Northern Ishtar

Northern Ishtar as it appears on the Io World Map

**Northern Ishtar** is a continent on the planet of Io. Once joined with Southern Ishtar before the Shattering, the northern half of the country was the home of the powerful Kingdom of Brisbane. Under the guidance of its king and senators, Brisbane became a world leader in trade, learning and military might. Northern Ishtar once boasted the most powerful educational institution in the world, the Exodus Academy, although the Academy's dark history led to its dissolution. The Ark is still home to many schools of martial arts today, not least of which is the Exodus Academy's successor, the Watcher's Academy.

## Appearance

The northern half of Ishtar has always possessed a temperate climate, allowing for dense woodland to flourish and arable land to be farmed. A large mountain range travels north to south along the western part of the continent, with many rivers and lakes find their source in these mountains. Another set of high mountains can be seen in an large island to the south west and in the north east. In the northmost part of the continent, the climate is much colder reminiscent of a snowy tundra. The plains and mountains of the high latitudes are usually blanketed in snow all year round, making it difficult for all but the hardiest of creatures to survive.

## History

### Early History

Northern 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. Meanwhile, the snowy and more inhospitable north became home to the Orcish kingdom of Mebuhan. 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. There are also a number of dwarven fortresses across the north of the continent, indicating an extensive dwarven civilization prior to their culling at the hands of the gnomes.

### 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.

### Rise of the Daemancers

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.

Valiensworth and his Daemancers spent the next 50 years entrenching themselves back into Brisbane's society. They did this by founding a new school to replace the Old Academy, with the disguised Valiensworth as its headmaster. The newly-formed Exodus Academy, based in an old dwarven fortress in the northern mountains, rose to becoming the most prestigious magical institution in all of Io. Boasting incredible advances in knowledge and arcane application, many noble houses in the Kingdom of Brisbane sent their sons and daughters to study at the new Academy. The Kingdom of Brisbane itself also profited from this new institution as one of the Academy's primary objectives was to train battlemages to fight for the kingdom.

However, the king and his officials had been thoroughly deceived, for all the while Valiensworth was indoctrinating more gifted wizards into his cult and establishing his followers in positions of power across the kingdom. In addition to building his powerbase, Valiensworth sought to further his research into Dae magics, leading to a calamitous event in the Highlands of Southern Ishtar. Dae energies went rampant and spread across the land, causing the deaths of most of the inhabitants of the Highlands and infusing itself into the very soil, warping the land and its inhabitants. This horrific disaster did not deter Vaiensworth in the slightest and he and his followers managed to cover it up under the falsehood of a plague, forcing the Kingdom to abandon their former territory to the wilds. Despite the power Dae brought, Valiensworth was obsessed with obtaining more for alternative sources. He captured a djinn called Thalamourne and sequestered him in the depths of the Academy, hired adventurers Aria Wanderlust and Quiet Midnight to seek out artifacts of DIV and made an alliance with a shadowy being called Deus in exchange for assisting the shadow's escape from his prison. Valiensworth also took it upon himself to forcibly adopt a prodigious orphan named Alice as the Academy's ward, intending to make use of the boy's latent power for his own ends.

## Phase 2 Story

### A Tragic Accident

In the year 735, the Exodus Academy reached its zenith as an arcane academy, completely overshadowing its rivals overseas. However, the new school year proved to be most problematic for the Academy and its secret cabal. A week or so into the start of term, a first-year student named Tremmer Kushions pulled an ill-conceived prank during an assignment, switching the markers in the training dungeons. This waylaid some of his fellow classmates into the more dangerous parts of the dungeon, where they all perished to the creatures within. Rather than prevent this tragedy, the staff of the Academy allowed events to proceed, intending to use their bodies and souls for their own ends. This was discovered that very night by a pair of first-years students, Nigel Valiensworth, the son of the headmaster, and Aelith Malcolm. The two delved into the depths of the dungeons, pursued by an instructor named Mayliera and a fearsome construct. In the depths of the dungeons, they became cornered in the room in which the djinn was imprisoned, and Nigel desperately used the djinn's power to escape to the Old Academy in Southern Ishtar.

