Ishtá Morai-fen

*"Fate has a cruel and ironic sense of humour"*

Father (Alive, Estranged)

Mother (Alive, Estranged)

Uncle (Deceased - Ork Invasion)

Brother (Deceased - Ork Invasion)

Sister (Deceased - Tyranid Invasion)

The Ynnari Alliance,

Craftworld Iyanden (former)

## Life

### The Path of War

The daughter of parents following the Path of the Healer and the Path of the Shaper, Ishtá Morai-fen was drawn to the Path of War early in life. Despite her efforts to follow in her parents' footsteps, none of the peaceful paths she walked held her interest, her mind always troubled by dark thoughts the Asuryani discipline told her were wrong. She found herself guided to a Howling Banshee shrine by the spirits of Craftworld Iyanden's Infinity Circuit, the Exarch welcoming Ishtá into the shrine like she was expected. Ishtá found fulfillment in the Path of War, her previously troubling thoughts now finding a purpose in keeping her fellow Asuryani safe.

Ishtá lost herself to the Path of War in battle against the hated servants of Chaos. Ishtá watched the Exarch who'd taught her everything she knew eviscerated by a Heretic Astartes' chainsword and dropped to the ground like a broken toy. Still covered in her mentor's blood, a rage overtook Ishtá like nothing she'd ever felt before and she hacked the Astartes to pieces before he could even raise his guard. Ishtá knew that she had lost herself to the Path of War and would never remove her war mask again. Without Hesitation, she exchanged armor with her fallen mentor, the psychic communion of the Exarch welcomed her like a sister. The battle was ultimately won, but Ishtá would never see her family or the people she fought to save again, entombed in an Exarch's armor and interred in the life of one of Khaine's shrine keepers.

### The Path of Damnation

Isolated in the shrine with only the Exarch's psychic communion for company, Ishtá was shaken by what she saw in the memories of her predacessors. The halls of Craftworld Iyanden once teemed with Aeldari, it's warhosts once legions of Aspect Warriors. She had always known her people were in decline, but to see it laid out so starkly, and to see how futile every effort to reverse it had been, filled Ishtá with doubt. What were she and her sisters fighting to protect when her peoples' future was so plain to see? Had the spiritual salvation offered by the Paths been worth accepting extinction?

The twin tragedies of the Hive Fleet Kraken and Ork invasions made Ishtá's doubts impossible to ignore. She gave every ounce of strength she had, and many of her sisters gave their lives, and still the Craftworld only survived to limp forward another day because of outside intervention. The second time by the Drukhari of Commoragh, who had been spying on Iyanden's suffering through the webway and only saved the Craftworld so their sick joke could continue. In the wake of the Drukhari intervention, Ishtá stood alone, every one of the sisters she'd lead fallen around her, the psychic communion of the Exarch a storm of doubt and conflict. Had those Howling Banshees given their lives for nothing?

A certainty grew from Ishtá's doubt, the Asuryani had no future. The only future the Aeldar had would be the one built by the Drukhari, and any effort to fight for the future of the Aeldari had to be directed toward fighting for that future. The psychic communion of the Exarch fell silent. Whether the spirits in the armour had exiled her or whether her loss of faith made her psychically incompatible didn't matter, she'd chosen the Path of Damnation and it had chosen her in return. She discarded the Exarch's armour and weapons, taking just a basic shuriken pistol and a powersword with her when she joined the Drukhari returning to Commoragh.

### Bloody Handed

Ishtá chose an Incubus Shrine as her first step on the Path of Damnation, the irony not lost on her. The Khainite shrine, a dark and twisted reflection of the Khainite Aspect Warrior shrines, offered a middle ground where Ishtá could acclimate to Commoragh. The city was more horrifying than the stories had prepared her for, and far more fractious. It was almost meaningless to describe the amalgamation of warring factions as a single city at all. She struggled privately with how to define her goal of securing the Dark City's future, as her mind and spirit came to more closely resemble the Incubi around her.

Then came time for Ishtá to prove herself to the Shrine, hunting one of her former Aspect Warrior brethren and becoming the predator they reviled. She stalked a battle between Biel-Tan and the Imperium, sighting a Dire Avenger exarch, the lone survivor of an artillery barrage and worthy prey for an Incubus who'd once worn an Exarch's armor herself. Ishtá pounced from hiding, knocking the disoriented exarch unconscious and dragging her away. She left the exarch in a cave with a selection of weapons and supplies to tend to her wounds. When the exarch emerged healed and armed with a powerglaive, the hunt began. The Exarch fought for her life like a heroine of her craftworld, and Ishtá feared defeat, but as the Exarch started to gain the upper hand, she overextended herself and left the slightest gap in her guard. Ishtá's Klaive arced through that gap and cut off the Exarch's blade arm at the shoulder before slicing the stunned Exarch in half. Prying the Exarch's spirit stone free and returning to Commoragh to twist her spirit into a tormentor, there was no turning back from Damnation.

