Isu incarnation

An Isu can be incarnated in a human individual. While initially believed that this process only happenedAssassin's Creed IV: Black Flag with Juno's late husband Aita,Assassin's Creed III – Modern day incarnations of whom are referred to as Sages, it has since been discovered that incarnations of nine Asgardian Isu surfaced around the 9th century, predominantly within Scandinavia.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – A Brother's Keeper
Where the Sages of Aita and Vejovis, another Isu, manifest in different individuals throughout human history, instances of the Asgardians' rebirth are only known to have occurred in one person each. Among that group were Eivor Varinsdottir, the incarnation of Odin; her adoptive brother Sigurd Styrbjornsson, Týr's incarnation; and Svala, the rebirth of Freyja.
==Sages==
The most prevalent Isu incarnations are those of the Isu Aita, known as Sages. These Sages reappeared many times throughout history, bore a physical resemblance to Aita, and were recognizable by their and .
==Incarnated Asgardian Isu==
===Phenomenon===
Shortly before the Great Catastrophe that wiped out the Isu, Odin, seven of his most trusted Isu followers, and Loki, had their DNA, memories, and consciousnesses integrated into the human gene pool by using the Yggdrasil supercomputer,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Animus Anomalies paired with a catalyst stolen from the Capitoline Triad, in hope of escaping the doom of their civilization and be reborn in human bodies millennia later. More specially, they injected their blood into human fetuses, prompting their DNA to remain dormant in future human bloodlines as a recessive trait. Eventually, a trigger would take place under specific circumstances that would give the Isu's DNA a dominant trait, manipulating their physical characteristics to match the ones from the respective Isu and slowly forcing the resurgence of their past memories and consciousnesses. Most notably, unlike Aita's many forms, the reborn Isu were planned to only happen once.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Poor Fellow-Soldier Another factor which complicated this plan was that, as with Sages, there was a risk the human could choose to not act on their Isu memories.
===Characteristics===
====Predecessor's impulses====
In stark contrast to Sages who were often plagued by memories of their previous incarnation Aita, the reborn Asgardians had aspects of their lives often partially or fully repeat themselves in the lives of their human incarnations. Like Odin, Eivor had a strong aversion to wolves, had the raven Sýnin as her echoing Huginn and Muninn,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla and when connected to Yggdrasil, regularly lost an eye fighting alongside the einherjar in a simulation of Valhalla. In similar fashion, Sigurd mediated disputes and delivered judgements as jarlAssassin's Creed: Valhalla – Settling Down and had his right arm severed at the elbow,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – A Bloody Welcome echoing the tales in Norse mythology about how the god of justice Týr lost his right arm to the wolf Fenrir.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Binding Fate
Halfdan Ragnarsson, the incarnation of Thor, had a strong affinity for using his hammer Orthstirr in battle,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – War in the North regularly threw it,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Lost Glory and was extremely paranoid about being poisoned, unknowingly copying Thor's use of MjölnirAssassin's Creed: Valhalla – View Above All and foreshadowing the thunder god's demise in Ragnarök from Jörmungandr's venom. Even Rig Reidarasson was haunted with strong impulses to kill the Hidden One Basim Ibn Ishaq, though he did not know his target's name and described him as a "man with the mark in the House of Shadows",Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Rigsogur: IX. The Death of the One Who Heard Voices unknowingly following Heimdall's initially fated role to kill Loki even as he was slain in turn.
====Convenience of the incarnations====
In the particular case of the reborn Asgardians, the specific time period and the bloodline where they would be born were specially planned to happen at the same year span and region of the globe. As such, with the exception of Loki, all the reborn Isu grew up between the end of the 8th century and beginning of the 9th century in bloodlines native to Northern Europe. 
For unclear reasons, however, Heimdall's incarnation Rig was born near Scandinavia but approximately twenty years before the other reborn Isu,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Rigsogur: I. The King of Soft Reeds even though Heimdall had done his blood transfusion at the same time as his counterparts.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Layla Hassan's personal files: "AA_Complete" When Rig tried to kill Loki's incarnation Basim Ibn Ishaq in Constantinople, he returned to his crew stating that "[He] had become before [his] time", adding that he "was born too early and [was] alone, without [his] father [or] friends" after concluding that Basim had not been born yet.
