Isani, also known as the Queen of Thorns, or the Crowned, was a wandering terrifying figure constantly surrounded by a raging blizzard that caused people around her to loose their memories, and in some cases, their minds. She was accompanied by two dark hounds that scouted ahead for her, and protected her.
Isani's appearance
Isani appeared as a beautiful female elven figure, dressed in black elegant robes with exposed skin unaffected by the cold. However, Mirasol Rosneth discovered that this was just an illusion. In truth, Isani appeared more like an undead ghast with open pores across her body that spewed out raging cold winds. She was also surrounded by powerful divine magic.
When the party restored her briefly to her true, uncorrupted shape, she appeared as a beautiful elven maiden wearing a rainbow-colored dress. Her eyes shone with a warm divine light, that turned cold as she regained her current corrupted shape.
Isani's past
The party later learned, from a pixie, that Isani was a vestige of a dead goddess of illusions and tricks. She allowed the elves of ages past to open a rift between worlds to reconnect the isolated elves of Oerren with their kin in the worlds beyond, but something went wrong, and a rift to a realm of nightmares were opened instead. This caused a large comet-like object to impact the region - an event later referred to as the Calamity.
In her weakened state, two powerful giants seized the opportunity to steal her divine essence and divide it between them. Angwynn, The Lady of Fire, and Faughrynn, The Lord of Frost, established a powerful religion following the event, that have lasted to this day as the Path of Fire and Ice. Isani was then cursed by Faughrynn to walk the land as a living maddening blizzard to keep whatever horrors the Calamity had wrought still and frozen beneath the land.
Isani's defeat and secrets
When the party encountered Isani they used The Shining Star to temporarily disable her storm and briefly restore her to her previous, less hostile incarnation as the Lady of Illusions.
Upon interacting with her, they learned the following secrets:
- She believed that the properties of the black waters could be utilized to annihilate the divinity stolen from her by The Lord of Frost and The Lady of Fire, so that she might restore herself instead. The casualties that the waters brought, she considered a price that had to be paid in order to restore the region to its former condition.
- She mentioned Bhaal'ross as the dark entity that fell from the sky, whom she wanted to use as a weapon against the false gods and their prophets.
- She admitted that she assisted the primordial elves in their endeavor to open rifts between worlds, so that they could "reclaim their home in Arvandor".
- She mentioned that the elves of this world had been abandoned by the Seldarine, the forgotten pantheon of the elven people.
- She mentioned that the false gods had cursed her with bloodlust and the mindless storms surrounding her. She also mentioned that the two false gods had created the perfect conditions to keep the unknowing people of Stormhaven in a bind, and that there were lands and worlds beyond this region that the false gods were denying their faithful.
- When asked about Folduin Caerlinn, she mentioned that both him, and a person called "Demisiosa" were nothing but simple tools used to bring forth a new glorious age for the oppressed people of the region.
- Isani instructed the party to destroy her as her brief return to her true self were about to end, and mentioned that only in Kuldhar (unknown location), where she was defeated by the false gods, could her form be restored to true divinity once more.
When the party fought against her, she took three different shapes before her avatar were finally laid to rest. The Sorceress, the Frostwalker and the Hungering Cold. As her final shape was demolished, she left behind a remnant of her divine spark that took the shape of a rainbow colored leaf.