To add more to the chaos of that night, the young boy Alice, tired of his oppressive life in the Academy, had also used the djinn to escape its clutches. With three students dead and three more missing, the staff of the Academy had no choice but to suspend all classes and begin covering up what had happened. One such way was the abduction and murder of the Warforged student Chrotek, who inquired after the missing students. However, the Academy was unable to keep the whole affair under their control. Four of Nigel's friends, Tremmer, Gideon, Aldoras and Elenora, awoke to find their familiars missing in addition to all the bad news from the previous night.

Resolved to find their familiars, the four young wizards broke into the forbidden section of the library in the hopes of finding answers. They instead learned about the djinn in the dungeons and sought to use its power to wish for their familiars back. Managing to evade the staff with the help of their friends, they ventured into the dungeons and successfully avoided the terrible golem that killed their classmates. Within the wishing room, an argument broke out between Tremmer and Aldoras as to how best to use their wish. Gideon, gripped by a spontaneous panic, made the wish to be anywhere else, which the djinn responded to. The quartet were then whisked away into the Astral Veil by the malicious genie.

### Under Lock and Key

After a perilous journey, the four students were brought back to the Exodus Academy by the Headmaster, having reunited with their familiars, Nigel and Aelith Malcom. Upon being found in the Old Academy, Nigel was polymorphed by his father into a book and confiscated from the students. Once back in the Exodus Academy, Tremmer, Gideon, Aldoras and Elenora were interviewed by the headmaster individually. Though the headmaster adopted a different tact with each of the students, the students proved to be reticent to offer up the whole story, with the exception of Aldoras who presented some information about the Astral and Kaasma Khara. As a whole, the students protested the innocence of Nigel and levelled accusations at the Exodus Academy staff, particularly Mayliera. The headmaster attempted to placate them by telling them that a full investigation would be conducted and Nigel would be given a fair trial, though he still was deemed too dangerous to be reverted to normal. He also informed them that given their exceptional growth during their adventure, the four of them would be elevated to the status of third year students and also be given their own private quarters and classes.

Though this outwardly appeared to be a reward, in reality Valiensworth was putting the four students under house arrest, a realization that they made very quickly. They discovered that they were under constant surveillance via scrying spells and they were not allowed to travel freely without an escort. Though trapped, the four managed to deceive the scrying spells and began to plan their next move. They reasoned that they could no longer trust the staff and the best course of action was to play along until a means of escape presented itself. This opportunity did in fact manifest some few days later when Tremmer was contacted by Levin, a denizen of the Astral Veil that the quartet had befriended. Tremmer informed Levin of their confinement, to which Levin responded that he could evacuate them back to the Astral Veil with him. The recent assignment given to the students, to slay a yeti in the nearby mountains, provided the perfect window to enact this escape.

At the end of the week, the four students were dropped in the depths of the mountains and sought out their target. Briefly waylaid by strange arcane locks, the quartet of wizards located their quarry, only to discover it was no ordinary yeti. Seeking a means to snuff out threats to their machinations, the Daemancers infused the yeti Frostfear with the power of Dae, giving it a new arsenal of attacks and innate regeneration of its wounds. Its purpose was simple; kill the four students. However, the Daemancers underestimated the student's abilities and they handily dispatched the yeti. Upon its death, Levin appeared via a portal to the Astral. He sadly informed them that he only had enough power to take two of them with him, meaning the other two would need to fend for themselves. After a brief deliberation, Tremmer and Gideon volunteered to go. Levin used the remains of Frostfear to create two simulacrums of the boys and rent them asunder in order to fake their deaths. Bidding their friends goodbye, Gideon and Tremmer followed Levin through the portal, where they were enrolled in the newly established Astral Academy.