In addition to this, the fact that Loki injected himself with the serum after the other Æsir had left the chamber made his incarnation be born in the Abbasid Caliphate's capital city of Samarra, far away from the birth places of the other reborn Isu.
====Physical features and similarities====
These incarnations could be identified by a mass of dark veins on their necks. Additionally, at least two Isu incarnations, Eivor Varinsdottir and Basim Ibn Ishaq, possessed the rare ability of Eagle Vision, indicating a high concentration of Isu DNA.Assassin's Creed: Mirage
===History===
====Isu Era====
Desperate to save the life of her husband Aita, who had been left in a catatonic state after being used as subject test to the fifth method of salvation, Juno embarked on a quest to acquire the "Mead", a serum designed by the Capitoline Triad and kept under the guard of Jupiter and Minerva that would activate the latest solution to limit the Great Catastrophe's effects on the Isu. This particular innovation, if used correctly, could reincarnate some members of the Isu as humans in the distant future, but Jupiter and Minerva deemed it dangerous to use, believing it would damage the human genome in the process and eventually influence human history in an uncontrollable way.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – A Feast to Remember
Desperate for the Mead, Juno investigated their research sites and found the Mímisbrunnr, which was meant to receive the Mead when ready. Soon after, she began to inquire and plot out multiple ways to take it in order to save her beloved, actions that eventually exiled her from the city guarding the Temple. When Odin visited Jötunheimr to meet Aletheia, she discovered that he also sought the seventh method and so decided to wait until she and her lover Loki dealt with him before deciding to collaborate with Odin to steal the serum.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Mistress of the Iron Wood
Odin managed to successfully steal the Mead from the city of Útgarðar, but not without deceiving Minerva and battling with Jupiter himself. Juno told him to come to the experimental well in order to make the serum work. After Odin sacrificed his left eye in payment in order to use it as catalyst, the machine Mímir accepted this sacrifice and the serum was finally synthesized, much to Juno's delight. With both the Isu taking samples of the fluid, she cautioned him to use the serum moments before his death in order for it to work, as only the memories happening prior to the consumption of the concussion would be preserved within the new body. With the Mead now in hand,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Price of Wisdom she was able to successfully insert her late husband's essence into a human bloodline, tweaking the functions of the solution to reincarnate his beloved indefinitely for the following millennia.
Odin eventually finished the construction of the abandoned project in Scandinavia, near their territory, naming it Yggdrasil. During the midst of the Great Catastrophe, a group of Asgardian Isu comprising of Odin, Freyja, Týr, Thor, Sif, Heimdall, Iðunn, and Freyr managed to successfully upload their essences into the supercomputer before heading off to face their end in battle, gambling that Yggdrasil would successfully save them through a incarnation in human bodies in the upcoming ages.
Unbeknownst to them, Loki also snuck into the room and uploaded his essence as part of his two-step plan to first take revenge on Odin in the future for imprisoning his son Fenrir, and also to reunite with his lover Aletheia, who had her consciousness preserved in the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Animus Anomalies
====Viking Age====
During the Viking Age, the incarnations of the Æsir finally appeared. The first was Rig Reidarasson, a Viking born in the late 8th century who was the incarnation of Heimdall. During his life, Rig was plagued by the memories of Heimdall, believing them to be visions of the gods. His life, adventures and struggles to seize the hallucinations were immortalized in the Rigsogur, a written by the monk Brissy the Elder.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Rigsogur
In the 9th century, Thor and Sif were reincarnated respectively in the Vikings Halfdan Ragnarsson and his friend Faravid, though they were unaware of this link. In 865 CE, when King Ælla of Northumbria executed Halfdan's father Ragnar Lothbrok by throwing him into a pit of snakes,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Lost Drengir of Ragnar Lothbrok Halfdan and Faravid conquered his kingdom and executed Ælla in return in 867 CE.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Database: Faravid
====Abbasid Caliphate====
Around 844 CE, Basim Ibn Ishaq, the incarnation of Loki, was born in the Middle East, specifically in the Abbasid Caliphate's capital city of Samarra. For most of his early life, Basim was unaware of his true nature, though he still experienced Loki's memories in the form of haunting visions of a djinn, which represented the torture Loki had been made to endure during his imprisonment in the Alamut Temple.Assassin's Creed: Mirage – In Pursuit of Truth Meanwhile, Loki's consciousness took the form of Nehal, Basim's alleged childhood best friend, who accompanied him at every step and encouraged him to pursue his own self-interests while trying to remind Basim of "who he truly was."Assassin's Creed: Mirage – The Master Thief of Anbar
Originally a simple street thief, Basim eventually joined the Hidden Ones in 861, after being rescued by the Master Assassin Roshan following his accidental murder of the caliph Al-Mutawakkil. While helping the Hidden Ones hunt down their enemies, the Order of the Ancients, in Baghdad, Basim learned about the latter's research of Isu artifacts and was encouraged by Nehal to seek the Order's knowledge to better understand his own nature.Assassin's Creed: Mirage – The Head of the Snake
After the Order's leader Qabiha informed him of the Alamut Temple prior to being slain by Roshan, Basim decided to investigate the site.Assassin's Creed: Mirage – The Serpent's Nest Although Roshan, who had deduced her apprentice's true nature by herself, tried to stop him, fearing what the temple might awaken inside Basim, she was ultimately defeated by him. Inside the temple, Basim discovered several Memory Seals, one of which contained the recorded memories of Loki from the time he had been imprisoned there millennia prior.
