Isabella of Saria

Isabella Kruidenhandelaar (a.k.a. Saint Isabella)

Isabella the Paladin

Born in the city of Westerholt in 1202AK, Isabella Kruidenhandelaar was the daughter of an Alderni merchant captain, Alana Kruidenhandelaar. At the age of twelve she was aboard her mother's ship, the Bullfinch, when the ship was caught in a storm off the coast of Vaalus and sunk, leaving her the only survivor. She washed ashore near the city of Saria, barely alive, and was rescued by the Prefecture of the Mourning Winds.
She claimed that whilst floating on the flotsam she was attended by an angelic presence which comforted and protected her. On glimpsing the stained glass window of the Prefecture’s chapel, she immediately identified the image of Saint Theophana the Revelator as that of the presence which visited her, and much to the astonishment of the priests was able to quote, word-for-word, one of the prayers attributed to Saint Theophana, despite having neither heard nor read it ever before. This miraculous event was the first of a number of unusual incidents in her life, which were offered as proof of her divine authority by those who later came to follow her. With no surviving family, Isabella was taken in by the Prefecture, and raised as their ward; she was inducted into the Light of Kassin, and by all accounts grew to be an exceptionally talented and pious young woman. She left the Mourning Winds and became a paladin, formally initiated into the Prefecture of the Heralds of the Dawn at the age of nineteen.
The Heralds of the Dawn were at that time charged to act as missionaries of the Light of Kassin and protectors of the ambassadors of Holy Republic of Vaalus; as such they were permitted to study otherwise prohibited religious texts from other faiths in order to better understand the ways in which the Deceiver had blinded the eyes of other nations, in the ultimate hope of bringing the followers of the false gods into the Kassinite fold. In 1224AK she joined the staff of the Vaalin envoy to the Sovereignty of Aldernord. The envoy Jocasta Argeos, writing to Archimandrite Zacharius in late 1224, mentions Isabella:

"Indeed, [Lady Constanzia Votellian, a close confidant of Queen Mathilda II Bheuren] has taken rather a liking to our paladin Isabella, who I understand is of Alderni stock herself. Isabella is a most excellent theologian & bodyguard, but rather naive and awkward; it is rather fortunate that the Ald seem to find her lack of social awareness endearing rather than contemptible. When I suggested that she reciprocate the flirtatious advances of [Lady Votellian], on the chance that we might gain some deeper insight into the workings of this pit of vipers, she blushed & stammered so incoherently that I wondered if she was suffering an apoplexy."

Isabella remained in the Alderni court for three years, until Jocasta’s recall to Vaalus in 1226AK. For reasons that are somewhat unclear, she chose not to remain in Aldernord nor return to Vaalus, but took passage on a ship bound for Aaranak.

Isabella in Aaranak

Isabella's activities during the four years that she spent in Aaranak are not widely known; none of her surviving writings speak of it in any great detail, and it is unclear if she ever spoke of it to her followers in the years before her death. Nonetheless, the adoption of the symbol of the divided sun - a sixteen-rayed sun with an inner annulet, countercharged in or and sable - as her personal sigil is potentially highly meaningful. The sigil is described as follows in Melkar Runescribe's A Reckoning of Glyphs, Runes, and Sigils

The divided sun... consists of seven rays fully light in the darkness, and seven rays of darkness in the light, with two rays that are split between light and darkness. The rays represent the sixteen Anathemata, the so-called god-kings of the Yua, to whom their mortal rulers are as priests; the seven rays of darkness represent the seven anathemata who walk the world in secret, whilst the seven rays of light represent the seven who reside in solitude within the periphery, and the two mixed of light and darkness represent the two who keep the Doors of the Rising and Setting Sun that links the periphery and the material world. The inner annulet is said to represent the praxis of their philosophy of bringing conflicting opposites into harmony with each other - to preserve light in darkness, and darkness in light.

