Taenae was a Tabaxi druid, later a priestess of Chakuna, and one of the five adventurers who answered Syndra Silvane’s call to Port Nyanzaru.12 She was killed in the Maw Below and returned to life by Chakuna,3 bound her soul to Alice to keep her alive,4 and became Chakuna’s avatar in the Cradle.5 She survived the expedition and married Alice.6
Chakuna, to Taenae
“You return to me once more, little cat. You are mine now. We hunt… forever.”3
Description
Taenae was a Tabaxi who stood five feet three inches, slim and athletic, with pale fur marked by tabby patterns on her face, neck and arms, dark shaggy hair, cat ears, clawed hands and green eyes with slit pupils. She wore dark blue traveler’s clothing with moon-phase clasps.
From the tenth of Eleasis until the fall of the Tomb she bore a dark, spiraling, thorn-like tattoo on her right forearm, the mark of Chakuna.76
Personality
Taenae acted on impulse. She spent all her gold on a mistreated hadrosaurus on her first day in Chult,1 pulled the lever in the Tomb’s first trapped room under the pressure of its countdown,8 cursed herself with a golden skull the party had looted,9 and spoke aloud the word that the party had agreed not to say in front of a mirror.10
She was openly affectionate and, early in the expedition, a persistent flirt.111213 From Flamerule onward her attachment was to Alice.147
She was sympathetic to people the rest of the party distrusted. She returned Withers’ skeletal bird to him and said she saw good in him, and later defended him against Savriel Tirinath’s judgment.1516 She fed The Boy before anyone had decided what he was.10 She thanked Vonara before the party for the bargain Vonara had made with Valindra Shadowmantle, and said she wanted to help her break it.17
While Papazotl possessed her she was imperious, and threw gold coins at her companions to make them do her bidding.1819
Abilities
Taenae was a druid who fought chiefly in the shapes of beasts. Forms she was recorded taking include a giant octopus, a brown bear, a giant eagle, a quetzalcoatlus, a fire elemental and a capuchin monkey.202122232425 Glade’s polymorph made a tyrannosaur of her as well.26 She spoke with animals,272528 summoned beasts to fight for her,29 and healed her companions.2230 Spells she was recorded casting include guidance, find traps, create or destroy water, detect magic, healing spirit, wrath of nature and goodberry.31329173010
She knew plants, poisons and medicine. She gathered rare toxic and medicinal plants,33 confirmed that a well was poisoned,29 recognized rotflesh as a poison native to Chult,28 showed that the gray slime of the Tomb’s fifth level was not organic matter,16 and pried a crystal eye out of Inete’s socket without harming her.34
After Chakuna returned her to life she could take the form of a Queen Displacer Beast.3 In the Cradle she took that form as the Avatar of Chakuna.5
From the fourteenth of Eleasis she was also a cleric of Chakuna.2
Possessions
- Gooye, a hadrosaurus, left at Kir Sabal.135
- Crown of Verdant Soul and Fang of the Primal Hunt, taken from a statue made in her likeness beneath the Hungerer’s throne.36
- A trapped chest from a Yuan-ti warehouse, bound to her by blood.37
- A wooden whistle from the Feywild, carved with paw prints, given to her by Alice. Capable of summoning spectral forms of Alice’s battle companions.23
- The Amulet of the Primal Unbound, which she gave up to the dragon Tamborus as the price of the party’s leaving his gallery.3839
- A sending stone paired with one held by Alice.408
- A frog-shaped key, found in the froghemoth’s pool at Kubazan’s shrine.40
- The Ghost Lantern.41
- The tapestries of the Veils of Fear.42
- The kneecaps of an Omuan child found dead in the maze of Unkh’s tomb, taken as a gift for Vogal.43
- A golden skull that floated behind her and insulted her.9
- A bag of holding.17
- Savriel Tirinath’s letter to her parents.44
- The longsword of Lord Brixton of the Yellow Banner, with a hilt in the shape of a dragon.16
- An herbalism kit, destroyed in the Hall of Decay, though the magical ingredients stowed in it survived, and an alchemist’s kit.4430
- Three spell scrolls taken on the sixth level: cloudkill, ice knife and false life.10
- A bag, the Boy’s gift to her.45
- A letter from Withers, addressed to her.5
- The pearl into which Nangnang fled.546
- Inete’s original eyes, which she carried until Inete was raised.6
- The Nightmare Claw, taken from Fenthaza’s corpse
- A Barrier Tattoo drawn over her shoulder.