Upon realizing what both Nehal and the djinn that had been tormenting him represented, Basim decided to embrace his nature as Loki's incarnation and regained all the memories of his past life. He then began seeking out the other reborn Isu, to exact retribution for the suffering inflicted upon his past self, all the while continuing to further the Hidden Ones' cause.
====Viking expansion====
In the mid-9th century in Rygjafylke, Norway, the Raven Clan who resided in the small settlement of Fornburg counted three Æsir incarnations among their members: the volva Svala for Freyja,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – A Seer's Solace the prince Sigurd Styrbojnsson for Týr,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Prodigal Prince and his foster sister Eivor Varinsdottir for Odin.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Honor Bound
In 870 CE, during a raid on one of Kjotve the Cruel's territories, Eivor captured his slave Gull, the incarnation of Iðunn.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Song of Glory – Issue #1 Together, they eventually went up the Feiknstafir mountains to the Temple of Heimdall,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Song of Glory – Issue #2 where they found an Apple of Eden that had been locked away. When Gull touched the artifact, she recovered Iðunn's memories, and armed with the knowledge necessary to control it, used the artifact to restrain Eivor. As the Temple began to collapse from the damage sustained in Eivor's fight with Kjotve's men who also sought the treasure, Gull was left to her destiny on a precarious ledge with the Apple while Eivor decided to help her clan who was being attacked by Kjotve's Wolf Clan.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Song of Glory – Issue #3
That same year in Constantinople, Sigurd met Basim, who served as leader of the local Hidden Ones bureau, and his acolyte Hytham.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Database: Basim Ibn Ishaq Recognizing the mark on Sigurd's neck, Basim pondered the possibility of him being Odin reborn and, as such, followed the Viking on a trip to his hometown to investigate further.
In 872, Basim became acquainted with Eivor on his arrival, granting her a Hidden Blade that had belonged to the late Hidden One Ammon. Together, the three Æsir incarnations fought Kjotve the Cruel, assaulting his fortress and killing him.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – A Cruel Destiny This act permitted Harald Fairhair, Freyr's reborn self, to unite Norway under his crown.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Birthrights As Harald became the lord of Fornburg, Sigurd, Eivor, and Basim went to England in order to establish a new colony,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Seas of Fate while Svala returned to the Yggdrasil Chamber, guided by Freyja's memories,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – A Wise Friend to enter a simulation of Valhalla.
Establishing the colony of Ravensthorpe in Mercia in 873,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Unwelcome Sigurd became the jarl of the village, working with Eivor to form an alliance with the Sons of Ragnar.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Heavy is the Head After that, Sigurd attributed to his sister the task of continuing to gain friends throughout England in order to expand the settlement while he and Basim adventured through the new lands.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Reporting on Ledecestrescire
During this time, Basim tried to reveal to Sigurd his true nature, but when this failed, he decided to prompt the man to search for the Saga Stone, a door fragment from Yggdrasil's chamber with engraved Isu script that he hoped would spark Sigurd's memory.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Brewing RebellionAssassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Saga Stone Some time after, Eivor assisted her brother with his search in Oxenefordscire, with the three Æsir incarnations allying themselves with Fulke,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Pilgrimage to St. Albanes an Order of the Ancients member who possessed the artifact and studied both it and the reborn Isu.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Blood from a Stone Together, they fought Lady Eadwyn, who had previously imprisoned the scholar, reclaiming the Stone from her. After they recovered the relic, Basim let Fulke betray the group and take Sigurd as a hostage, suspecting that her research with a live subject would awaken his true nature.