### A New Archmagister

Believing their assassination attempt to have succeeded, the Exodus Academy managed to cover up the supposed deaths of Gideon and Tremmer. Though Aldoras and Elenora returned, they remained under surveillance at the Academy. With all of his loose ends seemingly dealt with, Valiensworth had only one more thorn in his side. At the behest of his son Aldoras, the Archmagister of Brisbane, Rafius Thelerian, had being conducting his private investigation into the goings-on in the Academy and the fate of its students. To this end, Valiensworth and his followers managed to isolate Rafius and had him assassinated. Rafius' disappearance soon became public knowledge, though his death could not be confirmed.

As a result, the position of Archmagister was left vacant in his absence. Seizing the chance, Valiensworth manipulated the king and senate to allow him to serve as the new Archmagister. Now holding on of the most powerful seats in government, Valiensworth's influence over Brisbane was at its zenith. But it was not enough for him. Tantalized by the power of Kaasma Khara, Valiensworth instructed Mayliera and his Daemancers locate the diabolical infant and bring it to Io to contain and extract its power. With the disappearance of his father and the increased activity in the cult, Aldoras and Elanora went undercover in the Daemancer Cult to learn more, with Aldoras managing to infiltrate their initial invasion force into the Astral Veil.

### The Heroes of Brisbane

With the defeat of Kaasma Khara at the Old Academy, the Kingdom of Brisbane formally extended its gratitude to the two parties of adventurers its soldiers found there. One group was the pirates of the Miss Demeanor, who had directly combated the Daemancers trying to summon the space baby. The other was a gang of goblins from Southern Ishtar, who fought a parasite puppeteering the corpse of Kaasma Khara as it fell from the sky above Io. Despite their victory, Kaasma Khara's arrival had left a permanent tear in the sky barrier above the Old Academy, revealing the Nova and the drifting corpse of Kaasma itself to all of the denizen of Io.

Both groups were separately invited to dinner by two senators. Senator Edwin Awigh hosted the Miss Demeanor near the capital of Brisbane with Senator Duskell took the goblins in his private villa in West Brisbane. Both senators offered their congratulations on behalf of the king and offered to assist them in receiving appropriate compensation for their efforts. Despite this, the two meetings had very different trajectories. Senator Duskell's awkward meeting with the goblins was underlined by his ill-concealed desire to expand southwards into the swamps of Southern Ishtar. He offered assistance with the usurpation of Chief Big Belly, the most prominent warlord in the Highlands in exchange for a political alliance, something the goblins had no interest in. Duskell did however invite them to join him on a hunt near the village of Hillsborough to discuss it further and to meet his friend the Archmagister, which the goblins accepted.

Meanwhile, Senator Awigh was genuine in his appreciation of the pirates' heroics and bore no ulterior motives. However,, the meeting was interrupted by the arrival of Archmagister Chronos, who desired a private audience with the pirates. The Archmagister's honeyed words did little to sway the pirates, especially Sterling Smiles, who saw straight through the Archmagister's deception. Knowing his bluff was called, the Archmagister dropped their façade, revealing themselves to be Valiensworth. He admitted his frustration at the crew's thwarting of his plans to summon Kaasma Khara, causing him to close down the Exodus Academy and step down as Headmaster. He also expressed disappointment with his wayward ward Alice, who he was still considered the legal guardian of. Instead of vengeance, however, he offered the pirates a deal; he would let bygones be bygones and relinquish his guardianship of Alice in exchange for them securing him a new source of Dae energy. The pirates adamantly refused and Valiensworth took his leave, warning them to watch their backs. Senator Awigh shortly returned to resume their discussions, however, while reviewing the contract, a bright light surrounded Alice and Sterling and forcibly transported them away. At Duskell's villa several miles to the west, Peekel and Mottle were also abducted by the same light.