Relationships
Alice was her wife. They met at the gala of the twenty-third of Flamerule, where Alice had her pet otter, Beau, with her.47 Alice at first refused her romantic advances, but later gave her a whistle with the words “Blow it if you need a reminder that someone’s here.”23 The two grew close while Alice was wounded,4814 and quarreled on the day Alice collapsed.49 When a blood curse put Alice into a coma, Taenae anchored Alice’s soul to her own with a ritual of the Emerald Enclave,4 one that Alice herself had devised.50 In the viewing chamber of the Temple of Euphoria the party saw the bond as a catnip vine holding back the shadow of the curse around a corrupted otter figurine.51 The two carried a pair of sending stones, by which Taenae reached Alice from Omu and from the door of the Tomb; inside the Tomb the stone returned only silence.52853 They married after the expedition.6
Chakuna was her patron. Chakuna’s beasts killed her in Valachan,54 and Chakuna returned her to life in the Maw Below.3 Taenae bound herself further to her at the Sunken Temple,55 owed her a favor from the tenth of Eleasis,7 and became her priestess in the Tomb.2 The favor was called in the Cradle.5
Inete refused three advances from Taenae, the last of which cost the party Zitembe’s goodwill, and the two were distant for a time afterward.1121125657 In the Tomb they grew suspicious of Takhesis together.58
Takhesis Calva died beside her in the Maw Below and was returned with her.3 In the Cradle she was the one who recognized him first.5
Savriel Tirinath was given water by Taenae when she was freed from the mirror, and Taenae later cooled her glowing armor with it.919 Savriel asked Taenae about the absence she read in the party, and Taenae told her of Takhesis. Savriel then confided that she did not expect to leave the Tomb alive, and gave her a letter for her parents in Evereska, written on paper from Taenae’s alchemist’s kit. Asked whether her parents should be told of her condition, she answered, “Absolutely not.”44 Taenae healed her in the Cradle.46
Withers fought Taenae alone in his office and fled.41 After the party burned it he told her through the walls, “You dare burn my sanctuary, druid? Let us see how your pack survives the dark.”18 She returned his skeletal bird to him and twice defended him to the party.1516 His letter, sealed with a W and addressed to her, spoke of the office fire and the returned bird and told her to “hold nothing back.” She read it aloud and kept it.5
Raiketsu saved her life in the Cog of Blood. She once called him “Takhesis” by a slip of the tongue.30
Vogal and the innkeeper Kaveth spent a night with her at the Dead Fish.13 She cut the kneecaps from a dead child in the maze as a gift for him,43 and congratulated him when the Belt of Orckind transformed him.59
Vonara crawled into the rotating crawlway after Taenae and teleported them both out.34 Taenae had earlier warned the others to keep an eye on her.58
Ricardo courted Taenae. He called at the Dead Fish with gifts and left before the evening went further.37
The Boy was fed and hugged by Taenae.10 He recalled to her the Maw Below and the nightly count of her breathing that Takhesis had kept and never mentioned.10 His gift to her was a bag.45
Wongo spoke by telepathy to Inete, Glade and Taenae in his tomb, recalling their acts of friendship in his shrine. 25
Papazotl possessed Taenae from the thirteenth of Eleasis until the fifteenth, when she took up the vessel of Nangnang and let the two gods contest her. Nangnang won, and stayed with her until it fled into the pearl in the Cradle.60195 Asked about the voice in the lake, Nangnang did not recognize it and judged it older than the Trickster Gods; Taenae came away doubting that the god’s word could be trusted.16
King, an awakened lizard who spoke Druidic and had been the Yellow Banner’s trap-springer, was found by Taenae hiding in the mouth of a devil face on the fourth level. She promised him a return to the surface, and he traveled with her until she returned him to the jungle.616
History
Chult and Valachan