Isabella the Heretic

For four years, no news of her deeds returned to the Heralds of the Dawn; then at last in 1230AK she arrived, unannounced, at their chapter-house in Saria.
Isabella returned from Aaranak a changed woman, her youthful naivete replaced with what one of her contemporaries described as a "zealousness of terrible intensity". She claimed to have recieved a new revelation from Kassin which called into question the very foundations of the faith, and began preaching a set of teachings which she would, over the following few years, formulate into the theology of the Sarian Sect.
Despite the controversial nature of Isabella’s claims, she won over a significant number of followers, including supporters in the uppermost echelons of the faith. Many found the strength of her arguments compelling, and few could doubt her conviction; furthermore, there were a number of reports of omens and miraculous occurrences which some claimed proved that Kassin had blessed her and sanctioned her teachings. At the height of her influence, perhaps a one in ten Kassinites considered themselves adherents of her teachings.
By 1236AK, the situation became untenable. The ideological split between her own teachings and the orthodoxy as judged by Quaestors of Truth had widened into an impassable gulf, and the Kassinite authorities became increasingly uneasy with the rhetoric of a "deepening rot" within the church. In the third month of 1236 AK, the authorities acted: Isabella and her closest allies were arrested, tortured until they produced confessions, and then tried and convicted of heresy, blasphemy, and sedition. Following Isabella's conviction, a general amnesty was agreed whereby all those who had been "misled" by the sect who wished to recant their beliefs were granted the opportunity to do so without facing any further consequences. Isabella herself made no comment on this, other than to say that her followers should follow their consciences; however whilst some of her more militant followers refused to accept the judgement, the majority recanted, and in the few years that followed the sect had all but vanished.
Though condemned to death, Isabella was granted the right to undertake Penitential Crusade into the Desolation in lieu of execution. With a handful of her close companions, she passed through the Gate of Saint Bythos, swearing a binding oath that she would seek to stem the Blight, or die trying.

Isabella in the Desolation

"Open is the Gate of the Setting Sun: Unbarred is the Path of Yrilu. I stand between Day and Night, at the point of balance; I become the Pivot about which the stars turn. I who am living, do call out to the watchful dead."

"We who are living give voice to the dead"

"Qar, Anhydra, Var'akha; Zelek, Mar'a, Kolyara"

"Six are the Voices, Six the Gates, Six the Keys"

"By the Blood of the Azoth and the Dead of Tchokayahattak; by the Dragons Beyond and my Immaculate Will - the storm shall part before me, and I shall return, bearing truth!”

Visionary evidence has suggested that Isabella may have reached the wardstorm at the heart of the the Desolation, which was erected to prevent access to the city of Tchokayahattak and the imprisoned Paragon Athanni ur-Eku that is said to lie within. If these visions are to be believed, she was able to call upon the Oath-Dragons and her own Immaculate Will in order to open a way through the storm, a technique that she may potentially have learned during her time in Aaranak.
Exactly what Isabella found on the other side of the wardstrom is unknown, though likely relates to the connection between Athanni ur-Eku and Kassin.

Isabella the Martyr

In late 1238AK, Isabella returned alone to the Gate of Saint Bythos, calling for an audience with Archimandrite Petra. This request was honoured, and Isabella was taken under guard to Achyras, where the two spoke at length. Quite what was discussed between them is not recorded - but a week later, Isabella was publicly executed by decapitation, and her body incinerated. It is said that she went to her death with a quiet dignity, as if she had accepted the inevitability of her fate and was at peace with it. Her last words, spoken as she knelt before the execution block, remain something of an enigma: "In my End is my Beginning". Six days after Isabella's execution, Archimandrite Petra was found dead in her bedchamber, her body unmarked by injury, but her face frozen in a mask of abject terror.

Isabella the Divine

Though heavily disputed, and denied outright by the Kassinite authorities, some have claimed that Isabella may have achieved a form of apotheosis or otherwise survived or returned from her apparent death in 1238AK. At least one adherent of the Light of Kassin, namely the exile Aurelia, has recieved visions and supernatural boons from an entity which has at times identified itself as being Isabella, though the truth of the matter remains to be seen.

Species

Human

Ethnicity

Ald

Other Ethnicities/Cultures

• Vaali

Date of Death

10th day of the 12th Moon, 1238AK

Life

1202 1238 36 years old

Circumstances of Death

Executed for multiple charges of heresy, blasphemy, and sedition

Birthplace

Westerholt

Place of Death

Achyras

Pronouns

she/her

Belief/Deity

Sarian Sect of the Light of Kassin

Aligned Organization

Sarian Sect

Other Affiliations

• Holy Republic of Vaalus
• Light of Kassin

Metaphysical Title:
(unknown)
Masks and Aliases:
The Prophet of Night