As Ishtá cemented her place among her fellow Incubi, she eventually challenged a Klaivex to a duel and took his demiklaives along with his head. The capabilities as a mentor and leader that she'd developed as a Howling Banshee Exarch served her well, and the success of the Incubi under her tuteledge saw her rise in prominence in the shrine. While many still begrudged her 'weakling kin' heritage despite her success, a fellow Klaivex named Nyktas came around to her. Over time, Ishtá and Nyktas grew as close as two Drukhari could. Ironically, her time with Nyktas was the closest Ishtá had come to genuine personal affection since donning the Howling Banshee Exarch's armor a lifetime ago. She learned of Nyktas' rise from Lower Commoragh to join the shrine, and her determination to rise to the top of the shrine and prove that perfection with a Klaive outshone any shortcoming in heritage. Ishtá shared the circumstances on Craftworld Iyanden that had driven her to the Path of Damnation, and her desire to ensure the Dark City's survival. Nyktas found the notion absurd, but also found the ambition endearing, and didn't want to see her fail for lack of a path forward. She put Ishtá in touch with Synistrid the Cronestalker, an eccentric Haemonculus whom Nyktas believed might sympathize with Ishtá's desire.

Descending into the nightmarish undercity of the Haemonculi, Ishtá found Synistrid's lair, a catacomb of webbing and a pulsing psychic dread. The disfigured wracks lead her to a central chamber with a high domed ceiling, covered in webs, with workstations and test subjects entombed in webbing spread across the walls, and ceiling, while clutches of regeneration tanks hung suspended from the ceiling in the center of the chamber like egg sacks. The elegant arachnoid mistress of the catacombs descended from her web with a grin, and the two formed a bond as they conversed. Synistrid revealed a surprising interest in the history, art, and artefacts of the Pre-Fall Aeldari, and an appreciation for what the Aeldari had lost in the Fall. While Synistrid had never spared much thought for Commoragh's future, she did understand Ishtá's desire not to see what little was left of the Aeldaris' accomplishments be snuffed out completely. She offered Ishtá a deal: Ishtá would make herself available as a case study in an Asuryani psyche undertaking the Path of Damnation and help plan and lead Synistrid's raids on the Crone Worlds, and Synistrid would make a regeneration tank available to her in return.

The taste of command highlighted the lack of agency that life in an Incubus Shrine provided, taking action only at the behest of contracts. She knew she would need to leave the Shrine, but she also knew that the only way to leave the Shrine was to be offered as a sacrifice to the fires of Khaine as a failure. Though upon reviewing the shrine's covenant, she found only needed to be sacrificed once. On the eve of a challenge by one of her subordinates, Ishtá said her goodbyes to Nyktas and left a tissue sample with Synistrid for regeneration, intending to let her challenger win and free her from her duty to the shrine with a death from which Synistrid would regenerate her. Her next memory was shuddering back to life in a cold tank, Synistrid collecting all manner of readings from the regeneration tanks as she decanted Ishtá.

### Gladiatrix

Ishtá's next step on the Path of Damnation was a Hektarii Cult. The arts of the Hekatarii stirred memories of her time as a Howling Banshee, finding the similarities in the techniques striking. Between the skills she cultivated as a Howling Banshee Exarch and Incubus Klaivex, she quickly excelled and achieved the rank of Hekatrix and then Hekatrix Bloodbride. The spectacle of putting on a show and the baying crowd were both thrilling and unsettling to a woman used to waging war as a matter of professional efficiency, but the Howling Banshee and Incubus techniques she incorporated into her fighting style gave her murderous dances a flair that set her apart.

When the Syren leading the Bloodbrides fell in the arena, there was a contest to replace her. Just as victory was within her grasp, Ishtá was narrowly defeated by a rival Hektarix named Nyssa Mourn. Ishtá’s survival was ensured by Synistrid’s regeneration tanks, and both Ishtá and Nyssa rose to become Succubi, eventually rising to be the lesser two Succubi in the Cult’s triumvirate. Now within sight of the power needed to achieve her goal, Ishtá decided she couldn't let the rivalry distract her any longer and made a deal with Nyssa: to murder the Prima Succubus together and duel each other for her position. Their duel was long and grueling, but Ishtá stood victorious in the end.