On the thirtieth of Mirtul, 1492 DR, Taenae and four others accepted Syndra Silvane’s commission and were sent to Port Nyanzaru, where she spent all her gold, a hundred pieces, on the hadrosaurus she named Gooye.1 On the seventh of Kythorn, when the party’s canoe was destroyed on the Tiryki River, she pulled Glade and Vonara from the water as a giant octopus, and as a brown bear she helped fight off the su-monsters that ambushed the party afterward.21 On the road to Firefinger she became a giant eagle to carry Vogal during a rescue, and again to ferry the party to the first cave of the spire, where she gave first aid to Vonara, who was badly wounded and poisoned.22
In Valachan she woke in the body of Selene, an acolyte of Lathander. As Selene she lay catatonic for hours, hearing the trees whisper “Blood.”62 She knocked the child Patux into a pit during a panicked rush, killed the mage who had burned her companions, and was torn apart by Chakuna’s displacer beasts, refusing to scream.54
At Kir Sabal she left Gooye with the monastery as a work animal in exchange for its hospitality,35 and at Camp Vengeance she wrote the Book of Wellness with Glade and Vogal.63
Port Nyanzaru
On the twenty-first of Flamerule, after Inete refused her, Taenae went drinking alone and was found robbed and unconscious on a trash heap. The tavern she remembered had been an illusion.125657 The party took her to the Dead Fish to sleep,13 and the next day she ordered an outfit for the gala with the others.64 At the gala she spoke with Lady Nyrule, was dismissed by her, and met Alice.47
On the twenty-fourth Alice led Taenae, Glade and Takhesis to a well, which Taenae confirmed was poisoned.29 On the twenty-fifth she and Takhesis entered the Maw Below with Iggy and Kivuli. She summoned eight giant owls, which destroyed a Yuan-ti patrol and shielded the captive Adani.29 Both she and Takhesis were killed there, Taenae by a hidden Yuan-ti blade while she was distracted by his fall, and both were returned by their patrons. Taenae rose as a Queen Displacer Beast, and the two destroyed Ifan Talro’a.3 Both were weakened for a time by their return and only survived due to the Party finding them and rescuing them as the Maw Below imploded.65
On the twenty-sixth, after Ricardo’s visit, she flew to Critters, Creepers & Crawlers as a Quetzalcoatlus and told Alice that she wanted a serious relationship. Alice refused her, but gave her the whistle.3723 The next day, crossing the Gorge of Teeth, she answered the voice that asked whether her flight served Order or Chaos: Chaos, the hunt.33 At the Sunken Temple she seemed drawn to a statue of a displacer beast, gathered plants from its garden,33 and brought the scales to balance with a vow to Chakuna.55 That night she dreamed that Alice told her to seek out Dungrunglung, where a sickness was spreading among the Grungs, and woke holding the Amulet of the Primal Unbound.38
On the twenty-ninth she and Alice were reconciled,48 and the two of them dined alone at the Golden Serpent,14 and the next day Taenae told the party what she had learned there: Jannalor Tezim had replaced Ifan Talro’a as a merchant prince.49 Alice had been wounded while investigating the Beggar King and fell into a coma on the thirtieth.4849 Before the party set out that afternoon Taenae held a seance to commune with Chakuna.66 She left the party at the Temple of Euphoria, went to the Harbor Hospice, and performed the soul-binding with the help of the Tortle druids of the Emerald Enclave. She stayed with Alice until the party returned.467
On the second of Eleasis she and Glade cleared the temple’s Refuse Pit as tyrannosaurs.26 The next day she found her room at the Dead Fish ransacked and tracked an accomplice downstairs.68 On the fourth she learned meditation to regain her composure, and learned that the Tortles Tull’poa and Ko’Mara were going into the jungle to fight the curse.69 She suspected that the gladiators Drakar and Urzok were lovers.69 She and Alice spent that night quietly together.70
Omu
Before the journey south Taenae smoked black tar from Tull’poa as an aid to meditation and was so badly affected that Alice called the party to see to her.24 At Kir Sabal she was reunited with Gooye, and on the way south she took the form of a fire elemental to parley with the creatures of the Valley of Embers, whom she found murderous.24
