Keyleth
For a beginner-friendly player guide, see Keyleth/Player Guide.\n\n
Keyleth
Half-Elf Ranger
Personality
A thoughtful character with a deep connection to nature and a wry streak. She is accompanied by a swarm of pixie familiars — comic, chattering little spirits that buzz about her (memorably likened to "John Travolta in white leisure suits singing Stayin' Alive" cheering the survivors during the Session 49 battle).
She is also, as of Session 52, getting colder. To a bound, freshly revivified prisoner who had nothing left to trade, she was flat: "you have nothing to offer us then. No, nothing worth your life." She also floated conscripting the burned-out villagers of the Elturel road as labor to rebuild the party's new fort.
Faction Membership
- Emerald Enclave — the Talons of Veylan path (a campaign-specific order); rank 3 reached as of S53, boon feat pending
Character Arc
- Member of the adventuring party from the beginning of Rise of Tiamat
- Retains advantage on dragon-knowledge checks (a legacy favored-enemy ability carried into the current rules)
- Died first in the Session 49 total party kill — three failed death saves under Arauthator's freezing fog while down, having no cold resistance — then was reforged in the Hells with the rest of the party.
- Named the party's fort Nuts Deep in Session 52, and is drifting toward a harder, more utilitarian pragmatism.
- She is the Thorn-Born Star — and as of Session 53 the prophecy has a third stanza ending with the Star "setting too." Her reading: "I'm going to go with the transformation." The Harpers' The Grove Burnings ledger now lists Narthalas among eight related cullings — every entry no known survivors.
Post-Reforging [1]
Returning from the Hells in Session 50, Keyleth came back changed:
- Pixie Hellfire. Her pixie swarm was permanently reflavored by the infernal passage — now bug-like, swarming around her eyes like a moving black mask and turning red/fire-elemental. Their Pixie Hellfire ignores fire resistance (DM ruling), established when it cauterized a regenerating Hydra's severed neck and became the first thing ever to make a Dragon Turtle genuinely fear fire.
- Feet of the Infernal Pact. Zarchelia slipped her this boon privately ("Kilith, honey… feel free to call on me anytime," with a wink), telling her she could decide whether to tell anyone what it does — a secret she may keep.
- Received the Hellhound Whistle pact item (Ensnaring Strike / Cordon of Arrows / Erupting Earth) and the universal Tempered Soul feat from signing the Compact.
Session 51 (2026-06-28)
Present all session but nearly voiceless — her mic failed for the whole sitting, with her inputs relayed through the table. Even mostly muted she was quietly load-bearing: her Pass Without a Trace underwrote the Superior Stables heist (helping Gootcha post an untouchable 34 Stealth), her insight checks landed the horrible truth that the coins had been keeping the Arcane Brotherhood, her Ring of Spell Storing surfaced on-sheet, and she gained Leatherworker's Tools proficiency (crafting-system feat).
Session 52 — She Named the Fort (2026-07-12)
Nuts Deep
When the party was granted the old Hellrider fort outside Elturel, it was Keyleth who named it Nuts Deep — and the table awarded her super inspiration for it: her next inspiration is automatically a 20.
Hellfire Pixies
Her Swarmkeeper swarm finally has a table-canon name: the Hellfire Pixies, and their signature effect is "Pixie Fire."
Mechanics
- Worm Reaver (the weapon gifted by Vaylin) gained the versatile property, so she can use Dexterity with it — a DM concession so the gift would not remain dead weight on her sheet.
- Guarded Mind used for the first time: once per short rest, on a failed INT/WIS/CHA save, she may choose to succeed instead.
Spurt the Kobold
Her squire is Spurt the Kobold — an auto-generated name that she flatly refuses to change. (See Squires of Deez Nuts.)
Session 53 — The Super Inspiration Pays Off (2026-08-09)
The Battle of Nuts Deep was arguably her session:
- The wyrmling. Her second shot at the first Blue Dragon Wyrmling missed — so she spent the super inspiration earned for naming the fort. The automatic natural 20 doubled her bow dice, doubled Hunter's Mark, carried an Ensnaring Strike rider, earned a re-rolled Hellfire Pixie crit, and — topped with her Tempered Soul d6 — killed the wyrmling, ensnared out of the sky. "You feel inspired, and your second arrow strikes true."
- The necromancer. She leapt off the 30-foot wall (DC 15 Acrobatics — a 23, "ninja tuck and roll"), sprinted through the gate, and finished the Dragon Cult necromancer with longbow, Hunter's Mark, and a max-rolled Pixie burst — the pixies going for his eyes. (She had first asked whether Big Karma could simply throw her off the turret. Denied.)
- Spurt died in the necromancer's negative-energy sphere; after the battle she revived him with Cure Wounds — having briefly forgotten he was dead.
- Her Tempered Soul Aspect domain was defined: the hunt and the wild — nature, survival, tracking, and striking the prey she has found.
- Now level 9 (proficiency +4). Along with the rest of the party she has reached rank 3 faction renown; her boon feat is pending. The DM confirmed the Talons of Veylan are campaign-specific (researching the real-world Emerald Enclave is spoiler-safe).
Relationships
- Fellow party members: Bechamel, Bruder, Xanphina, Gootcha, Cosima, Shade, Swarm of Rats
- Spurt the Kobold – her squire [2]
- Vaylin – gave her the Worm Reaver
Appearances
- Session 18 - The Challenge at Greenest and the Raider Trail (7/9/23)
- Session 19 - The Cultist Encampment and the Fate of Leosin (8/13/23)
- Session 25 - Murder on the Trade Way (1/28/24)
- Session 36 - Gootcha Talks to Death
- Session 37 - The Swarm is Summoned
- Session 38 - Now We Have a Hoard
- Session 39 - Waves, Wands, and Wagon Tracks
- Session 40 - Deez Nuts Brew Deals, Break Oaths, and Bake Blades
- Session 41 - Return to the Castle
- Session 42 - Bagpipes, Blood, and the Bronze Blades
- Session 43 - The Council of Waterdeep
- Session 44 - Garmok's Mine
- Session 45 - The Mind Gobbler
- Session 46 - Diggy Diggy Hole
- Session 47 - The Sea of Moving Ice
- Session 48 - Inside Oyaviggaton (2026.04.12)
- Session 49 - Old White Death (2026-04-26)
- Session 50 - Reforged in Hell, the Voyage Home (2026-06-14)
- Session 51 - The Red Gold Reckoning (2026-06-28)
- Session 52 - Nuts Deep and the Turnip Wagon Ambush (2026-07-12)
- Session 53 - The Battle of Nuts Deep (2026-08-09)
Correspondence
- Talons Letter: To Nettle — thanks, and a routing request (Hammer 14, 1489)
- Talons Letter: To King Melendrak — an appeal to the Misty Forest for lore (Hammer 14, 1489)
- Correspondence — the campaign-wide collection
References
- ↑ Session 50.
- ↑ Session 52 — killed and revived by her in Session 53.