Ishtar Mama

The Ishtar mother is not Rishid's biological mother.  She found him outside the entry to the underground home of the Gravekeepers and adopted him.  Rishid's lack of shared blood never bothered her.  She thought of him as her real son.  Strangely, they share eye colour. She continually advocated for Rishid to be adopted as the real heir of the family.  Even after her husband repeatedly said that Rishid would never be his son, she thought that if the time came, he would become the heir.  She died just after Malik was born, living just long enough to tell Rishid that it was his job to look after his younger brother.  Her death was a large blow to Rishid, who knew that he was adopted, and always wanted a strong family bond.

Ishtar Papa

Ishtar senior, as the leader of the Gravekeepers, and mostly interested in keeping his traditions alive, never cared about Rishid at all.  He was at most happy to have someone to take care of Isis and Malik on a day to day basis.  As the keeper of the ritual, he had the memory of the pharaoh carved into his back by his father, as he carved it into the back of his son.  There are very large similarities between his personality and that of Yami Malik.  They are both very angry and think nothing of torturing those who disagree with them.  Rishid tried for a long time to gain this man's approval, never with any success.  When Yami Malik killed him, he had just beaten Rishid into unconsciousness for helping Isis sneak Malik outside to see the nearby town.


Isis Ishtar

Isis is four or five years younger than Rishid.  As a girl, she was never of importance to the family.  Her father was disappointed when she was born because he was hoping for a son.  Because of this, she seems to have been given more freedom than Malik, or even Rishid.  When taking Malik out to town, she knew what things were called, and she wasn't awed by things like the TV, so one can assume that she had been there before.  After Malik and Rishid leave the underground home, she takes the Torc and puts it on.  This gives her a flashback of everything that happened, and presumably made her know what was going to happen so that she could put herself into the right place to nudge it on.  She gave the Obelisk god card to Kaiba to get him to make the Battle City tournament, and on Battle Ship, she hid Rishid from Yami Malik so that he wouldn't be killed.  Her main goal is to get her brother back to the sweety he was when he was young and to put her family back together.

Malik Ishtar

Malik is the youngest of the Ishtars, and his birth killed his mother.  Rishid promised her that he would protect his brother, and indeed that was his main duty throughout his childhood.  He acted as Malik's mother - playing with him, bringing him his food, allaying his fears.  When Malik was poisoned by a snake bite, Rishid was punished for allowing it to happen and almost killed the younger boy.  Malik didn't have any idea how deeply he affected his surrogate parent when he called him "brother."  This cemented Rishid's loyalty to him.  When Malik was afraid of the ceremony that he would have to go through when he turned ten, Rishid offered to see if he could go through it instead so that Malik would be saved the pain, and then carved heiroglyphs into his face to try and help Malik.  The hurt and anger that Malik felt during the ceremony created a ruthless alternate personality that is sealed as long as Rishid is conscious.  When he passes out, Yami Malik is released.  Malik keeps Rishid with him, and Rishid is his most trusted adviser.  He is the only one that Malik doesn't have to control with the power of the Millennium Rod.  Despite knowingly putting Rishid in danger, Malik still cares about him deeply.  When Yami Malik takes over his body, Malik makes sure that Isis will protect Rishid, and in the final battle against Yami Yuugi, Malik's spirit goes to Rishid's side.