On the tenth of Eleasis she tried to keep Alice from seeing Vogal mutilate the party’s former guide,71 and found the frog-shaped key at Kubazan’s shrine.40 That day, doubting Alice, she asked Chakuna whether Alice would ever betray her. Chakuna answered in exchange for a favor to be named later, and marked her arm. Taenae passed in a trance through a dungeon made of Alice’s mind and woke hours later with the answer: Alice did not intend to betray her, but could if her survival required it.7 She returned to the party alone the next morning, having asked Glade to send Alice back to Tawb via Teleportation Circle.31
At I’jin’s shrine she found the way through its puzzle with find traps, and she scouted three further sites in the city.31 On the twelfth she parleyed with a small group of capuchin monkeys, being named “Capuchin #9” in the process. Shortly after she entered Wongo’s shrine as a capuchin monkey.25 Her scouting sent Takhesis and Vonara to the ruins in the northeast, and she spoke with Alice by sending stone while the Bastion was under attack.52 She entered the Fane of the Night Serpent as a false prisoner, shackled and without her gear.72 Afterward she learned from the same monkeys of an obelisk to the north guarded by “bearded devils.”28
The Tomb of the Nine Gods
On the thirteenth of Eleasis, before the party went in, Taenae warned Alice by sending stone that they might fall silent, and heard heavy interference on it.8 In the Tomb’s first trapped room she pulled the lever, and everyone but her fell into a spiked pit; she then spotted the remaining pressure plates in the halls beyond.8 She was drawn into the attraction room,73 and lent guidance to Glade in the wind tunnel.32 Before leaving the first level she made a sacrifice to Chakuna, and the mark on her arm bled and tightened.41 On the second level she found the Ghost Lantern, was cut off from the party behind a sliding wall, and fought Withers in his office, which she set alight to inconvenience him.4158 In Nangnang’s tomb she added salt to the circle that held a slaad, and in Papazotl’s she pinned a flying shield to the floor and was possessed by Papazotl.60 The next morning Chakuna came to her in a vision, saying, “A druid tends the balance of the forest. But look around you. There is no forest left to defend.” Taenae beheld the truth in these words and became her cleric.2
On the third level she backed out of the Chamber of Opposition on sensing a shadow that mirrored her.34 She crawled into a rotating crawlway, was sealed in, and was suffocating when Vonara reached her and teleported them both out.34 She later led the party back into the Chamber of Opposition, where a vision of her own death by necrotic magic struck her down; on being revived she tried at once to reach Alice by sending stone.53 At the rite for Kubazan she lit a candle.42 In the Veils of Fear she put her head in the jaws of the Lord of the Feast, which bit into her scalp before Ersklan Ghostfang destroyed it, and she took down the room’s tapestries to keep.42
On the fourth level she and Vogal were lost in the maze of Unkh’s tomb, where she took the dead child’s kneecaps, and she was still in the maze when the others fought the minotaur skeletons.43 On the fifteenth she recognized the woman in the Mirror of Life Trapping from a painting the party had looted, inscribed “A Trapped Watcher,” and was cut by shrapnel when the mirror was broken.9 In the Maze of Death she cursed herself with the golden skull.9 At the grandfather clock her detect magic showed strong transmutation in the pearl on its pendulum, and a flower of hers withered in the room as if ten thousand years had passed.17 When the party feared a doppelganger she proved herself by affirming her bond with Alice.17 That evening she found King.61 That night she took up Nangnang’s vessel.19 In the sick garden she judged the ambient magic normal, where Glade read soul magic beneath it.74
