Taegan Nightwind

Taegan Nightwind was an avariel from Impiltur that lived in the 14 century DR.

Abilities
Taegan was a warrior, and more specifically a duelist and bladesinger, relying on his lightning reflexes, fencing skills, and arcane abilities rather than brute strength to win a fight.

Shortly after leaving his tribe, he already knew a spell of translocation, almost certainly dimension door, which was also the strongest spell he could cast but once per study session. He also knew a spell of increased speed which consumed licorice root as its material component, almost certainly haste. His other spells were almost certainly mirror image and an invisibility spell that was as exacting as the translocation spell: it was almost certainly improved invisibility.

By 1373 DR, he also employed more spells, almost certainly protection from arrows, magic weapon and displacement. , as well as likely cat's grace and blur.

Taegan could cast shield. Rilitar's library spoke of sunwyrms; Taegan had read about them there while in Thentia. On Uktar 17, Taegan had cast bull's strength and cat's grace on himself.

Personality
He regarded members of his subrace as little more than uncivilized, though peaceful, nomads and he did not take pride in talking about them, or even the elven race in general (although there were signs that this could begin to change).

He cleverly took advantage of avariel exoticness to play up his mystery as a maestro. .

It grated on Taegan to be reminded of his heritage. He was bothered by the manner of Quelsandas

Relationships
He was probably fond of one of his pupils, Gorstag Helder. . However, this was a lot less fond than it seemed. .

Early Life
Even as an adolescent in the Earthroot, Taegan was attracted to the vitality and liveliness of humans. His first time observing them involved watching a druidic rite, and he would have revealed himself to them, but his father prevented it. He was already proficient enough with blade and magic that he was given a heirloom steel weapon, rare in the Earthroot, where most weaponry was made of flint.

New in Town
He left his tribe when he was young in order to seek a more adventurous life than the one offered to him if he stayed with his fellow avariel. He first arrived at Calaunt, where in his naïveté, he was tricked by Olma and Falar Aporos into kidnapping his beloved, Arveene Dalurieth away from his father, Vonn Dalurieth. He arrived at the tower, and after fighting the nimblewright guardians, realized she had no contact with Falar Aporos whatsoever. They used his attempt as a distraction so they could steal Vonn's dire bear. He eventually figured out the ruse, and found his way to Falar again; there, he managed to release the bear, which slew Falar's team. Taegan was able to ingratiate himself with Vonn Dalurieth afterwards.

Year of Rogue Dragons
Later, Taegan became a resident of Lyrabar, the capital of the kingdom of Impiltur, where he ran his own fencing academy. His fencing salle shared space with a bawdyhouse.

In the, while frolicking in the sky over Lyrabar, he came across one of his fencing pupils, Gorstag Helder, who was attacked by thugs. He came down to help, only to find zombies, wyverns, and a wyvern rider attacking him too; before he died, Gorstag gave him a folio that he claimed belonged to Sammaster, and told him to trust no one but the Harpers. On 2 Ches, Taegan was approached by the Wearer of Purple in the cell Gorstag infiltrated while in the middle of a ball; after failing to get him to yield the tome that Gorstag stole, she sent a devil after him. On 12 Ches, abishai sent by the Cult of the Dragon torched his academy; in the middle of the night, he struck at Dorn Graybrook, mistaking him for another cultist; the large man took it in stride, and helped him fight the abishai afterwards. After defeating the abishai and saving the residents, Taegan retrieved the cult tome. . Neither Pavel nor Will could read it; out of curiosity, he asked to accompany them to meeting Brimstone.

Taegan later arrived at Elmwood, and after introducing himself as a friend to Karasendrieth and Dorn, got free passage to Thentia on a fishing ship, arriving on Mirtul 19. Once at the tower, he was present when a visiting brass dragon, Samdralyrion, was suddenly struck mad with the Rage; he aided in its defeat. Sinylla Zoranian healed his blisters from the fight afterwards; on Mirtul 20, he was present when Lord Gelduth threatened, during breakfast, that he may have to bar all drakes from Thentia if they could not control the Rage. After learning of Lisa Uvarrk's death, Taegan asked to avail himself of Firefingers' hospitality for a few more days, on pretext of having damaged his lungs during the latest dragon fights. .

On Mirtul 26, Taegan Nightwind accepted a dinner invitation from Rilitar Shadow-water, with the hidden purpose of unlocking a window so that his companion, Jivex, could get in and investigate whether Taegan was the traitor. Unfortunately, a chasme attacked them. Later, after losing track of the demon, Taegan admitted to Rilitar that he had cause to believe one of the wizards of Thentia was a traitor. Taegan received a blade from Rilitar after sharing his suspicions. The weapon was sharkskin-hilted, with a scabbard of silver-chased green leather; the sword itself was a rapier with a diamond-shaped cross section. On Kythorn 4, Taegan and Jivex fought off the chasme, which reappeared to attack Sinylla Zoranian. It eventually fled, drawing them into an ambush of several abishai, where the two of them prevailed, though Sinylla perished of her wounds in the meantime. The ambush zone was home to two Zhents; Rilitar and Taegan later prevented other mages and the brass dragon Wardancer from holding the Zhents responsible for the death of Sinylla.