In 874, Eivor and Basim traveled to Cent, the place where Fulke had been reportedly seen last.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Abbot's Gambit They ended up being tricked by the Ancient, who fled with Sigurd. The Hidden One and the Viking then found her sanctuary in Canterbury, discovering that Fulke had cut off Sigurd's arm and that she had taken him to the fortress of Portcestre, in Suthsexe. The next year, the two incarnations and their allies besieged the castle, with Eivor saving her brother and finally killing Fulke.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Storming the Walls Nevertheless, the torture that Sigurd had endured greatly altered his personality after being exposed to Týr's memories, and he now saw himself as a god.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Of All That Has Passed... Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Blame and Sail
During one of her adventures in early 876, Eivor allied with Halfdan and Faravid to fight the rebelling King Ricsige and his Pict allies.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Honor's Hubris After Halfdan became the new king of Northumbria, an argument arose between Faravid and the new king, the latter accusing his friend of poisoning him. This greatly affected Halfdan, who rapidly became depressed, though Eivor helped him to recover his morals.
During her journey in England, Eivor experienced several hallucinations of Odin, manifestations of his memories trying to emerge in her mind that sometimes spoke directly to her, constantly trying to direct her to the location of Yggdrasil's chamber. After Svala accepted Freyja's past as her own, her daughter, the seer Valka, moved to Ravensthorpe. There, she helped Eivor understand the meaning of the visions by creating potions that permitted her to witness altered memories of Odin's time in Asgard,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – In Dreams...Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Bound to Fate Jötunheimr,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Going Deeper... Svartálfaheimr,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Dawn of Ragnarök – Restless Dreams and Niflheimr.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Forgotten Saga – A Gift from the Otherworld
In 877, Sigurd and Eivor returned to Norway,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Road to ValhallaAssassin's Creed: Valhalla – Where Legends Are Born entering the Yggdrasil vault by pronouncing the words carved on the Saga Stone. Inside, they encountered the supercomputer and used it to enter the simulation of Valhalla, encountering Svala as Freyja, who had been there for the past four years. Despite initially enjoying the simulation, Eivor realized that everything was fake and managed to convince her brother to leave, while Svala stayed. However, Odin's consciousness tried to force Eivor to stay in the simulation, with her fighting it in her mind and ejecting herself from the machine, repressing her Isu side.
Basim, who had tailed them to the site, understood that Eivor was indeed the host of Odin's mind instead of Sigurd. He then took Sigurd hostage but quickly released him as Eivor went to attack him. During the fight, Basim blamed the imprisonment of his son Fenrir on a clueless Eivor, who in turn believed he had lost his mind.
As the Hidden One was overpowered by Eivor, he decided to kill Sigurd instead, but Eivor arrived in time to save her brother. The Viking then proceeded to distract him in a last confrontation while Sigurd powered up Yggdrasil to trap Basim's consciousness inside the Grey. After this, Sigurd conceded his role of Ravensthorpe's jarl to his sister.
