Southern Ishtar

Southern Ishtar as it appears on the Io World Map

**Southern Ishtar** is a continent on the planet of Io. Once joined with Northern Ishtar before the Shattering, Southern Ishtar used to be a vast expanse of jungle and swamps, inhabited by a chaotic society made up entirely of goblins. The Shattering however completely changed the nature of the continent, causing the swamps to dry up and transforming the climate from tropical to polar. Despite this, civilization has continued to flourish in Southern Ishtar, helped in no small part by the impressive bastion of academia called the Beardthrone Academy.

## Appearance

Southern Ishtar has long been known for its difficult topography, with a whole section of the continent being called the Highlands for the elevated and mountainous terrain. Several isolated mountain ranges can be seen across the Ark from space. In the past, Southern Ishtar used to be a tropical environment, with copious amounts of jungle and swamplands. Following a massive efflux of Dae energy, the jungles and swamps became even more prolific, covering the entire highlands. Human settlements fell into ruins while ramshackle goblin buildings were hastily erected and promptly destroyed.

Since the Shattering, Southern Ishtar's landscape drastically changed. The Dae-infused mud was drained from the swamps, ending its influence over the region. This made the region somewhat more hospitable for other races besides goblins, and new civilizations began to establish themselves, particularly along the coastlines. The Shattering also caused a massive shift in the climate of the region. Instead of a tropical jungle, Southern Ishtar became a boreal forested land, covered in snow and ice almost all year round.

## History

### Early History

Southern Ishtar was likely created and populated as part of the Auroran Repopulation Project in the wake of the Jupiter Incident. Originally, Northern Ishtar and **Southern Ishtar** were a single landmass simply called Ishtar. Ishtar boasted a great deal of climatic and geographic variety, from humid jungles and swamps in the south to snowy tundra and mountains in the north. The low-lying temperate regions eventually became the cradle of what would become the Kingdom of Brisbane. At some point, a group of mostly elven refugees from the destroyed city of Kraqesque arrived on the shores of Ishtar and made it their home.

### The Death of the Gods

It is unclear what influence the gods DIV and VOID had over Ishtar. However, the continent was still affected by the deaths of the two gods, brought on by the valiant efforts of the Fallen Heroes. Ishtar fell into a dormant state along with the rest of Io, with it and its people readjusting their essences in the absence of the gods' omnipresent energies. As an indirect result of the gods' death, large quantities of DIV's blood made its way to Ishtar and spread across the continent. After some time, conscious life returned to Ishtar and began to adapt to a world without the gods. During the interim, Brisbane grew to be a great nation, expanding all across Northern Ishtar and into the jungles of the south.

### Attack on the Old Academy

The blood of DIV scattered across Ishtar did not go unnoticed. Some peoples unaligned with Brisbane came into contact with the reservoirs of blood land were able to empower themselves with it. This phenomenon drew the attention of a learned wizard by the name of Dmitrius Valiensworth. Valiensworth was the headmaster of a school of magic located near the Southern Ishtarian border, falling under the jurisdiction of Brisbane. The Old Academy became a haven for those wishing to advance their arcane gifts and also served as a home for the descendants of the survivors of Kraqesque, such as the Kel'Mitore family. It is unclear what transpired between Valiensworth's Academy and the "savages" who crudely utilized the Radiant blood, but hostilities came to a crescendo.

The "savages" assaulted the Academy, killing several of its people and taking others prisoner. During the attack, Valiensworth managed to teleport himself and a few of his choice students to safety before the tower they were in collapsed. Of the few survivors was the young Lunafiera Kel'Mitore and her fellow student Botok, who believed everyone they knew to be dead and fled the scene. The destruction of the Academy at the hands of these "savages" was something that Brisbane viewed to be Valiensworth's ultimate failure. After a trial, the king and his senate fired the headmaster, permanently exiled him from the kingdom and closed off the Old Academy site from the general public, prohibiting any form of entry or investigation.

### The Tragedy of the Highlands

Valiensworth did not submit himself to the sentence laid upon him and began to orchestrate his return. He sabotaged the experiments of one of his instructors, Gloria Chronos, leading her to be trapped in the Astral Veil in a temporal stasis. With her gone, Valiensworth assumed her identity to act as his public face. He revenged himself on the people who attacked his school and freed the prisoners they took, rallying them to his cause. He also located the "savages'" source of power and began to research it, giving the substance the name "Dae". His forays into Daemancy lead to incredible results and the substance became his primary source of energy. With these new advances, he and the survivors created the Daemancer Cult, a secretive organization devoted to unlocking the true power of Dae and to establish a new world order on the continent of Ishtar.

