Taara

Taara is a Zephyrian ranger, a Fey Wanderer, played by juzt_ailey. Once a Defender of Ether and the Zephyrian of Minds, she is the last of her people known to have been free through the eight centuries Ether stood frozen. She travels with the party, and since session 31 is with them in front of the werewolf den, between two werewolf clans.

Appearance

Taara is a Zephyrian: tall, poised, and winged. Her wings are her most striking feature — large feathered spans that shade from white at the shoulder through pale silver to ice-blue at the tips, threaded with fine gold chains and small ornaments woven between the feathers. Her skin is pale. Her hair is long, wavy chestnut with lighter gold at the crown, worn under a braided golden circlet; thin blue braided strands and hair-jewels hang at her temples. Her eyes are clear blue, her expression composed and a little removed.

She dresses in a floor-length gown of black sheer layers over a violet-blue underdress, worked throughout with gold filigree, chains, and hanging jewels — sheer full sleeves gathered at the cuff, a high ornamented collar, fine rings on her fingers. She carries an ornate recurve bow of pale gold and blue, strung and ready even at rest. Blue butterflies attend her constantly, drifting around her wings and settling on the balustrade nearest her; one of them is dark and wrong-looking — the vampire butterfly bonded to Logi's tooth. She feels its emotions.

Backstory

Her own telling, as she remembered it until session 31. What really happened is on The Great Freeze and Ether's Flame.

Taara was one of the first Zephyrians to be chosen. As the Zephyrian of Minds, she had an uncanny ability to make others like her—humans, animals, and fellow Zephyrians alike. It was this gift that led her to become a Defender.

During her training, she spent most of her time with the small animal community in Ether—fireflies, butterflies, and other insects. She found them far more practical and calm than her peers. The bugs quickly grew fond of her, and the butterflies began fluttering around her, responding to her emotions.

Taara specialized in archery, though she was also skilled with a dagger. She disliked combat and preferred to defend her Bonds from a distance, staying in the shadows or hidden in trees. Being the Zephyrian of Minds meant she was always attuned to the thoughts and feelings of others; solitude offered her a rare peace.

After training, she left Ether to fulfill her duties as a Defender, witnessing countless bondings over the centuries. She often returned home to Ether to rest or to help train new Zephyrians. On one such return, grieving the recent death of a bonding, she sensed something was wrong. More Zephyrians than usual were present, and the land and animals had subtly changed. Ether, usually warm and alive, had grown dark and silent.

She investigated around the Burning Tree but found nothing. Other Zephyrians seemed unaware of the shift. Eventually, all Zephyrians alive at that time were drawn back to Ether by the Tree.

By now, the change in the Tree and the land was obvious. The light was dimming, and everyone seemed to feel weak. The land felt colder.

To most, it felt like unease—like waiting for a storm that would not break. But to Taara, it felt like silence. As the Zephyrian of Minds, she had always lived within a quiet current of awareness. Ether had never truly been silent to her. The thoughts of her kin, the gentle pulse of the Burning Tree, even the small flickers of insect minds had formed a constant, living hum beneath everything.

Now that hum was thinning.

Conversations felt distant, as though spoken from behind glass. Laughter carried no warmth. Even the butterflies fluttering near her wings seemed restless, their movements sharp and unsettled. When she reached out with her senses toward the Tree, she felt resistance—not pain, not fear, but absence.

It was as though something was swallowing the sound of it.

At first, she believed her grief was distorting her perception. The loss of a Bond always left her raw, and she had shed a feather not long before returning. But this was not sorrow. This was intrusion.

As days passed, the strain worsened. A sharp pressure and pain settled behind her eyes whenever she drew near the Tree. Thoughts blurred at the edges.

The other Zephyrians spoke of fatigue and chill. None described the silence.

When she finally placed her hand against the bark of the Burning Tree, a vision struck her without warning. Frost crept along wings. Feathers fractured like glass.

Beneath the roots, carved deep into ancient wood, she saw symbols she did not recognize at first—sharp, deliberate markings pulsing with a cold, colorless light.

Cold-sigils.

The vision vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving her breathless. In its place was a feeling she had never known from the Tree before—something close to alarm. Not anger. Not rejection. A warning.

The pressure in her mind spiked, sharper than before. For a moment she feared she was losing control of her own power, and her mind. She stepped back from the Tree and withdrew from the growing crowd beneath its branches.

She told herself she needed distance and quiet.

As she went to exit out of Ether, the weight on her mind lessened slightly. The static faded to a distant hum. The butterflies followed her, clinging close to her wings.

Taara stayed outside the barrier for a while, intending only to clear her thoughts and return once she understood what she had seen.

Moments later, the flames dimmed smaller and smaller, until there was no fire at all. When she tried to step back through, the entrance would not open for her. This had never happened before.

She stayed near the tree for weeks, waiting for the entrance to open again. It never did, to protect her from the freezing environment inside.

The magic of the cold-sigils had crept into the Tree, draining its energy and freezing everything that depended on it. The Zephyrians, trapped inside, had succumbed to the cold.

Taara left the entrance after 2 months, haunted by grief and guilt. She noticed her powers felt more quiet, because the Tree was no longer supporting her energy. She could no longer control other's minds or memories, only feel them. Over the years she had found other ways to use her powers without the support of the Tree, but her magic still would not be like it was before. And in some way, she felt more peaceful, not having to constantly feel everything others felt.

For centuries, she wandered the outside world on her own, focused on survival. She avoided people but often greeted friendly travelers, following them at a distance to ensure their safety. Her path now is one of quiet vigilance, and in search for the ones who had placed the sigils.

The marriage

In his mortal years she was married to Strahd: The Blue Rose Wedding. She left him, and he took the marriage out of her memory: The Erasure.

In session 31 (Ether's Reignition) her memories were restored in full, and she now remembers all of it in the true order (Ether's Flame, The true order of events): the marriage, Strahd's hunt for the flame that kept her people ageless, why she left him before dawn, and that she cast the Great Freeze herself, naming Ashenwood as the receiver to put the flame beyond his reach. It overshot, and Ether froze with her locked outside. He found her at the barrier and erased the marriage into Kept Memories, which he altered so that even a full reading would lie. Nobody placed the cold-sigils; they are what her own casting left behind. Everything else he took came back as well: the party being trustworthy, banishing Logi, and the morning after the Olvenka day as it really was.

Powers and the swarm

As the Zephyrian of Minds she once lived inside a constant hum of other minds, and could move them. Since the freeze her powers are quieter: without the Burning Tree's support she can feel the emotions and minds of others, but no longer control them or their memories. The Tree burns again since session 31; whether her powers come back with it is open.

Her butterflies have followed her since her training in Ether, and respond to her emotions. Asked how old they get, she answered "As long as I'm alive, they are."

• Vampfly, the vampire butterfly. In session 15 she pulled Logi's vampire tooth while he lay unconscious, and it bonded to one of her butterflies. She feels its emotions at all times, and they are almost always bloodthirst for Logi.
• Ember. One of her swarm, who stays with Logi.
• The Yellow Butterfly. Since session 26 one of her swarm has settled on Khione and will not come back.

Appears in

• The Blue Rose Wedding, roughly eight hundred years ago
• The Great Freeze, roughly eight hundred years ago
• The Erasure, roughly eight hundred years ago
• Logi's Banishment, session 24
• Ether's Reignition, session 31
• Ether's Flame
• Kept Memories