### Death of a Senator

Peekel and Mottle returned to their friends and Senator Duskell the next day, meeting them on the road northwards. Though the senator expressed curiosity about their whereabouts, the pair brushed off his questions, promising to tell the other three goblins when they got the chance. The party continued on their way to the village of Hillsborough, which the senator guided them through with his usual pompousness. The goblins became aware of the unpopularity of the senator from the local townsfolk, and his behavior began to get on their nerves just the same. This was especially true of Skagzag, who hated all humans with an inexplicable passion. Shortly after arriving, the senator and his guards led the apprehensive goblins out into the forest, looking for boar to hunt. However, they found the woods unnaturally quiet and soon discovered why. A deadly hydra had made the forest its territory and attacked the goblins.

During the frenzy, Skagzag took the opportunity to act upon his hatred, magically propelling rocks at Duskell. Panicked, the senator attempted to run, but was stuck in the head and killed. Meanwhile, the two guards and remaining goblins put down the hydra. Though Klernt immediately deduced what had happened, he managed to deceive the guards into thinking the senator had died indirectly from the hydra. With the lie in place, the two guards transported the senator back to Hillsborough, placing his body in one of the rooms. Despite the murder, the goblins chose to stay around and await the arrival of the Archmagister.

### Exodus Undone

While the senator was being laid to rest, the pirates of the Miss Demeanor made their way towards the Exodus Academy by airship. Their goals were twofold; to find information about the Deep One who had taken Captain Armstrong's soul and find Alice's adoption papers to free him from the Archmagister. The Academy was in the process shutting down temporarily due to the arrest of Mayliera and her Daemancers, which offered them the perfect opportunity to scope out the Academy and get away without being caught. However, while there, they found things were not so straightforward. Not long after their arrival, a large booming noise could be heard from the library. Making their way there, they discovered an emerald Wall of Force had been erected in the middle of the library. Inside the dome, seemingly reading book after book, was the Fallen Hero Oswin, corrupted by the Black Star and sent to wreck havoc upon Io. Uncertain with how to deal with him, the pirates were approached by Aelith Malcolm. Malcolm indicated his intention to get back at the Headmaster for what they had done to him and had been prying into their private affairs, discovering Alice's papers in the process. Malcolm offered to assist them in finding the papers in exchange for helping him find the book that was once Nigel.

However, the meeting was cut short by two successive disasters. Firstly, Captain Armstrong was taken aside by an apparition of his tormentor Sholo Maa, who demanded Armstrong's immediate obedience. When Armstrong gave an unsatisfactory answer, Sholo Maa dragged him into the Shadow. His crewmates attempted to rescue him in vain, leading Layton Beardthrone to dive into the portal after him. The loss of their two captains was made worse when Luna and Khairen discovered Alice was missing. While talking with Malcolm, Alice had attempted to enter the forbidden section of the library, only to be followed by Oswin. The young boy was attacked by the undead librarian, who in turn met her end at the hands of Oswin. Unconscious and trapped behind a dome of force, Alice had to be rescued by Malcolm, who returned him to his remaining crewmates.

With Oswin on a rampage in the library, the group decided to try and raid the Headmaster's office. A brief check into the Altered City of Atlas revealed their captains had yet to return, though they picked up a new ally in the form of Zehani. They then went to the office and discovered a teleportation circle hidden beneath the carpet. Activating it, they found themselves in the Headmaster's secret quarters, guarded by the monstrous Cadaver Collector that had hounded Zehani's friends Tremmer, Gideon and Aldoras months earlier. With their combined might, the group destroyed the construct, extracting the soul crystal within. Continuing to ransack the Headmaster's quarters, the party found the head of Chrotek, Alice's adoption papers and the red book containing Nigel. Satisfied with their haul, the crew made their getaway back to the capital, inviting Malcolm and Zehani both to join their crew as they began their search for their captains.

