of the most extravagant and alien designed in the world.]]
 
[[File:Benegesseret.png|260px|thumb|right|Death Isldar always know what they want and that they can get it, and dress to impress.]]
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.
[[File:Darkpriesti.png|260px|thumb|right|The Bene Rexit has a large number of powerful Ordial Mages at its service.]]
 
Below is additional cultural information.
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.
* Isldar fashion is pragmatic for Ellador's environment, usually mixing some combination of tighter, simpler underclothes with traditional Elven robes that can be quickly shed if a fight breaks out. While still recognizable as Elven in style, it sits somewhere between the forced ostentatiousness of the Teledden and the total pragmatism of the Maquixtl or Sihndar, striking a middle position that is still finely and richly decorated, but without becoming hard to move around in or a problem in a difficult situation. Isldar have a fondness for silver over gold, relating it to the moon, which is in turn a very common theme in Isldar symbolism (though they still use gold as well). Both types of Isldar also have a fondness for wearing gloves with metal claws attached, a piece of Draconic symbolism that stayed with both.
 
** Bene Rexit fashion is grim and dark, with black and green colors that play directly into jokes about Dimensional color theory. The Bene Rexit usually do not mind looking evil beyond belief because they also feel that to look evil is to look powerful, with elaborate headdresses and swaying golden jewelry links, dark eyeliner and heeled shoes, all carefully combined to give a gothic and spidery first impression. This is as much considered a form of self-expression, dressing for the self, as it is a way to dress for others, as the Bene Rexit like to impress and stun with their glamor.
==Conflicts & Alliances==
** Bene Vixit fashion is similar, but with inclusion of the so-called starlight capes, pieces of translucent dark purple fabric speckled with white dots to resemble the night sky above Ellador, a shimmering and unique form of silk. This fabric is both worn in cloaks and used as translucent paneling between different parts of an outfit where otherwise skin would be shown. The Vixit also have a long tradition of tan, durable ranger clothes in the style of the Keeper Archon who are their scouting arm, and after the style of a certain Isldar Kade, lined with white fur and crossed with belts to hold knives and potions.
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.
** Isldar are skillful tattoo artists, with their long history of religious cultism leading to a love for marking their own bodies to show dedication. Isldar have a unique style of blackout tattoos that cover the entire body in pigment and use the revealed open space that is not tattooed to draw the shapes instead. While both Isldar cults share some things, including moon designs and Ellador's jagged mountains, the Bene Vixit usually use different shades of purple ink with themes of Dragonscale, wyvern wings, and the Occult sigils of the various Dragon Thrones, while the Bene Rexit favor green ink with themes of skulls, bones and the Glacial's most famous relics. Most Isldar at least have a glyph tattooed at the base of their neck, that indicates their Cult and deity of preference.
* '''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.
* Isldar are famous [[Wyvern]] riders, fancied to be among the best in Aloria even among the other Wyvern-riding civilizations. They form lifetime bonds with their mounts, and believe that if they perish that the next Wyvern they acquire is the spiritual reincarnation of the previous, giving them the same name: and going to painstaking lengths to find a new mount that was born on the same day that their previous one died. Bene Vixit wyverns are usually lighter and quicker for long-range travel, while Bene Rexit wyverns are usually heavier and with larger claws for combat and dives against infantry.