The following year, Eivor led the assault that resulted in the Battle of Cippenham.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Kingdom's End Although the Vikings won the fight, conquering England in its totality, the confrontation resulted on several casualties on their side, including Soma, Hjorr Halfsson, and Hunwald. After giving the warriors their last rites, Eivor had a discussion about possible afterlives with Guthrum, venting to him that she would now seize her time among her friends and family rather than wish and strive for Valhalla after having witnessed its emptiness while in Yggdrasil's chamber.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Holy Day
True to her word, Eivor spent the following decade trying to help the Raven Clan as its jarlskona to the best of her abilities, even traveling to Ireland and Francia to establish new alliances and stop possible threats.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Wrath of the Druids – Irish AdventureAssassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Siege of Paris – To Francia Eventually, around 889, an older and more mature Eivor realized that she could not suppress her Isu self, Odin, forever and rather than reject his influence entirely, she decided to learn from his memories. However, believing her clan would not be able to understand, she chose to do so away from them.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Last Chapter – Last Goodbyes
Prior to her departure, Eivor went to bid farewell to all of her friends and allies in England and Norway, including Sigurd, who had since settled in Alrekstad, and Harald Fairhair, who by this point had become aware of his own nature as Freyr's incarnation. Staying in Alrekstad for three weeks, Eivor, Sigurd and Harald reminisced about their past lives togetherAssassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Last Chapter – Fare Thee Well, King Fair-Hair before Eivor eventually left for Vinland in North America.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Last Chapter – Fare Thee Well, My Ravens There, she would spend her final years conversing with Odin, who helped her understand the Isu's history.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – The Last Chapter – Modern day After her death, Eivor was buried near modern-day Concord.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Modern day
====Modern times====
In 2020, the Assassin Layla Hassan, who had discovered Eivor's grave and relived the Viking's memories in the Animus, found and accessed the Yggdrasil chamber and connected herself to the supercomputer, hoping to find a solution to a series of anomalies affecting the Earth, caused by the activation of the global aurora borealis device in 2012. Inside the Grey, she met the consciousness of Basim, who revealed that he had sent Layla the message leading her to Eivor's remains and told her how to save the planet.
However, after Layla followed Basim's instructions, she inadvertently freed the Hidden One from his imprisonment inside the Grey. Thanks to the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, which Layla had dropped, Basim rejuvenated his physical body and was reunited with the consciousness of Loki's lover Aletheia. He then met with Layla's fellow Assassins Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane, who were angry to learn that Basim had abandoned Layla inside the Grey, but nonetheless agreed to grant him an audience with their Mentor, William Miles.
While Shaun and Rebecca were away, Basim used the Animus to relive Eivor's memories in the hopes of finding any clues to lead him to his children: Fenrir, Hel and Jörmungandr. While he did not find any, witnessing Eivor reject Odin's influence made him realize that the Viking's relationship with her Isu self was different from his own relationship with Loki, and that he had been wrong to try and exact revenge on Eivor for Odin's actions. When he later began to experience the Bleeding Effect, Basim saw a vision of Eivor smiling and nodding at him; a gesture he returned, symbolizing their friendship and mutual respect.
Eventually, Basim was met in the Animus by a hologram of William, who questioned his motives. After the former Hidden One claimed that he still cherished the Creed and wished to help the Assassins in their fight against the Templars, William agreed to work with him, but first requested a sample of his blood, to allow the Assassins to relive his genetic memories.
==Known reborn Isu==
Wiki noimage.jpg|Rig Reidarassonincarnation of Heimdall(c. 770s – c. 860s CE)
ACV Svala.png|Svalaincarnation of Freyja(died 873 CE) 
ACV DB Halfdan.png|Halfdan Ragnarssonincarnation of Thor(c. 790 – 877 CE)
ACV DB Faravid.png|Faravidincarnation of Sif
ACV Basim render.png|Basim Ibn Ishaqincarnation of Loki(born c. 844 CE)
ACV Sigurd Styrbjornson.png|Sigurd Styrbjornssonincarnation of Týr(born 842 CE)
ACV Female Eivor render.png|Eivor Varinsdottirincarnation of Odin(born 847 CE)
ACVSoG - Gull 2.png|Gullincarnation of Idun
ACV Harald.png|Harald Fairhairincarnation of Freyr(c. 850 – c. 930 CE)
==Appearances==
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Song of Glory 
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
**The Legend of Beowulf
**The Way of the Berserker
**River Raids
**Mastery Challenge
**Wrath of the Druids
**The Siege of Paris
**Dawn of Ragnarök
**The Forgotten Saga
**Shared History
**The Last Chapter
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Geirmund's Saga
*Assassin's Creed: Rebellion – The Ravens' Wound
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla webcomic
*Assassin's Creed: Where's the Assassin? 
*Little Miss Eivor 
*Discovery Tour: Viking Age
*Assassin's Creed: The Silk Road
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Forgotten Myths
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Sword of the White Horse
*Assassin's Creed: Escape Room Puzzle Book
*Assassin's Creed: The Golden City
*Assassin's Creed: Mirage
**The Forty Thieves
*Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game
==References==
Category:Isu
Category:Humans
Category:DNA