Isohar

Isohar and Splinter.

„*That little Saw-whet has more courage than you´ve ever had in your shrivelled gizzards since you joined that cowardly band of bullies.“*

* Isohar to the Sooty Owl Dustscrape

Isohar is a character from a series of role-playing sessions set shortly after the Siege of the Great Tree in the *Guardians of Ga´Hoole* background.

## Description

Isohar is a huge, shaggy, creamy-coloured Eagle Owl. His feathers are stiff and unkempt from lack of preening, and the left side of his face and breast show ugly bare patches of cicatriced skin where the claws of a lynx have raked him. His left eye is missing, leaving just an empty, scarred socket, and his right wing tip has been ripped off. He flies with a peculiar, lurching stroke, compensating his lack of elegance as a flier with his immense strength.

## Personality

Isohar is resentful, cynical, and misoglauxian. Before he met Splinter and Teleria, he was a very lonely owl, relying only on himself and his own facilities to get by. His gizzard is full of angry gallgrot, partly because of the chickhood teachings of the Feral Owls (who hold that a gizzard roiling with fury is the key to victory and survival), partly because of being cast out into the world without any love from his parents and summarily ostracised by the civilised owls of Kuneer. Every obstacle he encounters, he attacks with a determination born out of constant struggle. He has suffered many setbacks; every time he picked himself up and threw himself stubbornly into the task again. Giving up is not in his nature.

Surprisingly gentle towards his friends and those he protects, Isohar can be brutal with those whom he regards as cowards and bullies. Without any formal teaching and unknowingly, he has embraced the Ga´Hoolian virtue of protecting the weak and humbling the proud.

## History

### Chick and Owlet

Chickhood in the Feral Owls of Kuneer leaves much to be desired. Isohar´s parents barely taught him the rudiments of flight and survival before throwing him out of their territory, and his unnamed younger brother did not even live to see adulthood. His mother never bothered to name the surviving owlet; he had to give himself a name, and chose Isohar, meaning „radiance“ in the dialect of Kuneer.

### Ostracised

The Feral Owls are hated and distrusted by all the desert owls. They are loners, keeping to themselves and heeding no code. They have been known to raid the homes of Burrowing Owls and eat the chicks, and in times when game is scarce have even laid siege to outlying settlements. Sighting of a Feral will rouse all owls in the vicinity to band together and drive off the threat.

While roosting near a Burrowing Owl family´s warren, Isohar overheard the parents celebrating their chick´s First Meat ceremony, and he found himself desperately longing for this kind of love. The Ferals had no ceremonies, only harsh and sometimes brutal lessons, and he had never heard such happy sounds as the owlet´s excited hoots. He knew he would be shunned and driven away as a Feral Owl if he showed himself, but he managed to stay close to the family´s home and occasionally left morsels of food on their doorstep during the day.

### The Lynx

Then disaster struck the community: a large and vicious lynx had been driven from the woodlands of Ambala to the desert´s rim, and started to decimate the burrows. It killed and ate several chicks and those parents who tried to defend them. The owls were devastated.

Isohar, from his hiding place, heard the family´s father mourn his wife and chicks, and he felt cold fury rising in his gizzard. Silently, he took flight and circled all day under the harsh desert sun until he found the lynx´s cave. Without waiting for the creature to go to sleep, he shree´ed his battle cry and attacked. Again and again Isohar hacked at the lynx, which gripped his wing with its fangs and smashed him against the cave´s wall, raked him with its claws and threw him to the ground. His gizzard awash with searing gallgrot, he refused to give up, battered and bleeding, still pushing himself up and attacking with his talons, again and again and again until the lynx fell dead with a severed jugular. Isohar hobbled from the cave with a missing eye, torn wings and a necklace of lynx´ teeth strung on a sinew.

### Protector of the Burrows

Feverish and frail, Isohar nursed himself back to health in a cave where he had cached dried food in the manner of the Feral Owls. Observing his maimed facial disc mirrored in the cave´s well, he feared that the gentle owls of Kuneer would never accept a brute with such a face, even if he wasn´t a Feral. He fashioned himself a mask from the bones of the lynx, but never again approached the settlement. He would take up residence in the lynx´ cave but stay in the vicinity, hunting by day and killing or driving out threats to the burrows; those owls who caught a glimpse of him told their chicks of the terrifying „day-demon“. Even the crows gave him a wide berth.

### Meeting Teleria and Splinter

When Splinter and Teleria sought refuge from a Tytonic Union kill-team in Isohar´s cave, Isohar threatened to kill them both. Splinter, though senseless with fear, tried to bargain with Isohar, offering himself to be eaten if Teleria could go free. They were interrupted by the arrival of the Red Talons who had tracked the two owls to the cave.

Isohar´s monstrous appearance gave the five Pure Ones pause, but they quickly sized up their chances. This had nothing to do with him, they told Isohar, they just wanted the two Ga´Hoolian owls. There was a rich reward for their capture which would be Isohar´s if he gave them up to the patrol. Isohar, enraged, replied that the tiny Saw-whet Owl had more gallgrot than all of the Pure One bullies combined, and challenged them to stand their ground and fight. When the Tytonics hesitated, he mocked them, asking if they were afraid to attack an old maimed owl missing half a wing and an eye.

As the Red Talons rushed him, Isohar counterattacked. His deep, resounding hoot, amplified by the cave into a roaring organ sound, stunned the kill-team and let Isohar defeat them despite their greater numbers, their armour and battle claws. He gave one of the pairs of claws to Splinter, saying that the little owl had earned them with his courage.

### Friendship and the Search for the Lost Books

Isohar, Teleria and Splinter became friends, and he aided them in their mission to Tyto Forest. When they met with Sir Devon, who had been dispatched from the Great Tree to look after the two adventuring owls, Isohar was at first disdainful of the Guardian´s prim honour, but they later overcame their differences and became battle-brothers – though they continued to bicker in a friendly way, Devon stressing the importance of virtue and knightly conduct, and Isohar insisting that gallgrot and rage were the true marks of a warrior.

### Isohar´s Death

When Isohar was captured by the Pure Ones as he was guarding his friends´ retreat, Sub-commander Ruthven had him tortured to learn about Teleria´s whereabouts. Isohar refused to talk. He spat in Ruthven´s face, saying that he preferred being maimed to betraying a valiant owl. The Pure Ones hacked off his talons, broke his beak, his back and his wings, and threw him out into the desert to be devoured alive by the jackals.

Isohar was found by a wandering Glauxian Brother named Maroon, who rescued him from the jackals and tried to save his life. The dying Isohar thanked the Tawny Owl for being the first stranger to be kind to him. He asked him, if his time permitted, to fly to the Great Ga´Hoole Tree and leave a message to his friends: „I have died a happy owl for having known you three.“