Rilitar provided Taegan with a silver ring to see invisible creatures between Kythorn 10 and Kythorn 15. In spite of that and other preparations, Taegan was captured by an enemy, apparently Darvin Kordeion, who sought to shackle his will, so as to use him in a suicide strike to cast aggravate dracorage and then slay as many Thentian wizards as possible. Through the tenday of 5 Flamerule, Rilitar Shadow-Water noticed Taegan was displaying increasingly bizarre behavior due to a magical compulsion, fussing over his wardrobe while sparing no expense yet neglecting boots he himself admitted were unsightly. Taegan realized Phourkyn One-Eye was the traitor on 11 Flamerule; once revealed, the traitor revealed himself to be a sunwyrm.

By Midsummer, Dorn's party had returned to Thentia, and Rilitar had died, but considerable progress had been made in decoding Sammaster's notes.

On Eleint 12, Taegan and Jivex had rejoined Dorn's party, and taken to exploring the steppes of ancient Narfell, following Sammaster's explorations. Despite carrying a token of Gareth Dragonsbane's favor, they were attacked by a Far Quey raiding party. Kara later attempted to lure in the Nars for a friendly talk, but they attacked when Brimstone attacked them, unbeknownst to her; they broke off after Pavel rescued their captain. After the conversation with the Nars, they learned of the Hermit.

When they met the Hermit, they were attacked; the situation seemed hopeless, and forced Taegan to finally cast aggravate dracorage on the Hermit. Worried, the Hermit agreed to parley; during the talk, the Hermit related upon Dorn's party that it had realized, during the first Rage, that the elves had built a citadel in Novularond, but knew little beyond that. After the talk Dorn began to show ever greater concern for Kara, worrying that Taegan's spell might've afflicted her.

On Marpenoth 14, Joylin Snowstealer visited an abandoned village close to her own. A whiteout caught her, and tirichiks slew her kupuks while she was away. When the Queen's servants arrived, they slew Wurik for trying to hide his brother Raryn. On 27 Marpenoth, the party, pushed by Iyraclea, arrived at a citadel in Novularond. Later that night, Zethrindor arrived with Brimstone, and attacked Iyraclea, considering she had broken faith with Sammaster. Zethrindor's final spell appeared to disintegrate Kara, Taegan, Raryn, and even Brimstone.

Kara had triggered the enchantment in the plaza, but Zethrindor's spell sent her off-target, leaving her mired halfway through in some void. She somehow improvised a manner to go the rest of the way. In the process, she, Taegan, Raryn, and Brimstone, who had been with her when she triggered the enchantment, materialized in the citadel holding the dracorage mythal. After they fought a dragonbone golem, Brimstone confirmed they were near the dracorage mythal at last. They decided to split up, with Kara, Raryn and Taegan attempting to enter the fortress, and Brimstone heading out to find help.

On Uktar 17, Taegan attempted to distract the tarterian wyrm guardians to give Kara and Brimstone the time to explore a way to get into the citadel. Trying to distract Sammaster's guardians, Taegan employed all his tricks, and even came to battle a corrupted enchantment in the valley, when it affected Taegan sufficiently, had a similar effect to the microcosm psionic power, creating for Taegan the illusion he'd always just been a highborn rake in Lyrabar with an odd compulsion to climb and jump, which he barely managed to disbelieve in time to avoid hitting the ground after falling from flight due to the illusion. They failed.

Kara finally lost her battle to Sammaster's rage on 5 Nightal, when she attacked her companions for trying to stop her from suicidally striking at the tarterian wyrms in the valley, believing she'd kill them if she didn't kill herself. Brimstone decided to stop her, kill her, and slake his thirst by drinking her blood. They were stopped by the sudden arrival of the tarterians, and then by the metallic wyrms that had teleported themselves through Brimstone's hoard in Lyrabar. After defeating the tarterians, the dragons and mages there managed to break through Sammaster's ward.

On 6 Uktar, Sammaster called upon pacts with a number of wyrms from other planes to defend the dracorage mythal. In the middle of the battle, Pavel led the majority of the non-dragons into the fortress, to try and break the Rage while Sammaster was still occupied. Taegan Nightwind and Jivex joined them afterwards when they decided to block off a howling dragon from pursuing them into the fortress. Per Pavel Shemov, Sammaster's modification of the mythal was based on channeling abyssal force through his own phylactery to feed the dracorage. That would make it difficult to damage the mythal through the original counterspell, but it would also render it vulnerable to a cleric's ability to turn undead. Taegan helped combat the guardians, buying time for Pavel. The mythal's protections had also been augmented with wards that created tumors within intruders who got too close, and caused extensive bleeding, as well as deal numerous kinds of damage. Pavel managed to break the mythal after five tries. Though he managed to destroy the phylactery, he sustained fatal wounds in the process.

After the battle, Taegan Nightwind decided to return to his tribe, then search for avariel enclaves.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * The Year of Rogue Dragons (The Rage • The Rite • The Ruin)
 * Short Stories
 * New in Town