### Valiensworth's Last Gambit

As this chaos descended upon his Academy, Valiensworth was treating the goblins to an audience in his own interdimensional mansion, conjured outside of Hillsborough. There, he offered to gift the goblins several boons of power for their services in defending Brisbane. The goblins eagerly accepted, though some of them were apprehensive in the Archmagister's presence. Valiensworth also gifted them a Bag of Holding in the process as a gesture of good faith. However, what the goblins didn't realized was that all the items they had been given were cursed. Valiensworth's recent exploits, especially the transformation of his son, had drained him of much of his Dae energies, greatly weakening him. The cursed items were intended to drain the goblins of the natural Dae energies that sustained them and accumulating it in the Bag of Holding.

Not long after this exchange ended, the Archmagister received word of Oswin's arrival in the Exodus Academy. He rushed out of his mansion in a panic and teleported away to the Academy, an act not unnoticed by the goblins. Once he got there, he found Oswin in the library, having calmed down and erected his Wall of Force once more. Valiensworth attempted to dispel the Wall, but was completely unable to do so. Realizing he needed more power, Valiensworth returned to his secret quarters to extract power from Nigel. There he discovered the wreckage of the Cadaver Collector and the ransacking of his office. Finding both Alice's papers and Nigel missing, Valiensworth flew into a rage. His attempts to track either ended in failure. He spend a few days mulling over his options and awaiting the goblins' response to his ultimatum. However, the goblins' shenanigans with the corpse of the senator led them to the discovery of his treachery, causing them to seek another route that denied Valiensworth the power he needed.

With no other recourse left, Valiensworth used the last vestiges of his power to contact Deus, his shadowy benefactor from long ago. He arranged a meeting with the newly freed devil in the ruins of Asmodia, a meeting that would lead to Valiensworth's failed betrayal of the Lord of All Shadows and his subsequent transformation into Asura, the Many-Faced Lord of Deception. His free will taken from him, Asura would serve Asmodeus in his crusade to reclaim Io.

### A Hero's Fall

With the Exodus Academy all but abandoned, Oswin was free to roam and seek more books to pursue. All the while, his steps were shadowed by an awestruck Aldoras Thelerian, having returned from his time in the Astral Veil. Still seeking information regarding his father and the Daemancers, Aldoras took to investigating the Academy, only to find his hero in the flesh. As he followed him into a study in the dungeons, he was met by some familiar faces. The goblins, seeking information on the Headmaster's whereabouts, had been exploring the Academy with Kharien and Zehani, only to get lost following the tortle Kua. Kua, connected to the Memory of Oswin, had instinctively gone straight to the Fallen Hero, oblivious of their intended purpose here. Upon meeting the hero, Kua offered Oswin his own petrified arm as a sign of friendship. However, Oswin's broken mind reacted poorly to this, causing him to fly into a rage and attack the assembled. During a fierce battle, the party survived a barrage of magic. Though deadly, Oswin's elemental power was nothing compared to his ability to temporarily stop time and teleport the party across alternate realities to disorient them. But in the end, Oswin was overwhelmed and Zehani, in the form of a giant ape, hurled him against a bookcase, causing the Fallen Hero to be killed. Kua then used his spores to reanimate Oswin as his latest "friend".

Aldoras, taking the death of his hero well, then guided the party to the Headmaster's office, where the goblins and Aldoras were made aware of Nigel's rescue and his potential to help defeat Asura. Together, Aldoras and Klernt theorized that four gifted wizards could undo the magic binding Nigel and free him from his prison. Though frustrated by the roundabout way of getting this information, the goblins awaited the arrival of Nigel in the dining hall of the Academy, while Kharien and Zehani returned to Atlas. Staying with the goblins, Aldoras sent messages to his allies Duqhazan and Elenora to inform them of these developments. Alice and Malcolm finally arrived with the book, presenting their discoveries on the means to free Nigel. Together with Klernt and Al, the four wizards managed to undo the enchantment and release Nigel from the book. As this was going on, Kua used the body of Oswin for an experiment which resulted in the birth of the first Treeple, Oswood.

### The Shadow Invasion

The release of Nigel immediately drew the attention of his transformed father, the Devil Lord Asura. Having been tasked by Asmodeus to begin his Invasion of Io, they diverted from their original course to the Exodus Academy, intent on capturing Nigel and taking his power for their own. In the grounds of the Academy, the Many-Faced Lord of Deception was confronted by a plethora of people whose lives he had directly ruined: his own son Nigel, Alice, Aldoras Thelerian and the goblins Klernt, Cheezle, Mottle. Kua and Duqhazan also arrived to assist in the battle, along with a Warforged cleric who teleported in from Qethos on behalf of the Faithful.

Bringing all their power to bear, Asura lashed out at Nigel's defenders, using all manner of magics and trickery to wear them down. Nigel meanwhile was able to tap into his latent Dae magic, creating a zone of Dae that could be used to erode the barrier maintaining Asura's form in order to banish him. However, during the battle, Asura manifested a apparition of his old self to harass his son and prevent his ritual from taking place. This underhand assault on Nigel was swiftly put to an end by the timely arrival of Elenora Mordove, serendipitously teleporting in and unleashing her newly crafted spell, Mordove Farewell. This destroyed the apparition and allowed Nigel to continue the ritual. With the barrier sufficiently weakened, Alice cast a Banishment spell, forcibly exiling Asura to the Shadow for centuries. Their banishment opened a leyline to Asmodia and significantly weakened Asmodeus, allowing Alice's crewmates to send the Lord of All Shadows back to his prison once again.

### Of Goblins and of Men

With the defeat of Asura, 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.

### The Ishtarian Job

A few weeks after the peace treaty, Klernt and Mottle made their way to an island off the coast of Brisbane, home of the Dwarven Horde Bank. There they met with Sterling Smiles, who had promised Klernt riches in exchange for his help against Asmodeus. The three had recently learned that Asura, having been stripped of all his privileges by the Kingdom of Brisbane, had had his personal treasury within the bank confiscated. Under normal circumstances, their assets would become the property of the bank itself. However, Sterling and the goblins decided that the wealth of the former Archmagister would be much better suited in their hands instead. To this end, with the assistance of Sterling's new simulacrum, Smerling Styles, they orchestrated a heist.

Under the guise of wealthy adventurers, the four of them entered the bank to survey its layout and defenses. They met with the manager Thenderon, and request access to the most secure vaults in order to store some very dangerous and valuable treasures. Buying their store, Thenderon gave them a brief tour, detailing elements of the bank's security systems and guardians. The four then managed to convince Thenderon that the goods they needed to lodge were best done in secret. Thenderon revealed that there was a hidden tunnel to the private vaults and gave them directions, offering to meet them after nightfall. A few hours later, the four heisters went to the location only to discover the corpse of Thenderon's bodyguard and a rampaging stone golem.

Destroying the golem, they found a frightened Thenderon in hiding. Using his magic, Klent placed Therderon under a charm and convinced him to lead them to the Archmagister's vault, with Sterling claiming he was her husband. Confused and disoriented, Therndon did so, navigating the tunnel to the vault. With no key to enter, Sterling teleported the two goblins and his simulacrum inside, triggering the alarm system. As they ransacked the vault, the iron golems outside killed Thenderon and broke through the reinforced doors, very nearly cutting Klernt in two. With all the riches in hand, Sterling teleported his fellow thieves back to the Altered City of Atlas, safe from harm. The group distributed the loot amongst themselves, with Klernt tricking Mottle into getting a meager share. Feeling guilty about the death of Thenderon, Sterling sent a sizable sum of his cut to his family as an anonymous apology. The rest of his cut went to his young friend Alice, intended to be used to build the sorcerer's new school, Beardthrone Academia.

### The Nova Invasion

Shortly before the War of Shadows, a small island off the coast of Northern Ishtar had fallen into crisis with the arrival of violent creatures from a different world. The crisis began with four distinct individuals, two mammowraths, a Kindled and a Kaasmanite, who had arrived through a portal from the Nova, the pseudo-sun that was once Jupiter. Initial contact with the native people went very badly, as the two mammowraths, Vulkan and Mach Burgh, began to rampage throughout the land, slaughtering and enslaving them as they went. As they did, their deeds earned them the admiration of some of Io's denizens, who began to form a cult dedicated to them. Though the brothers accepted these offerings and their loyalty, they deemed any who bent the knee as weak and unworthy of their attention. Those that did impress the brothers, however, were offered to drink of the mammowraths' blood, an act that would irrevocably change the person in currently unknown means.

While the brothers' conquest eventually engulfed the whole island, more and more demons began to pour through the portal. Its gatekeeper Deborrah, allowed her fellow demons to raid Io in exchange for suitable tributes. However, she would use her temporal magic to limit the time these demons could stay pillaging there, forcing them to return to the Nova or die. Their raiding began to spread outside the conquered island to the rest of Io, though its disorganized and fleeting nature meant that they were only ever a minor threat on the global scale. Nevertheless, demons became reviled by the majority of Io's people for their violent and selfish exploits.

The Burghs, ever-hungry for battle, also left the island, travelling to Northern Ishtar to kill and plunder to their hearts' content. In response, the Kingdom of Brisbane sent an army to put an end to their warpath. The two brothers met the army head-on and began to cleave their way through its ranks, relentless and unafraid of death. Though the battle was hard-fought, the two mammowraths were eventually slain, both dying with a smile on their faces at meeting such a glorious end. Their resting grounds was soaked in their blood, forever corrupting it to being barren and scarred, a piece of their hellish homeland forever imprinted on this new world. The tale of these two warlords became folklore in Northern Ishtar and warrior cults were conceived in their honor. Though the Burghs had been defeated, demons would continue to plague Io for the centuries to come.

## 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 Northern 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. Northern Ishtar became the renowned home of dojos and martial art schools in Io, owed in no small part to the Watcher's Academy founded by Mottle.

## Notable Locations

### The Exodus Academy

Nestled in the snowy mountain range of Northern Ishtar is a massive dwarven fortress, built into the rock itself and best accessed by airship. With the culling of the dwarfs, the fortress passed into the hands of the Kingdom of Brisbane. Under the guise of an old college, Dmitrius Valiensworth used the fortress as the site of the Exodus Academy, a prestigious school of magic. The fortress possessed many spacious rooms, vast labyrinthian dungeons, high sturdy towers and vast courtyards blanketed in snow, making it perfect for teaching of the arcane arts. The fortress also came with many secret passages and hidden rooms, allowing the school to store illegal research and dangerous artefacts and to practice the forbidden art of Daemancy. With the revelation of Valiensworth's atrocities, the Exodus Academy was closed down and the fortress passed into the hands of the goblin Mottle, who founded a school for assassins known as the Watchers Academy.

### The City of Brisbane

The capital of Brisbane is a large city located in the center of a lake in the east of the continent. It is the seat of power for the whole kingdom, housing many noble families within its walls. As a tiered city, the common folk lived closest to the ground while the nobility lived in the upper districts. The king's palace and the senate hall were also located in the highest echelons of the city.

### Hillsborough

A small village to the west, Hillsborough is a quiet abode reliant of hunting and farming. Beyond the dense woodlands surrounding it, not much of great interest is to be found, bar an average people living average lives. Hillsborough was once graced by the goblins who saved Ishtar, who were present for the tragic accident that claimed the life of their local senator. Despite this tragedy, life would go on without cease for this simple town.

### The Dwarven Hoard Bank

On an island to the north east of Brisbane is the Dwarven Horde Bank. Another massive dwarven fortress, the bank boasts the most secure vaults in all of Io, allowing both the rich and powerful to store their wealth there free of worry. The reputation and wealth of the bank became so great a prosperous town formed around the fortress itself. In its long history, the bank has only even had one recorded break-in, in which a gang of thieves claimed the confiscated treasures of the former Archmagister of Brisbane.

## Campaigns

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

# **March on Faewunder**

## 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

* Northern Ishtar first appeared in The Arcane Academy Session 1.