Not long after the establishment of the Daemancer Cult, Valiensworth and his followers triggered a massive efflux of Dae as part of their experiments. This deluge spread south into the Ishtar Highlands, a mixture of jungles and swamps. The Dae energy permeated the entire peninsula and began to suffuse into the very land itself. All of the inhabitants of the Highlands were slowly killed by the Dae mist, leading to an unprecedented massacre. The Daemancers went to see the results, choosing a village near the border called Fyham to investigate. There, Valiensworth and his Daemancers found a young woman who had actually survived the effects of the Dae cloud. However, they were not the only ones who came to investigate, as the soldiers of Brisbane arrived on scene not long after. With no time to study the girl, Valiensworth killed her and put on his disguise to meet with the soldiers.

### Gobbieland

This horrific disaster did not deter Valiensworth in the slightest, and he and his followers managed to cover it up under the falsehood of a plague. However, the lasting effects of his experiments were felt for generations afterwards. The Kingdom of Brisbane abandoned the Highlands as it was now next to uninhabitable due to the Dae. However, this did not mean life could not return. In an unexpected turn of events, the original residents of the Highlands were reincarnated by the Dae-infused mud as goblins, with no memory of their past lives. From now on, any humanoid that died in the swamps and jungles of the Highlands was reborn as a goblin, and those goblins would constantly be reborn over and over again. Over the next fifty years, goblins would infest the Highlands, their population growing to vast numbers. Soldiers and wizards of Brisbane often travelled southwards to beat back the goblin hordes and practice deadly techniques on them, breeding a hatred between humans and goblins throughout Ishtar.

A new society of anarchy came into being, as lives were recycled constantly in constant chaos and violence. Many of the reincarnated goblins forgot their previous existences, losing themselves to the pandemonium they now inhabited. Despite the madness, some semblance of civilization managed to etch its way into existence. The town of Ditburg became a somewhat functional settlement with permanent inhabitants, guards and tradesmen, while fringe societies such as the Order of the Berry and the Cucumber Cult took to religious worship. Another societal stable was the Eight Grannies, a group of elderly goblin women inspired by the Fallen Hero Weyzi Uk'tah, who acted as teachers and advisors for all gobbiefolk. And others still became warlords, seeking to raid their fellow goblin for any and all resources they could muster. Perhaps the most impressive of these was Chief Big Belly, an enormously obese goblin who styled himself a king and carved out a massive portion of the Highlands as his own territory.

While all this was happening, some goblins actually recognized the nature of the Dae-infused mud and began to treat it as an object of worship. This Order of the Mud built churches to its splendor and several became paladins and clerics to spread the good news to their uncaring brethren. Eventually, this selfsame order located a swamp that was extremely concentrated in Dae energy, which they named the Swamp of Life. Hearing tell of this fabled swamp, the land around it was claimed by Chief Big Belly. He built a fortress and Dae spa around the area to protect it from outsiders, allowing him to control the lifeblood of goblinkind for his own benefit. With the Swamp of Life in Big Belly's clutches, the Order of the Mud felt obligated to swear fealty to him as well.

## Phase 2 Story

### The Binding of Nigel

In the year 735, the abandoned Old Academy found itself host to a pair of wayward travelers. Two young wizards, Nigel Valiensworth and Aelith Malcolm, arrived in the basement of the ruined Academy via the magic of a djinn. Having escaped the Exodus Academy in Northern Ishtar, Nigel soon found himself cornered by Mayliera, a member of the Daemancer Cult his father had founded. In order to defend himself, Nigel used his Dae magics to inadvertedly summon the familiars of his friends to his side. However, the excessive Dae energies began to tamper with the boy's spell, causing it to run wild. Mayliera, happy to leave the boy to his doom, used her own Daemancy to before teleporting back to the Exodus Academy. The Dae caused Nigel to fuse with the familiars, transforming him into an dangerous amalgamation.