Now finally in a position to work towards her goal, Ishtá believed that the only meaningful way to make Commoragh's future more secure was to expand the Dark City, carving out new subrealms that would become new bastions of Drukhari might. Ishtá made the unconventional decision of having her rival regenerated, believing her skill and passion for the arena were too valuable to waste. Ishtá delegated most management of the arena to Nyssa, while focusing her own efforts on the Cult’s training and production, and expanding its holdings and aggression in realspace raids. Nyssa's rivalry with Ishtá faded in time, as Ishtá expanded her partnership with Synistrid to be a partnership between her Cult and Synistrids Coven, and set out to establish her first subrealm.

### Imperatrix

Ishtá quickly learned that despite the power wielded by Succubi and Haemonculi, the politics of Commorragh were carefully structured to keep Cults and Covens secondary to Kabals. Foremost in stifling her was the Archon sponsoring her Cult, doing everything in his power to keep her Cult dependent on the spoils of his raids, and ensuring that her participation in those raids was on his terms. Ishtá decided to seize independence by seizing his Kabal.

She reached out to Nyktas, who had risen to become Hierarch of her Incubus Shrine. Ishtá learned that Nyktas had grown restless and dissatisfied after her ascension, feeling that she had little left to strive for. Ishtá offered an unusual contract to Nyktas: in exchange for support from her shrine's intelligence network and Incubi, Ishtá would install Nyktas as her viceroy over the subjugated Kabal. The reunion was a surprise for Nyktas, but she found the terms agreeable. With Nyktas' aid secured, murdering the Archon would the easy part. Every previous raid had involved a string of fruitless negotiations in which she tried to slip her yoke, all she had to do was maintain the pattern until he let his guard slip. As he poured himself a drink in frustration, it only took the space of a heartbeat for the former Howling Banshee to cross the room, disarm him of his blade, and gut him with it. The Kabal fractured after the Archon fell, and Ishtá and Nyktas subjugated the rebellious Shards one by one. Nyktas rebuilt the Kabal around her Shrine, with her Incubi as enforcers of her authority and an elite core.

### Reborn

Before Ishtá could use her new found power to begin her dreams of conquest, Commorragh was shaken by the resurrection of Yvraine and the birth of the Ynnari faith. Ishtá saw the Ynnari as a new path  to secure the future of the Aeldari, one free of both the fatalistic inflexibility of the Asuryani, and the self-destructive madness of the Drukhari. When the backlash against the Ynnari began, Synsitrid revealed the existence of the Crone Shard: a planetoid body hidden within the Webway at a crossroads between Realspace and the Eye of Terror, where Synistrid had built catacombs for performing experiments forbidden in Commorragh. She proposed turning the Crone Shard into a subrealm, where the three of them could build a Reborn Drukhari microcosm of Commoragh, secure from the retaliations other Reborn Drukhari faced. Ishtá and Nyktas built a city on the Crone Shard's surface, while Synistrid expanded her catacombs, including regeneration tanks and halfborn cloning facilities. With the foundation of their powerbase laid, Ishtá made contact with other Ynnari enclaves and other factions among the Aeldari, the Imperium Nihilus, and the Eye of Terror, turning the Crone Shard into an independent port city and a bastion of strength for the Ynnari.

### Full Circle

As the Crone Shard was beginning to hit its stride, a flotilla of unmarked Craftworld ships approached. The lack of markings identifying Craftworld of origin and the large number of ships immediately signaled that this was not a trade fleet, triggering the Crone Shard's defense fleets to intercept. The mysterious Craftworld flotilla hailed the defense fleet, and the Dracon commanding the fleet was shocked when no less than the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar appeared in the transmission, alongside an unknown Farseer. Jain Zar and the Farseer stated that they wished to negotiate refuge for the Craftworld fleet on the Crone Shard, and the call was quickly passed along to Nyktas, then to Ishtá and Synistrid. Ishtá was shocked to see the Phoenix Lord she had once revered, and who's shrine and warriors she had once tended to. The irony not lost on Ishtá that she was speaking to her one time idol only after defecting from her shrine to walk the Path of Damnation, and only for both of them to end up Reborn despite their diametrically opposed journeys. What Jain Zar may have thought of her wayward acolyte or their shared destination was impossible to discern from behind her mask, but she made no mention of Ishtá's past.

