Isa

*"Daughters of Isa, it is time! It is time to break Straven's resolve and to stain our soil with the blood of his men and the cowards that he has subjugated! You are the best of the best the Scandes have to offer, sisters, as you have proven time and time again that you are the Everwinter's favoured survivors - her favoured daughters! Show these Vrothan weaklings the true meaning of determination and will. Let us avenge my mother! HOARFROST GUIDE US!" -* Snow-Queen Solveigr II Stormheart's words to the feared Frostwardens of Mistheim before the Battle of Drakr.

## Physical description

### Species

God

Isa, also known as the Everwinter or Lady Hoarfrost, is a Goddess of ice, winter, survival, determination, conquest and will. Worship of Isa is particularly common in the Firsan Provinces, Bornea, Synghgarth, the Scandes, and Deni T'ila. That said, worshippers of Isa are found everywhere, and it is not uncommon for wanderers, hunters and farmers to wear her symbol as she is viewed as the Goddess who makes it possible to live through the harshest of conditions and times. As a patron of conquest and life, she drives her followers to endure the worst of conditions and emerge triumphant, meaning that most people who strive to improve worship her in one way or another.

In the City of Hirci in the Firsan Provinces, there is a grand temple known as the Everwinter Palace dedicated to Isa. It is one of the three grand Hircic Temples and is home to the Firsan Iceguard, an elite holy order of men and women serving the provinces and Isa herself. Notably, this brave order were responsible for the successful defense of Hirci against the Varnian Empire. There is also a city north of Hirci named after Isa, Isahrad, which Firsans claim was the birthplace of Isa and is thus considered a holy city.

Isa is also one of the deities of the Scandic Triarchy. Her Varnian grand temple is in Mistheim and is under the protection of the Ice Maidens, whose leader has always been the head of the matriarchal Fogcrest family, as well as the brutal elite warrior order of the Frostwardens.

She is also one of the few Gods aside from Ziuna worshipped in Deni T'ila, where she is revered as an important deity of nature's balance.

## History

Isa's history is likely the most well-documented of all the Gods, as she is said to have been mortal once. Depending on the account of her ascendancy, she was a powerful sorceress of either Firsan or Scandic origin who roamed the wilds, refusing the comforts of civilisation and pushing herself to her absolute limits. While she was mortal, she would often come upon others in the wilds, many of whom needed help to survive. In her mercy, she would help those she came upon not only by providing aid, but also by teaching them the secrets of survival that she had collected over her years of solitary roaming of the wilderness. And most times, these people would return to their settlements believing they had come across a Goddess of Winter - a beautiful maiden with icy blue eyes whose hoarfrost guided them to survival and, eventually, home. They would spread these tales to their kin, who in turn often believed. At some point, there were so many people who believed her to be a Goddess and had begun to pray to her as one, that she truly became a Goddess. Isa's ascendance is the only "known" instance of a mortal Kranosi ascending to Godhood, and the story is often scrutinised by scholars, for Isa is as powerful as any other God - sometimes, she would even appear to be more powerful. Regardless, Isa's ascendance eventually led to her departure from the material plane alongside the other Gods. After that, no one truly knows what happened to her, but it was revealed during the Varnian-Scandic War that she, too, was an ancestor of the royal line of the Scandes.