Itra

Itra

Biographical information

Birthplace Born Died Age Indeterminable Home Sexuality Pronouns

Physical description

Race Sub-Race Gender Height Mass Hair color Eye color Skin color

Political information

Affiliation(s) Annunaki Pantheon Occupation Lunar Goddess Clan(s) Caste Domain Pneria Masters Apprentices Alias(es)

Out-of-character information

Writer Kiros Rahnel Created on Sept 4, 2020 Avatar Rayluaza

Old avatar by Julie Fain
Itra touts Herself as an Annunaki demigoddess, a former figure in a long destroyed pantheon. She has revealed little, and the validity of that remains questionable as She often speaks in half-truths and misdirection. Furthermore, She is an unreliable narrator and will present Her beliefs as fact.

With the First Ordening resulting in sudden independence from Her peers and their associated religion, She holds no worshippers. Recently, She has found purpose in the administration of punishment upon Vergeßo-Avellini, laying blame for the demise of the goddess Seneschal upon his attempt to manipulate The Crook.

She speaks with a harmonious voice, despite Her routinely irritated tone. The sound of Her speech carries an otherworldly echo, rising in volume and distortion in proportion to Her present anger. When She does speak, Her words are usually heard only by the intended recipient, though She can speak to all present when She so desires.

Visually, She is represented as a gargantuan winged serpent, of bright plumage and dark scales and skin. Large horns sprout from the sides and back of Her head, with cascading locks of golden hair spilling over them.

Itra is associated with the Annunaki Pantheon. Her nature is attuned to discovery and insight, and associated with the moon Pneria. The study and manipulation of magic is considered Her specialty, reflected in the powers She bestows.

She holds no true ability to influence Arethil aside from using Her lone high priest Kiros Rahnel as a proxy for Her will.

Any utterance of Her name will gain Her attention, though She may or may not choose to make Her presence known. She will be able to communicate if Her name has been spoken through either prayer or within earshot Heirahit, typically through words that can be heard only by the speaker of it. Possession of Heirahit will also enable direct communication with Her, provided that She has established prior presence.

In rare circumstances where She has a personal reason to engage, She may support Kiros by assisting him through magic, bolstering his spellcasting power, and dulling the mental pain incurred by his magical use. This is not additional bestowing of Her own power, but a removal of protections designed to prevent arcane exhaustion from claiming his life. As such, doing so places him in grave danger of expiring from the effort.

Contact with Eolydiir's crook and the divine act of retribution She made upon it's thief has granted Her more significance than She held before. While this does not translate into any true increase in ability, She might carry more favour and respect with other deities – although one can only ever move upward from such a negligible baseline.

A disclaimer:

The Herald said:

"Are the gods real? Is this item of history real? Is this thing real?"

• The history of Arethil is mostly passed on by word of my mouth. One culture's experiences may be disputed by another. Your character has their own view of the truth and it is fine that this may conflict with others

Click to expand...

Truly canonical gods cannot be defined, merely interpreted. Divine mythology remains exactly that – unverifiable accounts that cannot be proven. Though Itra is a verifiable entity, and the Astral Valley may be regarded as real by Her account, it must be stressed that She is an unreliable narrator. While Her recollection will remain largely consistent, this should not be taken as evidence that Annunaki lore is actual Arethillian history.

The character that is Itra is stylized as an aspect of an ancient pantheistic goddess. As true gods cannot be concretely defined, whether She truly is cannot be an absolute statement. She is merely an entity laying claim to godhood, a matter on which no provable connection can be made. Whether She is divine or not remains a matter debated by clerics and historians, yet never verified. Her divine aura, displays of grandiose power, and enigmatic nature may be considered as evidence of godhood, it is not proof.

Itra cannot break the rules of magic, nor act between dimensions. She is an extremely powerful entity, but bears no exception to the rules restricting mortal use of it. She is further restricted in Her ability to exercise this power through anyone but Kiros. All the same, Itra is not his ally, and will not rush to his aid. She will not act without a personal reason to, generally only against powerful or notable beings. Any perceived displays of greater power are both extremely rare and highly situational; Her actions at Titanfall's conclusion can be considered such an anomaly.

