Tekeli-li

Tekeli-li was a gnoll vampire, and a former Fang of Yeenoghu that lurked in Icewind Dale during the 14 and 15 centuries DR.

Description
Instead of looking like a typical gnoll, Tekeli-li resembled a striped hyena more than a typical spotted one. As such, the vampire had raised hair stemming from his back and was far skinnier. He also had earrings made from whale bones, and was often covered in blood.

History
Tekeli-li was once a mortal gnoll, who led his pack across the frozen lands of Icewind Dale. In the, the local Reghedmen barbarians routed the pack, forcing them to flee across the Reghed Glacier. To ensure their survival, the pack sacrificed themselves one by one to their Fang Tekeli-li, granting him sustenance to live through the winter.

To the goddess Auril, Tekeli-li's ravenous hunger represented the unending "consumption" of winter. Auril interred the vampiric gnoll within the Caves of Hunger, imprisoning him in the ice of the Reghed Glacier as the passageway out froze over. He remained trapped there for over a century until a group of adventurers re-opened the passageway.

Trivia
The name "Tekeli-li" comes from the cry of a shoggoth, a creature in Antarctica from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft. This was in turn taken from "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" by Edgar Allen Poe, where it is an exclamation of woe and suffering by a people of Antarctica.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden