Ishtar

## Affiliation

Knights of Ishtar

**Ishtar** was the goddess of life and war in the Pantheon of Halfast. She became known to the public through the efforts of the Knights of Ishtar, a military order of warrior priests dedicated to her worship.

She was popular in Novigrad, where many Temples of Ishtar were raised in her name. Unlike some deities who demanded offerings at their places of worship, she was charitable and provided donations to visitors of her temples to aid in their travels. Of particular value was the Blessing of Ishtar.

Her twin spheres of life and war were intertwined such that her priests claimed she required a constant flow of blood and souls, leading the Knights of Ishtar to wage a crusade against infidels, heretics, blasphemers, and apostates during the Eleventh Era. The heaviest battles of this so-called Ishtari Conflict were fought against the non-believers who lived in the Unbroken Chain. Her knights provided for her needs with weapons like Blood for Ishtar and Souls for Ishtar, while their enemy Gabault wielded the Sword of Ishtar in ironic mockery.

According to *One Bird, Two Bird, Red Bird, Dead Bird* and the *Harbormaster's Log*, there existed a potentially lethal game of chance known as "Ishtar, Wishtar" where players could either be granted great gifts by Ishtar or be brutally murdered by her priests.

Ishtar's goddess of war title was apparently either shared with or disputed by Bellona of Halfast, a deadly ender dragon defeated at the First WeekEnd event during the Eighth Era. Some felt these were different names for the same deity, but the Knights of Ishtar rejected this association.

   Some confusion arose over the existence of the ender dragon Ishtar, defender of the Novigrad Nest. The Heirarch of Halfast HyperSilence, the godly father of Halfast itself, heavily implied this was the dragon aspect of Ishtar herself. However, the High Priest of Ishtar FlyingPokemon declared this idea to be blasphemy and named the dragon a false pretender. On 11E:37, Poke led a raiding party of his fellow knights in slaying the dragon Ishtar, the first of many deaths she would ultimately suffer.

# Behind the Scenes

*The following is out-of-universe information about real-world Halfast.*

   Ishtar was the Mesopotamian goddess of love, sexuality, and fertility—and thus, of life itself—but also of war and divine justice. She was worshipped by the Assyrians, Akkadians, and Babylonians, and was known to the Sumerians as Inanna and greatly influenced the Phoenician and Canaanite goddess Astarte.

FlyingPokemon introduced Ishtar into the lore of the Halfast server when he began building the Temples of Ishtar, a side building project that allowed him to redistribute some of the fantastic wealth that his United Provinces faction had accumulated. Not long thereafter, they officially rebranded as the Knights of Ishtar, though he later regretted choosing Ishtar over Astarte as he felt the latter sounded more feminine as befitting a goddess. However, he had done so to avoid comparisons with the Astartes space marines because Lex's love of the Warhammer 40K universe heavily influenced her own Greywatch organization.

HyperSilence supported the effort to expand his server's lore by creating the Blessing of Ishtar and naming one of the respawning dragons of the Novigrad Nest after her.