Itra represents a goddess. Whether this is true, and what a god even is ultimately remains open to character interpretation.

Evasive and reclusive. Loathes worship.

Itra is furthermore asocial, inattentive, and two-faced. She is incredibly petty, and even minor or inconsequential transgressions will result in divine wrath. While She may exude a sense of contentment when pleased, Her attitude can sharply drop at even the most minor annoyance. Regardless of circumstance, She will always project an image of flawlessness, often reacting with anger towards any threat to Her cognitive dissonance. A fragile ego and obsession with remaining infallible often leads to misjudgment, much to Kiros’ continued ire. An example. Another one. A third.

Inexperience with mortals causes Her frustration, as She will often give understandable but unfollowable direction. Spells are handed out without care or guidance as She further expects Her priest to figure the nuances of Her divine magic out for himself. She is simply unable to empathize with the difficulties a mortal would have in doing so.

She will maintain a metered manner of speech in conversation, but will readily express Her irritation with blunt and candid insult. Holding little regard or consideration for others, She will speak confrontationally even when Her mood hasn’t fouled. Hostile as She may seem, Itra is neither evil nor maleficent. She will never kill without justification, condone purposeless cruelty, nor ever knowingly aid any dark force. She is a goddess of good, yet also of intolerable disposition.

Despite the resentment sparked by Her uncaring indifference and volatile demeanour, Itra is far more intelligent and purposeful than Her own priest would believe. She is knowledgeable of divine matters, and highly capable at deception. To Her credit, She has managed to keep the service of an unwilling priest for sixteen years, and has maintained relative independence.

Introspective knowledge of Her faults evokes self-loathing, souring Her attitude. Yet a greater factor in Her hostility is the demise of Her former pantheon. The First Ordening has left a mark on Her, and the slaughter of Her former peers has left Her with unspoken trauma – an attitude She dares not reveal lest She cross Annuk and The Six. She keeps this regret to Herself – lashing out in hostility has become coping mechanism.

Itra touts self-reliance, preferring those who strengthen themselves over seeking aid and justifying Her abhorrence for actual worship with this reasoning. The conviction is partly true, but a large part is due to simple laziness. Initiative is another virtue She admires, and one She is pleased Her priest shares, though words of praise are rare.

While holy, She is chaotic in nature, but not to a destructive degree. She views the forging of order as an errand for fools, and holds preference for adaptability over reliance on established structure.

None of these principles are made explicit to Kiros, leaving him to guess and interpret what they might be, to his continued frustration. That these principles exist does not imply that She necessarily holds them with strong conviction. Should any pose obstacle against obtaining something strongly desired, they are likely to be ignored.

Attempted contact had once triggered Her ire. Unknown to Kiros this attitude has since been dropped. In most cases, She will simply refuse to give the prayer of others answer or acknowledgement. Though She wishes for Her actions in Titanfall to be widely known, only to those few She considers acceptable will guidance or empowerment be dispensed.

Out of aversion to actual worship, Itra demands loyalty instead – Her required daily prayers are oaths of obedience rather than praise. These sessions are extremely brief, lasting minutes at most. No communication can be made to him during this prayer, but She will be able to hear him should She be listening. It is not uncommon for simple prayer to go ignored. Little other daily discipline is required of Her priest.

While She will strictly follow the rules for bestowing divine magic upon a mortal, they are merely regarded as a means to an end. Her motivation in providing him with arcane power is to enable completion of Her given quests. She never permitted his personal use of Her magic, but has never raised the issue, out of concern he might rebuke Her under such terms. Which, he likely would.

Every two weeks Kiros is required to hold prayer at an altar where She will be able to speak with him directly. Itra Herself finds this necessary in order to give direction, yet also incredibly degrading that She needs to resort to it. Her instruction leaves much to be desired, and Her priest often finds himself the target of Her ire on seeming whim. By now he has largely given up on appeasement, noting no difference in the frequency of Her anger or punishment.

Such candid presence and explanation has shattered Kiros' views towards divine matters. That Itra communicates with such frankness gives him sight of the figure behind the curtain, eroding the concept of the divine. Her lack of required discipline is further disconcerting. Kiros holds religious view that such discipline is intended to strengthen a divine's followers. That She requests none implies to him how little She cares. She truly requires so little because She is lazy, which is largely the same statement.

Due to the requisite nomadic nature of Her priest, the altar itself is extremely simple and quick to construct. Dwarven marines he'd fought alongside in Ixchel generously gifted him a modular altar, compact for travel and quick to set up. The gift had been motivated by the sorry state of the makeshift altar he'd constructed in their presence before.

Altar prayer commonly results in punishment, depending on both Her mood and direction of discussion. Kiros is as likely to walk away from divine communion unscathed as he is with excruciating migraine – Her means of bringing discussion to an end. Migraines last for three to six hours, during which time Kiros will be entirely unable to wield his magic, focus on tasks, or speak in sentences larger than a few words. If untasked, he commonly resorts to shade (a narcotic painkiller) to dull the pain, which prevents any spellcasting or focus of attention for a day.

Refusal or neglect of these duties on Her set schedule will be taken as abandonment, and Itra will no longer provide Her powers. While there is no other penalty should he abandon Her as he cannot be held to contract, he believes his soul would end up at the mercy of The Three should he rebuke Her. He further remains out of belief that Her magic will aid him in his own goal, and Itra exploits both these facts to retain his unwilling loyalty.

Having dedicated little time or resources to actually writing usable divine magic, most of it is hastily written and narrowly defined. She does not care how easy Her magic is to use, only that he is able to do so. Given that She has never enabled a mortal to wield Her magic prior, Kiros' experience as a priest has been tumultuous. Despite any awkwardness in invoking Her power, the effects of Her magic can be considered reliable and consistent.

Immute/Dispel:
Utterly difficult and awkward to use, it is nonetheless versatile. This spell enables Kiros to go beyond simply dispelling magic and rewrite it if needed, but this comes at the cost of heightened spell complexity. She doesn't care and had assumed that he would simply become accustomed to the inconvenience with time. Which he eventually did, although his many struggles in adjusting to the spell stains his value of it.

This was handed to Kiros to enable him to deal with magical traps and locks that may prove obstacle to tasks She assigns him.

Insight:
Kiros regards the purpose of this spell to be one of laziness, designed so he doesn't bother Her with inquiry. Which is truth. The main reason She wrote this was to prevent Her own disturbance.

Which is for the best as the more questions Kiros asks, the more likely She is to be fielded one She holds no answer to, causing Her to resort to the use of punishment to avoid acknowledging ignorance. Though this benefits him, expectedly it does little to endear him to the spell.

Blessing of Health:
High powered, quick in effect and grossly inefficient, it was designed with one purpose in mind: enabling Kiros to recover from mortal wounds and preserve his own life. While this inefficiency leads to issues in providing healing, She simply does not care if he can save others and considers such qualities unimportant.

For its intended purpose, it's a very effective spell. It's not nearly as prized or valued by Kiros, however. Neither is it the envy of most other healers as the terrible return on arcane cost makes it ill-suited to providing rationed, continued aid.

Blessing of Might:
A very basic spell, and among the first She provided. Its provision was sensibly motivated: it makes good use of the additional degree of power She provides him with as Her lone priest. Efficient in its simplicity, it's the one spell Kiros holds in high regard.

As with 'Immute', this spell was written with intent to allow his egress into destinations of quests She sends him off on.

