Renali

Renali came from a reclusive anadi clan in the northern Mwangi Expanse, far removed from the primary anadi settlements to the south. Her parents recognized her practical intelligence early and pushed her toward herbalism — a respected role, exactly suited to someone with her capacity for learning. For a while she tried. Her teacher, the village herbalist Yoneri, was the one who finally saw the mismatch clearly and did something about it. She arranged a two-year wandering period: Renali would go where she wanted, do what she was drawn to, and return either ready to finish her herbalism training or with some different answer about what she was for.

The wandering period had about a year left when she followed the Cinderclaws through Huntergate out of curiosity, and the portal shut behind her.

Anadi

Anadis are spider-like humanoids who, many generations ago, chose to present a human face to the world. Renali keeps her human form around other humanoids by reflex — not calculation, just deeply ingrained habit and the practical understanding that most people react badly to anything arachnid. Her hybrid and spider forms are usable and real. She does not reach for them lightly.

Her web-weaving is a genuine craft. The tent she had constructed in the Goblinblood Caves was functionally invisible at a casual glance — she had been living in it for weeks before the party came through. Through the Mwangi she used the same skill to build reliable shelter each night, one of the tangible things she contributed as a guide that had nothing to do with combat.

The anadi instinct toward non-violence is also real. By Cypress Point, she had largely set it aside.

The Trap She Walked Into

Renali did not end up in the Goblinblood Caves because she was recruited or conscripted. She followed the Cinderclaws through Huntergate because she wanted to see where they were going. This is the same curiosity that had driven her across the length and breadth of the Mwangi, and the same instinct that her family had hoped herbalism would give a productive outlet. It does not reliably distinguish between safe and dangerous situations. It never had.

When the portal shut and she was stranded in the dark below Hellknight Hill, she did what she was capable of: found a defensible space near the spider nest in area D1, made a tent, and waited. She had recovered from an earlier encounter with Voz Lirayne by the time the party arrived. She heard them fighting in the caves and stayed hidden until she judged it worth coming out.

Companion

Renali traveled with the party through Book 2 as a guide and practical support. She knew the Mwangi terrain, knew what the Cinderclaws were doing there, and had enough history of operating alone in difficult environments that she could do useful things without being managed. Each day in the field she could forage reliably, build camp, or scout adjacent terrain and report back by evening. She also served as translator when the party encountered groups whose languages she knew.

Combat was not, initially, her domain. That shifted over the course of Book 2.

The party's victories registered on her. What they faced in the jungle, the scale of it, was not normal. And they kept winning. When Frazzle showed her what he was truly capable of, she asked him directly what he was — the curiosity exact and genuine, not rhetorical. He told her he was beginning to feel he had purpose. She told him something similar in return. She was beginning to feel she had a role there.

By the later stages of the Mwangi arc she was in the fight rather than supporting it from distance. She carried herself with the confidence of someone who had made a decision and stopped second-guessing it. The grim assessment she offered watching Gerhard depart with his empty sledge — "another thread cut from their web" — was the voice she had grown into.

Cypress Point

Bullbutcher was a kalavakus demon operating as the Scarlet Triad's enforcement at the dock. Renali moved into its reach. Its reactive strike hit critically. It followed with Enslaved Soul before it used its remaining actions to kill her directly, recouping damage in the process. When Theo's Thunderstrike destroyed Bullbutcher and banished it to the Abyss, her soul went with it. Her body went with it. There was nothing to bury.

Theo has had occasion to think about those hands since. The strike that ended the demon was also what ensured she couldn't stay.

Current Status

Kalavakuses reconstitute in the Abyss rather than dying permanently. Bullbutcher still exists there in some form, and the souls it bound through Enslaved Soul are still bound. Renali's soul is not destroyed. It is not free. It is somewhere in the abyssal slave-pits that kalavakuses accumulate, counting toward Bullbutcher's tally.

When Nadira told Xerelilah what had happened, Xerelilah drew a distinction: lost and gone are not the same thing. Lost means somewhere. Somewhere means findable. She said this as a Desna↗ priestess who has shepherded a coastal town through hard times and does not offer comfort that isn't true.

Desna's portfolio covers travel, dreams, stars, and the finding of things that were lost. Xerelilah became the party's operational lead on retrieval. Three days after the plan was formed, she opened a portal in the Citadel's courtyard, anchored to the divine residue in its stones, while Sera Voss's Crusaders and the Bumblebrasher garrison held the defensive line around her.

The party crossed through. Nadira closed her eyes against the copper-weight of the plane's hatred and found, behind her sternum, a pull that offered less resistance than the others — forward and down, through the Weeping Pens, toward a knot of concentrated suffering with something small and still-bright at its center. Renali is there. Not gone. The party has confirmed it. They have an hour.

Voice

Renali speaks plainly, with the economy of someone accustomed to operating alone and making herself understood quickly when she isn't. Her observations tend to be precise and occasionally blunt, without being performative about it. She does not emote at the room. She states what she notices.

Her stillness is a default. She watches before speaking. In social situations she reads the space; in combat she had learned, over the course of Book 2, to stop doing that and move.

Her curiosity is genuine and does not always stop where caution would. That's what put her through Huntergate. That's what put her in reach of Bullbutcher.

Statistics

All statistics remain as they were at time of death. They become relevant when and if the party recovers her.

AC 24  |  HP 88  |  Speed 35 ft.

Fort +12, Ref +18, Will +14  |  Perception +14

Str +4, Dex +4, Con +0, Int +0, Wis +2, Cha +2

Skills Acrobatics +18, Athletics +16, Diplomacy +14, Nature +12, Performance +14, Stealth +14, Survival +12, Thievery +14

Primal Spells DC 22, attack +12; 2nd summon animal; 1st grease; Cantrips: tangle vine, electric arc

Equipment (lost to the Abyss with her body): +1 Striking Ghost Touch Composite Shortbow, +1 Striking Flaming Rapier, +1 Resilient Leather Armor, Cloak of Elvenkind, Boots of Bounding, Wand of Heal (rank 2), Wand of Summon Elemental (rank 3), Wand of Faerie Fire (rank 2), Scroll of Restoration (rank 2), Scroll of Speak with Animals (rank 2)