The icon of the Aeldari in the Aeldari Lexicon.
Isha is the Aeldari goddess of the harvest, fertility, nature, life, healing and growth and the divine mother of the Aeldari species in Aeldari Mythology. She is the mate of Kurnous, the god of the hunt.
The only truly benevolent member of the Aeldari pantheon, it is said that it was Isha who intervened and created all non-Aeldari life in the universe once Asuryan, the king of the Aeldari pantheon, no longer took interest in his creations and their solitude.
It was also Isha who pleaded on behalf of the mortals when the Aeldari god of war, Kaela Mensha Khaine, attempted to slaughter the Aeldari. The war god had heard from Lileath, the goddess of dreams and fortune, that she had dreamed that the Aeldari, the mortal children of Isha and Kurnous, would one day cause his downfall.
It was Isha, too, who secretly continued to guide the Aeldari when Asuryan, the Phoenix King, sought to blunt Khaine's rampage by forbidding any further direct contact between mortals and gods by separating the Immaterium from the Materium.
After the Fall of the Aeldari, Isha was about to be devoured by Slaanesh like all of her divine brethren, but she was rescued by the forces of the Plague God Nurgle.
Today, many Aeldari believe that Nurgle keeps Isha in a cage in his Plague Gardens in the Realm of Chaos, where he tests out every new disease and pestilence he creates to affect the mortal realm. But Isha still seeks to aid mortals by whispering the cures for each of Nurgle's plagues into the universe to be discovered when they are most needed.
It was not just the Aeldari who came to believe this. Sanistasia Minst was a preeminent Human rejuvenat adept of the Talassar Sector, who, after successfully treating the skin rot of a Dothar aristocrat, began to have dreams of a maiden trapped in a cage and forced to suffer by eternally contracting and enduring a never-ending series of diseases. Eventually, Minst became obsessed with the idea of creating a panacea, a cure that could even heal a god. It was this fixation that caused Minst to neglect her normal duties, and eventually join the crew of the Elucidian Starstriders under the command of the Rogue Trader Elucia Vhane on her flagship New Dawn.
It was said in Aeldari legend that wherever Isha walks, rose-like flowers would bloom in her wake, and such flowers offered protection to any mortals who could acquire them from the corruptive energies of Chaos.
Quick Answers
What role does Isha play in the creation of non-Aeldari life in the universe?
How is Isha related to Kurnous in Aeldari mythology?
Why is Isha considered the only truly benevolent member of the Aeldari pantheon?
What is the relationship between Nurgle and Isha?
How does Isha influence the concept of fertility and growth in Aeldari mythology?
History
War in Heaven
It was Isha who had inspired the creation of the Phoenix King Asuryan's barrier between mortals and their gods, the barrier between the Immaterium and the Materium, as she had wept over the destruction that Khaine, as the god of war and murder, was causing amongst her children after he received Lileath's warning.
It is also said that the first Spirit Stones were crafted from Isha's tears over this separation so that the gods and mortals would be able to communicate with each other once more through the barrier erected between the Immaterium and the Materium. One of these stones was given to Isha and the rest were handed over to the Aeldari so that their prayers might be heard.
When Asuryan learned that his directive that the gods were to have no further contact with mortals had been violated, he gave Isha and her husband, Kurnous, to Khaine to do with as he wished.
Khaine tortured the two of them in a burning pit until Vaul, the Aeldari god of smiths and crafting who was Isha and Kurnous' uncle and was moved by their plight, struck a bargain with the war god to craft 100 enchanted divine swords, the Blades of Vaul, for him in one year's time. In exchange, Khaine promised to release his fellow gods from their prison in his realm.
The smith god worked long and hard at this task and managed to forge all of the blades by the deadline except for the last one, which lay unfinished on his anvil. In order to trick Khaine, Vaul substituted the last blade with a mortal-made one which he delivered to the war god, who released his two captives. The three gods quickly departed.
But Khaine was quick to discover the subterfuge and cried out in rage. He called the smith god a cheat and vowed revenge. He immediately set off to track Vaul down and make him pay. The conflict that followed, known as the War in Heaven, polarised the gods, as Khaine's faction and Vaul's faction engaged in bloody warfare for an eternity.
Gods changed sides, great deeds of heroism and of terrible evil were performed by both factions, and the war was mirrored in an internecine struggle between the Aeldari and their ancient foes in the mortal realm. Asuryan himself never took a side, watching the carnage impassively, slowly coming to regret his impetuosity in sentencing Isha and Kurnous to Khaine's tender mercies.
Vaul reforged the final sword, the one that he had failed to finish for Khaine, the greatest of all, and called it Anaris. Armed with this weapon, Vaul strode forth to do battle with Khaine. It was a long, hard-fought struggle, but even with Anaris, Vaul was no match for the war god. Khaine cast down Vaul, maiming the smith, and bound Vaul to his own anvil.
However, the falcon, Faolchú, consort of the Great Hawk who had fought for Vaul, took the sword Anaris and delivered it to Eldanesh, the greatest warrior and leader of the mortal Aeldari. With Anaris in hand, Eldanesh of the Red Moon took up the fight and faced Khaine in single combat. Eldanesh fought well, but in the end, he too was defeated by Khaine, his body crushed by the God of War.
As Khaine slew Eldanesh, his hands began to drip with red blood. Forever after he was to become known as Khaela Mensha Khaine, which means "Khaine the Bloody-Handed" in the Aeldari Lexicon.
By this time, Asuryan, the greatest of the Aeldari gods, had seen enough of the slaughter and proclaimed the War in Heaven over. Khaine had gained his vengeance and left the field satisfied.
Capture by Nurgle
Long Terran years later, much like the god of creativity and deception Cegorach who fled into the Labyrinth Dimension of the Webway, Isha was not destroyed outright and absorbed by Slaanesh like the rest of the Aeldari Pantheon after the Prince of Chaos' birth during the Fall of the Aeldari. Slaanesh vanquished her as it had all of the other Aeldari gods within the Warp, but only took her prisoner rather than absorbing her psychic energies outright.
What fell purpose Slaanesh had in keeping Isha alive, none amongst the Aeldari now know, but the Prince of Pleasure was ultimately denied its spoils: for some reason, Nurgle, the Plague Lord, waged war against Slaanesh to "rescue" the Aeldari goddess. Why Grandfather Nurgle intervened is unclear, although some Aeldari savants believe that one of the oldest of the major Chaos Gods wanted to give the youngest amongst them a good lesson about his proper place in the order of things.
What is known is that Nurgle's Daemonic forces proved victorious and he took the Aeldari goddess back to his domain in the Realm of Chaos. A goddess of rejuvenation and a god of decay seemed an odd pairing, but Nurgle came to adore his new companion like no other being in the universe.
However, he shows his love in the only way a Chaos God knows how. Nurgle keeps Isha imprisoned in a rusted cage within his personal manse in the corner of his Plague Gardens. It is there that he keeps the cauldron where he mixes the elements that create all of his plagues and pestilences. Nurgle tests all of his new, virulent creations upon the body of his "companion."
As the goddess of healing and the spiritual embodiment of health and growth, Isha can cure herself of these afflictions, but the Plague Lord gains an idea of their potency by watching how much power the Aeldari goddess must expend to cure herself. If he is pleased with how hard Isha must struggle to conquer the disease, Nurgle releases the new creation upon some unsuspecting world, but if not, he starts over, working at his cauldron until he has something new to give to his divine companion.
Isha accepts her lot stoically and fights back against the Plague God's evil in the same way she once fought against Khaine, whispering the cures to these new diseases into the universe so that mortals might know them and resist the hideous designs of Grandfather Nurgle.
Lugganath Rescue Attempt
In 975.M41 of the Imperial Calendar, the craftworld of Lugganath fell prey to the disease known as the Brittle Coma. To seek a cure, its Seer Council projected their spirits into the Garden of Nurgle in the Realm of Chaos, hoping to find a cure, but instead met a tragic and unsettling end. Very few mortal eyes have beheld the Garden of Nurgle. Its swamplands constantly wheeze a fog of supernatural diseases, and living beings cannot endure so much as a single breath of its repugnance. Only Nurgle himself can spare visitors from his garden's toxic affections; when he is expecting company, he will open a path through the gurgling fungus-fronds with a single magnanimous gesture.
Yet trespassers are viewed poorly in Nurgle's domain, as the Seers of Lugganath found to their cost. The Aeldari of that far-flung craftworld have long told the story of the Caged Maiden, wherein Isha, the Aeldari goddess of fertility, healing and nature, is imprisoned in Nurgle's crumbling mansion at the mercy of her grotesque admirer. The Aeldari believe their legends to be absolute truth and even aspire to one day free their goddess from Nurgle's unctuous grasp. So it was that when Lugganath was ravaged by the terrible disease known as the Brittle Coma, an army of its most gifted psykers cast their minds into the realm of Nurgle in pursuit of the truth of the myth of Isha's captivity, hoping to find their lost goddess and put a halt to their craftworld's deadly malaise with her freedom. They knew that they would almost certainly die in the attempt, but believed that their souls would ultimately be drawn back into the glittering Spirit Stones of their comatose bodies. Once safe in their crystal afterlife, they could impart Isha's message to the Spiritseers and lift Nurgle's curse from their homes.