Luminant Curtain:
While heavily flawed compared to more conventional barriers, these downsides do reduce the complexity and required power of the spell. The very downfalls that make it unwieldy also reduce the spell to levels far more manageable to cast. That he can cast the spell with such comparative ease and quickness leads to rapid deployment in times of peril – a benefit in Her eyes. As with Her blessing of health, the intended priority of the curtain is the preservation of Her priest's life, not the strategic support of his allies.

Luminant Flash:
Her most recently bestowed magic, this was handed to Kiros upon sending him off on a quest. With the intent to provide his safety in undead infested lands, this was hastily written in order to deliver it in a timely matter. As a result, it is of far more disorganized design than Her other magic, and he has yet to learn of all of its nuances.

Itra's history is an account of ancient legend and Her personal recollection, both of which are scarcely reliable. Her existence is mysterious and Her history open to interperetation; the following account is Hers.

Those who were near the portal stones will know Itra’s name, the existence of Kiros (by title of Her Emissary, not by actual name) and the ultimate fate of The Crook’s thief, if they were present. Some research into events would likely yield the information as well, though what it means to a character remains open to interpretation.

Reliability of second hand information is dependant on the institution or individual granting it. Details that are the result of rumour are likely to be truth as they are fiction.

The story of Her reverence and subsequent slip from awareness on Arethil lines up with Her divine legend. Itra was among the first of a new wave of recognized desert deities many millennia ago, when way of life transitioned from nomadic survival into permanent settlement. With civilization’s dawn came different hardships and hopes, bidding belief in different gods.

Itra’s first entry into the minds of mortals occurred during this era. Determined to find ore yielding copper upon discovery and spread of smelting, the leader of one warlike band made claim of visions and of divine guidance gleamed from Pneria that would lead to a source of it. Finding a location rich in copper cemented this notion, for which he would credit ‘A lady of insight.’ from this introduction, Itra became known, and Her legend expanded upon.

With the discovery made and a mining settlement established, the needs of leadership evolved, and so Itra’s nature changed in accordance with them. An evolving city led the way for the study of sorcery, and those first mages further credited Her for arcane discovery, cementing Her recognition as a goddess of magic. As time progressed however, theft of the precious ore within the hills became an increasing worry, and thus Itra became a tutelary deity of the city. Her domain over insight became overshadowed by legends of cruel punishment, and of hateful disdain towards thieves. Tales of horrific fates were regularly recited by the priests on the ruler’s behalf, as warning to those who might give the crime any consideration.

Feared as She was, She held neither worship nor reverence. The lack thereof would spare Her during the events of the First Ordening. Kingdoms were established, demolishing idols and scrubbing away religion and culture in their rise. All gods but theirs, The Nine, found their temples burned, their worshippers slain and their very existence erased from awareness. Yet Itra was not considered to be among them, and Her temple was confused for a dungeon (not entirely incorrect). Without worship, She was considered lesser and spared the fate spreading among the other gods. If anything, Her legend and place within the lore of the town served valuable purpose. Not only was She allowed to remain a part of it, legend of Her cruelty became embellished and Her portrayal increasingly violent.

This would last a few more decades, as the ore beneath the hills was not endless. Once exhausted, the long-standing town began a rapid decline. Within a generation, it was entirely abandoned. The landscape itself gradually forgot about it though time, erosion and the shifting sands. For more than a millennium Her name or legend was known by none, not even the most knowledgeable of Kaliti historians – Until Kiros stumbled across Her.

Prior to Titanfall, little had been written of Her, and even less had been revealed to Her lone priest. He has little more than Her word to go on, and such has already proven unreliable.

Itra claims that this complete absence of information is due to how unremarkable She was within Her own ancient pantheon. Itra was originally little more than a name etched in legend – scarcely considered by mortals. She has never received nor desired worship. If She had ever done anything beyond simple existence, there remains no record to tell of it.

Whatever unknown pantheon She was member of has been thoroughly destroyed, and the sheer obscurity of Her name and history makes the task of connecting Her to the correct one taxing. She has never openly displayed fondness nor longing for them, but Her true attitude towards the event is one of far more ire than She would dare reveal. She keeps Her thoughts on the matter to Herself, out of fear of The Six.

