Ereshkigal is the 3rd ranked Dragon Lord. True to her nickname "The Queen of Ice", she is a mage whose powers and personality are represented by the element of frost.
The signs of her inbound return act as the primary theme throughout Aion 5.0-5.3. She is expected to take on a much more active role herself starting 5.5 onwards.
Character
A strategist and level-headed thinker, Ereshkigal is known not only for being the best tactician among the Balaur but also for being a mage who possesses power on par with Fregion. Among the Balaur, whose nature is blood and rage, she is an anomaly: where most are driven by their insatiable lust for battle, she instead seeks knowledge and answers; where they would destroy, she chooses to enslave. Her personality and element are in direct contrast with Meslamtaeda, whose violent nature is often perceived to be the very embodiment of everything the Balaur stand for.
Although Ereshkigal's reputation is one of cold-hearted punishment, she is in fact rational and prefers to further her desire for power through strict adherence to her code of honor. She has the mark of Aion on her forehead. According to the The Story of Ereshkigal - The Chosen Drakan she is a special existence among the Dragon Lords.
History
In the centuries following the Cataclysm, Ereshkigal wandered the coldest and darkest reaches of Atreia's surface. While the other Dragon Lords unleashed their rage on the planet's surface and its remaining denizens, Ereshkigal instead looked for answers. After decades of searching, the 3rd Dragon Lord finally discovered what she had sought after for so long in a glacier at the edge of the planet's crust: a small fragment of the Tower of Eternity, from which Aion's power still emanated. Ereshkigal poured her malice and cruelty into the fragment, and over the course of several centuries shaped it into an object of sinister power. When the Abyss was discovered and the Elyos and Asmodians began to emerge from the two shattered halves of Atreia, Ereshkigal knew that she would one day have the solution to the war.
At some point Ereshkigal appeared before Tiamat after centuries of exile. While the latter expected that the elder Dragon Lord had come to claim her head, Ereshkigal instead handed Tiamat a scepter -- the Scepter of Scales. Embedded in the scepter was a jewel that seemed to radiate darkness. Tiamat raised the scepter and at once hundreds of Draken soldiers ascended and became Balaur. Tiamat’s eyes widened and turned to Ereshkigal, but the elder Dragon Lord was gone.
Other records involving Ereshkigal are spread thin. It is known that she froze the city of Kungalfberg (Beluslan) at some point in the past, and that the permafrost could not be melted up to the present day despite countless attempts from Daevas of Flame over the centuries.
Return of the Queen
Ereshkigal returns into the picture in the Upheaval patch (Aion 4.8). As the lands of Cygnea and Enshar rise from the bottom of the Abyss Ocean so do stories and legends that had remained unknown to the present-day inhabitants of Atreia. Based on legends left behind by ancestors of the Tehji tribe native to Enshar and through clues the player(s) collect during their explorations of these lands and the ensuing showdowns with Beritra, both factions are able to put the pieces together and uncover a chilling truth.
As it turns out, a cataclysmic battle took place in the past between an entity known as the "power of frost" and an entity known as the power of fire. The battle ended in the former's defeat, and thus the entity of frost was sealed away underneath the land both powers had fought above, with a junior Dragon Lord being assigned as her warden. Knowing the price of failure, the warden took a number of precautions to ensure that no one could reach her prisoner: she created a number of aetheric warden stones to seal away the entrance to the prison itself and shattered these across Cygnea/Enshar, also assigning legions of her undead minions to guarding each of them. Yet, still not at ease, the warden took one additional, ultimate precaution: she submerged the entire continent where the entity of frost lay imprisoned underwater and hid three artifacts which kept it in this state, the Sealing Stones, across Sarpan, Tiamaranta and Katalam/Danaria. The warden then relocated her headquarters to the land south of Sarpan and named it Tiamaranta after her. From there she maintained firm control over much of Balaurea until the Elyos and Asmodians eventually ventured to the 'outer shell' and managed to slay her in her own stronghold.
After the warden's death another Dragon Lord catches wind of her secret duty, and thus sets out to locate the power of frost and offer it a tempting deal: freedom in exchange for power. It is not until the Daevas finally manage track the Dragon Lord down that they learn that the "power of frost" from the legends is none other than the 3rd Dragon Lord herself: Ereshkigal. Although they manage to stop Beritra before he succeeds in completely freeing Ereshkigal, they were too late to prevent the seal binding her from becoming significantly weakened and Ereshkigal beginning to awaken from her centuries long slumber.
Some time (Aion 4.9) later a giant roar is heard which reverberates across all of Atreia. Upon venturing into the Abyss both races discover that the area has completely frozen over, with the Core of Reshanta now being completely inaccessible and the remainder of the Abyss being covered by a thick layer of permafrost. Worse, they discover that Ereshkigal's legions had arrived in the Abyss and had destroyed Roah and Asteria Fortress to consolidate their forces around the three fortresses surrounding the Core of Reshanta, causing leaders of both factions to remark that they have never seen this kind of strategical thinking from the Balaur before.
In Aion 5.0, the weakening of the aetheric field surrounding the Tower of Eternity has also caused the aetheric field to wither in several other places across Atreia. Seizing an opportunity to distract the Elyos/Asmodians from their efforts in the Upper Abyss, Ereshkigal orders a fleet of her Dredgions to launch a surprise attack against the capitals of Sanctum and Pandaemonium (Aion 5.3). As hordes of Balaur are suddenly seen rampaging around in the burning streets of both capitals, both factions immediately recall their forces from the Abyss to defend their homeland, giving Ereshkigal's forces in the Abyss the time needed to finalize their preparations.
Trivia
- The 4.8 campaign identified Ereshkigal's gender as female for the first time. Several in-game books however continue to refer to 'her' as 'him' (the game originally listed 'her' gender as male).
- NCSoft KR has released a number of official comics which further elaborate on Ereshkigal's story. [Chapter 1]
- A female voice can be heard talking to the player during one of the Enshar campaign cutscenes (Asmodians). Digging through the game data files reveals that this voice is Ereshkigal. It is also suggested that it is her voice we are hearing when Ahserion calls out and a female voice replies.
- It is strongly suggested that Ereshkigal has unlocked the secret behind Ascension and is (partially) responsible for the Balaur's transformation from Drakan into their present state. Besides the Scepter of Scales mentioned above, both Ahserion and Orissan can be seen calling upon her and her powers in the game for their (manual) ascension. This process does not seem to have been perfected yet, though, as Ahserion's ascension took a very large amount of time and Orissan went back and forth between immortality and mortality -- in both cases the Daevas were able to defeat them because of such a "flaw".
- The Shulacks found in the Aturam Sky Fortress carry Ereshkigal's seal on them, on which one of the NPCs elaborates by saying that Ereshkigal prefers enslaving sapiens and having them work towards her ambitions over destroying them. In doing so she is the only Dragon Lord to still resemble the original Drakan, whose goal was to "rule" instead of the present-day Balaur who apparently only seek to destroy.
- Her human appearance was first released in the Aion 5.5 trailer.