The Farseer, Tishriel Iydoth, and Jain Zar shared the circumstances that had befallen the Craftworld Iybraesil exiles aboard the flotilla, and negotiated terms for them to take up residence on the Crone Shard. Synistrid was quite happy to have genuine Ynnari seers living on the planetoid, but Ishtá was more hesitant, concerned the refugee population would represent a strain on resources and a security risk, and concerned that the presence of seers may lead to the same indecisiveness and overdependence on their counsel that she saw in the Asuryani. Jain Zar was able to convince Ishtá of the value of the seers, sharing some examples from her own past of times when their prognostications were of invaluable aid and times when flawed predictions lead only to greater hardship or defeat, and describing how she'd learned to try to make use of their counsel while trying to avoid the pitfalls as best she could. Tishriel impressed upon Ishtá the potential value of her Aspect Warriors and Rangers to the Crone Shard's defenses, and her own value as an emmisary to Asuryani and Ynnari powers that may be skeptical of dealing with Reborn Drukhari. Synistrid vocied her own interests in having access to Ynnari Seers and Bonesingers to accelerate her research.

Ishtá was convinced in the end, and granted Tishriel and her followers land on the outskirts of the city to build their new home, an amalgamation of Drukhari and Caftworld construction now called the Wraithspire. Jain Zar departed after her warriors had secured their new home, while Tishriel Iydoth has taken a position as one of Ishtá's advisors and her warriors have reinforced the Crone Shard's defensive forces while they rebuild their numbers. Ishtá has discovered yet another use for Tishriel aside from Seer and emmisary. As a more trustworthy subordinate than many Reborn Drukhari, she has often been left as the acting governor of the Crone Shard when Ishtá and Nyktas were both required to lead raiding forces.

## Wargear

* Wych Suit - Ishtá's Wych Suit incorporates the same psychic circuitry as the rest of her Cult. Unlike the more common Wych Suits, though, Ishtá's incorporates elements of Incubus and Howling Banshee stylings.
* Blast Pistol - Ishtá's favored sidearm when she chooses to carry one, chosen for its raw stopping power, even if its range leaves much to be desired.
* The Serpent's Fangs - A pair of short relic blades taken by Ishtá as trophies from one of the raids she lead for Synistrid during her time as an Incubus, Ishtá wields these blades in a style mixing techniques from the Mirrorswords of the Howling Banshee Shrine and the Demiklaives of the Incubus Shrine. They once belonged to the founder of a Pre-Fall Pleasure Cult, and contain multiple reservoirs for a variety of exotic venoms. (Represented by the Triptych Whip)
* The Dance of Shades - A gift from Synistrid to commemorate the founding of the Crone Shard, this glaive is laced with psychic circuitry enabling it to cut through an enemy's flesh, armor, and soul all at once. Ishtá wields this blade in a style mixing elements from the Executioner of the Howling Banshee Shrine and the Archite Glaive of the Hekatarii Cults. (represented by The Dancer's Edge)

## The Cult of Lashing Blades

In the Crone Shard's raiding forces, the Hekatarii of the Cult of Lashing Blades serve as a shock assault vanguard, not unlike the Howling Banshees of Craftworld Warhosts. Their blades keep the enemy's forces off balance and keep the enemy's attention focused squarely on them while warriors of the Kabal of the Howling Blade accomplish tasks of strategic importance in their shadow.

### Gladiatrixes

Since rising to become its Prima Succubus and relocating to the Crone Shard, Ishtá has augmented the Cult's training curriculum with techniques borrowed from her time as a Howling Banshee. She has also had the Wych suits worn by her Hekatarii and Hellions threaded with psychic circuitry emulating some of the effects of Ynnari psychic enhancements to augment the wearer's strength, and even enabling a lesser imitation of the Howling Banshees' Scream, lashing out at enemies who leave themselves open with psychic shrieks that shred nerve and soul alike.

Like more conventional Wych Cults, the core of Ishtá's legion of gladiatrixes are the graceful blood dancers known as Hekatarii. The Hekatrix leaders of coteries of Hekatarii are issued powerswords as badges of their rank. Unlike Commorite Wych Cults, however, which recruit gangs of Hellions opportunistically, the Cult of Lashing Shades trains coteries of Hellions as a separate branch of gladiatrix.

### The Orchestra of Shades

The Arena in which the Cult of Lashing Shades performs on the Crone Shard. Equal parts theater of murderous artistry and training ground, the Hekatarii thrill crowds of Crone Shard residents and visitors with their acrobatic prowess while sharpening their blades against the various captured enemy combatants captured from the Crone Shard's raids. The greater availability of both Drukhari regeneration and Ynnari resurrection reduces the attrition rate among Ishtá's gladiatrixes and allows their accumulated experience in the arena to be put to use in Realspace.