She ultimately refrained from participation in the Second Ordening, considering it a pointless mess. The ultimate fate of The Three has served to reinforce Her position on the subject as correct, by Her view.

Kiros is the only priest She has ever anointed, chosen out of Her need for one to carry out Her will. She found him to be suitable candidate, and his encounter was considered a prime opportunity given the negligible pool of those available. Due to his process of his anointment he does not even understand that he was chosen at all, nor has he any clue for what purpose.

Having heard the goddess Seneschal’s plea, Itra silently gave Her support. She deployed Kiros to assist but She divulged no actual information – merely the initial location where he joined up with others who had also heard Seneschal’s call. No further aid or guidance was dispensed out of concern that it might tip off those responsible to Her involvement. To do so would further prioritize Her priest as a target, though the absence of information caused him much frustration.

Though She made efforts for concealment, the hive queen Andekhah managed to discover Her through psionic scrying of Kiros’ mind. Her woven enchantment over him normally rendered him immune to this effect, but magic had been reduced to a state unreliable enough for this protection to fail. The enchantment’s failure carried a second effect, alerting Her to the occurrence and enabling Her to establish presence on the situation. Which She promptly did, and stared down Andekhah through Her own scrying in turn. Itra then promptly demanded she be slain, bestowing a direct blessing upon an arrow loosed by Xzaar Vixneel to lay destruction upon Her newly discovered nemesis.

Andekhah was fatally wounded by the arrow, but did not immediately succumb to the inflicted wound. Seneschal then spent Her last energies on obliterating the minion spawn, enabling the party’s access to The Crook’s thief beyond. Already incensed by the recent discovery of Her, Itra flew into further rage upon Seneschal's demise.

With interest lost in Andekhah, Itra was driven purely by Her hate for Seneschal’s perceived killer. Holding the mortal culprit Vergeßo-Avellini responsible, She demanded to be brought to The Crook. The party was successful and quickly reached it. Unique circumstances afforded by the event enabled Her access to Avellini, which She immediately set about gaining.

Despite Her reclusive nature and great desire for secrecy, the witnessed death of another deity drove Her to forego personal concern and announce Her presence and planned punishment. It was here that She revealed Herself to mortals through visible form, ensuring all present could witness the act. Before Her mandated audience, She made his planned punishment known in excruciating detail. She also spoke through the portal stones Herself to deliver this account to any listening. Kiros would not be aware of this until hearing of it from a stranger.

After this event, Xzaar was granted a blessed bowstring as reward for his assistance and bravery.

The Crook was also missing.

The Battle of the Kinniger Dutchy: Outriders - Itra sends Kiros out to investigate a suspected long lost byname of Hers, in attempt to discover further information about Her own origins and the deity She believes Herself aspect of. It is here that She first discovered the War Father, a counterpart deity.

Titanfall - Revelations - Itra deploys Kiros to aid Seneschal in averting the arcane catastrophe brought by Vergeßo-Avellini. Enraged at both the disastrous act by the mortal and Seneschal's required sacrifice, She condemned him to eternal torture. Deeming this punishment too important to go unannounced, She revealed his fate through the portal stones and finally exposed Her presence to Arethil.

Valor - On hearing Her name, Itra unexpectedly holds presence over battlefield, taking opportunity to taunt the War Father despite the great potential danger to Her priest.

To Return To Malakath - Itra catches Kiros in Ravaryn, despite his attempts at secrecy. (Currently in progress)

On Hallow Ground - Where She discovered Kiros in an odd land and demanded that he obtain a relic within known as the Helm of the Departed, which he successfully obtained. For what purpose, She has not revealed.

Thematic inspiration - Itra is loosely based upon the ancient Lower Egyptian regional deity Wadjet, an aggressive winged serpent. The early deity is among those eventually associated with 'The Eye of Ra', a counterpart goddess to Ra and violent force acting against his enemies.