* '''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.
* Isldar music centers around large choral arrangements, harps, and the hammered dulcimer (Persian or Iraqi santur), famed for its graceful air and almost angelic quality. Opera houses around Aloria like to use Isldar acts to close out an evening’s shows. The Isldar in general have a very strong relationship with music and believe it relates to poetry, rarely performing one without the other.
* '''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.
* Isldar poetry is considered very profound, often reflecting on life and love, about which the Isldar have a number of famous ballads as well as quatrains referred to as Sulvariyát, after the Sulvaley language which they speak. Important to understand is that despite Isldar culture's surface stoicism, this value was only earned due to the constant suffering and loss during their culture's formative period as the Cult of Dregodar fleeing from Allorn armies and losing almost everything they had. Isldar are very passionate and feel very deeply inside, with their poetry showing this in its romanticization of self-sacrifice and suffering for those one loves. Also important to understand is that Isldar stories do not usually have happy endings, with one side of a love story dying alone, or a large family having all siblings die except the narrator, who ends the story on a wistful note. It is believed that forcing a happy ending undercuts the true purpose of storytelling, because storytelling is a reflection of the beauty of life, a beauty that is found in the bad as well as the good.
* '''Urlan:''' As the Urlan show veneration to Dragons, and even aggressive Ellador Urlan still cooperate with the Life Isldar, they are friendly.
* Isldar are stereotyped as fatalistic and wistful people who cope with inevitability very well but have an it cannot be helped, woe is me attitude about it. Isldar are often willing to keep up hopeless struggles just because of a single promise they made years ago, because it is not right to abandon one's purpose even if defeat is certain, and it is better to play one's role and bow out than be forced to suffer the shame of conceding defeat. Since Isldar are so clear in their sense of self-purpose, this has the side benefit of making them very difficult to sway or corrupt, with an often religious dedication to their life beliefs.
* '''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.
* Isldar have sport culture, but their sports always have a military angle to them, or some kind of military usability. For example, javelin throwing and archery competitions are very popular, but only because these skills are applicable on the battlefield as well. The individualistic Isldar also have a disdain for any kind of team sports, only wanting to be represented by themselves.
* '''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.
* Isldar love symposiums, debates, and rules-lawyering competitions. The scholarly class is mostly to blame for this, as well as remnants of their Allorn cultural heritage, but there are few feelings more satisfying to an Isldar than thoroughly proving someone else wrong, especially about something they’re supposed to be an expert on.
* '''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.
* Even though the Isldar have strong family bonds, the civil war between the Bene Vixit and Rexit ripped them apart and put the Isldar clan system under a strain it has never felt before. Siblings have turned on one another and parents no longer talk to children: everyone has lost someone to the other side, and everyone knows someone who has died, making it all just that much more bitter.
 