Shortly after Nigel's disappearance, four of his friends from school arrived in the Old Academy from the Astral Veil. The four students were guided by the spirit of one of their fallen classmates, Ellie, who Nigel had extracted from the soul crystal of a monstrous machine. Ellie helped them enter the basement, where they learned of Nigel's connection to the previous headmaster and of his obsession with unlocking the secrets of Dae. In the depths of the dungeons, they found the Nigel amalgamation and an unconscious Malcolm in a room flooded with Dae mist. The amalgamation began to attack them instinctively as the four tried to find a way to save their familiars and Nigel. Thankfully, Nigel was still fighting from inside and telepathically reconstructed memories to show them what happened the nigh he disappeared and to teach the group a ritual to separate him and their familiars. Together, the four first years enacted the ritual and successfully the amalgamation and disperse the Dae mist. Their victory was short-lived, as Valiensworth teleported into the room and immediately polymorphed Nigel into a book. Feigning concern for the students, Valiensworth teleported the four students and Malcolm back to the Exodus Academy, leaving the Old Academy silent once again.

### Here comes the Circus

In the depths of the Highlands, a festival was taking place in a small goblin village. During this festival, a pair of circus goblins, Happy and Skagzag, managed to hire four other goblins to join them: the aspiring bard Klernt, the feral warrior Cheezle, the wild pickle-worshipper Peekel and the hitman Mottle. Their first performance ended abruptly when a pair of goblins disguised as a human caused a panicked riot to break out. Once the circus performers put down the fake human, Happy rounded up his troupe and they set off to entertain the masses all over the Highlands.

Their first stop was an orphanage run by one of the Eight Grannies of goblin society. Though they initially expected a group of excitable children, they instead found the granny caring for three middle-aged goblins wearing diapers. This misunderstanding escalated into a full-scale combat, in which the circus troop defeated Granny and her orphans. As per granny tradition, Granny passed her title on to a reluctant Klernt upon defeat, as well as guardianship of the three orphans. However, their battle disturbed a giant worm beneath the orphanage, who burrowed up and devoured one of the orphans. The troop promptly scattered, pursued by the worm as they made their way south to the town of Ditburg.

At Ditburg, the circus met with the richest goblin in town, Maestro, who had booked them in for a show at his theatre. As they were exploring town before the performance, Mottle was hired by the local gobsmith to assassinate Maestro, which he accepted immediately. Peekel also got in an altercation with the local church, causing a flood of mud to consume the temple, while Skagzag was also invited to visit a strange cult on account of his vascular form. That evening, the circus put on a performance that thoroughly impressed the audience. Midway through the show, Mottle took Maestro up on stage to assist in a trick and managed to shoot him onstage and fulfill his contract. The murder of Maestro proved to be a massive blow to Happy, who had yet to receive any payment and was relying on Maestro to provide Klernt with a letter of recommendation to the Bard College. Cutting their losses, the circus decided to make their way to the Bard College anyway, setting the theatre on fire to hid the evidence of the murder.

### Attending Bard College

The road to the Bard College was not an easy one. Amid the usual dangers of the jungles, a new threat to the party emerged. While in Ditburg, agents of Chief Big Belly identified his old nemesis Cheezle and mistook the circus troupe for the young barbarian's new army. Given that Cheezle had previously burned down one of the Chief's abodes and swore undying vengeance, Big Belly took this threat very seriously. He dispatched one of the paladins loyal to the Order of Mud to find Cheezle and put an end to him. The paladin, who later adopted the name Randall Mud, tracked down Cheezle by coming across one of Klernt's orphans, who had been banished from the troop. Slaughtering the orphan after learning their whereabouts, Randall prepared an ambush in a nearby ruin. However, his ambush did not go according to plan, and the paladin was slain by Cheezle and his party, allowing them to continue on their way.

On route to the Bard College, the party once again encountered the giant worm, who had followed them all the way from Ditburg. Though they attempted to fight it off, the party once again decided to run. Granny volunteered to stay behind and distract the worm so that they could escape. Leaving the elderly woman to fend for herself, the circus troop finally arrived at the Bard College. Though elated at first, Klernt learned the College was relocating and that most of its staff and students had already left. They managed to convince the last tutor to give the troop a crash course in the art of bardship. While there, Klernt made enemies with another student, Handsome, who also wished to become a bard. During their lesson, Klernt was taken aside by the tutor and privately told that the secret to becoming a bard was to swallow a special type of slug. The tutor then force-fed the struggling Klernt the slug, which caused Klernt to attack the tutor in response.

