Name: Isistene Olist'jivvin
Age: 148
Gender: Female
Race: Drow
Appearance: Isistene is petite drow woman with a lithe, athletic frame. This drow has long silver hair tied back in a thick ponytail with a lavender ribbon. She has dark red eyes and obsidian skin, the trademark of her drow heritage. She is shorter than most of her kind but holds the exotic beauty all drow possess.
Personality: "Playful Cruelty", Olist'jivvin translated to the surface language. There is a great deal of history behind those words as well as the tormented tale of a woman who lived as a pawn for the greater part of her life. That, fortunately, was a long time ago and now the meaning of the name is nothing more than a husk. Isistene is a quiet, seemingly docile woman upon first meeting. She appears shy, but always polite, never quite looking you in the eye when you speak to her. The odd surroundings of Sigil and the even more unusual populace keeps her on edge, always expecting treachery in the shadows of the alleyways. It is her old instincts that still prevail, the instinct of survival. There is a great deal of history in her eyes, eyes that have seen many things in her life. Beyond her shy demeanor is a person that those around her will have to discover for themselves.
IC History (From creation and a previous PW): Isistene was born in Menzoberranzan to a small noble house, well below the top tier of drow society. Being from an inferior house, Isistene had to constantly prove herself as an initiate of Lolth. The lack of reputation her house held was both a boon and a crutch. While she was often ignored or looked over during her time in Arach-Tinilith, she was also treated as a lesser individual.
The tale of her time in the Underdark is a both long and tragic tale of deception and treachery. She always held a grudge for those who wronged her. It was both her greatest strength and greatest weakness. Her pursuit for both power and revenge inevitably led to the downfall of her own house.
As she pursued her most hated enemy to the surface, she found herself leaping from one precarious situation to the next. Houseless and short on resources, Isistene spent her time in a drow camp of refugees from the doomed city of Maerimydra. She occupied her time as a spy for the Yath, going to the surface to watch their most hated enemies before reporting back her findings.
In time, she began to resent those in camp for what she saw as their weakness. The drow refugees were foolish to her, spending too much time conducting raids on the surface and degrading her beloved society into nothing more than a den of orcs. Angry at them, and angry at her enemies, Isistene spent more time on the surface until a critical error in her judgment resulted in her capture. Imprisoned by the Eilstraeeans, Isistene was "nursed" back to health in the forest by an inexperienced healer. The result was what she viewed as torture at the hands of her enemy. Bound and helpless, Isistene's anger for the drow of Eilistraee reached a new height, but so did her hatred of Lolth.
In a fortunate coincidence, Isistene was rescued by one of the dark priestesses of Lolth. While the Eilstraeeans did battle with the Lolthite priestess, Isistene managed to slip through her restraints and flee, evading recapture and successfully reaching the camp again. She would stay there for a year, never once going back to the surface.
As the days passed, Isistene saw the degradation of her society that she avoided for so long. Annoyed at the orc-like behavior of her sisters, she began to make mockeries of them, illustrating them in drawings on her free-time as two orc-headed women bashing their heads together just before conducting a raid. They had no concept of the shadow, no understanding of what it meant to be a true priestess of Lolth.
Still, despite her believing this, she struggled to maintain her favor with the Spider Queen while these fools who were borderline barbaric were surpassing her. She hated it. It drove her mad.
In an attempt to subvert the Yath, Isistene tricked the Head Priestess of one of the more powerful houses to be alone with her in the tunnels. She had followed them on an expedition, watching and waiting for her opportunity. When they saw her, all they saw was a masked woman watching on in curiosity as they slew a mighty creature that roamed the tunnels. She praised them for their accomplishments and followed them back to the city.
As their sickly Head Priestess fell behind, Isistene feigned collapsing to the floor. Curious, the Head Priestess turned and went back for her. "What ails you?" She asked.
Isistene answered with a disintegration ray.
To her dismay, the ray failed. The two did battle in the shadows but Isistene had missed her opportunity. The priestess' entourage, seeing their leader had fallen behind, came back moments after Isistene was forced to flee and get back to camp before them. She had failed in her task and Lolth would not be pleased with her.
As her time in the region went by, Isistene returned to the surface yet again in the hopes of finding another way to please her Dark Queen. Still, her grip was loosening; the threads of the web that bound her to Lolth's will began to slack. She was losing her faith in her Dark Queen. In turn, Isistene was losing Her favor.
Finding a small group of Eilistraeeans in the forest some time later, Isistene plotted to kill them all She ambushed them, tried to slay them, but one of them overpowered her and turned the tide of the battle into a stalemate. Furious, Isistene lashed out not with her blade but with words. She cursed them, she cursed the camp, and she cursed Lolth. Why was she, a cunning, ruthless, and beautiful Ilythiir, always bound to fail? What plan did Lolth have for her if she could not conform to the orcish mannerisms of the cesspool she was forced to live in below?
