Ishtar

## General Information

### Deity

Ishtar, Earth-Mother, Shub-Niggurath, Ishnigarrab, Shupnikkurat, Beltiya (in Shushan)

### Attributes

* Ram's head
* Lion
* Eight- or Sixteen-pointed star
* Number 15
* Dragon

### Spheres of Power

* Earth
* Healing
* Fertility
* Seduction
* Sensuality
* War
* Arts
* Magic

## Other

###  Implementation in-game

Vanilla Derketo religion as placeholder for Pantheon of Shem

**Gender:** Female Ishtar is the daughter of Anu and his second consort. She is the Queen of Heaven, a goddess of fertility and war. She is also considered to be a consort of Mitra in Zingaran Pantheon

**Enemy**: Azoth

**Regions of worship:** Shem, Koth, Ophir, Zamora, Khauran, Khoraja; also Turan and Zingara.

Ishtar is the ivory-bosomed goddess of the Kothian, Shemite, the East in general. She is also worshiped in many other lands, including some Hyborian Kingdoms.

The version of Ishtar with swollen breasts and belly of Ishtar appear repulsive to the more refined worshipers of Mitra.

According to Shemites, Ishtar is the daughter of Anu and the sister of Adonis, her lover. She is the dominant one of the pair, sexually aggressive as befits a fertile war goddess. She is said to have been birthed from full-grown from a stone cracked open by a bolt of green lighting cast by Anu on the site where Asgalun now stands.

Anu sends forth rain, his seed, to fertilize the earth at Ishtar’s bidding. In some areas of Shem, Ishtar’s handmaiden Ashtoreth and Ishtar are identified as being the same, with both names used interchangeably.

## **Representation**

Ishtar can take any form, male and female, although she is most likely to appear as a young, voluptuous woman dressed in white robes, wearing a golden crown. She is usually depicted as having wings.

*Ishtar wears seven articles of clothing***:** crown, earrings, necklaces, pins to hold her shawl, a girdle of birth-stones around her waist, bracelets and anklets, and a traditional linen garment, worn as a shawl, leaving her right breast and arm bare.

Traditional Shemite dances represent these seven types of clothing as veils. As Ishtar on her descent to underworld, the dancer slowly removes each veil until the dancer is as nude as the goddess at the end of her travel.

Ishtar is a goddess of sexuality, because sexuality governs human behavior.

Magic, often in the form of charms and celestial horoscopes, and divination are important aspects of her religion, practiced in the courts of Shem. Law, in lands watched over by Ishtar is a form of magic, and the breaking of laws is tantamount to sacrilege. Thus the priests and priestesses of Ishtar work with the kings and queens of Shem, training people to follow the law of their rulers as a religious duty.

### **Rituals and Beliefs**

Ishtar, the ancient Mother Goddess, is worshiped in rich temples and at lavish shrines with rituals of blood sacrifice and orgiastic frenzy performed before sensuously carved idols of ivory.

For those who serve her, Ishtar bestows bountiful harvests and many children in exchange for sacrifice. The voluptuous temple prostitutes which are found in Ishtar's temples are well known even outside the lands where the goddess is worshiped. Ishtar’s statues are approached in the nude. Wearing clothes is tantamount to lying or deceiving in her eyes.

Her rites are conducted as languid orgies. Temples have bright decorations, statues are often dressed and painted depending on the ritual needs. Although Ishtar does not ask for human sacrifices, animal sacrifices are often part of her fertility rituals. If the various rituals of Ishtar are not followed, the worshipers fear that crops will wither and the urge to mate by man or beast will dwindle away. Birth of hideously deformed children, as well as drought, are regarded as bad omens from Ishtar.

## **The Priesthood**

Ishtar has both male and female priests. Their ceremonies include the blood sacrifice of animals. The priestess is believed to embody Ishtar during certain sensual rituals; sacred prostitutes aid in the rituals. The priests of Ishtar represent her sons and lovers. If a woman is believed to be infertile, the priests attempt to impregnate her, giving her a divinely-blessed child. In some regions, Ishtar, his second consort and his daughter, is called upon to bring forth Anu’s seed in the form of rain to fertilize the earth. This is often done with a public sexual ritual between the high priest of Anu and the high priestess of Ishtar.