Istishia

Istishia is the neutral primordial deity and elemental lord of elemental water and purification. While other powers govern oceans, pools, streams, storms, or simply those that have business with the water, Istishia is far more abstract. The Water Lord is mutable and dynamic, representing constant change with an essential constant at its core, the lord not of any specific body or state of water, but the water itself.

Description

Istishia was depicted in a wide variety of forms ranging from a drop of rain or ocean wave to a water weird or gigantic water elemental. When he manifested, it was as a 40​ to ​60 feet (12​ to ​18 meters) tall, 20​ to ​30 feet (6.1​ to ​9.1 meters) thick, column of water. This form maneuvered effortlessly over or through any obstacles in its path, its movements sounding life the surf pounding on the shore, and was known to divide into several parts in an effort by the Water Lord to confuse his enemies. When he spoke, his voice was at once the sound of rushing water, a babbling brook, and a gentle rain.

Personality

Istishia is a slippery, dispassionate power whose reasons and logic are incomprehensible to most. He provides an atmosphere for life and provides a vital resource, yet will not grant the life itself and cares not how his gifts are used. He is relatively aloof towards his own followers, ignoring and favoring them seemingly on a whim, so alien, uncaring, and utterly random that his unpredictability is itself predictable.

Divine Realm

Though Istishia does not have a court in the conventional sense, and despite his followers' belief that he encompasses the whole Elemental Plane of Water, he does maintain a distinct divine realm on that plane within the Great Wheel cosmology called Sea of Timelessness.

Worshippers

Istishia was worshiped by sailors, pirates, water Elementals, water genasi, some aquatic elves, and others who felt a bond with the ocean's destructive power.

On the continent of Zakhara, Istishia was called one of the cold gods of the elements. As those were seen as uncaring for human affairs, they were considered opposed to the Land of Fate's pervasive culture of Enlightenment. Few Zakharans were willing to worship a cold god in order to gain power.[18

Temples

Calimshan had a number of important shrines and temples to Istishia. The city of Keltar had a shrine known as the Steps of Istishia that was built thousands of years before the 14th century DR. The city of Calimport had the massive, seven-story Palace of the Cresting Wave.

Relationships

stishia had ties to deities with a relation to water, but no strong relationships. These included the likes of like Deep Sashelas, Eadro, Eldath, Persana, Shekinester, Surminare, Trishina, Umberlee, Valkur, and the Water Lion. Of these, he worked loosely with Sashelas, Trishina, and Eldath to maintain the life cycles of the sea. Conversely, he had no interest in Umberlee's storms of Valkur's sailors.

Istishia opposed Kossuth in every way. He sat back and watched the struggle of the archomentals of water, Ben-Hadar and Olhydra; presumably he would intervene if one would achieve a real chance to get control of elemental water.

Istishia

Elemental Lord

Basic Information

Titles

The Water Lord
King of the Water Elementals
God-King of Undines

Adjectives

Istishian

Pantheons

Elemental Lords

Attributes

Alignment

True Neutral

Symbol

Cresting wave

Realm

Elemental Plane of Water/Sea of Timelessness

Portfolio

Elemental Water, Purification

Favored Weapon

A wave (Warhammer)

Following

Worshippers

Bards
Elemental archons of water
Sailors
Travelers

Alignments

NG, LN, N, CN, NE

Domains

Travel (Exploration)
Water (Flowing)
Weather (Monsoon)