She ranted about how much she hated the Underdark, hated the camp. The Eilistraeeans simply listened, a rock between them and her. They felt a great deal of pity for her. In time, they convinced her to come out and she was taken deep into the woods. Alone with just her and another, they talked for hours and although Isistene still felt a deep level of resentment, her anger was now shifting elsewhere.
The night she left camp, she placed her holy symbol of Lolth on a rock and shattered it to pieces. Instantly, her powers were gone and her favor lost. She had passed the point of no return and lived on the surface from that point on. Unfortunately, in her abandonment of one dark deity, she had earned the attention of another.
All her life she had dealt with the pain of loss, the frustration of losing everything because of her own obsession. It seemed she would never earn a better place in her life. It's why She had favored her so. They say that She often has worshippers that don't even realize they followed her. It wasn't until Isistene met one of Her faithful did she learn that she had been born a Favored Soul of another dark deity, one that constantly competed with Lolth. That deity was Shar.
Embracing her new calling, Isistene became a Child of Night. For the first time in her life, she felt she was in the right place, that she had found her purpose in life. Yet, something was missing still. She wanted something more, something Shar would only refuse to give her. For years, Isistene served Shar blindly, denying herself the choice she had been given by the Eilistraeeans. She found herself cold, alone, and constantly hunted by others. She could do nothing but survive.
She made friends, or at least, she thought them to be the closest thing to friends, but the Black Archers that hunted after her made would-be allies betray her until she had nowhere to turn to. Caught in a corner, she turned to the only place she could go: death.
Isistene retraced her roots, finding the one person she hated the most in the entire world. That person was the Battlemistress of the Eilistraeeans in the Cormanthyr, Ariyana. The two did battle in the Midwood and into the spider caverns, fighting viciously. In her mind, it was Isistene's final battle, her last stand. She wanted to die but if doing so took her most hated with her, she didn't care.
In the darkness of the cavern, with the thousand eyes of the spiders that hungrily watched them, Ariyana defeated her. Isistene submitted to the death that awaited her, gladly accepting it, tired of the life that she lived. The spiders claimed their prize. She finally thought it was over. To her surprise, Ariyana cut her way into the group of spiders and saved her life, ripping her from their webs and carrying her back to the surface. Frustrated and confused, Isistene lashed out at her but was too weak to break the grip of her most hated enemy.
They talked, for what seemed to be hours, and found a common ground. For the first time in Isistene's life, she was able to let go of her hatred for Ariyana. When Ariyana released her, the two of them made an agreement. She would fake her death and return to the Underdark, to be the eyes and ears, to help kill the ones that used her most: The Lolthites. When their task was finished, Isistene promised Ariyana she would go to the Velarswood and surrender herself to the temple of Eilistraee.
When the day came for Isistene to leave, she went east and found the temple. Like all other converts, she was taken in and watched over with scrutiny, constantly tested. She spent the first year studying at the temple, surrendering all of her old equipment and weaponry.
After her year of tutelage, Isistene was brought to the training room by the temple's Battlemistress. The drow warrioress showed Isistene a wide display of weapons from daggers to polearms.
"Which of these are you most familiar with?" she asked Isistene, who in turn pointed to the dagger and the shortsword.
"Now which of these do you detest the most?"
When asked that, Isistene scanned the weapons over carefully. The halberd, the greatsword, the quarterstaff. She'd never used any of these weapons, so she was not sure what to think of them. Then her eyes feel on the curved blade of the scythe. It was the common symbol of death, a weapon used as if meant to reap life itself. She hated the sight of it.
"That will be your weapon." the Battlemistress said as she saw Isistene stare at it.
Isistene promptly refused, not wanting to wield such a weapon. It wasn't graceful, for one. She was too weak to wield such a large weapon let alone be able to use it properly. She also didn't want to use it because it lacked subtlety. She couldn't conceal it. She couldn't hide it. That was why the Battlemistress made her chose it.
"If you hate the weapon that you wield, you will seek alternatives to fighting," she told Isistene. "You will train with this weapon, master it, but learn to not resort to it unless absolutely necessary."
Begrudgingly, Isistene accepted the task and trained vigorously with the weapon. She sought out to master every aspect of it, training herself physically to be able to wield it. By the time she had mastered the use of it; her opinion about the weapon hadn't changed. She still hated it. The weapon was familiar in her hands now, but alien at the same time. She detested it greatly and would hesitate in using it against others. That was the point of it. She would hesitate killing someone with it. Instead, she'd find alternatives to fighting.
With her conversion complete, Isistene was accepted into the temple as an Eilistraeean. When she left the temple, she was given a blessing by the High Priestess Uluyara and sent on a mission to join up with the Eilistraeeans that had left the Cormanthyr. That is how she came to Sigil.
Now, in a godless place like the Cage where Eilistraee cannot hear her, Isistene will find a new definition of conflict. Evil forces tug at her again, seeing the weakness in her resolve. The fate of this drow rests in the hands of those around her.
Playful Cruelty