During the scuffle, a portal unexpectedly opened up in the room, out of which three wizards emerged. Interrupting the fight, the wizards announced that they were looking for able warriors to assist them in defeating a great threat to Io. They had identified the performers as potential candidates and wished to recruit them to their cause. Though initially skeptical, the promise of a great reward eventually won over the goblins, who agreed to follow the wizards back to their school in the Astral to see what the fuss was about. Without informing Happy or Klernt's last remaining orphan Stink, the goblins and their ogre friend Dungo went through the portal, though not before throwing in Handsome as well.

### Granny and the Giant Worm

With his performers gone missing, Happy and Stink found themselves alone in the College. However, this soon changed as a number of terrified goblins sought refuge in the college. The reason became clear when the giant worm battered down the front doors and began to rampage in the courtyard. Barricading themselves in the west wing, Happy and the other goblins hid as best they could. Some time passed until a group of unfamiliar goblins appeared from the classroom. They were, in fact, some of the same wizards who had recruited the performers in the first place, hailing from the Astral Academy. They had hired the goblins to help them defend Io from Kaasma Khara, the ravenous child of a dead god. When the goblins chose to betray them in favor of Kaasma, the wizards were tasked with locating a strong source of Dae by their Headmaster to better understand the goblins' magics so they could track them down.

The wizards, some disguised as goblinoids, approached Happy and got a decent understanding of the situation. They also admitted to having taken his performers, lying to him regarding their current location. Theorizing the worm may be a good source of Dae, the wizards went out into the courtyard and began to engage the worm in combat, causing it to split apart as it took damage. Midway through the fight, Granny rushed through the front door, announcing that she was not finished with the worm. She joined the wizards in defeating the worm, finally putting it down as it tried to burrow away. After the combat, the wizard discovered that Granny possessed a very high level of Dae energy. Informing her that they had hired her goblin friends to help them, Granny demanded to be brought to see them. One of the wizards, Gideon, suggested Happy might also join them, which he gruffly declined. With Granny's consent, the wizards whisked her away to the Astral via the same portal they had taken her friends.

### Battle at the Old Academy

Not long after securing Granny and making peace with the goblins, the Astral Academy learned that Kaasma Khara was close to awakening and ready to tear through the Astral Veil to reach Io. However, the Daemancers of the Exodus Academy had also located the diabolical infant after their repeated efforts of prying into the Astral. Under the direction of Mayliera, a large number of Daemancers congregated at the Old Academy to conduct a ritual intended to redirect Kaasma Khara to their location. Upon its arrival, they intended to capture it and harvest its power for themselves, confident in their ability to do so with little heed for the consequences.

However, their nefarious intentions became known to the pirate crew of the Miss Demeanor, allies of the Astral Academy. They had sailed the Great Journey to seek out the Exodus Academy's aid only to discover they were recklessly assisting their enemy in the pursuit of power. They arrived at the Old Academy site to discover the ritual had been commenced. Determined to put an end to this madness, the pirates launched a surprise attack on the cultists. The crew target the Dae golems being used as power conduits, cutting through several of the Daemancers defending them. Mayliera stepped in to retaliate, using her Daemancy to assemble a construct around her from the ruins of the golems to complete the ritual herself. However, her overconfidence was her undoing, as the pirates managed to defeat her, with Captain Armstrong landing a final blow to knock her unconscious. The Miss Demeanor's efforts managed to disrupt the ritual enough to prevent any stabilization of the portal. The arcane backlash badly injured Kaasma Khara, giving the Astral Academy a much-needed advantage against the abomination. To further assist them, Luna, Layton, Khairen and Shen used the established leyline to back up the Academy's defenders in the Astral Veil.

Though Kaasma Khara was slain in the Astral, the insidious parasite inhabiting it took over. It forced itself and Kaasma Khara's remains through the unstable portal at great injury to itself. The resulting teleportation tore open the sky barrier protecting Io, exposing the vastness of space beyond. The remains of Kaasma Khara rapidly descended towards Io with the parasite intending to infect the planet with Kaasma energy. However, the goblins, Layton, Khairen and Zehani navigated the leylines to land upon the broken corpse and do battle with the parasite. As they tumbled through the atmosphere, the parasite manipulated the remains to duplicate itself and rend his enemies. However, even with a desperate last attack, the parasite was destroyed. With nothing left to sustain it, the corpse of Kaasma Khara disintegrated into harmless dust.