On the fifth level she worked out from the damp and the sound in the walls that the whole floor lay under water,44 and by a chalk mark that its walls were always turning.16 In the control room she pulled the gold lever, which loosed slime from the pipes, and pressed the red button, which sealed the room. She turned the red dial, and a voice answered, “What now, Gorra?” It asked who her favorite was; she named Glade, and it invited the party down to the lake.16 When Savriel identified Gorra as Withers and condemned him, Taenae defended him.16 She fought three shambling mounds beside Raiketsu as a fire elemental,16 and went alone into a room of poison gas, where she found the body of Lord Brixton and took his sword. When she raised the Ghost Lantern over him, Starfallen blamed him for leading the Yellow Banner to its death.16
In the Cog of Blood will-o’-wisps brought her to the edge of death, and Raiketsu revived her. She worked out that the room’s crystals anchored its wardrobes, broke them with wrath of nature and Raiketsu’s help, and muttered, “Thank Chakuna.”30 Her herbalism kit was destroyed in the Hall of Decay.30
On the sixth level she was the first to answer the Boy. She asked whether he was all right and what his name was, fed him goodberries, and recognized the name of Rani, the sister of Takhesis.10 She and Vonara searched the room for secret doors and found none.10 In the trials of the green gate she and Glade pulled three spell pages out of the air, and she said aloud by accident the words that the party had agreed not to say before a mirror, “PIGGY PIGGY PIGGY,” which brought three wereboars out of it.10
The Cradle
In the Cradle, Taenae worked out that the Soulmonger and the Atropal were the source of the Death Curse.5 Savriel delivered Withers’ letter to her there.5 When the shadow took Raiketsu she tried to reach him.5 When Takhesis appeared over the body she called to him: “Tak? Is that you???”5 When the Trickster Gods rose in their hosts she led them, and Chakuna then called her favor. Taenae became the Queen Displacer Beast, the Avatar of Chakuna, and Nangnang fled her.5 She found that blows against Takhesis passed into the struts beneath him, and broke the first of them; she and Glade together broke the second.5
In the last stage of the fight the Avatar fell to Takhesis’s sword, and Taenae was left kneeling in her own body. She healed Savriel.46 Takhesis held her with his soul-pull as he rushed Inete, and she was released when he collapsed.46 Vonara carried her and Vogal out on the broom.46 As the Cradle was destroyed she reached Alice through their bond. Alice saw what was happening, and those waiting in Omu left the city before it fell.466
Epilogue
On the morning of the seventeenth of Eleasis the mark of Chakuna was gone from her arm. Her bond with Alice was dark for half an hour, and then she saw Alice on the far ridge. She took the form of a quetzalcoatlus and flew the party across the caldera to her in thirty minutes.6 At the camp she went to Ko’Mara and Alice.6 She and Glade could not help with the raising of Inete and instead made her the warmest welcome they could, and the party laid with the body the eyes that Taenae had carried.6
Taenae married Alice. Together they founded a druid grove in the Western Heartlands, an offshoot of the Emerald Enclave, for teaching, mentorship and druidcraft. Alice was pregnant with a magical child of the two of them.6
Appendix
Notes
Behind the screen
Taenae was the only multiclassed player character in the campaign.
Nangnang was the only Trickster God to survive the expedition. Each of the others was either consumed in feeding its host its energy or lost when its vessel was destroyed.
Danielle played Taenae as holier-than-thou while Papazotl possessed her, did not care for it in the end, and chose the contest between the two gods that Nangnang won.
At the table, Glade, Takhesis and Taenae were known as Team Glatata when the party split up in Omu, and Inete, Glade and Taenae as the Monkey Trio in Wongo’s tomb.
The epilogue was prepared with the party reaching the camp above the caldera by nightfall. Danielle had Taenae fly the whole party there in thirty minutes instead.
Appearances
Session 1 to Session 5 · Session 7 to Session 33 · Session 35 to Session 91
In Session 10 and Session 11 she appeared in the body of Selene.