At first, their astrally-projected forms of the Seers appeared to be able to pass through the grasping foliage of Nurgle's garden with ease. Their Ghosthelms kept them as insubstantial as spirits and their psychic rune-shielded minds cut through the dismal vegetation, for they were sharper than any corporeal blade. The Rot Flies of that realm buzzed loud in alarm, however, and whispered of the psychic intruders into Nurgle's ear. Just as the Seers of Lugganath sighted Grandfather Nurgle's rotted manse in the distance, a great host of Plaguebearers rose up from the mud and began to chant in a droning monotone as they came forward. The Seers chanelled their psychic energy into great blasts of cleansing blue fire, boiling away huge chunks of Nurgle's Daemonic army and darting out of the clumsy reach of their foes, but ever more Plaguebearers emerged from the slurry to block their path.
The battle raged for solar days as time was counted out in the Materium, and swathes of Nurgle's Garden were blasted to ruin in the process. However, in the material dimension, the physical form of the trespassing Seers began to convulse and shake, succumbing to the very plague they hoped to overcome. Slowly, as their bodies shrivelled and their Spirit Stones turned to rotting mulch, the souls of the Seers that were trapped in Nurgle's realm began to pass fully into the Immaterium.
No longer protected by their link to realspace, the soupy air of the garden seeped into their lungs, worm-riddled mud spattered up their legs, and white-bodied daemonflies clambered into their mouths. Claimed at last, the Seers' feet took root as their faces hardened into bark. Their arms split and twisted into gnarled branches, each finger hung with ripening Nurgling-fruit.
The Seers of Lugganath remain there still, a copse of wailing trees that brighten Nurgle's leisurely walks and strike a note of despair into the heart of Isha, his immortal captive. Such is the fate of those who enter uninvited into the heartlands of Nurgle, for even the generosity of the Grandfather of Plagues has its limit.
The Rose of Isha
In ca. 999.M41, Mortarion, the primarch of the Death Guard, used the Chaos relic known as the Hand of Darkness to unleash a variety of plagues on the Realm of Ultramar when he heard that his brother primarch Roboute Guilliman had been resurrected. Guilliman and Varro Tigurius, the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines, told the Asuryani Farseer Eldrad Ulthran of Mortarion's use of the Hand of Darkness, prompting the Farseer to send Yvraine, the prophetess of Ynnead, the god of the dead and her Ynnari, Guilliman's allies, to retrieve it from the Whispering Tower on the Death Guard's Plague Planet in the Eye of Terror.
To reach the Plague Planet without suffering through the potential exposure of Chaos corruption in the Eye of Terror, Yvraine and her accompanying Ynnari passed through trials of temptation by Slaanesh on the secret craftworld of the Black Library in the Webway. After successfully navigating the trials, Yvraine recovered a Rose of Isha, said to grow only where the goddess of nature walked, which allowed Yvraine to enter the Garden of Nurgle in the Realm of Chaos. Passing through the Garden, Yvraine was able to secretly reenter the material plane at the Whispering Tower on the Plague Planet and steal the Hand of Darkness so Mortarion could no longer use it to afflict the people of Ultramar.
A Pantheon Reborn
In the wake of the birth of the Great Rift at the start of the Era Indomitus the Nurglish Great Unclean One known as Rotigus rambles from one Maiden World to the next upon the Eastern Fringe. He brings with him the Deluge of Nurgle. The brackish waters and slimy effluvia of this unnatural storm rot the forests and raise gelid floodwaters to drown wildlife already stricken by a foul and mutating curse of fecundity. On each world so beset, the Harlequin Masque of the Frozen Stars appear. Fighting their way to the site of the planets' World Spirit shrines, they perform dances of such startling beauty that all who see them are moved to floods of tears.
Even as the Aeldari weep, so the rains falling from the skies transform from diseased filth to cleansing waters that glow like moonlight. Wherever these purifying monsoons sweep over the landscape, the power of Nurgle is undone and the Nurglish corruption reversed.
Rumour spreads through the Exodite tribes that the Masque of the Frozen Stars seeks more than just to defeat Rotigus' foul plans -- it is whispered that if enough Aeldari weep for the corruption of their Maiden Worlds by Chaos, their combined sorrow may somehow release the Aeldari goddess of nature Isha from her imprisonment within Nurgle's foetid manse in the Land of the Plaguelord.
Whether such a thing is even possible, none can say, but with Cegorach's continued survival and the slow awakening of Ynnead, the god of the dead, still ongoing, some amongst the Aeldari dare to hope that they may know a true pantheon of their gods again before the Rhana Dandra ends.
Sources
- Codex: Chaos Daemons (4th Edition), pg. 82
- Codex: Chaos Daemons (6th Edition), pp. 15, 23
- Codex: Eldar (4th Edition), pp. 5, 6, 9
- Codex: Eldar (6th Edition), pp. 17-19, 21, 23
- Codex: Elcudian Starstriders (8th Edition), pp. 14-16
- Codex: Harlequins (8th Edition), pg. 30
- Hand of Darkness (Audio Book) by Gav Thorpe
- Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior (Novel) by Gav Thorpe, pp. 26, 29, 33, 35, 36
- Warhammer 40,000: Compilation (1st Edition), pg. 35-36, 42