The brave defenders of Io were teleported back to the Old Academy, where Layton and Khairen were reunited with their crew. Having seen the falling corpse of Kaasma Khara from a nearby barracks, a battalion of Brisbane's soldiers arrived just after the battle. They heard the reports of the goblins and pirates and asked to escort them to Brisbane to meet with their superiors. The soldiers also took Mayliera and the surviving Daemancers into custody, leading to a formal investigation into their activities and their connections to the Exodus Academy.

### Seeking the Swamp of Life

Being hailed as heroes in Northern Ishtar, the goblins were hosted by one of the senators of Brisbane and a personal friend of the new Archmagister, Dmitrius Valiensworth. Valiensworth, having lost much of his power in binding Nigel and the failed ritual to summon Kaasma, was in need of finding alternative sources of Dae to replenish. He cursed a series of magical artefacts and a Bag of Holding and gifted them to the goblins. Over time, their natural Dae would be siphoned into the Bag, causing the goblins to slowly die. The goblins discovered this treachery, but also accelerated the process at the same time. Though a simulacrum of Valiensworth offered to save them in exchange for the bag of Dae, the goblins rejected this ultimatum and sought to get revenge. But first, they needed to find a new source of energy to sustain their forms. Having gotten some understanding of Dae and its connection to Ishtarian Goblins, they returned to the Highlands along with their new friend Kua to see what they could find.

Arriving back in the Bard College, they found the place deserted. After some sleuthing, they found a diary entry from their old ringleader, Happy. Chief Big Belly and his soldiers had arrived in the Bard College shortly after the death of the worm. He had approached the ringleader and the other sheltered goblins and extended an invitation to join his ranks. As a token of good faith, he gave them samples of mud from the Swamp of Life. The substance was so intoxicating and rejuvenating that Happy and the others went back with him to his Fort and Dae Spa to the east. Identifying the Swamp as a potential cure for their condition, the goblins and Kua left the college to find it, though not before defeating a large parasite that attempted to bar their path.

Taking a brief stop in the ruins of Fyham, the hometown of their original selves, the goblins concocted a plan to enter the spa undetected. They would style themselves as big game hunters and present Kua as an exotic gift for the chief and his daughter. Cheezle would also be kept hidden by transforming into a hyena. The ruse was successful and the goblins managed to infiltrate the fortress. In the spa, they reunited with Happy and Stink. Though Happy had sold out to Chief Big Belly, there was no hard feelings between them, and Happy even agreed to help them get into the Chief's personal quarters. Happy brought Kua and Cheezle into the central fort and presented to Princess Bigger Belly as her new birthday gifts. Once out of the building, Happy gave the signal to allow Klernt and the other goblins in. The goblins fought their way through the fortress to find Cheezle and Kua had captured the princess by turning her into a rat.

### All Hail the Chief

Cheezle then proposed a rather wicked plan to the group: they would exploit Chief Big Belly's gluttony by dressing up his transformed daughter as a delicious delicacy. Once the chief had eaten his daughter, Kua would end the transformation, causing her to return to normal and kill the chief from the inside. Though thoroughly horrified, the other goblins agreed to carry out this twisted assassination. When they actually found their way into the secret throne room below, they found the assassination went exactly according to plan. However, as they finished off the traumatized princess, they did not anticipate that the Swamp of Life might sustain the Chief past his death.

Chief Big Belly resurrected just in time to witness his daughter's death and flew into a murderous rage. The goblins were forced to slay the king numerous times, causing him to revive in a variety of different ways. Eventually, growing to a massive size, the chief's body proved too unstable to carry on. With a mighty throw, Cheezle buried his axe into the skull of Chief Big Belly, finally killing his arch-nemesis. With the chief's death, a vortex of mud opened up, leading to the Swamp of Life. Before they ventured in, Cheezle climbed his way onto the vacant throne, and declared himself Cheiftan.