* 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. Isldar also do not poison food or water offered, at least not in their own homes, considering this against their sacred guest right. 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.
==Religions==
* All Isldar own a dueling saber passed down through their family line, or made for them upon reaching adulthood, and stamped with calligraphy of their name or a fragment of religious text. These swords are ceremonially only intended to be used for duels of honor against other Isldar, for which optional combat rules are included below.
* '''[[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.
** Roll flat d20s, with the best of three winning, before any emoting is done.
* '''[[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.
** The winner attacks first, the loser defends for an emote, then the winner attacks again, and the loser goes down.
* '''[[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.
** This is completely optional, and intended for quick cinematic duels that do not drag on.
* '''[[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 put an undue amount of focus on their word, and keeping the exact letter of their verbal agreements, no matter how much time has passed. Isldar debtors always pay back their debts as seriously as possible, and Isldar can be trusted not to haggle or cheat, because when you live in a place like Ellador a reputation is everything, not just in the hands of one’s friends but one’s enemies as well. This is one of the ways in which Isldar can be perceived as honorable, even by those who dislike them.
 
* All Isldar love hunting and wilderness pursuits of all kinds, showcasing their skill at tracking and moving undetected and unsupplied for long periods of time. It is common for Isldar to embark on weeks-long hunts without showing their face in a city, something that they can use to make friends with otherwise distant Urlan or Velheim. While this is hard to do on-server, extended journeys done as Lore Stories or planned events between friends are encouraged.
Until Evolism is updated to include the Glacial, a basic version of Glacial dogma will be included here. The Glacial is an Isldar Archmage who lived during the war against the Allorn Empire, though it isn't specified when. In desperation to save her people, she delved into forbidden tomes of Magic and accidentally trapped herself within the Death Realm, gaining enough power and Ordial Magic over time until she could reach into the world of the living through Avatars and Spirits as a Death God, though it isn't clear how. The Death Isldar understand that when they ritualistically kill in the name of the Glacial, the souls are sent on to her power in the Death Realm. They believe that if she amasses enough power, she will destroy the Malefica who traditionally rules there, usurp the Dimension, and burst into Aloria to create an Undying Paradise and Empire for the Death Isldar where they languish in her love without suffering, interference, or interruption, from anyone who would seek to attack them, ever again. It is a very Undead- and Spirit- happy religion that encourages the mass use of both of these things as bound legions to wage wars for the Death Isldar, and cultivates powerful and corrupt Ordial Mages as its priesthood. Since its dogma effectively demands that people be murdered to increase the power of its God, most people are not happy to see a Glacial worshiper, but the Death Isldar like to say that "there was always going to be a death, only, it does not have to be you." When the Isldar split into Life and Death Isldar, for the Death Isldar Frisit worship immediately stopped being fake Dragon Worship and started being full-blown Death cultist Magic. Those of them who were not Ordial Mages before have definitely become so now, and their clothes and styling have started taking on otherworldly, malevolent appearances to style after their master's servants'.
* Isldar do not see shame in running away from fights, or from retreating and redeploying. As the historical inventors of ambush guerilla warfare with tactics studied worldwide, there is a famous Isldar saying that translates roughly along the lines of "they call us cowards, but they are dead and we are not," alongside the other proverb "only a fool would waste good men for fleeting glory," showing a cynical and patient attitude to warfare. Isldar do not see shame in shooting their enemies in the back and ambushing them, either, as the victor writes the history, and the shame of backstabbing is washed away by victory.
 
* Isldar are almost all archers, but a small minority of them have begun to reverse engineer donated or seized firearms from the Regalian military. There is a unique Isldar rifle pattern commonly called 'jazalya', with a hooked stock and long range enabling the user to sit on the crags of mountaintops behind rocks and fire down at hapless armies in the valleys below them while remaining completely out of range of anything except artillery. These are usually heavily decorated with silver inlays and the mark of the wielder's Moon Vault of origin. It is however not expected to replace the generations of Isldar master archers, or to obsolete archery.
==Isldar Civil War==
* Isldar have an unusual artistic practice called Aysur, where they carve abstract statues out of Ellador's unmelting ice and forge jewelry and other charms for them, hanging them on extended limbs or from their necks. It is believed that the Isldar that by lavishing their Aysur with attention and riches rather than wearing them themselves, they are humbling themselves and ensuring that they will receive good fortune in the future by voluntarily surrendering their wealth. Guests soon learn not to trifle with an Isldar's "weird-looking ice mannequins" without earning their anger.
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.
* Isldar holds in Ellador are usually referred to as spire-cities, with many towers clustered around a buried, silvery-metal vault in the center called a Moon Vault that only opens during the phase of the full moon. Moon Vaults hold historical records and Isldar city-states' holds of wealth and loot, as well as artifacts accrued over the years and anything a citizen needs personally held while they are away, with the added function of serving as a panic room in the event of a hold's complete military collapse, and a place to cure Vampires. Most of them have been added to over the centuries, and are considered almost impervious to siege.
 
* Isldar love hiking and difficult terrain. In Regalia, this means that many Isldar take to parkour, something they invite strangers along on frequently just for the experience. Crookback residents frequently complain about the clatter of Isldar feet on their shoddy roofs at nighttime. Rooftops also make a good spot to sit down privately and talk about personal feelings without a looming crowd, something the privacy-insistent Isldar always appreciate, who would never want a stranger they don't intend on trusting hearing about their problems.
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.
* Isldar, both Vixit and Rexit, like to use the greed of their enemies to lure them to their demise. For the Rexit, this was the mythos around the false invincible metal Skysteel, which they carefully crafted over the decades to lure Ailor travelers from the south to their death searching for it, even creating false artifacts out of the material and then killing their wielders and stealing the false artifacts back to help maintain the myth. Isldar are very aware of the weakness that desire creates in others, and try to avoid succumbing to it themselves by living simply and never wishing for too much more than what they have.
 
