Teneb'Vari¶
"Naneth Fuin", the Mother of Darkness — the Boreal Elves' name for her (S100)
Teneb'Vari is the Elder Goddess of Darkness, Undeath and Vampirism, twin sister of Teneb'Urat, and one of the two Elder Gods the Fifth Age notes rate Strong (S101). When she was imprisoned "her essence was split into many parts and scattered across Terrun", and where a part lies "it corrupts everything around it" (S051). The forbidden forest of Etterwood, where one such part is buried, is her living shadow: a place of scourged beasts, corrupted elves and a cult that has made a secret pact with the Cult of the Dragon.
Also called: Ten-Ebb-Var-ee (S101); Naneth Fuin, "the Mother of Darkness", to the Boreal Elves (S100, S051); "the Dark God Teneb'Vari" in the dreams of Inwe (S053).
Nature¶
"Elder Goddess of Darkness, Undeath and Vampirism. Associated with bats, liches, vampires and undead" (S101). She keeps no Ascendants: "Teneb'Vari's equivalent of ascendant is a Necruspex, a being granted powers of Darkness and Death" (S101). The notes raise, with question marks, the possibility that Arya is her younger sister (S101).
The Boreal Elves count her the mortal enemy of their god Gelu'lax (S100).
Prisons and fragments¶
"When Teneb'Vari was imprisoned, her essence was split into many parts and scattered across Terrun. It corrupts everything around it, including the wardens the Boreal Elves put around the ruins to guard it. Freeing her is no easy task and so even though she can corrupt everything around, she has not yet been able to free herself" (S051).
Before the Hollowing, Inwe, Ascendant of Arya, learned that "there is a Necruspex of Teneb'Vari imprisoned in the ancient capital city of Alyr-Emuien … Its ancient prison is failing. Corruption from the Necruspex is spreading and making nearby parts of the forest very dangerous. The prison was constructed by Kalar himself, and there is no one now who knows how or has the power to reinforce or repair it" (S053). Alyr-Emuien, capital of the elven kingdom of Arne'Athosia, lies fifty miles from the Shrine of Caerylas and is "the HEART of the forbidden forest" (S053).
Her forces reach into the Rift. The town of Orchard on the Rock of Urdhar was a gate-town trading fruit and nuts with an elven realm in the far east; "The Elder God Teneb'Vari's forces destroyed and cursed it about 30 years ago", some thirty years before the Proturan campaign, when the elves beyond the portal were destroyed. "Undead still roams in the ruins (something keeps them there)" (S045).
The corruption of Etterwood¶
In the forbidden parts of Etterwood, "noticeably darker" than the forest around them, her corruption works in stages. A creature becomes a Dark Feeder, with "insatiable hunger", avoiding light; then a Dark Stalker, "Black ooze drips from broken flesh in places", hunting in packs; then a Dark Raver, "in constant pain and only blood and death can satiate it"; and at death a Dark Scourge, "an undead and is under the direct control of the spirit of Teneb'Vari. Intelligence improves and it develops into a cunning, ruthless and absolutely evil minion of Teneb'Vari" (S052). Scourged toads, stags, treants, wolves, bears, snakes and spiders are described under Creatures. The Boreal Elf scouts "are adept at leading / corralling monstrous entities into the southern forest edges", using them as a buffer against Proturas (S052).
In the ruins of Anoth-Urulien the dead of the War of the Moradrim rise as "dark ghost mages" whose "spirits have been corrupted by Teneb'Vari"; a vampire "corrupted by Teneb'Vari", the Bound Warden, wanders the city; and the Whispering Chamber of the Shrine of Kae'Ferrel, once a place to speak with the dead, "is now an echo-chamber for Teneb'Vari which enhances her Corruption/Suggestions" (S054, S053).
Her cult¶
"Teneb'Vari cultists have created a large underground network in the forbidden zone. Surrounds and connects several shrines and temples. Cultists are some humans and other races, but mostly a corrupted Boreal Elf … which looks a lot like a Dark Elf with bluish-slate colored skin. They are led by a Necruspex" (S052). The cult has an artifact, one of the claws of the primal red dragon Vixseranyol, taken from the shrine of Moros at Kae'Ferrel, "and they are using it with an ancient dragon skeleton to animate a red bone dragon", work the Cult of the Dragon shares; "Teneb'Vari has a secret pact with the Cult of the Dragon (Pravustiratel's Cult)" (S052). The party of the Proturan campaign found the attempt in the tunnels below the shrine: scourged kobolds and Boreal Elves, one shaman "possessed by an Eye of Teneb'Vari", and a scourged treant guardian (S055, S056). Alvaldi, who bears the mark of her brother, was not attacked by her full minions (S052).
The Boreal Elves of the Utinus Domae Tribe, "Sons of the Night", guard the northern borders of the forbidden forest and keep their distance from the buried fragment (S052, S051).
Gap
No source gives Teneb'Vari's symbol or forms, names her Necruspex, or describes worship of her outside Etterwood and the Rift. Whether the fragment under Etterwood and the Necruspex at Alyr-Emuien are the same prison is not said.