Within the Swamp of Life, the party met Randall Mud again. The paladin had been recently reincarnated from the mud and had little recollection of their meeting. He explained that submerging themselves in the Swamp of Life would be enough to restore their degrading bodies, though he was uncertain what they might experience within the mud. The party did as Randall told, with Kua promising to watch over them as they slumbered. While they slept in the mud, the party relived their original lives as humans in Fyham. They witnessed the Dae incident that took their lives and learned that Valiensworth was the one responsible for their deaths. Upon awakening, the goblins vowed to kill Valiensworth for everything he had done. Before they left to try and find him, Cheezle assembled Chief Big Belly's former subjects. He proclaimed his place as their chief and was accepted without question. In addition, Cheezle declared that he would create a free society where all goblins could share and partake in the wealth of the tribe. To demonstrate this, he opened up Chief Big Belly's treasury, inciting mass hysteria as goblins fought each other to swipe the loot for themselves. Satisfied with his first edict, Cheezle appointed Randall as his steward to watch over the fort and what was left of his tribe as they went to revenge themselves upon the Archmagister once and for all.

### Of Goblins and of Men

With the defeat of Valiensworth during the Shadow Invasion, the Kingdom of Brisbane once again owed its thanks to the goblins. Some weeks later, a meeting was arranged between Lord Brisbane XII and his senators and Chief Cheezle, newly appointed ruler of the Swamp of Life. Both parties sought to act as representatives of their people to establish a new understanding between their races and to suitably reward the goblins. Negotiations were initially uncertain, but the human king managed to arrange appropriate rewards for the chief and his retinue. Peekel's pickle worship was given official state recognition, Klernt was allowed to open a mercantile franchise, Skagzag was allowed to watch a human execution, and Mottle took over the abandoned Exodus Academy to form a school of assassins.

The meeting then turned to relations between the northern kingdom and the goblins of the south. Previously plagued by discrimination and conflict, Lord Brisbane XII wished to create a peace treaty and open trade routes between the two halves of the continent. In addition, the king desired to receive the bodies of his people lost in the Highlands to allay the grief of their loved ones. It was then that Cheezle interjected and revealed a terrible truth to the amassed humans. With Klernt's assistance, he explained that all goblins of the Highlands were once humans and other sapient races, having been reincarnated in the Dae-infused mud of the swamps as goblins over and over again. They shattered the previous fiction of a plague and declared Valiensworth as the culprit for this phenomenon, having personally caused the incident that took their own lives and infused the south with rampant Dae energy.

Shocked by this revelation, the king expressed his deepest condolences for the failure of his people in holding Valiensworth accountable and abandoning the denizens of Southern Ishtar to their fate. The goblins accepted the king's apology, stating that they had come to like their current existence. To assuage the king's concerns, Chief Cheezle offered an amendment on his original terms. He and his goblins would actively protect citizens of Brisbane trading in the south in exchange for Cheezle being officially named Warden of the Highlands, thus being entitled to receive a tariff from said merchants. In addition, he and his friends would be exempt from taxes while they were operating in Brisbane. With the counter-offer proving acceptable, the two leaders agreed to the terms of the treaty in a historic moment of reconciliation between their people. Over the coming centuries, peace reigned between both Northern Ishtar and Southern Ishtar, with goblins becoming accepted members of society across all of Io.

## Phase 3 Story

### The Shattering of Io

When Lagos, the Emissary of the End, attacked Io 500 years after the Shadow Invasion, the continent of Ishtar was caught up in the resulting catastrophe. However, Ishtar, along with the rest of Io, was saved by the new gods, who held the planet together via chains of energy constructed from the Deitic Veil. The Shattering split the continent in half, separating Northern Ishtar and Southern Ishtar into two distinct landmasses. Thus Southern Ishtar became one of the many floating Arks that were anchored to Io's core, allowing life on Io to endure and adapt to this new paradigm. As a result of the Shattering, the Dae energies of the Ishtar Highlands dissipated, causing its swamps to dry up and ending the cycle of rebirth that had cursed its inhabitants. The newly inhabitable areas became home to more than just Ishtarian Goblins, even though the region's climate had permanently shifted from a tropical environment to a boreal one.

## Notable Locations

### The Old Academy

Just south of the border with Northern Brisbane is the site of the Old Academy. The Academy was once a flourishing school of magic with a rich history tied to the survivors of the Sunken City of Kraqesque. However, the ill-intentioned experiments of its Headmaster, Dmitrius Valiensworth, resulted in the Academy being attacked by "savage" empowered by a strange substance. For the next fifty years, the Academy lay in ruins and its staff and students scattered. However, in the year 735, the Old Academy became the battleground in the defense of the planet, as the fiendish Kaasma Khara attempted to breach into Io above the Academy. The defenders of Io were successful in destroying it before it could wreck havoc across the planet. After the events of the Shadow Invasion, the Old Academy became the site for the nascent Beardthrone Academia, founded by Alice Beadthrone, Nigel Valiensworth and Aldoras Thelerian. The college continued to prosper for the next 1000 years, becoming the most famous institute of education on the planet.

### Jotun

One of the oldest cities in Southern Ishtar, Jotun is situated in the northeastern corner of the continent. Jotun is often the first port of call for international travelers and boasts a vast array of sights and businesses, include one of the Beardthrone Academia's colleges. Jotun has also become one of the main powerbases of the Lamantos Crime Family, though they prefer to keep the peace and maintain a velveted grip on the city.

## Historic Locations

### Ditburg

Ditburg was one of the few functioning towns in the Highlands during the age of goblins. Despite its unforgiving surroundings and rowdy inhabitants, the town was a quiet and orderly place by goblin standards. It had multiple amenities that were characteristic of human settlements, such as a blacksmith, a church, a theatre, shops and a hotel. Ditburg was once visited by the legendary strongest goblins, who put on a performance there as part of their circus career. It is unclear if any trace of the town survived to the modern day.

### The Swamp of Life

When the Dae mist flooded the Highlands, it permeated the very soil, causing life to become abundant, spurring gigantism in the local flora and fauna and perpetuating the cycle of rebirth that was the curse of the Ishtarian Goblin. One particular location became especially saturated in Dae energies. Named the Swamp of Life, it became a holy site for mud-worshiping goblins. A powerful warlord, Chief Big Belly, conquered the surrounding area and named himself the Swamp's master. He believed that possessing the Swamp made him immortal, and he was not entirely incorrect. His followers also became more resilient and able to regenerate from injuries the more they soaked in the Swamp's mud. However, Chief Big Belly was overthrown and a new chief rose to power in its place. After the Shattering, the Dae seeped out of the Swamp, causing it to lose its regenerative power and revert to ordinary soil.

### The Ruins of Fyham

Once a town within the Kingdom of Brisbane, Fyham was an unremarkable village in the jungles of Southern Ishtar. Perhaps the only notable feature in it was the general store run by a man named Clint, which was often starved for trade. However, the peace of this village was shattered when the Dae mist enveloped it, killing off its whole population. Under the false belief a plague had wiped out the village, Brisbane abandoned the village leaving it to fall to ruins. It is unclear if the ruins were ever rebuilt or just left to rot away.

### The Bard College

An old stone keep near Ditburg was the previous home of the Bard College. Large and spacious, it was nonetheless abandoned by its residents in favor of another site. However, the College agreed to hold one final class with a group of circus goblins, who soon disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Though the college was abandoned, it still held a dark secret; a colossal parasitic slug whose offspring the bards used to enhance their bardic abilities. Though the parasite queen held sway over those her progeny resided in, she was defeated by one such goblin and his allies. With her death, the Bard College finally fell silent, though it is unknown if it remained so in the following centuries.

## Campaigns

The following campaigns and events take place on the continent of Southern Ishtar.

# **Deadbeats**

## Mechanics

*Main article: Technical Details*
The world of Io is a heavily homebrewed setting with many experimental mechanics working at the same time. As an example, there are mechanics that apply only to a single campaign, and there're mechanics that are shared between multiple campaigns.

## Etymology

"Ishtar" is the name of an ancient Mesopotamian goddess usually associated with love, beauty, sex, war, justice and political power. She was worshipped under that name by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, though she was originally known to the Sumerians as Inanna. Ishtar is the subject of a large number of myths, with the most famous being her ill-fated journey into Kur, the Mesopotamian Underworld, which leads to her husband Dumuzid being trapped there in her place for half the year, resulting in the seasonal cycle. Ishtar is also believed to have been a heavy influence in the creation of goddess for subsequent culture, such as the Phoenician goddess Astarte and the Greek goddess Aphrodite.

## Trivia

* Southern Ishtar first appeared in Goblins of Io Session 0.