* Isldar cooking usually lacks meat except for game stews from whatever they can hunt in Ellador, since there is no room inside their spire-cities for agriculture. Instead, they live on highly productive fruit gardens enchanted by Aurora or the Glacial's Magic to produce far more yield than any other, knowing a thousand different ways to cook up the various tropical-looking and exotic-sounding crops that they have access to, but basically no experience with worldwide staples like bread, beef, or milk. Dates and blackberries are favorites of the Isldar, as well as a specific type of savory, oversized peach that is dried into strips. Isldar alcohol is also usually fruit-based, different types of brightly flavored liquors drunk in shots and heavily spiced with cinnamon and other flavors, similar to the Wirtem schnapps.
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.
* The Isldar are famed observers, who have built Crystal Spires hidden away in mountains all around the world, even in Regalia, where observation teams work to record the details of history as it passes and make sure that the record is kept properly. More can be read about this on the [[Ellador]] page, which also helpfully explains the geography of their homeland and nearby areas. For the dedicated reader, the [[Dwarf]] page is also useful, to see their point of view on historical events relative to the Isldar's.
 
==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.
* '''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]].


==Trivia==
==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: different colors, but the same shape.
* 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.
* 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.
* The once-beloved tradition of Isldar family reunions has turned into anxiety-inducing nightmare fuel after their religious schism, since no one knows who chose what side and no one wants to tell for fear they'll be the only one.
* 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.
{{Races}}
 
{{Peoples}}
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[[category:Races]] [[category:Magus Races]]
 
[[Category:People of Aloria]] [[category:races]] [[category:Magus Races]]

Revision as of 18:05, 21 March 2024

Isldar
Yseldaar (in Altalar)
Grayflag1.png Grayflag3.png
Motto: "Truth Abides no Weakness."
Isldarpslasho.png
Nation State Life and Death Isldar States
Ruler Tower Councils
Other Present Varied
Languages Altalar
Religion Varied
First Recorded 100 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.

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.

Until Evolism is updated to include the Glacial, a basic version of Glacial dogma will be included here. The Glacial is an Isldar Archmage who lived during the war against the Allorn Empire, though it isn't specified when. In desperation to save her people, she delved into forbidden tomes of Magic and accidentally trapped herself within the Death Realm, gaining enough power and Ordial Magic over time until she could reach into the world of the living through Avatars and Spirits as a Death God, though it isn't clear how. The Death Isldar understand that when they ritualistically kill in the name of the Glacial, the souls are sent on to her power in the Death Realm. They believe that if she amasses enough power, she will destroy the Malefica who traditionally rules there, usurp the Dimension, and burst into Aloria to create an Undying Paradise and Empire for the Death Isldar where they languish in her love without suffering, interference, or interruption, from anyone who would seek to attack them, ever again. It is a very Undead- and Spirit- happy religion that encourages the mass use of both of these things as bound legions to wage wars for the Death Isldar, and cultivates powerful and corrupt Ordial Mages as its priesthood. Since its dogma effectively demands that people be murdered to increase the power of its God, most people are not happy to see a Glacial worshiper, but the Death Isldar like to say that "there was always going to be a death, only, it does not have to be you." When the Isldar split into Life and Death Isldar, for the Death Isldar Frisit worship immediately stopped being fake Dragon Worship and started being full-blown Death cultist Magic. Those of them who were not Ordial Mages before have definitely become so now, and their clothes and styling have started taking on otherworldly, malevolent appearances to style after their master's servants'.

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
• Qadir • Sihai • Songaskia •
Southern Peoples
• Allar • Bralona • Maraya • Slizzar •
Western Peoples
• Asha • Eronidas • Fin'ullen • Kathar • Lanlath • Maquixtl • Suvial • Yanar •
Accreditation
Writers Okadoka
Artists MonMarty
Last Editor OkaDoka on 03/21/2024.
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